R. Scott Clark, pope of the 'Reformed' practical deists

These are the words of R. Scott Clark, as professor at a 'Reformed seminary' in California:

As I said above, I have spent plenty of time in the streets doing evangelism. To borrow from Paul, I must be out my mind to talk like this but I’m a certified EE trainer. I was doing street evangelism when you were in diapers.

Translation: I hit the street for an hour and a half in 1982, and like a life-long housewife who worked for all of two months at a retail store before she got married I've been repeating that episode, in world-weary tones, as if it was the greater part of my life ever since.

There’s a reason I don’t do it any more. It might have been emotionally satisfying but it didn’t produce much visible fruit for the visible church.

Wow, this Reformed professor really has a deep understanding of how planting the seed of the Word of God works in people, doesn't he? You mean the people you evangelized didn't on-the-spot get down on their knees and revere you as an accredited, ordained cleric? It's easy to see your disappointment.

Further, the culture has changed rather markedly since then. I’m not saying that no one should do it but I would certainly say that there’s no moral obligation for us to be “on the streets.”

Maybe not you, but it helps if the actual Word of God is out there in some fashion, preferably 'uncut' (to use street lingo, ha ha). And, by the way, it's good to know that culture has changed to the point where evangelism is no longer necessary. See, I thought human nature and the human condition were rather universal and pretty much static (the fallen parts anyway) despite what TV shows or pop song styles you're currently listening to.

Relative to strategy, I think it’s much wiser for God’s people to be concentrating, as it were, on those with whom they actually have a relationship.

Hear that Celtic missionaries who traveled far and wide to evangelize pagan tribes throughout Europe? What were you thinking?

As to ministers, I will be happy if they will simply preach Christ every week instead of trying to take back the culture for Christ or instead of preaching 10 steps to a fulfilled life or whatever. That’s what I mean by evangelism: ministers announcing the good news in the pulpit. That’s not a great burden; it’s a great joy!

Yeah, don't do embarrassing things! Stay in the Village of Morality where everybody already thinks alike, and don't worry about those people on the outside. Only evangelize people who are born into your church. Preferably people who are only born in your actual church building.

You might say: but that’s not very effective and I will repy: that’s the point. There’s a reason Paul calls the preaching of the gospel foolishness.

Oh, yeah, you've got that verse down, don't you, professor? The Gospel is foolishness because it is preached behind four walls where people on the outside can't hear it and thus it is ineffective. Show me the commentary you got that out of, I want to burn it now.

Yes, it’s a horribly ineffective method from the point of view of modern, entrepreneurial, evangelicalism but Jesus isn’t apparently very interested in numbers or success or as we define those things.

Didn't, though, you just say you stopped preaching on the street because it wasn't effective (as you understand effectiveness of course)? Now you're saying if you'd been drawing large crowds to yourself you'd have quit as well. I think you're a bit confused, professor.

He passed by people and never healed them. Should we remonstrate with God the Son for his lack of compassion. Did he drive out every single demon? Did he leave some folk in the grave? How “effective” was that? What sort of way is that for Jesus to bring his kingdom? I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to trust that the King knows what he’s doing.

Miracles performed by Jesus were special revelation designed to let people know He was who He said He was, they weren't supposed to be universal health care. (This shows why seminaries are inane institutions. Clark is a professor of church history, or some such specialty, yet his knowledge and understanding of the actual Word of God is at the level of Tammy Faye Bakker. This can only happen in inane educational institutions such as seminaries.)

He gave the keys to the visible institutional church. Full stop. That’s the great truth with which the modern revivialist movement has not grasped.

In the actual Bible it doesn't say visible, institutional. The Bible obviously defines church in many ways, the big, general way being the invisible church of which Christ is King. Interestingly this is how classical Reformed theologians define it as well. But this professor, R. Scott Clark, is not a classically Reformed Christian. He attacks Puritans, he announces that he is a greater theologian than Jonathan Edwards (I'll wait for the library of books to be written about R. Scott Clark before considering that one). He's a sacramentalist but hides it under a cloak of default practical deism (which his Reformed critics are beginning to see and to label him with). He's basically an unregenerate, angry, Village of Morality academic demanding to be respected as an 'accredited and ordained' cleric and to be honored as a 'scholar' and basically to be treated the way the inane world treats such inane figures.