This Friday, Proclamation Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Bryn Mawr, PA, is hosting a lecture by Iain Murray on Doctor Lloyd-Jones. You can find the details here . This last Friday, I had the privilege of being in Vancouver to give Dr. James I. Packer an honorary doctorate and to interview him for the...

Not to be outdone in terms of the new passion for evangelical non-celebrity book tours, here is a shot of me flogging a copy of my book to one of the men I most admire. His smile clearly indicates his conversion to my way of thinking:

One of the striking things about modern society is the lack of respect it shows for hierarchies and institutions. I do not see this, as some appear to do, as a unique contribution of this age. For all the trumpeting of the disillusion of contemporary youth with institutions, today's young people on...

Reading both Doug Sweeney's post and Bill Evans' comments, I find much with which I agree. One thing, however, perturbs me slightly and that is what was not said. Of course, no-one can say everything on a subject so this is not a criticism of either Doug or Bill; it is, however, a criticism of the...

Moments after finishing my piece on the importance of presence for Ref21, a reader emailed me a link to a quite bizarre story: Olympic organisers in London had apparently been hoping to have Keith Moon play at this year's opening ceremony . The only hitch, of course, is that Keith has been dead...

Any classic rock fan knows that there is nothing quite like hearing a live band. A few years ago, I went to hear The Who (or at least Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, the extant members). I remember listening on the way home to a live recording of 'Won't Get Fooled Again' just after hearing the...

Ref21 is happy to announce a new ministry opportunity has opened up for Paul Levy. As his self-authored byline reads, he is living evidence that there is a fine line between genius and insanity.

At a seminar I gave last week, I used the tried and true method when facing a crowd outside of my usual comfort zone. Three points nobody could disagree with, a fourth point that might have raised some eyebrows and a fifth that sounded downright heretical. Always good for waking up the back row at...

T4G made me look like a girlyman. More of that later. When invited to do a breakout at T4G, I had initially said no, not being a big conference person. I was ultimately persuaded by the fact that the preponderance of attendees are officebearers in the church; and by the fact they put the guy who...

The Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust have this week very generously made their entire audio archive available for free download here .

I am very grateful to the T4G sponsors for putting up this sign at the venue in order to make me feel at home. As the denomination was founded in 1936, the 1972 date is puzzling regarding what pests exactly are in mind. The only thing I can think of happening around that time was the founding of...

Like Jeremy, I am not a big fan of the church calendar as a necessary part of Christian obedience; but, as tomorrow is Easter Sunday, here's a clear statement on the practical power of the resurrection from Warfield's sermon on 2 Tim. 2:8: It is, of course, to the glorified Jesus that Paul directs...

This is part of a two part review of Professor Brad Gregory's learned, brilliant and polemical book, The Unintended Reformation (Harvard Belknap, 2011). It is the 'chess game' part: potentially very boring to all but those interested in late medieval metaphysics. Readers only interested in a...

Donald Weinstein's Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet (Yale, 2011) is a fascinating study of Florentine politics in the late fifteenth century, significant, of course, as the intellectual and cultural nursery of perhaps the greatest political philosopher of that age or maybe any...

...because the pun in the title of his new website is about as criminal as the one in the title of this blogpost. Seriously, Dr. Kruger has done some excellent work on the formation of both the canon and early Christian orthodoxy and it is exciting to see that his voice will now be even more...

A friend just brought the following article to my attention. It is worth reading and a reminder that the cultural influence of evangelicals is waning even as the noise within evangelicalism about 'engaging the culture' (whatever the verb and the singular noun may mean -- who knows?) is increasing...

For this week's Around and About , I have just two items. The first is an article in this week's Spectator by Hitchens Minor on the strategic problem posed by gay marriage to moral conservatives in the public square. His point is a good one: for all of the hoo-hah about gay marriage, marriage was...

The announcement of the launch of the Apple iPad3 was greeted with predictable positive promotion in the media and the usual level of hysteria among the shopping public which we have come to expect. When Steve Jobs died last year, it was as if a messiah had left the earth yet, when his c.v. is...

I gave a lecture yesterday on the life and theology of B B Warfield, focusing on his engagement with German liberalism as expressed in a number of his book reviews. His book reviews are, I suspect, the most neglected part of his published works but actually contain some of his most astute...

I had the pleasure today of hearing Jim Garretson lecture on Archibald Alexander and the connection of piety and theology in Old Princeton. Jim is convinced that a failure to pay attention to practical piety in the lives of seminary professors and pastors is as much to blame for institutional and...

A year or so back I was berated by one of the hotter sort of web-Protestants for failing to mention in a Ref21 article that sinful apostasy is the only significant reason why anyone would leave evangelicalism for Roman Catholicism. Those satisfied that such an approach is adequate will presumably...

A Ref21 reader has asked if I have any thoughts on lectio divina , a rather pretentious term for contemplative Bible reading, whether individual or in a group. A description of what it typically entails can be found here . On the positive side, it is a good thing to read scripture thoughtfully and...

A couple of things came to my attention over the weekend. The first is the new devotional from Thomas Nelson. It is difficult to see exactly what this represents. I am somewhat of the old school `Real men don't read Jane Austen' variety, preferring Hardy and Conrad, though I can appreciate what a...

Church history has thrown up some sharp wits with a remarkable facility for one-line putdowns. Athanasius had his moments. Newman was surely one of the masters. But Il Padrino has to be Doc Martin, as polemically robust as the lace-up boots that bear his name. A friend just brought this internet...