The Parrhesians

Send us Fan Mail Doug Wilson is kinda cool. He knows what it’s like to be the most conservative kid at camp and he’s okay with it. He also knows when it’s time to shout at culture, and when it’s time to whisper. Which is a nifty gift. Oh, and he doesn’t love paying taxes. Which means he’s definitely human, and most likely a Christian. He also has no qualms with R.C. Sproul. So, like we said: he&ap...

Send us Fan Mail What's the nature of a witch? To take that which she cannot have and prevent creatures from becoming who they were meant to be.   An indispensable moral lesson drawn from the fairy tale of Jorinda and Jorindel in The Brothers Grimm that can be applied to our zeitgeist.   Helen Andrews believes culture's been feminized. Now what? What do we do about it? Should we seek to...

Send us Fan Mail Imagine a woman critiquing women who believe women can do everything men can do?  Now imagine a woman asserting that women shouldn’t be in every courtroom, graduate seminar, and boxing ring alongside men?  Now imagine a woman arguing that wokeness and cancel culture are the result of the feminization of institutions.  Now stop imagining. There is such a woman, and her name is Hele...

Send us Fan Mail Martin Bucer was a sixteenth century German Dominican monk who converted to Protestantism. He was a mentor to John Calvin and helped Calvin in his efforts to reform the city of Geneva. In his essay, Instruction in Christian Love , he had this to say:  Civil officials must govern according to the Word of God and, in the measure of their power, help the success of the divine Word. ...

Send us Fan Mail “This is a perishing world. Your neighbors are perishing. Maybe some of you I’m looking at right now are perishing. […] Everyone is either on their way to heaven or on their way to hell.”  This is the last installment of a three-part series Dr. John Gerstner gave at Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church in 1984 on the riches of John 3:16. It focuses on God’s love of the “world,” the...

Send us Fan Mail In a previous episode , Peter, Pastor Nate, and Kyle discussed how we measure church health and vitality. What does it mean that a church is healthy? What does it look like for it to be sick? They continue this exploration by providing several signs for what makes a church healthy. Such as,  - The congregation's words are more informed by the Word than the world. They speak l...

Send us Fan Mail This is part two of a three-part series Dr. John Gerstner, long-time professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, gave at Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church in 1984 on the riches of John 3:16. In this episode, Dr. Gerstner discusses the need for apologetics, the insult that is evangelism, the condemnation that can come through missions, and how the road to hell is paved with plu...

Send us Fan Mail “I told my doctor he was counting my heart rate incorrectly.”  You ever heard that before?  Yeah, me neither.  People who know, know, and we trust them.  “It’s all about perception.” “Your church is unhealthy.” “We’re just trying to help.”  You ever heard that before?  Yeah, me, too. All the time.  People who don’t know are always vying for your ear.  What does it mean that a chur...

Send us Fan Mail In this three-part series, recorded at Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church in 1984, Dr. John Gerstner explores the depths of the riches of John 3:16. But, Dr. Gerstner asserts that this "golden text" of scripture is oft misunderstood.  To avoid misunderstanding, we need the whole context.   That's why Dr. Gerstner starts at the end of the story where Jesus answers t...

Send us Fan Mail He’s got the whole world in His hands. Your mother. Your girlfriend. Even Kamala. He is the true "Govenator."   And He shares His power. He raises His people up and gives them responsibilities. He passes along His keys and expects His Church to use them (Matthew 18:18). But the modern church just likes to swing them around her finger. She doesn’t even know which doors th...

Send us Fan Mail Three rogue elders walk into a Session meeting and slap a folder down. “We have concerns.” They leave it to Session to deal with it.  Time passes, and they grow impatient. They escalate their “concerns” to a higher authority and call in reinforcements.  They enlist the Presbytery to do something about it. The Presbytery nominates a few guys with good “intentions.”  Those intention...

Send us Fan Mail You can’t claim to be a Christian if you don't go to church. Likewise, you can't claim to be a member of Christ's Body if you don't read your Bible. Just call yourself a "pagan," have a coke, and smile.  In this episode, Peter, Pastor Nate, and Kyle discuss the political importance of the local church. Specifically, we dive into the topic of membershi...

