Psalm 103

Our church lost two heroes this year. Chad Wescher was a deacon and a 34 year old father of three small children. Long term disease took his life. Dot Tropiano’s three children are a bit older. Her brave struggle required wrestling against cancer. To have known either of these warriors was to know a hero.

From October 3 through 5, 2017, the World Reformed Fellowship sponsored a Consultation on Christian Civility.  The Consultation was held at Central Presbyterian Church in New York City.

The resurgence of evangelicalism in American religious life can be gauged by various measures, one of which is the attention lavished on it by the secular media. In some ways, evangelicals came out of the prayer closet in 1976, dubbed by Newsweek on its cover, “The Year of the Evangelical.” That was the year a born-again Southern Baptist, Jimmy Carter,

Not long ago I removed myself from an internet discussion group that focused on the theology and praxis of my religious tradition.  The level of hostility directed toward other Christian traditions and the dismissiveness of what I know to be responsible scholarship on the part of some were toxic.

In December 2017, Christianity Today, published an article, “Today’s Evangelicals Face a Crisis of Confidence,” by Nathan Betts.  One of the theses of this article was that “individual religiousness tends to be private and episodically intense.”  

 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.]

 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: Immediately after the American President, Donald Trump, announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, two individual members of the WRF, one a Palestinian and the other an Israeli, were contacted and asked to write brief responses to the President’s decision. Below are the responses we received. 

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