You’ve probably seen entries in this Theological Primer series before. The idea is to take a word or phrase or concept from systematic theology and explain it in less than 500 words (e.g., the existence of God, the extra calvinisticum, the nature of church power).
I’m thrilled to be working on a book for Crossway that will include 365 entries like the ones above. At this point, we are calling the book Daily Doctrine, but that may change. It’s going to take me a few years to complete 180,000 words, so don’t look for the book anytime soon. But when it is finished (Lord willing), I’m hoping the book can be used as a daily devotional, a reference work, or read straight through as a mini systematic theology.
My goal is to plug away with one new chapter each week, and then knock out 50 or 60 over the summers. From time to time, I’ll put a fresh entry up on my blog. Today’s topic is “Religion.”
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The etymology of the word “religion” is unclear. Over the years, many have agreed with Cicero (106-43 BC) who derived religio from relegere, a Latin word meaning to gather together or to reread. On this account, religion is the diligent study of the things pertaining to God. Others have preferred the explanation given by the church father Lactantius (c. 250-325), which Augustine (354-430) adopted, that religio comes from religare, meaning to fasten or to bind. With this etymology, religion is the binding or reattachment of man to God.
In contemporary parlance, “religion” is often construed in entirely derogatory terms. Even by Christians, religion is supposed to be the opposite of a relationship with God. Or religion is about trying to earn God’s favor. Or religion is about a stultifying system of rituals, dogmas, and structures. The problem with this disparaging understanding of “religion” is threefold.
(1) This is a relatively new way for Christians to speak. John Calvin wrote the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Jonathan Edwards wrote on Religious Affections. Pastors and theologians, especially in the age of awakenings, often wrote about “religion” or “true religion” or “real religion.” Our forefathers were well-aware of religious hypocrisy and false religious systems, but they did not equate “religion” with works-righteousness.
(2) The word “religion” occurs five times in the ESV and is, by itself, a neutral word, translating either deisidaimonia (reverence for the gods) or threskeia (religious worship). Religion can refer to Judaism (Act 26:5) or the Jewish-Christian faith (Acts 25:19). Religion can be bad when it is self-made (Col. 2:23) or fails to tame the tongue (James 1:26). But religion can also be good when it cares for widows and orphans and practices moral purity (James 1:27). There is no biblical ground for making the practice of religion a uniformly negative phenomenon.
(3) In castigating “religion,” we may be unloading more baggage than we realize. People tend to equate commands, doctrines, structures, and rituals with religion. That’s why people want to be “spiritual but not religious.” And yet, Christianity is a religion that believes in commands, doctrines, structures, and rituals. As a Jew, so did Jesus. Jesus did not hate religion. On the contrary, Jesus went to services at the synagogue and operated within the Jewish system of ritual purity (Mark 1:21, 40-45). He founded the church (Matt. 16:18) and established church discipline (Matt. 18:15-20). He instituted a ritual meal and called for its perpetual observance (Matt. 26:26-28). He told his disciples to baptize people and teach them to obey everything he commanded (Matt. 28:19-20). He insisted that people believe in him and believe certain things about him (John 3:16-18; 8:24).
In short, we give people the wrong impression about Jesus and affirm unbiblical instincts about true spirituality when we quickly dismiss “religion” as antithetical to the gospel and at odds with God-honoring piety.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

Reformed Faith & Practice is the online journal of Reformed Theological Seminary. You can browse five years of of the journal online or download each individual issue as a PDF.
In the latest issue you will find a reflection on Eugene Peterson’s pastoral theology, a sermon on Numbers 6:22-27, an argument for restricting the ordained office of deacon to qualified men, several other articles, and a number of book reviews.
Included among the latter is my review of James Eglinton’s new biography of Herman Bavinck. With permission, I’ve pasted that review below.
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James Eglinton, Bavinck: A Critical Biography (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020). Cloth. $44.99. xxii, 450pp.
