Updates, Interlocutions, and a Hiatus

As of today, I will be taking off for a couple weeks for some long-awaited time with friends and family in London, Wales, Yorkshire, and sundry places, and blogging should be quite limited during this period—though I do hope to finally put up a review of John Perry's excellent book Pretenses of Loyalty (thanks to Davey Henreckson at Reforming Virtue for putting me onto it).

Meanwhile, though, there are a number of exciting things to which I can direct your attention.  First (and perhaps not quite so exciting), I have made long-overdue updates to the other pages here at the S&P—About Me, What is the S&P?, Projects, and Writings.  The most significant changes: I have tried to bring the "What is the S&P?" description more into line with what I actually write about here these days, and I have mercilessly purged excess projects from the Projects page, reflecting my real-life purge as I try to focus more of my attentions and energies on my thesis and related work.

Second, and rather more exciting, the Two Kingdoms debates go on.  Oh yes—and on, and on, and on, no doubt.  Matt Tuininga, not content with one rebuttal to my original post, posted five (here, here, here, here, and here), with which I interacted in a few comments, though whether any clarification was thereby achieved, I leave it to you to judge.  This impending trip has not left me leisure for a full-blown response, chock full of big bloc quotes and footnotes, but fortunately, Peter and Steven at The Calvinist International have happily stepped in to provide such a response, which will be forthcoming any day now—I recommend you check in on TCI every ten minutes or so this weekend. ;-)

As if Tuininga's responses were not enough, Darryl Hart has now kindly jumped into the fray with a post at Old Life, "Speaking of Ecclesiastical Authority."

Click to read more ...

Announcing the Mystical Presence

I am proud to announce that at last, the first volume of the Mercersburg Theology Study Series, which I am editing, John Williamson Nevin's The Mystical Presence and the Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord's Supper (ed. Linden J. DeBie, foreword by Mark Noll), has now been published and is available to order.  

Encompassing the most comprehensive and (I hope) most reader-friendly edition of The Mystical Presence to date, and the first edition of the extraordinary essay "The Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord's Supper" in forty-five years, this "handsome new edition . . . deserves to be studied and savored by pastors and scholars alike" (George Hunsinger).  Indeed, this volume promises to be a valuable contribution to studies not merely of Mercersburg and nineteenth-century American theology, but of Reformed eucharistic theology more broadly, as Nevin's study of the subject remains a classic after 150 years.  

(Tune in to Trinity Talk next week for an interview with me about my work on Mercersburg and this new volume)

The importance of this text, and of the new critical edition, have been hailed by prominent historians and theologians.  Mark Noll, author of America's God, says in the foreword, 

“This is the first volume of what the organizers of this series plan as an extended edition of the works of John W. Nevin, of his colleagues at the Mercersburg Seminary in the 1840s and 1850s, and of some who in those same years objected to Mercersburg views.  For a clearer picture of the United States’ unduly neglected theological history of the period—as well as a most welcome stimulus to theological reflection in our own day–the edition is a godsend. . . .

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Announcing The Calvinist International

It is with immense pleasure that I can announce the launch of The Calvinist International, "A Forum for Reformed Irenicism."  Created and piloted by my friends Steven Wedgeworth and Peter Escalante promises to provide a much-needed bridge between the world of academic theology and the ordinary educated Reformed Christian, while avoiding the chaotic and ill-informed polemics that so often characterize Reformed blogdom.  It aims to be robustly Reformed, academically rigorous, and authentically irenic, a job description for which I can think of few people better suited than Steven and Peter.  

Their vision is ambitious and exciting:

Consistent with the original wisdom of the Reformers and their best heirs, the irenic way we follow here is wholeheartedly biblical and evangelical in theology, rigorously perennial in philosophy, catholic in scope, and pacific in spirit.

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Fermentations Online is Here!

After many long delays and fruitless vigils, the new web platform of Fermentations magazine is online!  We still have lots of work to do on architecture, styling, and content, but the basic structure and a couple dozen of our most recently published articles are there now, so please feel free to go rummage around, and check back frequently for updates!

Featuring articles by Peter Leithart, Doug Jones, Wesley Hill, and a crew of exciting young writers, and interviews with writers like Stanley Hauerwas and Eric Stoddart, Fermentations seeks to provide thoughtful and creative reflections on the intersection of theology and culture.  With the new website, soon you will be able to read all of our old articles, recipes, poems, short stories, and trademark "Bits of Tid," including some material never before published; and once we get everything running smoothly, you can expect brand-new content on at least a weekly basis.

Announcing the Mercersburg Research Fellowship

At last, I am ready to announce the readiness of our website, www.mercersburgtheology.org, where you will be able to find all kinds of information about the Mercersburg Theology, and about our exciting project to make its key writings available for a modern audience.  It's still ugly and very much under construction, but it's functional. 

Mark Noll has written the foreword for our first volume, in which he had nice things like this to say:

"This is the first volume of what the organizers of this series plan as an extended edition of the works of John W. Nevin, of his colleagues at the Mercersburg Seminary in the 1840s and 1850s, and of some who in those same years objected to Mercersburg views.  For a clearer picture of the United States’ unduly neglected theological history of the period—as well as a most welcome stimulus to theological reflection in our own day–the edition is a godsend.
. . .
In a word, those who take seriously the works to be featured in this exciting new publishing enterprise are in for the right kind of historical education and the best kind of theological challenge.  May the announced later volumes come speedily, and may attentive readers multiply as they come forth.”