Scientia Est Libertas

It is almost forty years ago to the day that my family emigrated from the United Kingdom to Canada. We arrived on December 6, 1965, in Toronto at what is now Pearson Airport after a stopover in Halifax. I well recall being struck by the cold in Halifax as we deplaned and walked into the terminal. From Toronto we came through to Hamilton by taxi where we stayed for a few weeks in the old Sheraton Connaught in downtown Hamilton while awaiting the house we were going to rent in Ancaster on Lover’s Lane. We had come to Canada because my father had taken up a teaching post at McMaster University in Electrical Engineering. To be honest, I hated Canada at first. I had left two very close friends behind in England, Christopher Janaway and Harry Weinberg. We kept in touch by mail a little after I left, but I have essentially not heard from them for nearly forty years. And there were so many little things in Canadian culture I did not like. But I have grown to love Canada.

The high school I attended in Ancaster was Ancaster High and Vocational School (now simply Ancaster High School). We were there tonight, attending a performance of “Guys and Dolls” by Frank Loesser (1910-1959)—my daughter was playing in the pit orchestra.

Where my wife and I, and our son Nigel, sat in the auditorium was close to the wall on which were the pictures of the Principals from the past. The first two, Mr. Davidson and Mr. Rumball, were the ones who were Principal when I was there from 1966 to 1971. That Mr. Rumball would not have remembered me as a good student is an understatement!

Another Principal’s picture was there, whom I remember with much thanks. Mr. Richardson taught history when I was in Grades 12 and 13. Grade 12 we did “Revolutions,” which fascinated me at the time and gave me an opportunity to explore the French and Russian Revolutions in some detail. Mr. Richardson believed in getting us into the primary sources, something I have always believed makes for the best history teaching.

The motto of Ancaster High is Scientia est libertas—“knowledge is freedom.” I don’t think I paid it much attention during the time I was a student within her walls, though I was into freedom when I was there. Freedom from what I saw as the constrictions of western culture, freedoms from the rules of adults, freedom from the norms of society. But I traded one set of rules for the bondage of another conformity—conformity to the “freak” and radical student culture of the sixties.

It was not until I had left high school that I found the truth of Ancaster High’s motto: in knowing the Lord Jesus Christ there is freedom indeed!

Benjamin Beddome & Biblical Reasons for Affirming the Triunity of God

By and large the Trinitarianism of the Nicene creed remained unchallenged until the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Even during that most tumultuous of theological eras, the Reformation, this particular area of Christian belief did not come into general dispute, though there were a few, like Michael Servetus (1511-1553) in the sixteenth century, who rejected Trinitarianism for a Unitarian perspective on the Godhead. In the rationalistic atmosphere of the eighteenth century, however, the doctrine was heavily attacked and ridiculed as illogical. During this period the English-speaking world saw the re-emergence of Arianism, the heresy of the fourth century which affirmed the creaturehood of Christ, as well as the rapid spread of Unitarianism. By the early nineteenth century the doctrine of the Trinity “had become an embarrassment, and the way was open to dismiss it as a philosophical construction by the early church.” [G. L. Bray, “Trinity” in New Dictionary of Theology, eds. Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, and J. I. Packer (Downers Grove, Illinois/Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 694].

Benjamin Beddome’s catechism

Orthodox response to this attack on what was rightly considered to be one of the foundational truths of Christianity was varied. In certain evangelical circles the doctrine was an essential part of catechetical instruction. In 1752 Benjamin Beddome (1717-1795), the pastor of a Calvinistic Baptist work in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, drew up A Scriptural Exposition of the Baptist Catechism by Way of Question and Answer. This catechism basically reproduced the wording and substance of an earlier catechism written by the seventeenth-century Baptist Benjamin Keach (1640-1704), but added various sub-questions and answers to each of the questions in Keach’s catechism.

The Scriptural Exposition proved to be fairly popular. There were two editions during Beddome’s lifetime, the second of which was widely used at the Bristol Baptist Academy, the sole British Baptist seminary for much of the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century it was reprinted once in the British Isles and twice in the United States, the last printing being in 1849.

Teaching the doctrine of the Trinity

To the question, “How many persons are there in the godhead?,” Keach’s catechism gave the answer, “There are three persons in the godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one, the same in essence, equal in power and glory.” Beddome faithfully reproduces this question and answer, but then adds five paragraphs of questions and Scripture texts as a further delineation of the subject [A Scriptural Exposition of the Baptist Catechism by Way of Question and Answer (2nd. ed.; Bristol: W. Pine, 1776), 23-25.].