Over the past decade, there has been a growing tide of English language Bavinck dissertations and Bavinck-inspired theologizing, but there has not been a corresponding scholarly account of Bavinck’s life—until now. Making impressive use of Dutch language newspapers of the period, as well as Bavinck’s own journals (dagboeken), James Eglinton, the Meldrum Senior Lecturer in Reformed Theology at the University of Edinburgh, has managed to write an academic biography that is at learned and nuanced as well as fresh and insightful.
Central to Eglinton’s thesis is his argument against the old historiography that saw “two Bavincks”—the conservative Calvinist and the apparent modernist—forming opposite poles in one man. Building on his earlier work, Trinity and Organism (T&T Clark, 2012), Eglinton insists that far from being a schizophrenic theologian holding contrary opinions, Bavinck was a creative thinker who sought to articulate the historic Christian faith in a newly modern world. “My biography has a particular aim,” Eglinton writes, “to tell the story of a man whose theologically laced personal narrative explored the possibility of an orthodox life in a changing world” (xx).
Eglinton’s biography has been widely praised since its release in September, and with good reason. The book is meaty—with well over a hundred pages of end notes and bibliography—but the narrative itself wastes no words and is only 300 pages. Eglinton’s approach is critical (in the academic sense), but never unsympathetic to Bavinck as a man and as a Christian. There are enough personal vignettes to keep the casual reader interested (e.g., Bavinck’s unrequited romantic affections over many years for Amelia den Dekker), but the text never plods along as a mere chronicle of daily life.
I especially appreciated the Appendix, “My Journey to America,” where Bavinck applauded the youth and energy of late nineteenth-century America but also critiqued its superficial religious life. Among his other observations, Bavinck noted that “there are few handsome men, but more and more beautiful women” (308), that Orange City surpassed Pella and Holland as an enclave of religious piety (303), and that the pillows were bad (307). In a surprising final remark, Bavinck predicted that there was little future for Calvinism in America, but allowed that Calvinism was not the only truth and that American Christianity should chart its own path (314).
Several features of the book’s design are noteworthy. I was helped by the “Chronology” page at the front of the book and by the section highlighting “Key Figures, Churches, Educational Institutions, and Newspapers” in the back. The 39 plates of photographs in the middle of the book were tremendous, and the original artwork by theologian Oliver Crisp makes for an attractive cover. It’s hard to find much to complain about in the book, but I would have benefited from a Bavinck family tree, and some readers may come to the book expecting more intellectual history (though, personally, I was glad Eglinton stuck to biography more than the theological exploration).
Of all the important lessons in this outstanding biography, the most important may be the most obvious: Herman Bavinck was a real person. Writing to his friend Snouck Hurgonje who asked whether Bavinck had been able to keep up with his scholarly pursuits, the 26 year-old new pastor remarked, “If you think for a moment that I must preach twice on Sunday, teach the catechism four times through the week, must also devote much time to visiting homes and the sick, and then sometimes have to lead a Frisian funeral, you won’t have to ask further whether any time or opportunity remains for my own study” (121).
Bavinck was not only swamped with ministerial duties at the outset of his short pastorate in Franecker (1881-82), he was also single, lonely, and spiritually depleted. “The most difficult part of my work,” Bavinck wrote in the same letter to Hurgonje, “is always to lift myself up to, and to stay at, the ideal level in my faith and confession.” Bavinck worried that a shallow, insincere heart might take shape beneath the guise of spiritual depth. He felt pressure to always be the minister, and without a wife he struggled to find “anyone here with whom I can (or might dare to) enjoy” the “familiarity” of friendship (121). Here is a man honest about ministry and honest about himself.
