The unbearable lightness of preaching

The therapeutic concerns of the culture too often set the agenda for evangelical preaching. Issues of the self predominate, and the congregation expects to hear simple answers to complex problems. Furthermore, postmodernism claims intellectual primacy in the culture, and even if they do not surrender entirely to doctrinal relativism, the average congregant expects to make his or her own final decisions about all important issues of life, from worldview to lifestyle.

Authentic Christian preaching carries a note of authority and a demand for decisions not found elsewhere in society. The solid truth of Christianity stands in stark contrast to the flimsy pretensions of postmodernity. Unfortunately, the appetite for serious preaching has virtually disappeared among many Christians who are content to have their fascinations with themselves encouraged from the pulpit.

Al Mohler delivers the second in a series of broadsides at the modern pulpit. Good stuff!

The Bible and creation

For a nice blend of topics, sit back first for a leisurely Trueman on the sufficiency of Scripture, and then enjoy a bracing Mohler on the age of the universe. The former provides a good basis for the latter.

Social media

Albert Mohler interviewed about the use of social media.

The noetic effects of sin

According to Al Mohler (as summarised here), there are at least fourteen noetic effects of sin (i.e. the effects of sin on the intellect):

1. Ignorance
2. Distractedness
3. Forgetfulness
4. Prejudice
5. Faulty perspective
6. Intellectual fatigue
7. Inconsistency
8. Failure to draw right conclusions
9. Intellectual apathy
10. Dogmatism and closed-mindedness
11. Intellectual pride
12. Vain imagination
13. Miscommunication
14. Partial knowledge

Check . . . check . . . check . . .

Still plundering pastoral theology

On we go with pastoral theology texts. There seems little doubt that a significant advantage is obtained by the prospective author in this field by having a surname that begins with the letter M (Bs also give a pretty good leg-up). Why this should be so, finer minds than mine must determine, but sheer weight of numbers seems to support the thesis.

Anyway, the full list to date can be found here or from the sidebar under “Pastoral theology.” Comments and further recommendations are appreciated , and if you could put them on the full page, I will be able to keep track of them more readily. Thanks, too, to Paul Levy at Reformation21 for his backhanded recommendation, and to David Murray for promoting the list.

MacArthur, John, et al. Rediscovering Pastoral Ministry: Shaping Contemporary Ministry With Biblical Mandates. Effectively written by a conglomerate, this is a curious mix. There are some sterling chapters, and others that are wordy and bland. Once or twice I think you could argue about the claim for a precise Biblical mandate for all the assertions and practices made. All told, helpful in parts. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

MacArthur, John, et al. Rediscovering Expository Preaching: Balancing the Science and Art of Biblical Exposition. The same unevenness as the former volume, but with more focus, and a generally balanced, sane and instructive treatment of what it means to open up and apply the text. Occasionally falls into the same trap as many such volumes of establishing rules that not all are obliged or able to follow, but worthwhile for a comprehensive overview of the issues. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

McIlvaine, Charles P. Preaching Christ: The Heart of Gospel Ministry. Addressing himself primarily to men setting out in the ministry, this is short and sweet, identifying errors and shortcomings in the preaching of Christ before, in pithy form, exhorting us truly to preach the Lord Jesus as we find him presented in the Scriptures. Good stuff, and a good gift to a young preacher. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

Marcel, Pierre Ch. The Relevance of Preaching. This from a French gentleman is a fine and stimulating little book. Marcel does an excellent job of maintaining the universal and abiding relevance of the Word of God preached while pleading for the cultivation of those qualities which demonstrate its relevance at any particular point of time and space. Very encouraging and instructive. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

Marshall, Colin and Payne, Tony. The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift that Changes Everything. Considers the relationship – and often the imbalance – between the structures and supports of church life and the conversion and growth in grace of the people who make up the church, pleading for an appropriate focus on the latter. Rightly concerned to prompt Christian maturity that enables disciples to invest in the lives of others, but with a few false dichotomies and self-contradictions and a danger of flattening out Christ’s own structures in the church, especially when the notion of vocation (pastoral or otherwise) is fairly swiftly dismissed. Review. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

