Twofold Kingdom

What Can We Do With Natural Law?

by R. Scott Clark on December 5, 2022 | 6 Comments

The two principal reasons the Heidelblog exists (and its parent organization, the Heidelberg Reformation Association) are, first, to encourage Reformed confessing Christians to recover their confession, i.e., both the confessional documents but also the broader and classic Reformed theology, piety, and practice, . . . Continue reading →

Oklahoma Governor Claims State For Christ. Controversy Ensues

by R. Scott Clark on November 15, 2022 | 23 Comments

After his re-election as governor of the State of Oklahoma, the hon. Kevin Stitt appeared at a prayer rally. He said the following: STITT: “Father, we just claim Oklahoma for you. Every square inch, we claim it for you in the name . . . Continue reading →

So You Say You Want A Revolution?

Addressing The Impatience Of Our Age

by R. Scott Clark on November 9, 2022 | 4 Comments

In the wake of the disaster that was World War I, in which about 8.5 million military personnel died and an even greater number of civilians died, there developed in this country and in Europe a desire not only for a future . . . Continue reading →

Letter To The Editor Regarding “A Radical Narrowing Of The Gospel”

by William Godfrey on October 20, 2022 | 5 Comments

Editor’s Note: The following is a letter to the editor in response to an article by the Rev. Mr. Doug Barnes, “A Radical Narrowing of the Gospel,” in The Outlook vol. 72, issue 5 (Sept/Oct, 2022). § Dear Sir, I just read . . . Continue reading →

Lamenting Christendom

by R. Scott Clark on October 17, 2022

What difference should the visible church make in the broader culture? How significant should it be? How one answers this question tells us something about how one views the relations between Christ and culture and the evident death of Christendom. Defining Christendom . . . Continue reading →

The Crisis Of The Hour: Christ And Culture

by R. Scott Clark on October 10, 2022

There may be no more pressing issue before Christians (as individuals) and the visible church (as a corporate body) than the question of Christ and culture. Much of what concerns us all just now goes back, in one way or another, to . . . Continue reading →

A Word About “R2K” (4): The Church

by R. Scott Clark on October 6, 2022 | 9 Comments

There have been rumblings and indications for several months (or more) online, on social media and in the email list for URCNA pastors that something was forthcoming and now it is before us. The Synod of the URCNA convenes in 12 days in Buffalo, NY. There the churches will consider an overture from Classis Michigan that seeks to address the controversy via “pastoral advice.” Continue reading →

A Word About “R2K” (3): Rhetoric

by R. Scott Clark on October 5, 2022 | 7 Comments

What I have not done yet, however, is to define “R2K.” This is, in part, because many of the critics (especially on social media) do not seem to know what they mean by it other than to say that it is something that someone told them leads to bad social outcomes. Continue reading →

A Word About “R2K” (2): History

by R. Scott Clark on October 3, 2022 | 12 Comments

So far I have been explaining, in part, why the early Reformation (e.g., Luther) distinction between “two kingdoms” and Calvin’s (beginning in 1536) distinction between two spheres in one kingdom has met with such resistance in our time: (1) The Reformed have . . . Continue reading →

A Word About R2K

by R. Scott Clark on September 30, 2022 | 22 Comments

Since David VanDrunen published, in 2010, the first volume in what has become a series of important volumes, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought, Emory University Studies in Law and Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), there has been a certain degree of controversy in some quarters of the confessional Reformed world over the recovery of the “two kingdoms” as a way of thinking about Christ and culture and ethics. Continue reading →

Millennials And The Fallout Of Post-Political Evangelicalism

by Heidelblog on July 26, 2022

Young Evangelicals, we are told, leave the faith because Evangelicals have changed political and social behaviors. There is little evidence for that. What evidence that is offered—Trump’s supposed popularity—is more evidence of Evangelicals not changing their political habits than of them changing. . . . Continue reading →

Christian, Get Involved

by R. Scott Clark on June 18, 2022 | 7 Comments

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 →