Since the English translation of his four-volume Reformed Dogmatics appeared in 2008, Bavinck has become a treasured companion and authoritative guide for Calvinist theologians, students, and pastors throughout the English-speaking world. And yet, for many, I imagine Bavinck the person has been virtually invisible, swallowed up by the heft of Bavinck’s brain sitting on our shelves. Almost every Reformed pastor knows something about Luther’s courage at Worms or Calvin’s reforms at Geneva or Whitefield’s role in the Great Awakening. But without any commensurate knowledge in Dutch history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Bavinck can be too quickly reduced to disembodied ideas on a page. This would be a shame, for the story of Bavinck’s life is interesting and instructive in its own right. Herman Bavinck lived a remarkable life as a dogmatician, an ethicist, an educational reformer, a politician, a journalist, a Bible translator, a champion for women’s education, and eventually the father, father-in-law, and grandfather of heroes and martyrs in the anti-Nazi resistance movement (291). This is the story Eglinton tells, and he tells it very well.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

Last year was not a good year for race relations in the United States. Whether you think the main culprit is the police, politics, or protesters, I think most of us—Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, or whatever—look at the racial tensions in this country and, at least on our worst days, feel a dangerous mix of confusion, discouragement, frustration, and hopelessness.
And if things are bad in the country at large, it’s hard to see how they are better in the church. While I’m sure many Christians are still laboring behind the scenes to love their neighbors and to give people of a different skin color (or people with a different approach to skin color) the benefit of the doubt, the public face of Christianity—the way we talk to each other and talk about each other—is not impressive. Our witness to the world does not scream Isaiah 1:18 (“Come now, let us reason together”) or John 13:35 (“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”). On the whole, when it comes to talking about this country’s most painful and most vexing problem, we are often getting Spurgeon’s dictum exactly backward: we are making soft arguments and using very hard words.
I can imagine what the rejoinders might be to that last paragraph. From the left, some will say, “Of course you want us all to settle down. That’s your privilege talking.” And from the right, some will say, “Just what I expected. More tone police when the church is being overrun by heresy.” If you think perpetual outrage and recrimination is the way forward, I suppose you are entitled to your opinion. But that doesn’t mean everyone else is obliged to share your opinion. For my part, I refuse to believe that talking about racial matters in a way that is reasonable, thoughtful, careful, and charitable makes one beholden to Whiteness or makes one a compromised squish.
The simple, honest truth is that Bible-believing orthodox Christians are not setting a Spirit-infused example in how to talk about racial matters. That’s the bad news. The good news is no one else is setting a great example either, which means it’s not too late for grace-filled, truth-loving followers of Jesus to show to the world a still more excellent way (1 Cor. 12:31).
What might it look like for Christians to talk about race in a more constructive and more helpful manner? Here are three suggestions.
1. Focus on ideas, not labels.
I’ll be blunt: I am no fan of Critical Race Theory. Judging by this introductory volume, I disagree with CRT’s aggressive color-consciousness (17), its jaundiced view of American history (48), its rejection of legal neutrality (3), its emphasis on economic redistribution and equality of results (29, 115), its interpretative principle that divides the world into rigid categories of oppressors and the oppressed (58, 78, 81), and its insistence that racism is pervasive and at the center of everything (8, 91). If that’s CRT, I see little to be gained by using it as a hermeneutical lens, let alone as an all-encompassing worldview.
And yet, I will be the first to confess I am no expert in CRT. While I think every point in the paragraph above comes directly from the book in question—and, consequently, from two leading proponents of CRT—I’m more interested in debating those ideas than I am in debating Critical Race Theory per se. To be sure, there are some experts among us who have deeply studied the major CRT texts. I’m happy for these Christian thinkers to discuss CRT at length. But for the vast majority of us (myself included), CRT is something we’ve heard a lot about and have studied very little. Consequently, one person hears “Critical Race Theory” and thinks: Marxist, leftist, postmodern, anti-Christian ideology. Another person hears “Critical Race Theory” and thinks: helpful tool for demonstrating that racism is more central to our history and has more explanatory power for our present situation than we thought.
My concern is that CRT has become an issue of symbolism before substance, a flag to be waved (for or against) in order to prove that we are sufficiently orthodox or sufficiently sensitive. The result is that Christians end up one step removed from discussing the issues we really need to be discussing. Too often, we think we are fighting about the gospel or fighting about whether we should love and listen to minority brothers and sisters, but really we are fighting about how to define Critical Race Theory. As a pastor, that’s way down on the list of fights I want to have.