In the opening paragraph he argues first for the triunity of God from such passages as Genesis 1:26, where we have the statement “Let us make man” (KJV). Then, on the basis of Psalm 110:1 and John 14:26, Beddome affirms the distinct personhood of the Son and the Spirit respectively. This train of argument logically raises the question “May it with any propriety then be said, that there are three Gods?” To this Beddome answers with a resounding “No,” and in support of his answer he cites Zechariah 14:9 (KJV): “there shall be one Lord, and his name one.”

The next paragraph adduces texts where both the Son and the Holy Spirit are referred to as God. “Is the Son called God? Yes. Who is over all God blessed for evermore. Rom ix.5. Is the Spirit called God? Yes. Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lye to the Holy Ghost, thou hast not lyed unto men man but unto God. Acts v.3, 4.” There are a number of texts that Beddome could have cited as proof that the New Testament calls the Son “God.” With regard to the Spirit, though, apart from this passage from Acts there is no clear attribution of the title “God” to the person of the Spirit in the New Testament.

The divine attributes and activities that the Spirit and the Son share with the Father and are the sole prerogative of a divine being are the subject of the third paragraph, which runs as follows:

“Is the Son eternal as well as the Father? Yes. Before Abraham was, I am, John viii.58. Is the Spirit eternal? Yes. He is called the eternal Spirit, Heb. ix.14. Is the Son omnipresent? Yes. Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I, Mat. xviii.20. Is the Spirit so too? Yes. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, Ps. cxxxix.7 Is the Son omniscient? Yes. Thou knowest all things, John xxi.17. And is the Spirit so? Yes. He seacheth all things, 1 Cor. ii.10. Is the work of creation ascribed to the Son? Yes. All things were made by him, John i.3. Is it also ascribed to the Spirit? Yes. The Spirit of God hath made me, Job xxxiii.4. And is creation a work peculiar to God? Yes. He that hath built all things is God, Heb. iii.4.”  

The fourth paragraph seeks to prove the deity of the Son and the Spirit from the fact that both of them are the object of prayer in the Scriptures. To show this of the Son is relatively easy, and Beddome can refer to a passage like Acts 7:59 (KJV), where Stephen, the first martyr, prays, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” To find a text where the Spirit is actually the object of prayer is far more difficult. Beddome cites Revelation 1:4, where the “seven spirits,” which Beddome rightly understands to be a symbolic representation of the “one holy and eternal Spirit,” are included along with God the Father and Jesus Christ in a salutation to the seven churches in Asia Minor. This passage does clearly have significant Trinitarian import.

The fifth and final paragraph gives further scriptural support for the fact that there is a plurality within the Godhead. “Are divine blessings derived from all three persons in the godhead? Yes. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all, 2 Cor. xiii.14. Have each of these their distinct province in the affair of man’s salvation, Yes. Thro’ him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father” (Cor. 14).”

Beddome would have readily confessed this doctrine is a great mystery. But he was also well aware that, despite its mysteriousness, how necessary it is that the believer affirm it with all of his or her soul.

Those Blogs with Latin Names

Have you ever wondered about the meaning of some of the Latin titles adorning not only this blog but other blogs? Mine is fairly obvious. “Church History.” When I see it, it reminds me of the great work by the Venerable Bede on the history of the English Church during the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon eras. Or those classic works by early Church historians Eusebius of Caesarea, Socrates and Sozomen. Or even the mother of all church histories: The Book of Acts by Luke the historian. As I said, though, mine is fairly easy. But what about Kevin Bauder’s blog? Have you thought, what exactly does Nos sobrii mean? Well, here is your opportunity to learn the meaning of his blog’s name, as well as learn some Latin and enjoy an excellent post on how to live in this frivolous and shallow age: What Does It Mean?

Listening to the Devil

The central ethical dilemma for eighteenth-century, transatlantic British society was that of running the slave-trade and of owning slaves. It was only resolved when British Evangelicals came to rightly realize that they had to fight in the political realm for the right of persons of African descent to be recognized as full human beings. And in so doing, they used the democratic processes of their day to take on those powers that supported the slave trade and slavery, which John Wesley rightly depicted as “that execrable sum of all villainies.” [The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley A.M, ed. Nehemiah Curnock (London: The Epworth Press, 1914), 5:445-446]. There are few today who would dispute the rightness of that moral struggle. But central to a number of critical ethical issues of our day is the very same question: what does it mean to be human? The resolution of the ethical dilemmas surrounding, for example, abortion and genetic engineering cannot be found unless this question is answered. It strikes me that just as our eighteenth-century Evangelical forebears’ activism against the slave trade and slavery was rooted in their conviction of the utter sinfulness of the slave trade, so today the clarity regarding the vileness of abortion must issue in action.

