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 is professor emeritus of church history and historical theology at Westminster Seminary California, where he taught for 29 years. He also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007 and the Heidelcast since 2009.
Broadly, in evangelicalism, there are two stances toward the Ten Commandments or the moral law. For many, if not most evangelicals, it is believed that the Ten Commandments are so uniquely Mosaic, so identified with the Mosaic epoch in redemptive history, that . . . Continue reading →
In response to yesterday’s column, a correspondent to the HB asked how we know that racism is sin. It is true that I assumed that we all know that racism is sin, that it is obvious on the face of Scripture but . . . Continue reading →
Racism is sin. There can be no hedging or qualifying here. To regard another image bearer as inferior because of his ethnicity is sin and has no place in the church of Jesus Christ. God’s Word is clear about the only remedy . . . Continue reading →
Not very long ago, as recently as the 1950s and 60s, the most remote public school student in America learned a little Latin. By remote I mean, e.g., rural villages in Nebraska. By the 1970s, however, Latin went the way of phonics . . . Continue reading →
In Colossians 2:8 Paul warned the Colossians Christians not to be taken captive by unbelieving ways of thinking (philosophies) nor by “the stoicheia (στοιχεῖα) of the world.” The noun stoicheia is usually translated with something like “elemental principles” or the like. That . . . Continue reading →
It was a pleasure to join Chris Gordon recently to talk about one of my favorite books, Christianity and Liberalism. Published in 1923, it became Machen’s most well-known work. In it he lays out briefly but clearly the difference between Christianity as . . . Continue reading →
Unless you are a member of a congregation of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America (RPCNA, “the Covenanters”) or another similar denomination, in all probability the way your congregation worships today is not much like the way Reformed and Presbyterian congregations worshiped in the 16th and 17th centuries. If, however, you are like most other P&R Christians, you probably are not aware of that discrepancy. You might assume that the way your congregation conducts its public worship is the way the P&R churches have always done but, in fact, that assumption would not be justified. Continue reading →
Roseanne is back on television and to great success. The pilot for the renewal of the twenty-year old series did so well in the overnight ratings that season 2 has already been picked up. Most of the attention has focused on the . . . Continue reading →
Westminster Seminary California has been preparing men to enter pastoral ministry since 1980. More than 1,100 students have graduated and about 70% of them are preaching the gospel across the globe, making hospital calls, doing the work of an evangelist, and a . . . Continue reading →
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and *saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other . . . Continue reading →
Course Description and Objectives: This course is designed to introduce graduate students to skills, practices and research trends in contemporary historical theology. Over the last fifty years the discipline of intellectual history, a subset of which is historical theology, has been at . . . Continue reading →
In October of 1545, Heinrich von Wolfenbüttel (1489–1568), the Romanist Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneberg-Wolfenbüttel, in the process of a attempting to recover lands taken from him by the Protestant Schmalkald League (in 1542), was taken captive along with his sons. The Lutheran territories . . . Continue reading →
When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages of its progress are always three. It begins by asking toleration. Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few, and . . . Continue reading →
The late-modern period is a a time of disillusionment in the West and perhaps nowhere else is that disillusionment more acute than in America where, since at the least the early 20th century, the false promises of Modernity (human perfectibility, the universal . . . Continue reading →
I have been thinking some lately about Karl Marx (1818–83). Now, it has been a few decades since I have read Marx but I did read him a fair bit in University as an undergraduate. I think my various Political Science professors . . . Continue reading →
The most disturbing part is that many seem completely oblivious to the shifts. Among a new generation of Reformed pastors and churchgoers, there seems to be little awareness that the project they are pursuing, and the shifts they are pushing, have already . . . Continue reading →
I first became aware of the story of the frog in the kettle when I read George Barna’s 1990 book, The Frog in the Kettle: What the Christian Community Needs to Know About Life in the Year 2000 (Ventura, CA.: Regal Books, . . . Continue reading →
Johnny Carson was a kid from Nebraska, who hosted The Tonight Show from 1962–92. One of his more famous recurring gags was Carnac the Magnificent, ostensibly a magician—Carson had a magic act as a high school and college student—who was able to . . . Continue reading →