R. Scott Clark > Quotes

“Fear of scholasticism is the mark of a false prophet. —KARL BARTH”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice

“It is impossible to have the Reformation without orthodoxy, “if only because the intention to identify, present, and preserve Christian orthodoxy in and for the church lay at the very heart of the Reformation. The Reformation without orthodoxy is not the Reformation . . . the severing of piety from scholasticism is also untrue to the historical case.”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice

“Have not all Reformed ministers and elders subscribed a Reformed confession before God and his church, swearing to uphold, teach, and defend the same? If so, are we not all morally obligated to be confessional; if we are not, how did this happen?”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice

“Rationalism and sectarism then are the most dangerous enemies of our church at the present time. They are both but different sides of the one and the same principle—a one-sided false subjectivity, sundered from the authority of the objective. Rationalism is theoretic sectarism; sectarism is practical rationalism.”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice

“What makes us Reformed is how we understand Scripture, and this understanding is summarized in our confession. If we thought that our confession was not biblical, we would not use it, and if anyone can show that our confession is unbiblical, the church ought to revise it to bring it into conformity with Scripture.”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice

“They do not understand that the proper antipode and effective antidote to modernism (theological liberalism) is not Fundamentalism, but Calvinism.147”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice

“Much of what passes as Reformed among our churches is not. Its sources, spirit, and methods are alien to Reformed theology, piety, and practice.”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice

“Much of what passes as Reformed among our churches is not.”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice

“Much of what passes as Reformed among our churches is not. Its sources, spirit, and methods are alien to Reformed theology, piety, and practice. There”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice

“Many Protestant congregations, even those with decidedly low-church pedigrees, are also appropriating liturgy in their worship. In so doing, they not only connect with historic creeds and traditions, they attract a new generation of churchgoers, many of whom have grown weary of the contemporary worship styles that dominate the baby-boomer megachurches.11”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice

“It was this very impulse that caused the Council of Trent, Session 6, to declare that the righteousness with which we are infused, and which increases in believers, is “preserved and also increased before God through good works” (canon 24) and that such righteousness (iustitia) is not “merely fruits of and signs of justification obtained.”214 In effect, Rome came to agree with Paul’s critics in Romans 6:1, “Shall we sin that grace may abound?” The rationalist-moralist answer has always been to preclude anyone from thinking that it might be possible to “sin that grace may abound” by making it very clear that God justifies only good people, but any such doctrine cannot be squared with Paul’s unequivocal declaration in Romans 4:5 that God “justifies the ungodly.”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice

“Reformed confession is the only reasonable basis for a stable definition of the Reformed theology, piety, and practice. As a class of churches that profess allegiance to the Reformed theology, piety, and practice as revealed in God’s Word and summarized in the Reformed confessions, we have drifted from our moorings. Some”
― R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice