This one will not be easy to change but it is easy enough to understand. Hopefully is an adverb, a word that modifies a verb (an action word). Thus, a correct usage would be: “Hopefully, he rose to address the assembly.” In . . . Continue reading →
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.
The Intoxicating Power Of Moral Superiority
A while back some of us were discussing the problem of political correctness on university campuses, freedom of thought and speech, and speech codes. If universities were meant to be places of open enquiry, where theories may be proposed and debated, then . . . Continue reading →
The Gnostic Dualism Of The God Of Niceness
Dave writes to ask how we should respond to this: “I embrace the all-loving God of the New Testament and not the mean pompous God of the Old Testament”? We should respond to this proposition the way Christians have done since the . . . Continue reading →
Zwingli On Covenant And Baptism (1527)
A synopsis of Zwingli’s 1527 Refutation of the Tricks of the Catabaptists .Ulrich Zwingli, Selected Works, ed. Samuel Macauley Jackson (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972). Baptism is being enrolled by an “oath of allegiance” (sacramentum) into the church visible, an initiation into the . . . Continue reading →
Reformed And Pentecostal?
In view of the controversy over the recent Strange Fire conference up the road, it seemed like a good time to re-post this HB classic from 2008. § James K. A. Smith has an interesting post at Christianity Today, Teaching a Calvinist to Dance. . . . Continue reading →
Carl And Todd Are Not Nice
So far the best thing about the Mortification of Spin podcast has been the occasional appearances—an odd word for a aural medium—of Aimee Byrd. One of these days she might just roller-skate right over to Philadelphia and then whammo! Certainly they are proving . . . Continue reading →
On The Wisdom Of Screens
Until very recently, if I mentioned screen and church in the same sentence one would have thought of a rood (Saxon for “cross”) screen, which separates the nave from the chancel. There, in the chancel, is the altar and the choir in . . . Continue reading →
An Aggressively Inarticulate Generation
(HT: Sung Yeo)
Mortimer Adler On How To Read A Book (And Why)
Few books are as needed today as Mortimer Adler’s How To Read A Book. It might be an encouragement, however, before you read, or while you’re between chapters, to watch Adler and Charles Van Doren talk about different ways to read and . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: The Lordship Controversy Is Back
This is season 5 of Office Hours and we’re talking about sanctification: New Life In The Shadow Of Death. In this episode, Mike Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics, and I time travel to the “Lordship Controversy” that raged . . . Continue reading →
Rural North County: Palms and Plows
This gallery contains 7 photos.
The Psalms Are Transcultural
(HT: Leon Brown)
A Bibliography of Historical Theology and Historiography
Note: This bibliography is intended to alert HT students to the existence of some important and/or useful works for students of historical theology. I have omitted standard and older works in church history (e.g., Schaff) and reference works, since they are available . . . Continue reading →
Chronology Of The Medieval And Reformation Church
Drafted c. 1995. Last revision, 2024. § 1100 c. b. Peter Lombard (1160). Magister Sententiae). 1155–58 Lombard publishes Sententiarum libri quatuor (Sentences in Four Books), which will be mandated in at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) as the standard textbook for theology . . . Continue reading →
The Avignon Papacy
Avignon Rome Pisa 1305 Clement V 1316 John XXII 1328 Nicholas V* [1328–30] 1334 Benedict XII 1342 Clement VI 1352 Innocent VI 1362 Urban V 1370 Gregory . . . Continue reading →
Cromwell: Simul Iustus Et Peccator
Judging by his serene expression, he certainly doesn’t look like a man who should have changed England’s politics, culture and history forever. I refer to Oliver Cromwell and his expression preserved for the ages in his death mask on display at Warwick . . . Continue reading →
Has The Church Replaced Israel?
It is a common canard among Dispensationalists that Reformed theology must teach that the church “replaces” Israel. They call this “Replacement Theology.” That must is what is known as an a priori, something that someone “knows” before they’ve actually looked at the . . . Continue reading →
The Irony Of The Coming Dark Age (Updated Again)
The old schoolbook story of the middle ages describes the entire period as the “dark ages.” Of course that’s rubbish. There was a period of chaos in the early medieval period but there were also periods of remarkable learning and the renewal . . . Continue reading →
Renewed And Improved: Gillespie Against The Normative Principle Of Worship
When I first came into contact with the Reformed faith about 33 years ago, there were two things that Reformed folk had to believe: divine sovereignty and the inerrancy of Scripture. It’s not that we actively disbelieved the other elements of the . . . Continue reading →
New Article: Law And Gospel In Early Reformed Orthodoxy
Richard Muller recently celebrated his 65th birthday to mark that occasion and as part the 20th anniversary of the PhD program at Calvin Seminary, he was presented with a Festschrift (celebration book) in his honor. Jordan Ballor has the details on Opuscula . . . Continue reading →















