Friday, March 16, 2012

Paper: Mainline Presbyterianism and Reformed Piety

I have been tied up with many things recently. Anyway, here is another paper which I have submitted entitled Mainline Presbyterianism and Reformed Piety. It is also a book review of the book by Ted V Foote Jr. and P. Alex Thornburg entitled Being Presbyterian in the Bible Belt: A Theological Survival Guide for Youth, Parents, and Other Confused Presbyterians. An excerpt:

In the Reformed tradition, piety is very important, being a major focus of the Reformer John Calvin’s concern. A book by Ted V. Foote Jr. and P. Alex Thornburg attempts to portray Presbyterian piety for us.

The book by Foote and P. Alex Thornburg, Being Presbyterian in the Bible Belt, is subtitled “A theological survival guide for youth, parents, and other confused Presbyterians.” In their preface, they reveal that their goal is to write a book to “respond to ‘outsiders,’ to address the questions non-Presbyterians ask us.” The authors therefore are attempting to help Presbyterians respond to the questions asked by those who come from “fundamentalist churches” and thus defend what they think is Presbyterian and Reformed piety against Neoevangelical piety.

[more]

4 comments:

Charlie J. Ray said...

If there is no single point where God's written Word is exactly what God says or thinks univocally then what we have is not special revelation. It is something else.

God can communicate univocally with us on our level. To say otherwise is to make Scripture less than an objective revelation but something that is merely a subjective metaphor or analogy.

I'm sure I wouldn't make a good student at Westminster Cal. I refuse to compromise with Van Til. Van Til is not the test of Reformed orthodoxy.

Charlie

Charlie

Daniel C said...

@Charlie:

you do not understand Van Til.

Mary said...

Wow! Talk about confused Presbyterians...

Thank you for reviewing this and highlighting the unorthodox teachings.

Slighlty off topic but have you considered fleshing out Kuyperian idea on common grace. Read an interesting article by David J. Engelsma titled "The Reformed Worldview on Behalf of a Godly Culture".

Daniel C said...

@Mary:

I know enough about Kyperianism to know that I am not one. At the moment however, I do not feel that I know enough to speak about it.