Dr. John M. Frame has distinguished himself as a prolific author and one of America’s foremost theologians and philosophers—significantly shaping the thought of Evangelicalism today. Many of today’s most influential Christian leaders and authors, like Tim Keller and John Piper, readily acknowledge the significant impact John Frame has had on them.
“I should like to think that tomorrow’s Reformed leaders will add John Frame’s name to that list; I believe they should.” – J. I. Packer
Commenting on the continuation of protestant reformation theology since the time of Martin Luther and John Calvin, J. I. Packer writes in his foreword to Frame’s Systematic Theology:
“Three parts of the world have since made major contributions to the Reformed heritage, each engendering its own conflicts and loyalties:
- England saw the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Puritan development, from William Perkins to John Owen, exploring life in Christ in and through the Holy Spirit;
- nineteenth-century Holland produced the Kuyperian theology of human and Christian culture within a Reformed frame;
- and the twentieth-century witnessed, within the conservative Presbyterian world, the ongoing quest for Reformed methodological authenticity, in which B. B, Warfield, Geerhardus Vos, J. Gresham Machen, and Cornelius Van Til are, by common consent, the leading names.
I should like to think that tomorrow’s Reformed leaders will add John Frame’s name to that list; I believe they should.”
After 49 years of distinguished service as a seminary professor at three seminaries, Dr. John Frame retired in 2017. But his influential writing ministry continues today. Although widely known and deeply respected in church leadership and academic circles for decades, his works are now, finally, becoming well known to the general public.
Framing John Frame: 4 Parts
With the goal of helping introduce Frame and his writings more widely to the general public, Childers wrote this four-part series below called “Framing John Frame,” that was later published as the foreword for the book, John Frame’s Selected Shorter Writings, Volume 1, by P&R Publishing. The goal of this series is to help more people begin mining the rich theological, philosophical, and practical gems that have for too long been mostly in the hands of academics and church leaders.
- Click here to read Framing John Frame Pt 1: Introducing The Man and His
- Click here to read Framing John Frame Pt 2: Influencers on His Thought
- Click here to read Framing John Frame Pt 3: Why It’s Hard to Frame Frame
- Click here to read Framing John Frame Pt 4: A Gentleman and a Scholar
- Click here to read: The 100 Books That Have Most Influenced John Frame’s Thought
The Applied Theology Project
Since 2016, John Frame and Steve Childers have been collaboration on the Applied Theology Project. The mission of the Applied Theology Project is to provide accessible, affordable, seminary-level courses to underserved church leaders in their language and adapted to their culture wherever they live and serve.
The vision for the Applied Theology Project is to use the latest advances in educational technology to help bring all the loci of Systematic Theology to the millions of church leaders, especially in the developing world, who have no access or cannot afford high quality traditional seminary education. – John Frame
Childers and Frame have written 9 book manuscripts so far and published their first four online courses called Foundations of Theology, Essentials in Theology, Perspectives in Theology, and Applications in Theology – on the Pathway Learning online library of courses. Books and courses on Justification in Theology, Gospel in Theology, Theology of Faith: Apostles’ Creed, Theology of Hope: Lord’s Prayer, and Theology of Love: Ten Commandments coming soon.
We help under-served church leaders
develop churches that transform lives and communities.
We could have been good friends, I think. We were the same age, Pittsburghers, Calvinists, and most of all disciples of Jesus Christ. But alas, we belonged to different clubs. I followed Van Til, Gerstner’s teacher, but Gerstner did not follow Van Til, and RC followed Gerstner. I always felt his heart and mine were in the same place.
From time to time I saw, or thought I saw, hints of Van Tillian presuppositionalism in RC’s writings. I think of his exegesis of Rom. 1, which was very much the same as Van Til’s. And he once, at Westminster, described himself as a “proto-suppositionalist.” I took that to mean that whatever you think about apologetic method Scripture must always have the final say. I too am a protosuppositionalist. And in the final analysis that’s all there really is to presuppositionalism.