Martin, Albert N. Preaching in the Holy Spirit. If you have heard Al Martin preach at least twice, then – even without knowing the author beforehand – you would be able to identify him after reading the first paragraph of this book, not to mention the rest of it. The material – the substance of two sermons to pastors – addresses the agency and operations of the Holy Spirit, his indispensable necessity, his specific manifestations, and the restrained or diminished measure of his operations, all focusing on the act of preaching. The author brings the fruit of his study, observations and experience to bear on this topic, giving the reader an appetite for the reality he sketches. It is stirring and necessary stuff, and a powerful corrective to dry, dull, predictable sermonising. Preachers should read this. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

Masters, Peter. Physicians of Souls: The Gospel Ministry. This is really a sustained plea for definite, distinctive, evangelistic preaching, and – as such – has a lot of good counsel. The author has his own distinctive writing style, and his personal convictions come out strongly, as along the way he snipes at several of his bugbears (he takes issue, for example, with the idea of an instantaneous regeneration, preferring the notion of an elongated experience, and advocates certain approaches to preparation and preaching which would leave a man looking and sounding very much like himself). Within its narrow focus, and taking into account the possibility of differing somewhat at certain points, there is much good and stimulating material. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

Mellor, Mike. Look After Your Voice: Taking Care of the Preacher’s Greatest Asset. A sanctified companion to Cicely Berry’s book above, taking particular note of the distinctive demands of the preacher and the specific principles found in the Word of God. A reasonably helpful volume, but needs to be heeded rather than merely read. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

Miller, Samuel. An Able and Faithful Ministry. With 2 Timothy 2.2 in mind, Miller takes up the church’s duty to take appropriate measures for the passing on of the ministerial baton. It is very much of its time and place, but his treatment of the text is robust and the principles behind his explanation and applications worthy of careful consideration. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

Miller, Samuel. The Ruling Elder. Once you allow for the assumptions of the distinction between a ruling and a teaching elder, you can go ahead and glean a lot of useful material from this volume on the whole principle of rule by elder, especially concerning their character and work. Particularly valuable for being so brief and pointed. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

Mohler, R. Albert, Jr. He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World. Helpfully brings some of the timeless principles of proclamation into the postmodern milieu, dressing it up in the kind of language that floats the boat of today’s zestfully intelligent tyro. A high view of preaching, a clear grasp of the present time, and an earnest concern for what is at stake combine to make this an effective treatment of the need to explain and apply God’s Word. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

Murphy, Thomas. Pastoral Theology: The Pastor in the Various Duties of His Office. This 19^th century Presbyterian divine opens with a most helpful definition of pastoral theology, and then goes on to develop it with regard to a pastor’s private person, his preparation and study, his pulpit labours, his personal parochial work, his wider responsibilities in the church, the progress of the church, the Sunday School, the benevolent work, the session and higher courts of the church (of course, depending on his ecclesiology), and his interdenominational relations. Few other volumes have the scope and depth of this one, as lots of sound, Scriptural sense is brought to bear on the various topics. (Westminster / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Monergism)

The other way around

Al Mohler comments on the recent ruling against Peter & Hazelmary Bull, a Christian couple who refused to allow unmarried or homosexual couples to share a single bed in their Cornwall hotel. He writes:

The late Maurice Cowling, one of Britain’s most significant intellectuals of the twentieth century, argued that when the public influence of Christianity wanes, the space is not then filled with anything truly secular. Instead, some new religion takes the place of Christianity. In this case, the new religion is the religion of sexual anarchy.

I think that there is much credible and concerning in this assertion, but Mohler also says this:

The real bomb embedded within Judge Rutherford’s ruling is this sentence: “Whatever may have been the position in past centuries it is no longer the case that our laws must, or should automatically reflect the Judaeo-Christian position.”

There can be no doubt that this logic is fast taking hold in legal circles, pointing to a severe constriction of the rights of Christians to live by their own convictions. At the same time, this decision serves as yet another sign of how swiftly the moral revolution is happening all around us. When Judge Rutherford said that the moral consensus is now “the other way around,” he wrote that revolution into law.

I accept that this is happening, and that it will severely threaten to constrict Christian attitude and action in the world. My question is this: to what extent ought we to be shocked by this? Have we been so privileged in the West as to reach the point at which we think we are entitled to have “the world” on our side? Is not this kind of opposition more the Biblical norm, however much we may pray for peace (1Tim 2.2)?

I cannot deny it is happening; I am not welcoming it, or suggesting that we fail to resist it; I appreciate the protections offered by centuries of Judaeo-Christian ethics at work in varying degrees in our society. But, am I entitled to expect anything else?

Are things really turning the other way around, or are they reverting to type?

