This morning I read an account of a NAPARC pastor who confessed to violating his vows, of abusing his congregation, of violating the sixth and ninth commandments. Continue reading
July 2021 Archive
Trueman: The Danger Of A Carefully Curated Silence
When I was preaching week by week to the same congregation, one of my fundamental convictions was that I needed to keep politics out of the pulpit. Perhaps I should express that more precisely: I needed to keep party politics out of . . . Continue reading →
They Turned The Covenant Of Grace Into A Covenant Of Works (Or Why The Distinction Between Law And Gospel Matters)
Understanding The Duplex Regimen Would Also Help
…In replying to DeYoung, Kwon and Thompson could have replied in kind, foregrounding theological questions raised by DeYoung. Indeed, they could easily have made the case that on the merits of DeYoung’s own theology he should be far more concerned about justice . . . Continue reading →
A Note To My Hometown About The Drag Queen Story Hour And The Powers That Be
The lede in the Lincoln Journal-Star says it all (and perhaps more than the writer intended): “A planned drag queen story hour started like a normal event for the Lincoln group, said organizer Waylon Werner-Bassen.” He was talking about a private event . . . Continue reading →
Pandemic Living: Facts About Loneliness
Everyone likes to be alone; no one likes to be lonely. Being alone is fine. We need time by ourselves. Being lonely is not fine. We are made to be social. Large portions of Americans are disconnected from normal connecting institutions. And . . . Continue reading →
What Reformed Churches Can Learn From Mark Driscoll
…A new megachurch in Lynden was drawing out the boomers from classic Reformed churches by the thousands. This church purchased the local shopping mall and created the closest thing as they could achieve, in appearance and message, to Rick Warren’s Saddleback church, . . . Continue reading →
New Resource Page: Reformed Piety
Theology, piety, and practice— regular Heidelblog readers and Heidelcast listeners will be familiar with that formula. In classic and confessional Reformed Christianity these three things have always been understood to be intimately, organically related to each other. Our piety flows from our . . . Continue reading →
Searching For An Aid To Piety?
Tending to the means of grace in public worship every Lord’s Day should be at the top of the list for anyone who wants to improve his personal and family piety. Further, people who are committed to spending more time in Bible . . . Continue reading →
Racism Is A Sin And A Social Problem But Maoist Struggle Sessions Are Not The Answer
This is Penn State sociology prof, Sam Richards teaching Sociology 119. It is fine for a prof to call out a student for being unprepared but it is fundamentally wrong and un-American to humiliate a student for an immutable characteristic. Continue reading →
“It is difficult To Imagine A Ruling More Hostile To Free Speech”
In a stunning ruling yesterday in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, a divided panel of the Tenth Circuit held that Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act “permissibly compels” a graphic and website design company to offer wedding websites that “celebrate same-sex marriages” if it is . . . Continue reading →
Former Mars Hill Elders Plead For Driscoll To Resign Over Continuing Abuse Of The Sheep
Kate Shellnut posted a story yesterday at Christianity Today revealing that 39 elders from the former Mars Hill church, from which Mark Driscoll was removed because he abused the staff and members, have published a letter calling for him to resign from . . . Continue reading →
Heidelcast 187: What Must A Christian Believe? (5): The Holy Trinity
The Heidelcast is back and better than ever, well, as mediocre as ever anyway. As I’m recording this it’s late July and I’m trying to finish the commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism. Something had to give way so I put the Heidelcast . . . Continue reading →
Grammar Guerrilla: It Is “He And I” Not “Me And Him”
I have been warning students for some years about the impending collapse of Western civilization. It used to be a joke. Now, the warnings are rueful. Another evidence that the end is closer than it might seem is the apparent loss of . . . Continue reading →
We Are Like Nube
Someone from my part of town just reported that her gray cockatiel, “Nube,” just out the door toward the local high school. Continue reading
A Brief Note On The “Higher Life” Allegation Against The Critics Of Side-B/Revoice Theology
I am in the throes of trying to make real progress on the commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I hope to finish the section on Heidelberg Catechism 92. Continue reading
What Is Orthodoxy?
A reader wrote to ask about the definition of orthodoxy. Continue reading
There Is No Evidence That Calvin Bowled On The Christian Sabbath
A remarkably durable anecdote about John Calvin, the great Protestant Reformer of Geneva, is often related by those critical of the Puritan view of the Sabbath…The goal seems to be to demonstrate that the Reformers were not tainted with that ‘pharisaical’ of . . . Continue reading →
Would You Know A Bad-Faith Argument If You Saw One?
These questions, however—important as they are—do not yet capture the essence of our disagreement. In our view, our disagreement lies not in the questions themselves, but in the starkly differing ways in which we respectively relate to them. Namely, while DeYoung appears . . . Continue reading →
On The Value Of Confessions
More On Calvin’s Children
It is difficult to know the details of Calvin’s family life and there remains some uncertainty about the number of Calvin’s biological children but it has been known for centuries that Calvin married the widow Idellete de Bure in 1540. She brought . . . Continue reading →