According to the Presbyterian Layman Online (HT: AR) the PCUSA (the mainline, overwhelmingly liberal presbyterian denomination in N. America) has appointed a new director of what the Layman calls “controversial Washington lobbying office of the Presbyterian Church (USA).” My guess is that the . . . Continue reading →
sacred-secular distinction
Between Pearls And Privatization
For Christians this is question of how to relate Christ and culture, or how to relate nature and grace. This is an ancient problem. The apostolic and early post-apostolic Christians faced this problem acutely. Our Lord commanded us to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” (Matt 22:21). The assumption behind the our Lord’s teaching is, of course, that some things are legitimately Casesar’s and some things are not. Our Lord drew a line in the sand when he informed Pilate that his “kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). The apostles faced this problem acutely when they were commanded to stop preaching the gospel. The Apostle Peter spoke for all of us when he replied, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Continue reading →
Paul On The Sacred/Secular Distinction In 1 Corinthians 8–11
Over the last century it has become widely held among Bible-believing Christians that we ought not recognize a distinction between the sacred and the secular. A Google search for “sacred secular distinction” brings up plenty of examples of such a rejection. The . . . Continue reading →
Our Secular Life Is A Covenant Of Works
It is vital for Christians to understand that, for their standing with God (justification) and their gracious and gradual conformity to Christ (sanctification), i.e., for their salvation from the wrath to come and their deliverance from the bondage of sin, they are . . . Continue reading →
A New Religion With A New Sacrament?
John Calvin (1509–64) famously wrote that the human heart is a “perpetual factory of idols” (Institutes 1.11.18).
Christian, Get Involved
One of the more pernicious misrepresentations of the distinction between the eternal and temporal spheres of Christ’s kingdom, which Calvin called the “twofold kingdom” (Institutes, 3.19.15), is that it counsels or leads Christians to withdraw from society (e.g., politics). Nothing could be . . . Continue reading →
Secular When It Should Be Sacred
A significant part of the process of recovering and applying classical Reformed theology to our contemporary situation (sometimes called ressourcement, a French word which refers to getting back to original sources) is recovering the distinctions that we lost in the 19th and . . . Continue reading →
Heidelcast For July 3, 2022: A Mailbag Episode
During Dr Clark’s summer trip to Nebraska the mailbag (and Heideltext inbox) filled up so what was supposed to be an episode on the Canons of Dort became a Q&A episode. Never fear. The episode for next week returns to the Canons. . . . Continue reading →