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People of the Promise
Davenant Press

People of the Promise

A Mere Protestant Ecclesiology

edited by Joseph Minich and Brad Littlejohn

The doctrine of the church is often perceived as the weakest link in Protestant theology.

These essays argue, on the contrary, that the Reformers’ radical re-thinking of the definition of the church is one of the Reformation’s greatest treasures. Not only is “mere Protestant” ecclesiology firmly in concert with the multifaceted biblical witness, but it is also manifestly in accord with natural reason and the lived experience of Christians throughout the ages. As we celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, this volume seeks to honor the Protestant heritage by remembering, reclaiming, and critically reflecting upon the relationship between the gospel promise and the community which it calls into being.

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About the Editors

Joseph Minich

(Ph.D, University of Texas at Dallas) is a Residential Teaching Fellow with The Davenant Institute, and is based at Davenant House, our organizational hub in the South Carolina Blue Ridges. As part of his work, he also co-hosts the Pilgrim Faith podcast. The founding editor of Ad Fontes and former Editor-in-Chief of the Davenant Press, he is the author of Enduring Divine Absence (Davenant Press, 2018) and Bulwarks of Unbelief: Atheism and Divine Absence in a Secular Age (Lexham Press, 2023). His public writing can be found at The Calvinist International , Mere Orthodoxy , Modern Reformation , and Ad Fontes .

Bradford Littlejohn

(Ph.D, University of Edinburgh) is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Polict Center. He founded and served for ten years as the President of The Davenant Institute. He is the author of numerous books including The Peril and Promise of Christian Liberty (Eerdmans, 2017), The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed (Davenan Press 2017), Why Do Protestants Convert? (2023, with Christ Castaldo) and Called to Freedom (B&H, forthcoming 2025).

Publication Details

  • Publisher: Davenant Press
  • ISBN: 978-0692942581
  • Publication Date: September 9, 2017
  • Pages: 214
  • Editors: Joseph Minich and Brad Littlejohn

Endorsements

  • “‘I believe in the church.’ You might think this is the easiest article in the Creed to affirm because we see and experience it, but you would be mistaken. It is precisely because we are familiar with the phenomenon that its reality eludes us. The fact that there are so many theories as to what church is and what church is for only complicates the matter. I therefore welcome this first installment of the Davenant Retrievals for its fresh and often illuminating presentation of the magisterial Protestant position to these questions, particularly their insistence that the church is a people assembled by God’s Word and Spirit. The authors use exegesis, church history, and systematic theology to make a compelling case that the church is the people who trust the promise of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of all who, through the Spirit, live out their “in Christ” reality together.”

    — Kevin J Vanhoozer, Research Professor of Systematic Theology (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School)

  • “Conventional wisdom holds that just as Protestantism supposedly fractured the church into churches, so it fractured ecclesiology into ecclesiologies. This spirited volume argues the opposite: that the magisterial reformers in fact advanced a single, powerful, coherent, and biblical account of the essence of the church focused on the gospel. With remarkable restraint, the authors of People of the Promise decline to be distracted as they retrieve Protestantism’s core ecclesiology. Readers may experience the shock of recognition to find that not only have they seen this ecclesiology before, they are inhabiting it. This retrieval should strengthen us to inhabit it more amply. “

    — Fred Sanders, Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University

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