Now, the truth about the perverse thinking of those who would defend abortion can be seen in various statements of an abortionist by the name of William F. Harrison of Fayetteville, Arkansas. For the full report of the horrific candour of his views, see Al Mohler’s “The Perverse Logic of Abortion,” today’s entry on his website www.AlbertMohler.com. For instance, something of the perverse stance of this man can be seen in the Reproductive Freedom Task Force newsletter, where Harrison claimed to have heard “a still, small voice asking, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ to which I was at last compelled to reply, ‘Here am I, send me’.” Harrison is parodying of course the call of Isaiah the Prophet in Isaiah 6.

Let me suggest without mincing any words that the still small voice that Harrison has been heeding is not from the Glorious One that called Isaiah and Who is the awesome Maker of all life in the womb, but from his wicked adversary, a murderer from the beginning!

An Advent Reflection

Here is a thought-provoking meditation by Russ Moore on the Christ that should occupy our minds before Christmas — “The Apocalypse at Christmastime.” Despite the advent of Christmas, Moore decided to lead his Sunday School class in thinking about “Jesus as a conquering Warrior Messiah, dripped in blood and destroying his enemies”. As Moore notes: “With Bethlehem before her, Mary also had Armageddon on her mind. So should we.” He is right on. Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, are meant to provide us time to reflect on the second coming of Christ, his second advent. He has come as Saviour—we know await his coming as a conquering King.

And that Day when he comes will be a day of reality, an awful unveiling when the plasticity of so many will be melted away by the awesome fire of his presence and the true state of their lives exposed. For all of their talk about love and tolerance and live and let live, they will be shown to be narrow-minded, having ever refused the expansive love of God in Christ, and filled with hate for Him who is the Source of all that is truly good and pure.

But it will also be a day of vindication for the people of God when they will see that their love for Christ—so often maligned and scorned here and slandered for being intolerant and hateful—has its true reward: everlasting joy in the presence of Christ.

And far from being hateful, true Christians are men and women of love, who desire ultimately the best for those who are not Christians. As Moore further notes: “We must remember that our love for family and friends and Christmas includes our responsibility to plead with them to be found in Christ before the great and terrible day of the Lord.”

May God give us, who look for his appearing, such an opportunity this Christmas. And if you are reading this and you are not a Christian, now is the time to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Do not delay. For his coming draws nigh! For a good guide to how to become a Christian, read Dialogue on Christianity.

The Gospel of Thomas for Today?

The main theme of the 57th Annual Meeting of ETS a couple of weeks ago was “Christianity in the Early Centuries.” For me one of the highlights was Nicholas Perrin’s brilliant presentation on the Gospel of Thomas, “Thomas, the Fifth Gospel?” (see my posting, 57TH ANNUAL MEETING OF ETS). Perrin argued for a late dating of this Gospel and a Syriac provenance. From a methodological point of view, his arguments appeared to be sound. Within a few days of hearing Perrin, I found myself reading through Ron Miller, The Gospel of Thomas: A Guidebook for Spiritual Practice (Woodstock, Vermont: Skylight Paths Publ., 2004), which is an attempt to use this Gospel to forge a spirituality for modern western sensibilities. Miller sees this Gospel as a call to each human being to realize that he or she is the “twin” of Jesus (which he derives from the name of the supposed author, Thomas Didymus, that is “twin”). What this means is to realize that all of us are actually as much God as Jesus is! (p.79-80). Such a remark makes a mockery of the early Christian experience recorded in the New Testament and the works of men like Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus of Lyons. Alongside such unorthodx remarks are remarkably fatuous statements like “we all derive from a virgin birth” (p.86-87).

Miller, a one-time Jesuit, has a deep hostility towards any expression of orthodox Christianity that highlights the unique deity of the Lord Jesus and upholds his death for sins as the pathway of salvation (p.xii, 81-83, for example). Miller believes that true spirituality—being a “Thomas believer,” as he puts it—must move beyond any such exclusivism and embrace all religions as being true (p.xi, 2, 87). Miller is confident that the Gospel of Thomas contains such an all-embracing pluralism.

