Review Article Calvinism: An Introduction and Comparison with the Main Historic Christian Alternatives With the Principal Relevant Historical Councils and Creeds Stephen Paynter April 2020 I have been recently sent an online copy of Stephen Paynter’s new book, or rather a new version of a work done in 2014, by Academia.edu free of charge. This academic consortium has kindly provided me for several years with many gems both small and large from writers on theology, missiology and church history. It is rarely, however, that I receive works from them dealing solely with evangelical, Reformed issues. This is also the more surprising because Dr Paynter is a software engineer and neither a theologian nor a pastor. The aims of the book Paynter’s aim is to define…

Bible Reading: Romans 10:13-14. In the eighteenth century, an Evangelical Awakening swept through the western world ushered in through the medium of restored preaching. Never since the Reformation had earnest men taken to the highways and by-ways and preached to the multitudes with such power. Hundreds of thousands who had never cared for religion, found themselves drawn to it through the spoken Word. Stop: you might say. The Church is not a preaching factory. Preaching is of use in its right place but church worship, the communion of the saints and pastoral care are essentialities of church fellowship. We understand this and this conference and our Society do not neglect to teach about the inner fellowship shared by the communion of the saints. But our…

The Aims of This Lecture: In my paper, I would like to air the perpetual challenge of presenting doctrine in evangelism, pastoral work and personal witness to a people who find doctrine hard to digest, difficult to understand and indeed, an insult to their view of themselves. I will first look at the fact that even in Christian circles doctrine is dumbed down and then at the methods used and reasons given for such an attitude. I will follow this up by defining doctrine as it is found in Scripture and analysing its obvious use in evangelism and Christian edification. Indeed, I hope to show that no evangelism can be done without doctrine as doctrine is the framework and contents of the gospel. We shall…