Mohler commends Boyz II Men

You mean, suits like these?

Albert Mohler has finally broken cover, acknowledging that though Lecrae does not float his boat, he is a big fan of the intricate harmonies of a capella balladeers, Boyz . . .

Oh, wrong end of the stick, apparently. Let’s try again:

Al Mohler notes that advertising is starting to reflect a world in which genuine, mature masculinity is being valued once more.

A New York Times article describes the style trajectory for the new breed in these words:

You lose the T-shirt and the skateboard. You buy an interview suit and a package of Gillette Mach 3 blades. You grow up, in other words.

Mohler comments:

The crisis of delayed manhood for so many boys and young men is now well documented, and the larger culture reflects this phenomenon. Advertising does not rule the world, but it is a powerful indicator of the cultural direction. Advertisers make it their business to know where the culture is headed. This new trend can only be seen as good news, even if it does not yet represent any profound recovery of sanity in the society.

One important aspect of this report ties directly to a vital aspect of biblical masculinity — the reality and value of a man’s work. These advertisers are [not?] shifting merely to older and more rugged males, but to men who look like they just might be able to hold a job and do it well.

That is a healthy and promising dimension of this new development. One statement from this article deserves to be imprinted on the male brain: “You grow up, in other words.”

Read it here.

PS One of the gentlemen from the popular beat combo pictured is apparently called ‘Wanya’. This can only be regarded as a retrograde step, if it is not, indeed, an entirely fictionary name.

PPS If this is true in the world, I wonder how long it will be before the skinny sk8r boiz and tattooed grungers of the professing church will suddenly find Biblical justification for looking smart and serious? Good job we are not slaves to culture . . .

Growing up

Al Mohler discusses ‘failure to launch’ – the extension of adolescence and the postponement of adulthood:

Every family and local congregation has its work cut out for it in facing this challenge. The Church would demonstrate the power of the Gospel in a whole new way by assisting young people into the successful and faithful transition to adulthood, celebrating this transition as a matter of spiritual maturity to the glory of Christ. These young adults are desperately needed for the cause of Christ, and many are indeed making their way into authentic adulthood with faithfulness, energy, conviction, and excitement. Let’s pray that their example is infectious.

The new Calvinism considered

Note: for those interested in a more developed treatment of this same issue, you can find it beginning here.

A year or two ago it seemed that ‘the new Calvinism’ was all the rage.  Perhaps it has already reached and passed its peak.  Maybe the mission has already become a movement and will shortly become a museum.  Only time will tell.  Certainly the wild rush of the past few years has slowed a little; the river seems broader and flows more gently.  Consolidation has occurred around such organisations as the Gospel Coalition and there are nexuses (nexi?) like Together for the Gospel (T4G) and Acts 29 that also function as anchor points.  Not so long ago you could not read a book, website or news article in some Christian circles without coming up against one of a range of personalities.  The new orthodoxy needed one of a string of names to back it up: “Piper/Grudem/Carson says . . .” almost became the equivalent in some circles of, “The Holy Spirit told me . . .”  It seemed as if the new Calvinism was sweeping the board.  More conservative evangelicals felt the pressure, often ‘losing’ their young people to the heady atmosphere of the new movement.  There was a certain triumphalism in some quarters, a sense of having seen the working future.  In others, there was a sometimes uninhibited aggression.  However, there seemed to be little middle ground: you were either for or against, a committed friend or a committed foe.

I tried to understand what was taking place by immersing myself in the stream for a while: I read the books and the blogs and listened to the sermons and addresses.  I hoped that I got a fair and accurate understanding of this movement.  I found things that were attractive and stimulating and provocative and controversial and worrying.

At a little distance from the swirling storm of popularity and controversy, I recently saw a very brief list of those things which characterise the new Calvinism, written very much from within the movement.  Looking at that list, I thought, “Yes, but . . .” and began to sketch out some other qualities that, it seems to me, are embedded in the mass of new Calvinistic identity.  The list got reasonably long in the end, but I thought that I would work it up and put it out.  It may prove useful, or interesting, or controversial, or pointless.  I think that some new Calvinists would acknowledge and admit much of what follows, sometimes quite cheerfully, but not always.  They might not agree with all the labels I use, or with my own stance on them, but I have set out to be fair and accurate.

