Americans know in their heart of hearts they are going to die, but they do not like to admit it. It is a mark of our post-Christianity that this culture is so obsessed with youth and beauty. Most folk do not die . . . 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 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.
What Is And Is Not New About The New Covenant
Because the Baptist tradition(s) operate from a set of assumptions that are, in certain important ways, distinct from those with which the Reformation churches operate regarding the history of redemption it can be a challenge for those of us within the Reformed . . . Continue reading →
Lordship Salvation, The Federal Vision, And The Covenant Theology That The Reformation Rejected
Or Why History Is Useful
More than twenty years ago, in the summer of 2001, Mike Horton and I were sitting beside a hotel swimming pool one evening during Synod Escondido, along with several ministers from our federation (denomination) of churches (the United Reformed Churches in North . . . Continue reading →
The Canons Of Dork #11 For January 7, 2023
It’s not adding up. Continue reading →
Embracing The Reformation Doctrine Of Salvation Is Not “Wearying From The Battle”
John MacArthur is the old lion of modified Dispensationalism, which has been a gateway for many into the Reformation, but which has also been an obstacle to the Reformation. State Of The Controversy One way in which that has been true is . . . Continue reading →
Top Ten Posts Of 2022 And More! Happy New Year From The Heidelblog
Happy New Year from the Heidelblog! This is the 15th year of the Heidelblog (including its progenitor) and the top posts of the year reflect the happenings in the P&R world and beyond. The virus has subsided, but the spiritual effects continue to . . . Continue reading →
One Major Difference Between The Reformed And The Evangelicals
American evangelical religion, whether one traces it to Edwards, Whitefield, and Wesley or to the nineteenth-century revivalists (e.g., Charles Finney), has always been oriented around personalities. Reasonably, American evangelical Christians nurtured in the personality-oriented tradition assume that pattern as the norm when . . . Continue reading →
The Canons Of Dork #10 For December 24, 2022
The Mrs Strikes Again Continue reading →
Polity Matters: How Reformed Churches Might Have Handled The Chandler Situation
Matt Chandler is the lead pastor of The Village Church, a megachurch of about 14,000 members in Flower Mound, TX, which is a northern suburb in the Dallas-Ft Worth metroplex (it is the top of the triangle of the three). After the . . . Continue reading →
Good News! The HRA Is A Non-Profit Organization
Just a quick note before the end of the year from your friends at the Heidelberg Reformation Association. The HRA is now a 501(c)(3) organization. This means that your gifts to the HRA are tax-deductible. As we come to the end of . . . Continue reading →
On Cancelling The Christian Sabbath And The Means Of Grace
Or Why Christ Is More Important Than Christmas
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the . . . Continue reading →
Saturday Psalm Series: Keith Getty’s Critique Of Contemporary Worship Music Is A Step In The Right Direction
In 2008, Mike Horton called attention to the phenomenon of a radically subjective turn in American evangelicalism, in Christless Christianity. Unfortunately, a single book diagnosing the deep sickness of American evangelical Christianity was not enough to turn the tide. In that volume, Mike . . . Continue reading →
In Praise Of (Renaissance) Humanism
Since the literal sense is that which the author intends, and since the author of Holy Writ is God, Who by one act comprehends all things by His intellect, it is not unfitting, as Augustine says (Confess. xii), if, even according to . . . Continue reading →
The Distinction Between Law And Gospel Emerged From Augustine’s Struggle With Pelagius
When many Christians think about the Reformation, they do not think about the distinction between law and gospel. Indeed, it is a truism for not a few modern Reformed folk that the distinction between law and gospel is solely a Lutheran conviction. . . . Continue reading →
A New Devotional Drawn From The Works Of “The Sweet Dropper”
Many English (and Dutch) speaking Christians have a particular affection for and connection to that varied and complex movement known as Puritanism, usually described in this space as English Reformed theology. One of the English Reformed theologians to whom my friend Paul . . . Continue reading →
Paying Tuition To Sodom
In this space I have been very critical of American public education and rightly so. It was a flawed system from its beginnings in the nineteenth century (which probably did a better job of educating students than its intellectual foundations even intended) . . . Continue reading →
Saturday Psalm Series: Singing In Acts 16:25 And Plausibility Structures
In the English Standard Version, Acts 16:25 says “[a]bout midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them…”. Several other translations (e.g., NASB, NIV, TEV, ASV, RSV, NLT, NKJV, HCSB) follow this or a . . . Continue reading →
Canons Of Dork #9 For December 10, 2022
Tis the season. Continue reading →
The Narcissism of Evangelical Latitudinarianism
This essay was written before I published Recovering the Reformed Confession (2008), which, remarkably and quite unexpectedly, remains in print. In it, I interacted with a book review published in Christianity Today which serves as a symbol of the way Pietists and modern evangelicals . . . Continue reading →
Nature Is Nature (And Cloud Cuckoo Land Is Just That)
In 1996, the United States Senate passed and President Bill Clinton signed into law the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA). The bill said, No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to . . . Continue reading →