When I served on the PCA’s sexuality study committee, we made the decision early on not to mention Revoice, even though everyone could see that was a major reason the committee was formed. But we knew that if we made the report about Revoice, there would be endless arguments about what Revoice is, and who is a part of it, and what so-and-so really meant. We thought it much better to focus on the theology we wanted to promote, the ideas we wanted to warn against, and the pastoral approach we wanted to encourage. In the same way, I think our discussion about race would be greatly helped by saying a lot less about Critical Race Theory and a lot more about the specific ideas that we find promising or problematic.
2. Approach the conversation with intellectual integrity and personal maturity.
What does this mean? Several things in my mind.
Don’t take everything personally. Don’t turn up every disagreement to 11. Recognize when people change their minds or nuance their views. Don’t define someone by their worst statement, and don’t then define every institution they’ve ever been a part of or any friend they’ve ever had by that statement.
Whenever possible, isolate the issue you mean to talk about. Don’t make the issue about gospel fidelity, if the argument is actually about interpreting American history. And don’t make the issue about whether you agree with the prophet Amos, if the argument is about how to interpret policing data.
Let’s show ourselves as Christians to be more logically rigorous and definitionally precise than the world. Don’t confuse correlation with causation. Don’t look for the worst examples on the other side to prove the rightness or righteousness of your side. Don’t assume that the person not entirely with you on every point is, therefore, an enemy not to be trusted on any point. Don’t think that courage means you can’t be careful with your words, or that compassion means you can’t ask uncomfortable questions.
3. Be willing to work with a few common sense both/and propositions.
If there is one kind of argument I generally loathe, it’s the lazy third way approach to solving all of life’s problems. I’m not against finding middle ground (see below). I’m not against seeing how Christianity sometimes transcends our labels and differences. What I am against is intellectual laziness masquerading as above-the-fray, third wayism: “I’m not liberal; I’m not conservative; I’m just Christian!”
Having said that, it seems to me there are a few basic both/and propositions that could turn down the temperature of our rhetoric, while also pushing the racial conversation toward greater clarity and usefulness.
For example, might we be able to acknowledge that systemic injustice can exist while also asking for evidence that, in whatever particular situation we are studying, it does exist? That seems like a reasonable starting place for further conversation. “I acknowledge that structural racism could play a part, but let’s take a closer look at the evidence for that claim.”
Similarly, might we be able to acknowledge personal choices and cultural factors almost always play a role in shaping who we are, the mistakes we make, and the opportunities we find? I’m sure we will still disagree about the relative importance of each factor but recognizing that we are all complex people—not merely the product of environment and circumstance, nor simply the accumulation of our individual decisions—is surely a better way to talk about racial matters than assuming that every disparity is the result of discrimination or that personal responsibility alone can right every social wrong.
Likewise, isn’t it possible that American history is both worse than most white people think, when it comes to race, and still a story with much to celebrate and be thankful for?
Isn’t it reasonable to think that minorities have different experiences than members of the majority and that members of the majority may be blind to those experiences, while nevertheless rejecting the kind of standpoint epistemology that circumscribes the right to speak, and even defines the measure of truth itself, by the standard of one’s lived experience?
These both/and propositions won’t remove all our different emphases and suspicions, but they might help us inch toward one another in finding common ground. That is, if we want to find common ground. The incentives in church discourse are unfortunately the same as in political discourse. There is more to be gained (humanly speaking) by dealing with racial issues in Manichaean categories of absolute light and darkness. Nuance and precision don’t get you much, except the expectation of being shot at from all sides.
There is no way to make an honest conversation about race an easy conversation. There is too much in our history for that. There is also too much in the human heart that is self-justifying, other-accusing, and innocence-seeking to make race and racism a simple intellectual discussion. But with the power of the Spirit and the hope of the gospel, we need not despair. God can yet give us the humility, the rationality, and the charity we need.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.