Some caveats: I have attempted not to identify and discuss individuals (except where obvious and necessary, and for occasional examples) because this is not about supporting or attacking any one individual.  I also recognise that there are exceptions to most if not all of these rules, hence the introductory wording to each suggestion: I am not trying to make out that the movement is more monolithic than is in fact the case.  Furthermore, I have not attempted to distinguish between the positive and the negative (which will differ depending on where you stand anyway!) but have rather lumped them all in together.  I have not attempted to list these characteristics in order of priority or significance.

That will probably do by way of introduction.  So, then . . .

1.         It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by a desire for the glory of God.  In this sense, I do not think one can legitimately deny that this is a Reformed resurgence.  There is an evident, open, sincere aim at the glory of God in all things, and I think that God is much glorified in many ways by the words and works of many of my new Calvinist brothers and sisters, and I rejoice at it.

2.         It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by deep-rooted spiritual joy.  This may be one of the reasons why it is so attractive to so many, perhaps especially to those from more conservative Reformed circles who feel that this is one of the things that has been lacking in their spiritual experience.  It flows, no doubt, in large part from the emphasis on the grace of God (see below) and it may flow into some of its more exuberant expressions of worship.  Again, the public face of the new Calvinism is one in which men and women with their hearts made clean through the blood of the Lamb rejoice in their so-great salvation.

3.         It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by missonal zeal.  As with any vibrant gospel movement, the desire to take the good news into all the world is central.  Evangelising.  Witnessing to Christ.  Church strengthening.  Church planting.  Church rejuvenation.  Training pastors and preachers.  There is a Scriptural readiness to overcome or ignore the boundaries too readily established in the mind and the heart and to preach the gospel to every creature, and to use as many means as possible (although the Biblical legitimacy of some might be questioned) to promote the truth, propagate the gospel, and advance the kingdom of Christ Jesus.  As the movement has advanced, neither the local nor the international elements of this have been left behind.

4.         It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by an emphasis on the gospel of grace and the grace of the gospel.  Everything is ‘gospel’: New Calvinists do ‘gospel-this’ and ‘gospel-centred that’ and ‘gospel-cored the other’, sometimes to the point of inanity.  By that, I do not mean that the gospel ought not to be at the heart of things, but if we are genuinely evangelical then by definition the gospel should be at the heart of things, and the tendency to badge everything with the word ‘gospel’ doesn’t necessarily mean that it is gospel-soaked and gospel-centred, nor does it guarantee that it will be.  That aside, this is a movement that desires to preach the good news as good news, to proclaim the free and undeserved favour of God to sinners in a way that is engaging, fresh, real and powerful.  One of the great anathemas of new Calvinism is legalism.  Whether or not this is rightly or fully understood I will not argue here, but these friends are desperate to highlight and declare the primacy of grace.  Of course, this is intimately related to the joy they feel and the glory of God they pursue.

5.         It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by complementarianism.  We are told by these friends to distinguish between the theological equivalents of national boundaries and state boundaries, to appreciate the different between distinction and division.  At the same time, it appears that complementarianism is one of the new Calvinist shibboleths.  That does not mean it is wrong, of course, but it is interesting that of all the things that we are told do not matter in the consideration of unity and separation, complementarianism has become something of a sine qua non.

6.         It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by a return to a more Biblical masculinity.  One could argue that at times this has almost become a caricature (and I would agree, and it has indeed been parodied and caricatured), but it is a welcome if sometimes extreme reaction to the anaemic and limp manhood too often displayed elsewhere in the nominally or actually Christian world.  Alongside and arising from the complementarianism, dignified and vigorous male leadership has received a welcome fillip from the new Calvinism.  Like many gospel movements of the past, this one has been characterised in many respects by the salvation of men (often young men), the calling of men to preach, and a readiness by men to take the brunt and lead from the front.  This is not to say that women are excluded from the movement, but the Scriptural emphasis on male leadership has seen a welcome return.

7.         Again related to complementarianism, it seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by the promotion of the family as a basic unit of church and social life.  Once again, such an emphasis can easily become an over-emphasis, but the evident loving affection for wives and sons and daughters that is characteristic of many of the leaders of the movement is an excellent testimony.  The re-establishment of the God-ordained family unit, the outworking of masculinity and femininity in the family sphere, an encouragement to family worship, a readiness to discuss and instruct concerning relationships between men and women, single and married, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers and children, and the like, is often part and parcel of new Calvinism.

