“Look at my dark skin and my green eyes,” the young man said, “for they are a testament to the lust of those heretical Dutch who had children with the native women…” I listened with curiosity to our guide on a visit to the old churches in the city of Olinda (Pernambuco) who praised the valiant and pious Portuguese resistance to the Dutch invaders while at the same time denouncing the impiety of those European Protestants.

A lecture given at a conference on “Contending for the Faith” at Seventh Reformed Church (RCA) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on February 18, 1995, by William s. Barker, Vice President for Academic Affairs Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

Richard Burnett, Machen’s Hope: The Transformation of a Modernist in the New Princeton. Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 2024 Pp. x + 591.  $45.99, cloth. A Review by Dr. Samuel Logan 

Introduction   It is always a puzzle for people in the Church how so many denominations came about. 

When we look at the Acts of the Apostles we find that, as far as we can see, there was only one church.  Sure, the book of Acts is not the whole story of how the church grew.  We don’t know, for instance, about Barnabas’s ministry with John Mark in Cyprus (Acts 15:39). 

 Reformation and Revival

A Paper Delivered at the WRF Reformation Conference in Wittenberg, Germanyby Rev. David Jones Former Moderator General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia

NOTE:   This particular blog was prepared by Peter Jensen, WRF member, former Anglican Archbishop of Sydney (Australia) and the plenary speaker at the 2006 WRF General Assembly in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

500 Years On - Does the Reformation Still Matter? 

When all is said and done, the fundamental question for every human being is, ‘How can a sinner like me stand before God on the Day of Judgement?’

 Addressing the Scars on the Face of Christendom: World Mission and Global Persecution in an Age of Changing Intra-Church Relations

We have at least two ugly bleeding scars across the face of Christendom that we urgently need to address if we wish to see a Renaissance of Evangelical Christianity in our time. Both have to do with perceptions that may be at odds with the best research of our historians, but these perceptions, whether or not fully based on careful history, make us appear to some people as if we are monstrous Frankensteins, not representatives of the Suffering Servant, Good Shepherd, and Prince of Peace.

After 500 years pastors can learn a lot from an interesting pastoral letter that Luther wrote in 1531 to Barbara Lisskirchen, a lady from Freiberg who expressed her deep spiritual depression with her struggles to accept the doctrine of election. – Translation from Dutch by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In a recent article in the CHRISTIAN CENTURY, Sarah Hinlicky Wilson and Thomas Albert Howard discussed the appropriate ways for Protestants to celebrate the forthcoming quincentennial of Luther’s issuing of the 95 Theses. They proposed that this commemoration should include some Protestant repentance for sins we have committed in our break with Rome.

Dr. Ebenezer discusses how the Christian Church has handled persecution through the centuries. This is the pdf version of Dr. Ebenezer's paper on "Persecution and the Church."

What Hitler Can Teach Us:
Fundamentalists May Really Do What They Say They Will Do . . . Even If It Seems Totally Insane 
 A Guest lecture at the University of New York, Tirana, Albania 

Author's Note:  This is a paper written for Chinese theological students who have asked me about the value of church history, especially for international students. DCD

Introduction: what is the value of doing church history? I believe the wrong answer goes like this: so we can show how we Reformed are always right. ‘My right answer’ is instead: so we can learn how to communicate the gospel in ways people will deeply understand and value.