First Things RSS Feed - Christopher Jackson

Cancelling Debts in Cancel Culture

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 06:00:00 -0400

In a culture that has given itself over almost entirely to extreme moral accountability, mercy often appears dangerous and reckless.

Continue Reading »

Tullian Tchividjian’s Upside Down Christianity

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 06:00:00 -0400

Four years after a sex scandal prompted him to depart from Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Tullian Tchividjian, grandson to Billy Graham, has again assumed the pulpit . Now, he is preaching an alternative approach to the faith that he calls “Upside Down Christianity.”

Continue Reading »

Luther’s Purgatory

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 06:00:00 -0500

Radical. Renegade. Rebel. Revolutionary. Friends and foes alike have applied such labels to Martin Luther during the last year, the 500 ^th Anniversary of the Reformation. I won’t begrudge anyone’s use of these titles, but one neglected title deserves attention: Conservative.

Continue Reading »

Dear Johannes Cochlaeus: Enough Already

Tue, 14 Feb 2017 06:00:00 -0500

Dear Johannes Cochlaeus ,

Continue Reading »

Catholics are Adopting a Lutheran Perspective on Martin Luther. They Shouldn't.

Fri, 22 Jul 2016 00:00:00 -0400

Catholics are adopting a Lutheran perspective on Martin Luther. Or, more precisely, certain Catholics are adopting a certain mistaken Lutheran perspective on Martin Luther. This is unfortunate, because it is inconsistent with the soberer judgments of one of their popes and, more importantly, with the truth.

Continue Reading »

Losing Luther

Thu, 10 Sep 2015 00:00:00 -0400

As a recent Atlantic essay points out, Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber’s emphasis on sin and grace in Christ sounds downright conservative. Her congregation even utilizes orthodox Lutheran liturgy! In a sense, the claims to Lutheran orthodoxy are correct. Bolz-Weber’s approach is the natural end of the predominant understanding of Lutheran theology in the twentieth century, though this understanding is ultimately false both to Luther and to the broader Christian tradition he sought to reform.

Continue Reading »

A Radically Toxic Combination

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 00:00:00 -0400

Tullian Tchividjian was Evangelical royalty, and once again we are reminded never to put our hope in princes. Grandson to Billy Graham, Tchividjian assumed the legendary pulpit of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church on Easter Sunday, 2009. Now he has joined Mark Driscoll and Ted Haggard as a megachurch pastor who has destroyed his own ministry. On Sunday, June 21, Tchividjian resigned from Coral Ridge, confessing to an extramarital affair .

Continue Reading »

A Lutheran Among Calvinists

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:01:00 -0400

As a confessing Lutheran in a doctoral program at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), the institution at the center of the Calvinist Baptist movement, I have watched with interest the conflict over Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). While the seminary is not formally Calvinist, it is no secret that many of its faculty and students love Reformed theology and that it has become the focal point of the Calvinist movement in the SBC. Recently David T. Koyzis , Collin Garbarino , and Greg Forster have discussed the question, “Why are there Calvinist Baptists but no Lutheran Baptists?”

Continue Reading »

First Things RSS Feed - Christopher Jackson

Cancelling Debts in Cancel Culture

Tullian Tchividjian’s Upside Down Christianity

Luther’s Purgatory

Dear Johannes Cochlaeus: Enough Already

Catholics are Adopting a Lutheran Perspective on Martin Luther. They Shouldn't.

Losing Luther

​A Radically Toxic Combination

A Lutheran Among Calvinists

A Radically Toxic Combination