An Interview With Evangelical Focus

by R. Scott Clark on October 18, 2015

Contrary to what you may have been taught, the world was made to be known and you were made to know it. Contrary to what you may have been told, the world around you, though corrupted by sin, is not an illusion and evil is not winning. Believe your eyes and ears but do not believe everything you read and hear. You can and should, however, trust that God’s Word is reliable and true, that Christ is the Saviour, that he really came, that he was really raised, and that he is really coming again to make all things right again. Until that time you and I have a great calling to trust Christ with all our heart and out of that confidence to serve him in this world by loving God and our neighbour. Find a true church where the gospel is purely preached, where the sacraments are purely administered, and where they love the people enough to practice loving, gracious discipline. Continue reading →

Office Hours: Horton On The Ordinary As An Alternative For Young, Restless, Radical Christianity

by R. Scott Clark on September 22, 2014

Americans believe in and really like the extraordinary. We speak frequently—and not without some reason—of American exceptionalism. Since the 1720s Evangelical Christianity in America has been dominated by a desire to see and experience the extraordinary whether that be the attempt to . . . Continue reading →

Fauxccountability?

by R. Scott Clark on August 24, 2014

What needs to be very clear is that the current by-laws of Mars Hill Church do not give the elders the authority to examine these charges. The Board of Advisors and Accountability is in charge of convening a group of overseers to . . . Continue reading →

Don’t Just Stand There. Come On In!

by R. Scott Clark on June 19, 2014

Kevin DeYoung writes about a conference just held at his congregation with Collin Hansen. He makes a couple of points to which I want to respond. As a minister who has spent a fair bit of time calling people to Christ and . . . Continue reading →

Tribalists All

by R. Scott Clark on June 4, 2014

We may conclude, apparently, that Merritt favors cosmopolitanism to sectarianism. But what sense does this make of biblical calls for God’s people to isolate themselves. The Israelites weren’t exactly interested — or weren’t supposed to be — in a Jerusalem that featured . . . Continue reading →

Be Careful Little One Whom You Criticize

by R. Scott Clark on May 23, 2014

There is a fundamentalist ethos in [neo-Calvinism],” Olson says. “You get pats on the back and merits for criticizing outsiders, but not for criticizing insiders. There is a system where if you are young coming up in the ranks, you get points . . . Continue reading →

Heidelcast 67: Recovering Mother Kirk

by Heidelcast on April 5, 2014

Before there was Recovering the Reformed Confession, there was Recovering Mother Kirk a seminal book for all Reformed confessionalists who are looking for a way between revivalism and fundamentalism or between QIRC and QIRE. Darryl Hart published Recovering Mother Kirk just over . . . Continue reading →

Young, Restless, And New School

by R. Scott Clark on March 29, 2014

All of this is to say that the New Calvinism looks a lot like the old New School Presbyterianism with a Baptist and charismatic flair to it. Piper chose not to deal with this issue between the Old and the New just . . . Continue reading →

A Conspiracy Of Silence

by R. Scott Clark on March 16, 2014

Yet the leaders of the “young, restless, and reformed” have not typically allowed that concern to curtail their comments in the past. Many of them have been outspoken about the teaching of Joel Osteen, for example. In their early days, when the . . . Continue reading →

The Christian Faith Is Trinitarian

by R. Scott Clark on February 26, 2014

When most people think of the Reformed confession of the Christian faith they probably think about predestination. This is the minimalist definition that is often used. When evangelicals say, “I’m Reformed” what they often mean is, “I’ve adopted the doctrine of election” . . . Continue reading →

“Calvinism” Is Hip Again (Again)

by R. Scott Clark on January 6, 2014

Just when one might have thought that the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement(s) might be waning—they aren’t getting any younger—comes a piece in last Friday’s New York Times by Mark Oppenheimer on the Calvinist revival among evangelicals. Of course it begins with TULIP . . . Continue reading →

Maybe Darryl Had A Point? Driscoll v. Catholic Creeds

by R. Scott Clark on December 13, 2013

I don’t know why people are not debating whether Driscoll should even be writing books. —Darryl Hart, “Tribalists All” Second, the Apostles’ Creed [sic] defines the Son as “begotten, not made.” The point was that something begotten was of the same substance . . . Continue reading →

A Response To Rachel Held Evans Regarding Wilson And The Definition Of “Reformed”

by R. Scott Clark on October 30, 2013

Jonathan Merritt published a critique of Doug Wilson this morning on his Religion News Service. For younger readers, who might not remember the Federal Vision (FV) controversy, Wilson is the leader of the de facto denominational home of the FV, the Communion of . . . Continue reading →

Engaging With Keller

by R. Scott Clark on July 13, 2013

Many now regard only one aspect of criticism, that of the expression of disapproval or hostility. There is, however, a second aspect that is equally important: the friendly analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a project. This volume is . . . Continue reading →

Narcissus Lives!

by R. Scott Clark on April 22, 2013

Narcissus is a mythological story about a young man who became so fascinated with his own reflection it cost him his life. Narcissism is a psychological disorder that confuses subjective experience for objective reality. In Recovering the Reformed Confession I described the . . . Continue reading →

Joel’s Not So Bad After All?

Mark Driscoll on Joel Osteen

by R. Scott Clark on February 5, 2013

UPDATED 14:02 5 Feb 2013 So says YRR (Young, Restless, and Reformed) leader Mark Driscoll in an interview (regarding his forthcoming book) published by the TGC: Q: You observe that “appreciated people” exchange grumbling for praying, competing for celebrating, bitterness for thankfulness, . . . Continue reading →

Trans-Confessional Catechism?

by R. Scott Clark on October 12, 2012

The main concern is that TGC comprises folk who do not confess the same understanding of the church and sacraments. Continue reading →

Critique of Driscoll and YRR Movement Now in Portuguese

by R. Scott Clark on March 29, 2011

Thanks to Alan Rennê for making a translation of the HB post: “Calvinism Old and New.”

Is "Desiring God" A New Law?

by R. Scott Clark on March 3, 2011

Darryl Hart writes, I have nothing personal against John Piper. I believe him to be basically sound theologically, though I wish he were a confessional Reformed Protestant. And his earnestness is truly impressive. I do not sense that he is faking what . . . Continue reading →

Colson Calls for Doctrinal Boot Camp: But Which Doctrine?

by R. Scott Clark on February 21, 2011

In 1994 Chuck Colson attempted to convince evangelicals that the decline of the culture was so precipitous that they needed to set aside the historic Protestant doctrine of justification in favor of an intentionally equivocal statement about how we are accepted by . . . Continue reading →