Send us Fan Mail It's been 18 months since the Presbytery of the Alleghenies formed an Administrative Commission to "help" our church secure the peace, unity, and purity of the congregation.  But instead of help, our congregation experienced conflict, lawfare, and abuse of power at the hands of EPC leadership.   On Sunday, January 26, 2025, the church voted to disaffiliate with the...

Send us Fan Mail It's been 18 months since the Presbytery of the Alleghenies formed an Administrative Commission to "help" our church secure the peace, unity, and purity of the congregation.  But instead of help, our congregation experienced conflict, lawfare, and abuse of power at the hands of EPC leadership.   On Sunday, January 26, 2025, the church voted to disaffiliate with the...

Send us Fan Mail In this special edition of the Parhessian Podcast, Peter, Kyle, and Nate take on the mantle of The Layman as they discuss the recent Presbytery of the Alleghenies meeting held on Saturday, September 21, 2024. Sadly, there are many concerning issues to report.   The POA not only continued its abuse of power, but there is evidence of evangelical dark money flowing into the denominat...

Send us Fan Mail Baptizing babies in the church always leads to the necessity for confirmation.  Confirmation is a process by which young men and women learn what it means to be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and what it means to be a member of the church.  This time-honored approach to training and confirming our youth in the faith is known as catechesis. Catechesis (a biblical word that sim...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Parrhedsian Podcast, Peter, Kyle and Nate discuss how a return to the practice of infant baptism may actually be the key to Christian revival, not only in America, but also in the church and in the home.     https://theparrhesians.com/

Send us Fan Mail As Coach Herm Edwards once said (famously)...“You play to win the game.”  But you can’t win the game (with all due respect to Allen Iverson) if you don’t practice.   Practice is important, it’s important for sports, it’s important for music, it’s important for almost every endeavor in life, including our life in Christ.   Christians must practice their faith, and that means engagi...

Send us Fan Mail When it comes to the church today there is too much sameness.  Sameness is a real problem.  But what does that mean?  What is too much sameness?  First, we need to clarify that sameness is not the same as conformity.  Conformity isn’t a problem; the problem resides in the pattern after which the church is being conformed.  Is the church today being conformed to Christ or to the pa...

Send us Fan Mail We just recently celebrated the 4th of July, and our country finds itself in an election year where everyone seems to be saying that the fate of democracy is on the line. What better time to think Christianly about the subject of freedom. What is freedom? Where does it come from? How do you possess it? How does the Bible define it? These are all good questions to ask, so join, Nat...

Send us Fan Mail Times of disruption and seasons of change are hard to manage.  Our resting state prefers stability and so we dislike disruption.   But sometimes disruption creates unique opportunities for innovation, as Clayton Christensen described in his celebrated theory on Disruptive Innovation .     Other times disruption creates opportunities to take stock, reflect, and return to the fundam...

Send us Fan Mail In this Special Edition of the Parrhesian Podcast, Nate, Peter and Kyle discuss the POA’s report on the Theopolis Institute and Dr. Peter Leithart. Your link to the report:  https://theparrhesians.com/2024/05/30/the-theopolis-report/ https://theparrhesians.com/

Send us Fan Mail Rev. Eric Phillips is the pastor of Mt. Carmel Presbyterian Church and long-time friend and colleague of Nate Devlin. Pastor Eric is finishing his Doctor of Ministry degree at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, MO. His area of research is on pastoral leadership and in this Special Edition of the Parrhesian Podcast, Eric interviews Nate on the subject of conflict in the church. Join N...

Send us Fan Mail Is the church essential or non-essential?  Does the Bible really teach that the church should occupy a place of primacy in our lives?  Is the church really fundamental to our Christian identity or is it really just supplemental?     In 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic caused society to shut down.  And when society shut down, questions arose about what institutions in our culture were ac...

Send us Fan Mail The Evangelical Presbyterian Church  recently released a document entitled “A Pastoral Letter of Racial Lament and Hope.” The paper is a pastoral word to the denomination regarding racism and the EPC’s response to this very real and serious problem. The paper was disseminated to churches in the EPC for review as well as response.  The Stated Clerk of the EPC offered comments about...