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Author Archives: R. Scott Clark
Does the Westminster Confession Teach Baptismal Regeneration? (Part 2)
In order to interpret the text of the Scots Confession and the Westminster Confession we must decide on a hermeneutic, a way of interpreting confessional texts. Often in the interpretation of confessional documents the temptation is to try to interpret a specific passage without reference to the broader context, but that is no way to read a text. Continue reading →
Covenant Moralism
Of the three controversies surveyed briefly in this chapter, perhaps none of them better illustrates the diminished influence of the Reformed confession, and the rise of the QIRC in the conservative Reformed churches, than the thirty-year struggle over the doctrine of justification. . . . Continue reading →
Tradition, Sola Scriptura, and Semper Reformanda
As the baby-boomer generation came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, it led a broad cultural and religious reaction to traditionalism in various spheres. This is the era that brought us Woodstock and post-Vatican II guitar masses. The evangelical version of . . . Continue reading →
Machen: Are We Schismatics?
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever.”—Isa. 40:8 When ought Christian people to withdraw from a church with which they have been connected and seek to lead other people to withdraw with them? That . . . Continue reading →
Does the Westminster Confession Teach Baptismal Regeneration? (Part 1)
The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to . . . Continue reading →
An Interesting Conversation at My Door
Recently, a Roman Catholic laywoman and a male companion (who stood behind her with his rosary, saying prayers) came to my door on behalf of St. Mary Catholic Church in Escondido. She asked if there were any Catholics in the house. I . . . Continue reading →
Who Are The True Catholics? (Part 3)
Law and Gospel By definition, the command to pray presupposes faith. One cannot ask anything of God unless he believes that God has made a promise. Part of the Roman problem is that they do not distinguish the law and the gospel: . . . Continue reading →
A Word To The Reconquistadores (Or Why The CRC Is Not The PCUSA) (Part 2)
On September 10, 2020, the Calvin University newspaper, Chimes, reported that Neland Avenue Christian Reformed Church (CRC) had appointed a deacon who is in a same-sex marriage.1 It appeared that the CRC was about to take a dramatic step toward the so-called . . . Continue reading →
Who Are The True Catholics? (Part 2)
The Problem of Sin and Free Will In A Reformed Catholic, Perkins’s first charge against Rome, which he notes is not the principal issue, is that the Roman communion has corrupted the doctrine of sin. It comes under the heading of free . . . Continue reading →
A Word To The Reconquistadores (Or Why The CRC Is Not The PCUSA) (Part 1)
There is a cadre of enthusiastic Gen-Z Presbyterians led by Richard Ackerman, a student at Dubuque Theological Seminary, who has announced plans to “reconquer” the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (PCUSA) as part of a broader plan to take control of the mainline churches . . . Continue reading →
Who Are The True Catholics? (Part 1)
There are truly important works that simply have been forgotten or unjustly ignored. One of these is William Ames’s Fresh Suit Against Human Ceremonies in defense of the Reformed theology and practice of worship. Another is William Perkins’s 1597 treatise A Reformed Catholic, subtitled Or . . . Continue reading →
On Independence From The Established Church
In preparing for its 250th anniversary, I reread the Declaration of Independence. What it says and does not say is fascinating. In between hot dogs, slices of apple pie, and before dusk falls and the fireworks commence in earnest, every American ought . . . Continue reading →
We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us (Part 2)
Paul knows and affirms to the church at Corinth that the pagan world surrounding them was comprised of the sexually immoral, swindlers, the greedy, revilers, drunkards, and idolaters, but they (and the culture they created) were not his concern. What concerned Paul was not what was happening out there but what was happening in here, in the Corinthian congregation. It was not the gross sexual immorality of the pagans in Corinth that kept him up at night. Continue reading →
We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us (Part 1)
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” This is the line Walt Kelly popularized in his Pogo comic strip in 1970 and 1971.1 Kelly appropriated and modified a famous quote from Master Commander Oliver Perry regarding the American defeat of . . . Continue reading →
These Are Not Illinois Nazis
At Synod Calgary, held June 8–11 by the United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA),1 as delegates debated whether or how to adopt a statement that had been adopted by several other sister churches, one pastor rose to say that three families . . . Continue reading →
What’s Wrong With Boys?
The attack perpetrated by two teen-agers upon a San Diego mosque, on May 18 of this year, is just the latest in a string of violent acts that include the assault on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (April 25, 2026), the murder . . . Continue reading →
We Attain Heaven Through Faith Alone (Part 2)
What Is Salvation? In order to understand the biblical teaching we must first ask what is salvation? From what must we be saved? To what is salvation? Scripture is abundantly clear. The thing from which we must be saved is God’s holy . . . Continue reading →
It Was Not So From The Beginning: What Nature And Grace Teach Us About Same-Sex Attraction
It is being argued in some evangelical quarters that same-sex attraction (SSA) or homosexual attraction is “natural” and that it SSA (sexual desire for someone of the same sex) is not per se sinful. One writer who defends this view quotes John Cheever who said that . . . Continue reading →
We Attain Heaven Through Faith Alone (Part 1)
For decades John Piper has taught the substance of what he wrote in the preface to Tom Shreiner’s 2015 book, Faith Alone: The Doctrine of Justification. The claim is that Christians should believe that we “attain heaven” by more than faith, i.e., by . . . Continue reading →