Retrieving Reformed Protestantism: A Review of Matthew Bingham’s A Heart Aflame for God

In his manifesto advocating theological retrieval for evangelicals, Gavin Ortlund notes that theological retrieval resists precise definition. Instead, Ortlund describes the trend as “an overall attitude guided by the conviction that premodern resources are not an obstacle in the age of progress but a well in the age of thirst.”[1] This new “attitude” of openness toward pre-Reformation theological sources among evangelical scholars has led to fruitful discoveries as evangelicals continue to realize that church history did not begin the moment a German monk nailed his disputation to a Wittenberg church door.

Recently, however, Shawn Wright has cautioned against one unintended consequence of evangelical theological retrieval. He notes that many pursue retrieval from dissatisfaction with our post-Enlightenment age and desire “to go back in time to a better way of doing theology.” For many in this group, retrieval offers “an escape from and an answer to the power of modernity” and eventually leads them “to leave evangelicalism altogether.” To those drawn to this path, Wright warns, “Beware of assuming that because something is old it must ipso facto be good.”

As evangelicals mine the medieval period for theological guidance, for example, they must remember that that era bequeathed the heinous theological system that made the Protestant Reformation necessary. By elevating Thomas Aquinas as “the patron saint of orthodoxy,” classical theism unwittingly invites other components of Thomas’ erroneous system to “come into the evangelical stream of consciousness.”[2]

Matthew Bingham’s A Heart Aflame for God does not explicitly address these questions. Nevertheless, Bingham’s book makes a significant contribution to this discussion by commending the distinct Reformed Protestant approach to spiritual formation. In an age when many are disillusioned with the superficiality of contemporary evangelicalism and searching for greater spiritual depth, Bingham calls the evangelical church to retrieve its own rich heritage. For those interested in retrieval in the area of spiritual formation, Bingham points to Reformed Protestantism and especially the English Puritans as a worthy tradition that combined theological faithfulness with experiential religion and theological monergism with the biblical call to pursue growth through “our active, intentional effort and energy” (22).

To center his discussion of Reformed Protestant spiritual formation, Bingham borrows the concept of “keeping the heart” from the English Puritans. Of course, the Puritans derived this emphasis from Proverbs 4:23, which states, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” For the Puritans “keeping the heart” involved the negative practice of avoiding sin combined with a positive emphasis on “saying yes to God and the things of God” (25). Since Scripture depicts the heart as the control center of the entire person, the Puritans focused there as the key to directing a person’s thoughts, emotions, desires, and behaviors. For Bingham, therefore, “keeping the heart” summarizes the goal of Puritan spiritual formation.

The Reformed Protestant tradition viewed all growth as deriving from one’s union with Christ through the gospel. Practically, this approach prioritized the written Word of God (71), rejected “extrabiblical accretions” (76), and sought to engage the heart through the mind (80). Bingham extols a simple and repeatable process for readers: hear from God through reading the Bible, meditate deeply on some aspect of what you’ve read, and pray in response to what God has revealed. Bingham devotes a lengthy chapter to each of these three components, providing practical instruction from Reformation, Puritan, and even modern authors from this tradition. He then dedicates chapters to self-examination, the role of the natural world, and the importance of Christian relationships. Finally, he concludes with two chapters that anticipate objections and potential pitfalls.

In a chapter called, “What about the Body?” Bingham takes on James K. A. Smith’s critique of word-centered spiritual formation. In several books, Smith argues that human beings are primarily lovers instead of thinkers. Thus, spiritual formation must seek the heart, not through the intellect, but through the body (293). He commends embodied “liturgies,” or repeated physical habits, to orient one’s heart toward the kingdom of God. The way to love rightly, according to Smith, is “through embodied ritual practices” (289).

Bingham concurs with Smith’s anthropological observation that humans are primarily lovers instead of thinkers. However, he rejects the claim that loves are shaped by bypassing the mind and engaging with embodied rituals. Bingham’s conclusion points readers back to the Reformed tradition: “The answer to a dry, unimaginative spiritual life is not less word and more ritual but, with our Reformed forebears, more emphasis on a word-centered piety that actively stirs up the heart” (303).

A Heart Aflame for God depicts the richness of Reformed spirituality and provides a compelling invitation to enter that tradition. The book misses an opportunity to commend the church’s role in spiritual formation, but Bingham’s chapter on Christian relationships at least avoids the individualist error. Overall, Bingham’s book helpfully models theological retrieval without doctrinal compromise and champions the word-centered piety of the Reformed Protestant tradition.

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[1] Gavin Ortlund, Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 17.

[2] Shawn Wright, “The Reformation, Baptists and Biblical Retrieval,” faculty address, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, February 5, 2026, YouTube video, 42:00,