“Don’t ever change!” we wrote in each other’s high school yearbooks. “Stay just the way you are!” What strange valedictions to give ourselves on the threshold of life. Imagine if we had obeyed them, and now everyone possessed the resolute solipsism of . . . Continue reading →
Author Archives: R. Scott Clark
Is Efficiency A Virtue In The Church?
My Papa (Grandpa) was a great handyman. It seemed as if he could fix just about anything. He always brought his tools when he visited and we often had work for him to do. I remember the first time he said to . . . Continue reading →
Davenant Not As Deviant?
Some of what Davenant writes is clearer than other parts. But it seems that a primary thought is that Christ died for the world in a universal sense, from which flows what are nowadays called the gifts of common grace, and warrant . . . Continue reading →
What Do We Mean When We Say “Holy Catholic Church”?
Clinton writes to ask what we mean when we say, in the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe a holy catholic church.” He reports that some of his friends will not read the Apostles’ Creed, the Athanasian Creed, or the Heidelberg Catechism because they . . . Continue reading →
It is Not Heroic To Be A Celibate Homosexual
Perhaps most important of all from a pastoral perspective, rehabilitating the category of friendship will help us avoid the temptation of privileging the celibacy of one section of the single Christian population over another. The underlying values of Christian hero-worship have often . . . Continue reading →
A Seventh-Century Opinion On Every-Member Ministry
It does not befit a layman to dispute or teach publicly, thus claiming for himself authority to teach, but he should yield to the order appointed by the Lord, and to open his ears to those who have received the grace to . . . Continue reading →
The Year That Was On The HB
Thanks for reading the Heidelblog this year. You were one of more than 200,000 people who visited the HB in 2014, where there were 690,000 downloads (hits). Most readers come to the HB from Twitter. Readers also found the HB via various Facebook . . . Continue reading →
Sometimes Even Charles Hodge Was Not Nice
WE are disposed to think there must be, on an average, at least one misrepresentation for every page in this work. As it requires more words to correct a misstatement than to make it, we should be obliged to write a book . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: The Wisdom Of Moses
Moses is one of the most important figures in the history of salvation. Scripture refers to an entire epoch of redemptive history as “Moses.” Through him the Lord redeemed his people from Egypt, through the Red Sea, on dry ground. Through him . . . Continue reading →
Sin: Disordered Inclinations, Unholy Desires, And A Lack Of Righteousness
Sin which does not thus reign, is that which the sinner resists by the grace of the Holy Spirit. It does not, therefore, expose him to eternal death, because he has repented and found favor through Christ. Such sins are disordered inclinations . . . Continue reading →
Bavinck: The World Was Made To Be Known
The Starting point of theory of knowledge ought to be ordinary daily experience, the universal and natural certainty of human beings concerning the objectivity and truth of their knowledge. After all, it is not philosophy that creates the cognitive faculty and cognition. . . . Continue reading →
Heidelberg 51: The Glory Of A King Distant And Near
Difficult as it may be for those who live within “the Beltway” (as if there is only one city in the world with a beltway) to imagine, many Americans have never visited the American capitol. For many Americans the capitol is distant . . . Continue reading →
A Brief History Of Christmas
CHRISTMAS The Feast of the Nativity of Christ was called in OE Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ; the first appearance of this term in extant writing dates to the 11th cent., and parallels Dutch Kerst-misse. (The Latin term Dies natalis lies . . . Continue reading →
Contra Natalis Solis Invictis
CHRISTMAS (from Old English Cristes maesse “Christ’s mass”).† Observance commemorating the birth of Jesus. In the Western church, the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord was first celebrated on December 25 ca. A.D. 336, the date apparently chosen to counter the . . . Continue reading →
What Is The Church’s Big Mac?
The end of the semester is followed by the holidays so I just saw this post (HT: Aquila Report) discussing the declining fortunes of McDonalds restaurantsamong Millennials and comparing them to the church. The author notes “More people are wanting a customized, . . . Continue reading →
Utopia Always Morphs To Dystopia
As long as human beings are unique, as long as even one of them thinks independently of others, Utopia is a total pipe dream. Compliance must be forced. Or human beings must cease to be human by giving up their uniqueness. Either . . . Continue reading →
Sentiment Is Not A Sacrament
Holidays are a time for great sentiment, which the Oxford American Dictionary defines, in this usage, as an “exaggerated and self-indulgent feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.” Who does not watch the annual Christmas movies? They are part of the late-modern communal . . . Continue reading →
Unexpected Problems In Catechesis
Santa Claus is not part of the Christmas celebration in our family, but since it is part of the broader culture, we have told our kids that Santa is a fun pretend person. A problem arose when our literal-minded eldest daughter went . . . Continue reading →
Heidelberg 50: Christ Reigns Now (2)
Last time we looked briefly at some of the reasons some evangelicals (Dispensationalists) have had difficulty with the biblical and historic Christian doctrine that Jesus is presently reigning over all things and particularly his church. That view is in contrast to the . . . Continue reading →
Political Correctness Uses Social Vilification To Silence Dissent
PC compliance automatically invalidates non-PC views and reinforces the bad habit of condemning all who disagree. By shutting out all but one train of thought, political correctness attacks individuality and ends up pushing people into the oblivion of a collectivized and controllable . . . Continue reading →