8.         It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by charismatic convictions with regard to spiritual gifts.  It seems as if the nature, extent and degree of the Spirit’s work in what some would say we cannot call post-apostolic times has become almost a moot point in new Calvinism.  What was for so long a genuine line of divide between Christians has seemed to be smoothed over with the rise of the so-called ‘Reformed Charismatic’, a label willingly embraced by many if not all of the leaders of new Calvinism, most of whom would be happy – to various degrees and in different ways – to acknowledge themselves to be continuationists, as the lingo has it.  Interestingly, this is one of the fault lines that seems likely to become apparent again, not least because of its significance.

9.         It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by Calvinist soteriology, with some departures and aberrations.  Again, here is one of the areas where the claim to the name ‘Reformed’ is at stake and much debated.  Generally speaking, in line with the emphasis on the gospel of grace and the glory of God in salvation there has been a distinctively Calvinist take on this issue, and it is here – probably more than anywhere else – that the movement derives the ‘Calvinist’ part of its name.  At the same time, there is – in many of those who are at the forefront of this group – more than a hint of Amyraldism, so I am not sure to what extent this is going to hold water for long.  You will also note that I identify Calvinist soteriology as apart from other elements of historic Calvinism, many of which I think one could argue have been neglected, ignored, or abandoned by new Calvinists.

10.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by a generally thoughtful ecumenism.  You only need to look at or think about the names that are at or clustering about the centre to see how broad a movement this is.  It has genuinely united Christians from a variety of backgrounds, and garnered sympathy from many who would nevertheless be unable to share all the distinctives of the movement as a whole.  Issues such as baptism, ecclesiology, the spiritual gifts, and worship have – to some extent – not been allowed to prevent the coming together of believers to serve God either in community or at the very least in co-operation.  Interestingly, though, this ecumenism seems to reach over the middle ground.  By this I mean that there is a readiness to receive and relate to (and receive critique and input from) those close to the inner core of the movement, and then a readiness to reach quite far out from that core for critique and input and relationship, leaving those in the middle ground somewhat isolated.  So, for example, consider the speaking list at some of the last few Desiring God conferences: where else would you find Piper, Dever, Driscoll, Warren, Wilson, Keller, Baucham, MacArthur, Sproul, Storms and Ferguson.  At points on that list you are moved to cheer.  At others, a very Scooby-Dooish cry of “Yoicks!” – mingled alarm and distress – rises from the lips.

11.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by an often pragmatic ecclesiology.  I am glad that it is characterised by ecclesiology at all, that the church of Jesus Christ is in many respects given its rightful place in his plans and purposes for the kingdom.  At the same time, there is often more of the light of nature than the light of Scripture in some of the decisions that seem to be made.  This, then, is a movement in which statistics matter.  This is a movement in which, if you cannot keep up, you have to drop off.  Are you in the way of progress?  Then you are fired.  We are moving onward and upward, so we will hire a worship pastor used to larger crowds or able to generate them; we will hire a technology deacon to take our presentations within and without the services to a new level.  Are you not willing or able to move this fast?  Then goodbye, because you are holding up the advance.  Multi-campus doctrine is one of the examples of this pragmatism; branding and advertising are given a prominence beyond anything the Scripture provides for.  Everything is made to serve the growth of the church numerically and the advance of the mission as stated by the church.  At times the church seems less and less like an organic whole in which every member has her or his part and more like a business in which the chief executive and his team get to hire and fire at will, moulding the structure and its activity according to human will and purpose.  If the church were a business, would I fire some of her workers?  Sure.  But it is not, and I am not at liberty to decide who I want or do not want in or working for the advance of a kingdom that belongs to and is ruled by a sovereign King.  I should, however, add – in fairness – that perhaps at times others outside the movement have not been pragmatic enough, or dynamic enough, in seizing opportunities for gospel advance and employing means about which the Scriptures are silent (this comment is not about the regulative principle, by the way).  By the way, you have to love the names of the churches: all portentous, bastardised Greek or catchy, thrusting urban vim?  Fantastic!

