Reformed Forum

Bradley G. Green joins Camden Bucey to discuss What Is Critical Theory?: A Concise Christian Analysis. They trace the Frankfurt School’s Marxist roots and explain why thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, and Herbert Marcuse turned from a narrowly economic account of oppression toward culture, institutions, authority, family, and religion.
The conversation evaluates critical theory as a counterfeit religious vision with its own accounts of creation, sin, redemption, and eschatology. Drawing on Cornelius Van Til, Green shows how unbelieving thought oscillates between rationalism and irrationalism; drawing on Henry Van Til, he explains why culture is “religion externalized.”
Resources
What Is Critical Theory?: A Concise Christian Analysis
Bradley G. Green at Southern Seminary
Christ Overall

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
04:30 Introducing What Is Critical Theory?
08:14 Marxism after the failed German revolution
10:43 The major Frankfurt School thinkers
12:35 Culture, oppression, and the long march through the institutions
15:54 Critical theory as a counterfeit religion
19:06 What the critical theorists see—and miss
21:56 Creation, givenness, and the autonomous individual
24:05 Sin relocated from the heart to the system
25:18 Marcuse’s vision of sexual liberation
29:42 Utopian hope and Adorno’s “Grand Hotel Abyss”
33:11 Walter Benjamin and a “messianic rupture”
36:45 Repressive tolerance and the authoritarian personality
42:35 Van Til on rationalism and irrationalism
46:31 Culture as religion externalized
49:22 Pastoral and educational applications
53:55 Using the book for personal and group study
56:20 Conclusion
Mentioned in this episode:
Christ the Center 1000
Christ the Center 1000 Summit
Christ the Center 1000 Live in Austin, TX
Christ the Center 1000 Summit

This is the fourth lesson in Dr. Camden M. Bucey and Dr. Marcus Mininger’s Reformed Academy course, Resurrection and Redemption: A Reader’s Guide. It was originally recorded for one of Reformed Forum’s International Cohort Reading Groups. This lesson covers pages 62–74 of Richard B. Gaffin Jr.’s Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology, addressing the following topics:
00:00 Introduction and Overview
04:52 The Father’s Activity and the Son’s Passivity
13:33 Paul and John on Christ’s Resurrection Agency
20:47 The Agency of the Holy Spirit
31:22 Spiritual and Physical Resurrection
39:40 Spirit, Power, Glory, and Life
47:13 The Personhood of the Holy Spirit
55:14 Summary and Theological Significance

Register for this free on-demand course on our website to track your progress and assess your understanding through quizzes for each lesson. You will also receive free access to dozens of additional video courses in covenant theology, apologetics, biblical studies, church history, and more: https://reformedacademy.org/course/resurrection-redemption-readers-guide
Your donations help us to provide free Reformed resources for students like you worldwide: https://reformedforum.org/donate/
#biblicaltheology #redemption #reformedtheology #biblestudy
Mentioned in this episode:
Christ the Center 1000
Christ the Center 1000

Kevin DeYoung joins Camden Bucey to discuss Church History for Everyone, Volume 1: The Story of Christianity from the Fall of Jerusalem to the Dawn of the Reformation. They consider why Christianity is inseparable from history and how the story of the church testifies to Christ’s promise to build and preserve his people by his Word and Spirit.
The conversation explores how Christians can remember faithful men and women without lapsing into hagiography—or reducing the past to a catalogue of failures. Camden and Kevin also discuss monasticism, the preservation of learning and liturgy, Protestant retrieval of medieval theologians such as Bernard of Clairvaux, and the figures who will appear in the forthcoming second volume.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
00:50 Christ the Center 1000 summit update
12:55 Introducing Church History for Everyone
15:51 Conversation with Kevin DeYoung
17:30 From Sunday school lectures to a two-volume history
20:58 Why Christianity is inseparable from history
23:48 Church history as family history
26:38 Beyond hagiography and “warts only” history
30:57 Choosing characters and telling the church’s story
35:30 What Protestants can learn from monasticism
39:53 Recovering the medieval church
43:59 Previewing volume 2
46:53 Conclusion
Resources
Church History for Everyone, Volume 1
Clearly Reformed
Mentioned in this episode:
Christ the Center 1000 Live in Austin, TX
Christ the Center 1000 Summit
Christ the Center 1000
Christ the Center 1000 Summit

