Tag Archives: Confessionalism

The Church Is Revival

By D. G. Hart | Published: March 4, 2011

Why are the people who long for and advocate revivals so negative? What I mean is that the desire for revival appears to breed a fair amount of discontentment. Church members aren’t godly or zealous enough, the pastor isn’t evangelistic enough, the church is too small – these are the sorts of criticisms that are… Read More→

Posted in Piety without Exuberance | Also tagged | 32 Comments

I Did Not Know that Idaho Was In Canada

By D. G. Hart | Published: February 14, 2011

Over the weekend I was doing a little internet searching for churches that still confess the 16th and 17th century Reformed teachings on the civil magistrate’s role. Practically all of the Reformed and Presbyterian churches, both mainline and conservative, have modified the creeds of the Reformation and scholastic eras, even to the point, in the… Read More→

Posted in Christian politics | Also tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Point of Order: Even for Covenanters 2k Is Confessional

By D. G. Hart | Published: September 20, 2010

The grenade that Tim Bayly tossed about the infidelity of 2k ministers sent a lot of shrapnel flying over at Greenbaggins where critics of 2k have repeatedly claimed that two-kingdom theology is outside the bounds of Reformed confessionalism. (So far Rabbi Bret has yet to weigh in directly. Since the Baylys treated him the way… Read More→

Posted in Christian politics | Also tagged , | 60 Comments

Confession of Faith or Health Care Legislation?

By D. G. Hart | Published: September 4, 2010

My confession of faith is not the Westminster Confession. It is the confession of my communion, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Of course, our confession bears many resemblances to the Westminster Confession. But if folks look at the publication of our confession, neatly produced by the Committee on Christian Education, it reads, the “Confession of Faith… Read More→

Posted in Confessionalism, Paleo Calvinism | Also tagged , , , , | 23 Comments

Forensic Friday: Reformed and Lutherans Make Music

By D. G. Hart | Published: July 9, 2010

Reformed Protestants these days tend to be absorbed with the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards and for good reason. These are the confessions of most extant Reformed and Presbyterian communions. But as the current project of Jim Dennison indicates, the confessional output of Protestantism was vast and many of the Reformed churches’… Read More→

Posted in The Hinge | Also tagged , , , | 1 Comment

If Reformed Needs To Be Distinguished from Puritan, Why Not Presbyterian?

By D. G. Hart | Published: June 8, 2010

Some historians of seventeenth-century British Protestantism are dismissive of attempts to distinguish between Puritans and Presbyterians. Part of the problem, of course, involves definitions and categories. When it comes to politics, differences between Presbyterians and Puritans do not become clear until the 1650s with the regime of Oliver Cromwell since Puritans in Parliament joined forces… Read More→

Posted in New World Presbyterianism, Old World Presbyterianism | Also tagged , , , | 9 Comments

All Spirit, No Body: Evangelicalism’s Gnostic Problem

By D. G. Hart | Published: April 19, 2010
ghostbusters

The Evangelical Manifesto has pretty much come and gone. (It’s domain name has actually expired.) It was supposed to give evangelicalism, sagging with the worries and fears of the Religious Right, a face lift. And then along came Sarah Palin and the chances for evangelicalism finding a prettier face happened, but not the way the… Read More→

Posted in Neo-Protestantism | Also tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Scott Clark Has a Point

By D. G. Hart | Published: March 16, 2010

(Or, show me your confessionalism!) In Recovering the Reformed Confession, Scott Clark argues for and understanding of the Christian ministry and piety that informed the confessions of the Reformed churches pretty much all the way down to when Boy George (Whitefield) set foot in the North American British colonies. Among the points Clark makes is… Read More→

Posted in Piety with Excitement, Piety without Exuberance | Also tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

For Doug Wilson Apparently Being Reformed Means Evangelicalism That Is Effective

By D. G. Hart | Published: March 1, 2010

Doug Wilson joins the Bayly Bros in heaping scorn on our good friend Scott Clark and the case for recovering the Reformed confessions. To Doug’s credit, he avoids the vituperative edge that characterizes the Baylys’ outbursts. What unites Wilson and the Brothers Bayly in their criticism of Clark, apart from disdain for Meredith Kline, mind… Read More→

Posted in Neo-Protestantism | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | 195 Comments