Yet time and again, I had the distinct feeling that the spirituality Miller claims he finds in the Gospel of Thomas is shaped far more by post-modern infatuations than by the actual text of this Gospel. For instance, the Gospel of Thomas emanated from circles committed to asceticism and a dislike of bodily existence. Yet Miller believes that he can claim to be wholly in sync with the teachings of this Gospel and also affirm the “holiness” of “sexual desire” and that Catholic parishioners (which he had once been ) should make love before coming to the Mass (p.17-18)! If Miller cannot get such basic worldview issues of the Gospel of Thomas right, how can I trust him in the rest of his interpretation of the Gospel? Let me say clearly that—as the Song of Songs bears witness—sexual desire within marriage is a holy thing. Miller is surely right here. But the Gospel of Thomas simply does not advocate this way of thinking.

Nor am I convinced that the Gospel of Thomas is as pluralistic as Miller believes it to be. Many Gnostic groups—and Miller is right to stress their diversity (p.xii and 125, n.3)—were as exclusivistic as their orthodox opponents. That is simply a fact of history. Of course, Miller may respond by saying that this is simply my personal read of the Gospel. As he writes in the Introduction: “My reading of the Gospel of Thomas may not be that of other scholars in the field and may even disagree with what the original author (or authors) intended” (p.xii). At such a point, though, interpretation becomes thinly veiled eisegesis and real discussion as to the meaning of the text is at an end. Why not come clean and admit that the supposed ancient spirituality of the Gospel of Thomas is only as old as the concerns of western post-moderns?

“Surely Irish Zion Demands Our Prayers”

One of the most prominent aspects of the life of Samuel Pearce—which I have been studying now for the past seventeen years—was his passion for the lost. One excellent example of this is found in a missionary trip he took to Ireland in 1795. In July of that year he received an invitation from the General Evangelical Society in Dublin to come over to Dublin and preach at a number of venues. He was not able to go until the following year, when he left Birmingham at 8 a.m. on May 31. After travelling through Wales and taking passage on a ship from Holyhead, he landed in Dublin on Saturday afternoon, June 4. Pearce stayed with a Presbyterian elder by the name of Hutton while in Dublin who was a member of a congregation pastored by a Dr. McDowell. Pearce preached for this congregation on a number of occasions, as well as for other congregations in the city, including the Baptists.

Baptist witness in Dublin went back to the Cromwellian era to 1653 when, through the ministry of Thomas Patient (d.1666), the first Calvinistic Baptist meeting-house was built in Swift’s Alley [B. R. White, “Thomas Patient in England and Ireland”, Irish Baptist Historical Society Journal, 2 (1969-1970), 41]. The church grew rapidly at first, and by 1725 this church had between 150 and 200 members [Joshua Thompson, “Baptists in Ireland 1792-1922: A Dimension of Protestant Dissent” (Unpublished D. Phil. Thesis, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, 1988), 9]. A new meeting-house was put up in the 1730s.

By the time that Pearce came to Ireland in 1796, though, the membership had declined to roughly forty members. Pearce’s impressions of the congregation were not too positive. In a letter he wrote to his close friend William Carey (1761-1834) in August, 1796, the month after his return to England, he told the missionary:

“There were 10 Baptist societies in Ireland.—They are now reduced to 6 & bid fair soon to be perfectly extinct. When I came to Dublin they had no meeting of any kind for religious purposes… Indeed they were so dead to piety that, tho’ of their own denomination, I saw & knew less of them than of every other professors in the place” [Letter to William Carey, August, 1796 (Samuel Pearce Carey Collection—Pearce Family Letters, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford)].

This opinion does not appear to have dampened his zeal in preaching. A Dublin deacon wrote to a friend: “We have had a Jubilee for weeks. That blessed man of God, Samuel Pearce, has preached amongst us with great sweetness and much power.”  And in a letter to a close friend in London, Pearce acknowledged:

“Never have I been more deeply taught my own nothingness; never has the power of God more evidently rested upon me. The harvest here is great indeed; and the Lord of the harvest has enabled me to labor in it with delight” [Memoir of Rev. Samuel Pearce. A.M. (new York: American Tract Society, n.d.), 132].