This is the third lesson in Dr. Camden M. Bucey and Dr. Marcus Mininger’s Reformed Academy course, Resurrection and Redemption: A Reader’s Guide. It was originally recorded for one of Reformed Forum’s International Cohort Reading Groups. This lesson covers pages 41–62 of Richard B. Gaffin Jr.’s Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology, addressing the following topics:
00:00 Introduction and Key Pauline Texts
04:08 The Believer’s Past Resurrection
11:46 Ephesians 2: Raised with Christ
18:50 Federal and Experiential Dimensions of Union
24:52 The Believer’s Transition from Death to Life
29:52 Distinct yet Connected Resurrection Events
33:33 Colossians 2–3: Made Alive and Raised with Christ
40:18 Romans 6 and Experiential Union
44:52 The Likeness of Christ’s Death and Resurrection
51:25 Galatians 2: Crucified with Christ
55:44 Present Inward and Future Bodily Resurrection
57:54 The Union Involved: A Dual Perspective
1:01:26 Union with the Heavenly Christ through the Spirit
1:03:32 Summary: Accomplishment, Application, and Already–Not Yet
1:05:33 The Redemption of Body and Soul
1:07:54 Conclusion and Preview

Register for this free on-demand course on our website to track your progress and assess your understanding through quizzes for each lesson. You will also receive free access to dozens of additional video courses in covenant theology, apologetics, biblical studies, church history, and more: https://reformedacademy.org/course/resurrection-redemption-readers-guide
Your donations help us to provide free Reformed resources for students like you worldwide: https://reformedforum.org/donate/
#biblicaltheology #redemption #reformedtheology #biblestudy
Mentioned in this episode:
Christ the Center 1000
Christ the Center 1000

Jared Poulton joins Camden Bucey to discuss Van Til’s Counseling Movement: A Critical Analysis of Jay Adams and Biblical Counseling. They trace how Cornelius Van Til’s presuppositional apologetics supplied key theological instincts for Jay Adams and the modern biblical counseling movement, including the God-relatedness of every human problem, dependence upon divine revelation, and confidence in Scripture’s sufficiency for pastoral ministry.
The conversation also examines tensions within contemporary biblical counseling. Camden and Jared consider the antithesis, common grace, the relation of the book of nature to the book of Scripture, and the danger of either rejecting all extra-biblical knowledge or baptizing secular methods without sufficient theological scrutiny. Throughout, they argue that faithful counseling should serve the church’s disciple-making mission and bring every claim about human life under the authoritative framework of God’s Word.
Resources
Van Til’s Counseling Movement
Institute for Reformed Biblical Counseling

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
03:12 Jared Poulton’s path into biblical counseling
09:12 What is biblical counseling?
17:44 The sufficiency of Scripture and pastoral counsel
23:09 CCEF, David Powlison, and Van Til
27:29 A Van Tilian foundation and an identity crisis
32:48 Competing trajectories in biblical counseling
41:02 Robert K. Rudolph and Jay Adams
44:02 Three streams that shaped Adams
50:57 God is man’s environment
55:58 Presuppositions and borrowed terminology
61:37 The antithesis and secular psychology
67:06 Scripture’s framework for counseling
72:59 Common grace and the two-book approach
75:56 Counseling in service of the church’s mission
77:42 Conclusion

Mentioned in this episode:
Christ the Center 1000 Live in Austin, TX
Christ the Center 1000 Summit
Christ the Center 1000
Christ the Center 1000 Summit