Like watching paint dry. Continue reading →
The Canons Of Dork #41 For July 5, 2025
Author: R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
Ursinus’ Arguments That “This Is My Body” Is A Promise Of Grace Translated With An Introduction
The Heidelberg Reformation Association presents the first ever translation of a brief work on the Lord’s Supper by Zacharias Ursinus and translated by Dr Lee Irons. Continue reading →
A Truly Modest Proposal
We sit in church week after week and, if we are blessed, twice a week, for corporate worship. One of the most important elements of that holy assembly of the Christ-Confessing covenant people is the preaching of the Word. Yet, were we . . . Continue reading →
Magical Thinking, Grace, And Ted Williams
Americans love a comeback story. Americans also love magic. Sometimes the two converge, as they did in the Ted Williams story. He was a radio announcer with a great voice, who became a drunk and a drug addict. He was on the . . . Continue reading →
Looking For Peter’s Successor
In the last month, we have witnessed the death of one pope and the election of another, and as typically happened, we saw reporters speaking in solemn tones about the unbroken line of succession from Peter to Leo XIV. Also, recent months . . . Continue reading →
Christian Banking?
Planet Money is an interesting and usually fair-minded (they talk to Keynesians and to free-market capitalists) account of economic theory and the global economy. Their most recent podcast was a story about a Spanish savings bank called cajas de ahorros.1 It is . . . Continue reading →
Review: Reformed Confessionalism By D. Blair Smith
![baptism fin [recovered]](https://heidelblog.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/18153622/Smith_Reformed_Confessionalism-300x420.jpg)
When the strongest criticism I can make of a book is that the author used an obscure word (complexify, 45) that says something about the strength of a work.1 Let me say at the outset, I really like this book. This is . . . Continue reading →
When You Pray
And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their . . . Continue reading →
New Insight Into Olevianus And Ursinus On The Imputation Of Active Obedience
The publication of this new research, completed only in the last month, may surprise some readers, disappoint others, and delight still others but it is important research that changes what we know about the origins and development of the controversy over the . . . Continue reading →
The Reality Of Neo-Paganism
Two days ago (Monday, 21 June 2010) was the summer solstice (from Latin sol [sun] + sistere [to stand]). The AP reports that “Thousands of New Agers and neo-pagans danced and whooped in delight Monday as a bright early morning sun rose . . . Continue reading →
What Is A Reformed Liturgy? (Part 2)
What follows is intended to reflect the liturgies of Geneva (1542), Strasbourg (1545), and Heidelberg (1563) but I have borrowed language from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the Forms and Prayers of the United Reformed Churches in North America. Continue reading →
The Canons Of Dork #40 For June 7, 2025
Consider your options. Continue reading →
On Precisionism And Latitudinarianism (Again)
In 1520 Martin Luther published one of his most influential treatises, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. In it he attempted to set the church free from bondage to human opinion by unleashing again, as it were, God’s Word as the . . . Continue reading →
What Is A Reformed Liturgy? (Part 1)
“Because of the angels . . .” (1 Cor 11:10). Paul uses this profound and striking phrase in the eleventh chapter of 1 Corinthians, but because of all the issues Paul was addressing in the Corinthian congregation, many of which continued to plague the . . . Continue reading →
The New Inquisition: Illiberalism In The Modern Academy
Most college students are taught that, in the pre-Enlightenment world, religious zealots persecuted enlightened astronomers for daring to challenge deeply held but ignorant religious beliefs on the basis of early modern science. Whether that story is true as told is immaterial. That . . . Continue reading →
Concerning Scandals And Scandalizers
Richard Nixon (1913–94) was President of the United States from 1968–74. He resigned from office in disgrace because of his part in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal. By today’s standards, the Watergate scandal might be considered small potatoes. Nixon himself, who . . . Continue reading →
The Scandal Of Pagans Leading Worship
Collin Hansen has a fascinating series of interviews on the Gospel Coalition asking a variety of pastors whether they allow those who make no Christian profession, who regard themselves as non-Christians, non-believers, those we used to call “heathen” or “pagans,” to lead . . . Continue reading →
Why Christians Call Mary Theotokos (Part 2)
The great Cappadocian theologian Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329–c. 90) had addressed the same concerns expressed by the Nestorians decades before proclaiming: If anyone does not believe that holy Mary is Theotokos, he is severed from the Godhead. If any one should . . . Continue reading →
Any Text Without A Context Is Pretext For A Prooftext
So said my homiletics (preaching) professor, Derke Bergsma. I do not know if that aphorism was original to Derke (he often quoted R. B. Kuiper to us in class, e.g., “Men, there are three points to every sermon, the text, the text, . . . Continue reading →
Why Christians Call Mary Theotokos (Part 1)
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Deity and also perfect in humanity; truly God and truly man, of a rational soul . . . Continue reading →