12.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by a neo-Kuyperian view of culture.  Here the mantra is that “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”  There is much to be said for such a declaration, but it also needs to be read in terms of the already/not yet dichotomy.  In new Calvinist orthodoxy, it seems to be very much ‘already’ and this often means that culture is considered neutral, and all to be claimed for Jesus.  By extension, nothing seems to be out of bounds, and much that the world says and does can be tidied up, baptised, and brought into the service of Christ’s church.  Of course, it tends to be the culture from which the converts are drawn (see below) that comes into the church, and so we get our reference points and illustrations from all the hip and cool sources, or those made trendy by the movers and shakers.  Star Wars?  Check.  Lord of the Rings?  Check.  The Matrix?  Check.  So we get to be all funky and populist.  Then we get to name check Lewis and Chesterton and Dostoevsky and O’Connor and come over all literary and high-brow.  By and large, the new Calvinism seems ready to co-opt, co-operate with, and/or capture this culture now, without always making assessments about the origin, tendency and direction of particular elements.  Under this heading I am willing to place the whole issue of contextualization, although it might be considered worthy of its own heading.

13.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by doctrinal if not practical antinomianism.  Most of the movers and shakers appear ready to align themselves with New Covenant Theology in some form or other.  As so often, the Lord’s day Sabbath is the first point of contact and conflict on this issue.  However, the default position here, as – I believe – across broad evangelicalism as a whole – is that the moral law has no abiding relevance in the life of the new covenant believer.  That assumption is woven throughout many of the key texts and declarations of the new Calvinism, from the ESV Study Bible downwards (for example, consider these comments in the ESVSB on Romans 14.5: “The weak thought some days were more important than others. Given the Jewish background here (see v. 14), the day that is supremely in view is certainly the Sabbath. The strong think every day is the same. Both views are permissible. Each person must follow his own conscience. What is remarkable is that the Sabbath is no longer a binding commitment for Paul but a matter of one’s personal conviction. Unlike the other nine commandments in Ex. 20:1–17, the Sabbath commandment seems to have been part of the “ceremonial laws” of the Mosaic covenant, like the dietary laws and the laws about sacrifices, all of which are no longer binding on new covenant believers (see also Gal. 4:10; Col. 2:16–17). However, it is still wise to take regular times of rest from work, and regular times of worship are commanded for Christians (Heb. 10:24–25; cf. Acts 20:7)”).  This is having and will continue to have implications perhaps not so much in the sphere of justification (though that will follow) as in the sphere of sanctification.  It is going to mean much for the development of true holiness, and it is only in the next two or three generations of the new Calvinists that these chickens will come home to roost.  Key names among the new Calvinists have laid the foundation for this widespread antinomianism, and it is for me one of the most concerning aspects of the whole movement.

14.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by contemporary worship.  By definition, all of the service ought to be worship, and by definition, anything done today is contemporary, however old-fashioned or new-fangled it may be considered, but you know what I mean.  I personally have no difficulty with songs and music written in the present day, but that is not the same as a willingness simply to co-opt the forms and patterns of the entertainment of the world for the worship of the church.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the sung worship of the church.  Into the mix here also come the charismatic and cultural convictions of many of the key figures.

15.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by the driving force of several key personalities.  You know them: there is a centre circle reasonably well-defined, and then the concentric circles around them together and individually.  Piper.  Carson.  Mahaney.  Dever.  Mohler.  Driscoll.  Keller.  Grudem.  Chandler.  Anyabwile.  Harris.  DeYoung.  Chan.  Perhaps a little further out are Duncan and MacArthur and Sproul and Trueman.  Among the bloggers, Challies and Taylor and others.  Read long enough and widely enough and the same names will crop up time and time again.  You might place them more or less close to the centre, but they will be there or thereabouts.  My apologies to those who ought to be on the list and are not, and to the groupies who are now offended because I did not put their idol on the list.  Here you see more than a little of that ecumenism mentioned before.  No new Calvinist conference is complete without at least one and ideally more of these men on the platform.  Each is a little chief in the centre of his fiefdom, many of which overlap.  Of course, it can all seem a little nepotistic, even incestuous at times, as these figures read, invite, commend, and endorse one another in ever-decreasing circles.  Again, God usually works by men in the world, and those men naturally attain to a right and reasonable prominence, but the concentration on a few key personalities, especially in the early days of the movement, was distinctive.  Of course, some of those names are already second-generation names, and it will be interesting to see where things go from here.

