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 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.

Rome: “Pay Now Or Pay Later”

by on March 6, 2014 | 1 Comment

(HT: Dabney Olguin) More On This Topic Selling Indulgences In Case You’re Worried About Purgatory Indulgences Are Back Has The Roman Doctrine of Justification Changed? The Treasury Of The Church

Lent: Of Good Intentions, Spiritual Disciplines, and Christian Freedom

by on March 5, 2014 | 17 Comments

Carter Lindberg tells the story of how the Reformation began to break out in Zürich in 1522: During Lent of 1522, Zwingli was at the house of Christoph Froschauer, a printer, who was laboring over the preparation of the a new edition . . . Continue reading →

Office Hours: Mike Horton On Sanctification And The Means Of Grace (2)

by on March 3, 2014 | 2 Comments

If Christians have often been tempted to mysticism (the quest to meet God without instruments, media, or means) they have also been tempted to magic, tempted to turn the sacraments into things they are not. The medieval Western church taught and the . . . Continue reading →

Drawing the Line: Why Doctrine Matters

by on March 1, 2014 | 3 Comments

Imagine Mike. He’s an unusual mechanic. Where other mechanics find natural laws (such as gravity) unavoidable and even useful, he suspects them to be arbitrary, invoked in order to stifle his creativity. We can imagine how the story ends. Cars brought for . . . Continue reading →

You Might Be An Antinomian (Or Maybe Not)

by on February 28, 2014 | 21 Comments

Intermittently over the last 30 years we’ve been discussing justification. It began when Norman Shepherd, who taught at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, proposed in class that sinners are justified through faith and works. He used that language. He used it in a . . . Continue reading →

The Arizona Question

by on February 27, 2014 | 31 Comments

The question isn’t whether businesses run by people opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds should provide their services for gay weddings; it is whether they should be compelled to by government. The critics of the much-maligned Arizona bill pride themselves on . . . Continue reading →

The Christian Faith Is Trinitarian

by on February 26, 2014 | 10 Comments

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 →

The New Penance

by on February 26, 2014 | 4 Comments

And that’s the rub, isn’t it? How can a richeral be redistributionist and statist when such ideologies are targeted at one’s own cherished lifestyle? So penance, medieval exemption, and confessions step in as civilization’s age-old remedies for the guilt of such a . . . Continue reading →