Thomas Paul Schirrmacher
2012, Christian Philosophy Today
Dr. Montgomery’s latest book is one that every serious reader interested in clear Christian thinking should have on a table near her most comfortable reading chair. It is filled with a wide variety of bite-sized essays that are absolutely delightful—knowledgeable, fun, witty, and unexpected. If you have never read the work of J. W. Montgomery before, you are in for a treat. This is a book that brings together his best writing from the past with his latest essays. It’s a Christian feast of ideas that celebrates our Lord and His unfailing Word.Craig J. Hazen, Ph.D., Director, MA Program in Christian Apologetics, Biola UniversityWhat makes J. W. Montgomery tick? What has driven him over a massively productive career to such wide-ranging interests as computers and Chemnitz, legal theory and apologetics, human rights and Christology, Dawkins and Duchamp? The answer is clear: the gospel of Jesus Christ and its defense, articulation, and application to the real world in which the Word became flesh, died, and rose again as the Savior. Many of our best confessional-era theologians, both Lutheran and Reformed, were “Renaissance men,” but that’s rarely the case today. Dr. Montgomery is a glaring exception and this book is a wonderful display of that full scope of his remarkable insights. While being an ardent defender of the Lutheran confession, he is far from parochial. Even in places where one might disagree, the clarity, logic, and relentless rigor of his arguments will kindle fires in hearths that we didn’t even know we had and make us better advocates for the gospel.Dr. Michael Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologtics, Westminster Seminary California
Related papers
Fighting the Good Fight: A Life in Defense of the Faith
Thomas Paul Schirrmacher
Christian Philosophy Today, 2020
John Warwick Montgomery is considered to be one of the foremost living apologists for classical, biblical Christianity. A renaissance scholar with a flair for controversy, he lives in France, England and the United States. His international activities have brought him into personal contact with some of the most exciting events of our time: not only was he in China In June 1989, but he was In Fiji during its 1987 bloodless revolution, was involved in assisting East Germans to escape during the time of the Berlin Wall, and was in Paris during the revolutionary “days of May” 1968. He has had personal contact with world leaders such as President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and English Prime Minister Tony Blair. He has been centrally involved in evangelical and Lutheran church affairs such as the Wenham conference on the authority of Scripture and the inerrancy controversies in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. His public debates with atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Bishop James Pike, death-of-God advocate Thomas Altizer, and situationethicist Joseph Fletcher are historic.
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Tough-Minded Christianity: Honoring the Legacy of John Warwick Montgomery
Thomas Paul Schirrmacher
2009
‘Tough Minded Christianity’ is a collection of essays about the great work of John Warwick Montgomery (1931), a living legend in the field of Christian apologetics who has earned eleven degrees in philosophy, theology, law, and librarianship, debated historic atheists including Madalyn Murray O’Hair, and influenced the work of bestselling authors such as Josh McDowell. Contributors to this volume include J. I. Packer, Ravi Zacharias, John Ankerberg, Erwin Lutzer, Vernon Grounds, Gary Habermas, and among others Paige Patterson who writes in the foreword that John Warwick Montgomery did the “intellectual heavy lifting” that undergirded the conservative renewal of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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James McGarigle
2018
Christian apologetics is the defense of the Christian faith. It can take many forms: philosophical, polemical, scientific, and Scriptural along with others forms as well. It has existed since New Testament times and grew as a discipline in both the Patristic and Medieval periods of the Christian Church. When apologetics were done in early Lutheranism, polemics were often intertwined. In the days of the Reformation, it usually wasn’t enough to defeat your opponent with cool, reasoned logic; the conventions of that day often required you to swing at your opponent with a ‘brick bat’ as well. Lutheranism, from its inception has been an apologetically active Church. Martin Luther's speech at the Diet of Worms, The Augsburg Confession, it's Apology and the Smalcald Articles, Chemnitz's Examination of the Council of Trent and Chemnitz and Andreae’s Catalog of Testimonies defended the pure Gospel against the errors of Calvin, Islam, Judaism, Rome, various sectarians and superstition. As the Reformation progressed, Lutheranism continued to face various challenges. It persevered in responding to Roman Catholicism, Calvinism and fanatical groups such as the Anabaptists on one hand and non-Christian groups such as Judaism and Islam on the other. Luther himself responded to all of these, some to a lesser degree, others to a greater degree.
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Christ Our Advocate: Studies in Polemical Theology, Jurisprudence and Canon Law
Thomas Paul Schirrmacher
edition pro mundis, 2002
John Warwick Montgomery, a lawyer-theologian, holds dual citizenship (US and UK) and resides in England and in France. His international activities have brought him into personal contact with some of the most exciting events of our time: he was in Paris during the „days of May“ 1968; he assisted East Germans to escape during the time of the Berlin Wall; he witnessed the 1987 bloodless revolution in Fiji; and he was in Beijing at the time of the Tiananmen Square atrocity in June 1989. In recent years he has defended the religious liberties of Christian believers in national and European courts. Dr. Montgomery is the author of some forty-five books in five languages and over one hundred scholarly articles. He holds ten earned degrees, including a Master of Philosophy in Law from the University of Essex, England, a Master of Laws from Cardiff University, Wales, a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and a Doctorate of the University in Protestant Theology from the University of Strasbourg, France. He is an ordained Lutheran clergyman, an English barrister, and a member of the bars of California, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Washington State, and the Supreme Court of the United States.
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Bullinger’s The Old Faith (1537) as a Theological Tract
Joe Mock
Unio Cum Christo
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Calvin: Interpreter of the Prophets
Byron G. Curtis
Unio Cum Christo
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Reformation and Music
Billy Kristanto
Unio Cum Christo, 2017
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Reformed theology today: Practical-theological, missiological and ethical perspectives
Gert Breed
2017
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Missiology and Reformation in a post-Christian Western World
Naas Ferreira, Gert Breed
Reformed theology today: Practical theological, missiological and ethical perspectives, 2017
During this period of commemorating the Reformation, Christians worldwide are fully aware of the far-reaching spiritual transformation that confronts the Christian church- in the West. In a certain sense, missiological scholars would readily have called attention, as did the disciples to the Lord (Mt 24:1–2), to the large buildings and stones of the temple – the glorious heritage of the Reformation. However, there is a much more urgent task to address. The church needs to find answers to crucial questions: • Why did Jesus turn his back on the temple in Jerusalem? (Mt 24:1; Mk 13:1; Lk 21:5–6) • Why was the Lord prepared to remove the lampstand from the large and powerful congregation of Ephesus? (Rv 2:5) • Why did the Christendom, after being terminal for 250 years, eventually die? The reason is self-evident to the current church: Religion needs to be more than mere spiritual customary practices. It should entail a caring and sacrificing subservience toward God and on behalf of fellow humans. The alternative? The Lord can turn his back on his church and pass it by. The biblical testimony attests to this danger. It may be asked whether this is not what befell the institutional Christendom? The good news is that the Christian church as such has not as yet ceased to exist. Owing to the current challenges, the church is undergoing a transition (‘reformation’) in which the original form of being church is rediscovered, the only way to comprehensive healing. In light of these new realities confronting the church, Missiology as neglected discipline in the Western theology, should direct the way – back to God’s future.
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Facing the Apologetic Challenges of Scientific Atheism
Henk Stoker
Unio Cum Christo, 2017
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