16.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by the ready embrace and employment of new technologies and media and the platforms that they provide.  The new Calvinism is, to a large degree, an internet phenomenon.  Sermons, videos, blogs, other social media, swirl around ceaselessly in this milieu.  The exchange and discussion of ideas takes place largely online.  Conferences are broadcast and live-blogged, and the lines and colours are laid down by a thousand artists simultaneously, often painting on the same canvas.  Cross-reference and self-reference generate a stupendous amount of traffic.  Look at some of the key blogs, for example, and you will find that they all tend to highlight the same books, events, people and things at almost precisely the same time.  All these platforms nevertheless provide a potent thrust for new Calvinist dogma and praxis, and where others are left behind, the new Calvinism is often at the cutting edge, adopting and co-opting the latest technology (hardware and software) in order to promote either Christ or his servants, depending on your take on particular individuals and circles.  Of course, we must state here that no self-respecting new Calvinist would be found dead using a PC.  The Apple Macintosh and its related accessories are the technological sine qua non of the true new Calvinist.  (I deleted the next bit because it counted as mockery, but let’s just say that it went in the direction of cool glasses and coffee shops, tattoos and T-shirts.)

17.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by a concentration on a younger, more urban demographic.  I recall one new Calvinist church-planting leader voicing his concern at how many church-planter/ing applications he saw targeted precisely the same group as all the others: the young, trendy, hip (when did this admittedly serviceable but not especially remarkable joint become so popular?), urban crowd.  Although some of its leaders are getting old enough to be in them, you will not find much of the new Calvinism catering to the full range of society.  It tends to be quite selective.  I know of a number of churches that – when they began going in this direction – did begin to attract far larger numbers of a certain type and age, but they also began to lose many others.  Again, you can only ride the crest of the wave for so long: what happens to the water ahead, and the waves coming in behind?  This is one area where the willingness to preach the gospel to every creature perhaps needs to take account of the fact that every creature doesn’t like the same fashion, music, art, style, clothes, and approach as those who have made new Calvinism what it is.

18.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by the desire to be big and to have a seat at culture’s table.  Bigness does seem to be a great concern for many.  Bigness – size and numbers – as a by-product of the pursuit of right things in a right way and for the glory of God is perfectly acceptable, but bigness as an end in itself is not something that the Bible promotes in isolation.  Alongside of this goes what sometimes looks like an obsession with being accepted and heard in wider society.  Consider the orgiastic and ecstatic applause and self-congratulation when the big names get on national television, or when the movement gets name-checked by Time magazine.  Is there a danger here that the movement is too concerned with the applause and adulation and recognition of the world?  Does this tie in with the attitude to culture, and what may be a failure to recognise that in this present evil age we are strangers in a strange land?

19.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by an ambivalent relationship to church history.  I know we all tend to pick and choose the bits that appear or tend to support what we now believe, but it is right there on the surface of the new Calvinist vehicle.  Sometimes there is what I can only call a chronological snobbery.  This is not meant to sound as pejorative as it does.  It is part of the laudable enthusiasm of the movement.  What I mean is that there is a freshness of discovery that excites us: we feel, if I may work through Wodehouse back to Keats,

. . . like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific — and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

However, just because I have recently discovered some theological gem does not mean that it has never been discovered before, or that I therefore become the sole guardian and interpreter of the tradition.  There may be a whole bunch of trekker’s rubbish upon that peak in Darien from those who have been and camped before.  Neither does the popularity or promotion of our discovery entitle us to be the arbiters of the canon.  Anyway, there is a tendency among new Calvinists either to claim that ground long-broken has been only recently broken by them, or that it has never been broken before and now needs to be broken by them, or because they have broken it no one else is allowed to set foot on it, or that there is no other way of it being broken.  In this way, the great and the good of the past all become proto-new Calvinists.  Take a bow, Whitefield, Spurgeon, Bunyan, Cowper, Calvin, Lewis, Owen, Augustine, etc. etc.  Of course, all this demands quite a bit of historical revision, of which there is perhaps no finer example than C. S. Lewis, one of the new Calvinism’s patron saints.  I am not suggesting that these intelligent and well-read men are not aware of it, but at least let us not pretend nor give the impression that Lewis fits seamlessly into the mainstream of Reformed orthodoxy!

20.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by sensitivity to the judicial and social aspects of the gospel at work in society.  Perhaps in part because there is a left-wing as well as right-wing political input to new Calvinism, it is nevertheless a recovery of emphasis on the God who defends and protects the widow and the fatherless and the stranger, who is concerned for righteousness and justice in heaven and on earth, who takes note of the presence or absence of ethical integrity in the thoughts, words and deeds of men.  Of course, this is very easily dismissed as politically correct or touchy-feely nonsense, but there is, perhaps, more of it in the Scriptures than others have always been ready to admit.  So, on such matters as abortion, adoption, euthanasia, care for the poor and hungry, help for the homeless, and so on, there is a welcome re-engagement and re-appraisal.  Confusion still exists (as, no doubt, it always will) about the relative roles of the church and the individual Christian citizen or subject (two kingdoms theology, anyone?), but there is an awareness of and sensitivity to these issues that is welcome.