This passionate concern for the advance of the gospel in Ireland is well caught in a sentence from one of his letters to his wife Sarah. “Surely,” he wrote to her on June 24, “Irish Zion demands our prayers” [Letter to Sarah Pearce, June 24, 1796 (Samuel Pearce mss.)].

If Pearce were alive today, I would suggest that he would still breathe this prayer. May God pour out his Spirit upon the churches in Ulster and in Eire do the same and so advance his Kingdom throughout the Emerald Isle!

Out in Left Field at ETS

In an earlier post I mentioned that I heard one or two bad papers at ETS last week. Given the number of papers given it is not surprising that there are some in this category. One that I did not hear and that sounds like it was completely out in left field was by Luther Seminary professor Alan Padgett, who maintained in a paper that Christ submits to the church. According to a news report by Jeff Robinson, in “the question and answer session that followed his presentation, Padgett—who serves as professor of systematic theology at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn.—asserted an even more radical idea: in the New Jerusalem the church will no longer submit itself to Christ”! For the full report, see Gender-News.com.

Getting the Facts Right

One of the great things about the ETS meetings are the books that have been significantly discounted and even some that are given away free. One that I received free was by C. Gordon Olson entitled Getting the Gospel Right: A Balanced View of Salvation Truth (Cedar Knolls, New Jersey: Global Gospel Publishers, 2005), which is an abridgement of an earlier volume entitled Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism: An Inductive Mediate Theology of Salvation. The book comes highly endorsed by men like Tim LaHaye, who writes the Foreword, and Earl Radmacher, whom I heard with great profit as a graduation speaker at Central Baptist Seminary, Toronto, many years ago. I have not had time to read the book, but glanced at a few pages, including ones in which Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) was mentioned. On page 111 Fuller is given as an example of the way in which subjective introspection can be an obstacle in the way of finding assurance of salvation. On pages 121-122 the author argues that Fuller’s theology helped establish the foundation for the ministry of C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), which I think is true (see also page 350 in this regard). But then Olson states that “George Whitefield, Andrew Fuller, the New Divinity preachers, Charles Finney, Moody, and Spurgeon” were “key figures in moving Protestantism back to a more simple gospel presentation” (p.122). Putting all of these men together as if they believed the same thing does not bode well for a good understanding of biblical truth about salvation. Finney was an out and out Pelagian, while Moody was probably somewhat atheological. The others were clear-cut Calvinists.

On page 334 Fuller is rightly called William “Carey’s friend & theol[ogical] mentor,” though Olson wrongly states that Whitefield was saved through reading Philip Doddridge’s The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. It was reading Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man that God used to bring Whitefield to the new birth. On the following page the impact of Jonathan Edwards and Joseph Bellamy’s True Religion Delineated on Fuller’s thought is noted.

Finally, on page 347, Olson reiterates the fact that Fuller “was moved from extreme Calvinism” by Edwards’ writings and those of the neo-Edwardsians, namely men like Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins. What he does not make clear is that Fuller remained a Calvinist—in his words, a “strict Calvinist.” Olson is right to point out that Fuller’s The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation (1st ed.: 1784; 2nd ed.: 1801) “caused a firestorm” for it challenged the Baptists of that day to engage in fervent evangelism. The impression given, though, is that by becoming committed to missions, Fuller and his friends abandoned Calvinism. This is simply not true. For Fuller, Calvinism and evangelism were ever warm friends.

How vital it is for a historian to get his or her facts right! If these are not right, it raises questions about the rectitude of other assertions—in this case the getting of the gospel right!

Ellingsen & Bray on Augustine

Material on Augustine is legion. The quip that warns potential graduate students not to get into the Latin master because they won’t get out is so true. Nevertheless, knowing this colossus of the Faith is so important, not least because of his enormous influence on the present. But knowing about that influence does not automatically mean that one knows how Augustine would have answered many of the questions that we are seeking to answer. As Gerald Bray reminds us in a very helpful review of Mark Ellingsen’s The Richness of Augustine: His Contextual and Pastoral Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005)—in the November 2005 of Reformation 21—“we cannot go back to the past and make it fit our own notions of what the people who lived then should have been like.”

