Here are two diagnostic questions for Christians that need very honest answers. Here’s the first: if you go to church and also are in a Bible study and prayer group, do they complement each other, so that you get something from one that you don’t from the other? What, specifically?

“Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" Paul, Galatians 4:16

"For Christ has freed us from the curse of the Law, not from obedience to it."  Martin Luther, Sermon on Galatians 3: 23 - 24

Not long after the conclusion of the Synod of Dordrecht the Puritan party in the Church of England proposed that the Canons of Dort be adopted as an official Anglican confessional standard.  

  A Few Remarks on the Evangelical Fascination with the “Sacramental Tapestry” — A Book Review of Hans Boersma’s Two Volumes on the Topic

by WRF Member This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 CELEBRATING THE START - NOT THE END - OF THE REFORMATION: Challenges and Opportunities for 2018 and Beyond

A Paper Delivered at the WRF Reformation Conference in Wittenberg, Germany by Dr. Herman J. Selderhuis

 “Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards: A Fuller Understanding of Justification By Faith Alone”

[This is a slightly revised version of a presentation which was given on October 26, 2017, at the WRF Reformation Conference in Wittenberg, Germany.]

500 years ago at the dawning of the reformation, the life of a woman was not easy. Most were illiterate. The nobility would have had tutors to provide some formal education for their children including the girls. The only option for the rest was to join a religious order.  In the convents, the nuns, whatever their social background, became articulate and well educated in the classics and spiritual literature.

I have taken the liberty of a very small change in title in light of what I have learned in the year since I agreed to give this speech. Of course, a “Great Gulf” was the term used by Karl Barth, a century ago, to describe Protestant-Catholic relations, and it is still a good descriptor.

 The Reformed Legacy of the Reformation

by Samuel T. Logan, Jr. Associate International Director The World Reformed Fellowship

As a member of the World Reformed Fellowship, I represent the Anglican branch of the reformation tradition. Our differences with Presbyterians are slight, with regard to doctrine, but are perhaps most sharply defined with respect to polity. This has usually centred upon the nature of eldership: presbyteral eldership versus an episcopal eldership (accepting as I do that presbyteros and episcopos are used interchangeably in the New Testament).

It is no surprise that the ecumenical bodies representing mainline Protestant churches gradually come together in celebrating the achievements of the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” (JDDJ). After the signature between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999, it was the World Methodist Council that endorsed JDDJ in 2006. Now it’s the turn of the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

 The Need for Clarification:  Is the Reformation Over? 

by WRF Members Leonardo De Chirico and Greg Pritchard