Responding to Christmas

The true way to respond to God's promises and actions in the birth of Christ is faith, believing what God has said and done. The major characters in the story took God at his word and acted accordingly. Mary believed the angelic message to her and submitted herself to God. Joseph also believed the angelic message to him and took Mary as his wife. The shepherds believed the angelic message and went to Bethlehem, praising God. Believing God is the hallmark of the people of God, beginning with Abraham who believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Time for WTS to write it's own history?

A while back I suggested to Pete Lillback, President of WTS/Philadelphia, that maybe it was time for the seminary to write it's history. George Marsden had written the history of Fuller seminary by then (and Fuller is much younger than WTS) and it seemed that WTS, as the older institution should be the subject of a good, scholarly history, too. Pete had reasons for that not happening, but I think it is time for that to happen. The reason? Everyone else is writing that history. In the recent festschrift for Bob Godfrey, D.G. Hart addresses developments at Westminster in the 1970s that he believes show a weakening of the original resolve at the seminary to stand for the orthodox faith. John Yeo, from Reformed Theological Seminary, has published his doctoral dissertation on the history and trajectory of the OT faculty at Westminster. Mark Karlberg has written on what he believes is the defection of the seminary from teaching justification by faith alone in favor of justification by covenant faithfulness.

With all these critical analyses of the seminary, maybe it is time for Westminster in Philadelphia to tell its own story.