57th Annual Meeting of Ets

I have been at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, this past week. The meeting ran from Wednesday, November 16 to Friday, November 18. As with any conference of this magnitude there were good sessions and papers and some not so good. Among the former that I considered outstanding, and which I heard, were the following:

  • Nicholas Perrin’s brilliant presentation on the Gospel of Thomas, “Thomas, the Fifth Gospel?”, that convincingly argued for a late second-century dating of the Gospel and a Syrian provenance;
  • Daniel Williams, “Theological Hermeneutics of Tradition before Nicaea,” in which Dr Williams from Baylor University examined the patristic understanding of the relationship between Scripture and tradition;
  • Brian Vickers’s well-argued examination of the doctrine of imputation in Romans 5: “Made Righteous: The Fundamental Language of Redemption in Romans 5:19”;
  • Paul Hartog from Faith Baptist Theological Seminary who spoke on “Polycarp, Scripture and Ephesians”—an excellent study of Polycarp’s reference to Ephesians as Scripture;
  • John A. Nixon’s paper on “Athanasius’ Understanding of the Relationship between Theology and Scripture”—this was a very fine study of the utterly vital role that Scripture played in the formulation of Athanasian theology; at its conclusion it would have been very difficult not to have recognized that Athanasius was a bibliocentric theologian;
  • Timothy Larsen’s detailed examination of the way in which David Bebbington’s 1989 magisterial study of the history of British Evangelicalism was received during the 1990s: “The Reception Given Bebbington’s Evangelicalism in Modern Britain Since Its Publication”;
  • And Thomas Kidd’s “ ‘Prayer for a Saving Issue’: Evangelical Developments in New England Before the Great Awakening”, in which Kidd, a historian from Baylor University, convincingly showed the presence of Evangelical-style sermons and thinking in New England long before the Northampton revival that Dr Bebbington dates as the start of Evangelicalism in the world of Transatlantic Anglophones.

Of course, in addition to listening to papers there were the joys of fellowship and discussion and the books being sold! Next year the conference is in Washington, DC, and the topic is “Christians in the Public Square.” It really is a must for anyone who loves Evangelicalism and wants to deepen his or her grasp of its history and contemporary expressions.

Free St. George’s

Here is a picture of the church where Alexander Whyte—see entry for November 10, 2005, ALEXANDER WHYTE, A "SPECIALIST IN THE STUDY OF SIN" —ministered for many years in Edinburgh. See Why Free St. George's? The blog, in which this entry appears, is called Free St. George’s and looks like it will be an interesting blog. I really like the goal of the blog as expressed in its subtitle: “Turning the light of Scottish Church History on the Problems of the Modern Church.”

Dr Adrian Rogers–A Christian Gentleman

Here is a fabulous anecdote about the late Dr Adrian Rogers by Phil Johnson. It speaks volumes about Dr Rogers as a true Christian gentleman—and also tells us much about Johnson’s keen sense of humour. Sad to say, such etiquette is a lost art for far too many believers today . See “This is where I am going to be Today.” Note Phil’s words about Dr Rogers: “I had the highest respect for him, a great love for his preaching ministry, and a special appreciation for the courage and diligence he showed in resisting the erosion of confidence in the Scriptures in some SBC circles.”

For two other personal appreciations of Dr Rogers, see George Grant: “Adrian Rogers (1931-2005)”; and Nathan Finn: “A Tribute to Adrian Rogers Dr. Adrian Rogers pass...”

Carl Trueman’s Inauguration As Professor of Historical Theology & Church History at Wts

Philip Ryken (@ Reformation 21) congratulates Dr. Carl R. Trueman on his inauguration as Professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary on Wednesday, November 16, 2005, at 10:30am. I would like to add my congratulations and pray the Triune God’s richest blessings on Carl’s labours at this important school and further afield in the Church.

Reasons for Academic Blogging

Sharon Howard, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Wales, who also hosts the Early Modern Resources site, blogs at Early Modern Notes. In a recent post entitled So, why would I champion academic blogging? she discusses why she blogs as an academic, as well as the value of blogging for research. What she writes echoes my thoughts entirely about one of the reasons I am blogging: “Blogging research lets you develop the very first drafts of ideas. Bits and pieces that don’t yet amount to articles (or even conference papers), but they may well do some day. And something else, sometimes: last year I was having trouble thinking up any new ideas at all, but blogging old ideas, often attached to new sources, meant that I kept writing, if only a few hundred words a week, without having to worry about it being original or impressive. And now, because it’s all archived and easy to find, I can look back over some of that work and see potential themes, little seeds of ideas that are worth working on, start to make them grow. …Another thing: writing for a slightly different audience than in the usual academic contexts. This is an amazing opportunity to reach out.”