21.       It seems to me that the broad stream of the new Calvinism tends to be characterised by Americocentrism.  Here let me bother with another caveat: this is not an instance of cultural jealousy or bitterness, nor is it in and of itself intended as a condemnation.  Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, and of course the movement spills over, especially into the UK and Australia, where the linguistic heritage is shared (so perhaps I should speak more of ‘the West’ that I do of ‘the States’, although I think it is fair to say that America is probably the dominant Western culture, having more influence on others in the West than they have on it).  However, while there are adherents, some of them prominent, outside the USA, the movement has its spiritual and cultural home in the States.  Could this be where some of its cultural distinctive and pragmatic attitudes derive?  Is this part of the reason for its determination and enthusiasm and can-do mentality?  Is this driving the concentration on technology and the referents and foci of the movement?  Time after time we hear men and women happily cradled in the bosom of American/Western culture assure us that the future of the church is in the so-called Third or Developing World.  Is new Calvinism in danger of exporting more of America/the West than it is of Jesus?  By definition, we are to some extent products of our culture, and that is part of God’s sovereign design for our sphere of influence and usefulness.  But could it be that there is sometimes a lack of cultural awareness and a degree of cultural supremacism that penetrates new Calvinism further than we are aware?  This, I acknowledge, is nebulous, easy both to defend and attack precisely because it is so hard to quantify, but it seems to me that this is an inherently Western movement, if not an inherently American one, a movement very much of a certain time and place.  That does not make it inherently bad, but it certainly does call into the question the degree to which it can both last and spread beyond its immediate environs.

At this point, I see no reason to change the assessment I made several months ago, after reading Collin Hansen’s survey of the movement, although I hope I have a better grasp on the whole: “There is much that is splendid about the movement . . . but it contains within it some fascinating and fearful tensions, as well as some wonderful prospects.  Much depends on the legacy of the present leaders, and the readiness of those who follow to pursue a comprehensive Scripturalism that will govern head and heart and hands. . . . observers and participants [need] to gauge both the trajectory and the likely terminus of this curious company, but [they] should also challenge us about the extent to which our faith and our life are keeping pace.”

So there you have it.  Do you agree or disagree?  Is there anything to add or remove?  I should be interested to know what you have to say.

Ministering in the metacities

Al Mohler gives us some statistics and challenges for the cities of the future now becoming the cities of the present:

The history of humanity traces the flow of the earth’s inhabitants into cities. For thousands of years, that flow was slow, but still traceable. In 1800, only 3 percent of the human population lived in cities. By 1900, cities held 14 percent of the population. By 2000, fully half of all human beings lived in urban areas. We are fast becoming an urban species. . . .

These new metacities will shape the future and, by extension, all of us. The Financial Times produced this important report with primary concern for the future of the cities as engines of economic development and political innovation. Christians must look to this report with a sober acknowledgment that the church is falling further behind in the challenge of reaching the cities. The emergence of these vast new metacities will call for a revolution in missiology and ministry.

This much is clear — the cities are where the people are. In the course of less than 300 years, our world will have shifted from one in which only 3 percent of people live in cities, to one in which 80 percent are resident in urban areas.

If the Christian church does not learn new modes of urban ministry, we will find ourselves on the outside looking in. The Gospel of Jesus Christ must call a new generation of committed Christians into these teeming cities. As these new numbers make clear, there really is no choice.

Read it all.

Mohler muses

Four helpful articles from the smoking keyboard of Al Mohler:

Hijacking the brain: how pornography works.  Pointing to a helpful looking book about the way in which pornography invades and captures healthy desires.

Mandatory sex education for ten year olds.  Welcome to our world, Mr Mohler!  Battle lines being drawn in the US that are very familiar to UK readers.

Where are the young men? Considering the absence of young men from higher education, and calling for Christian men to consider the stewardship of their minds.

The crisis of manhood.  General feminisation of society drives some young men towards hypermasculinity as a way of stating their credentials, and – guess what – there are churches, as always, hanging desperately on to the coat tails of a frantic society.  So we now have a Jesus who came to help us tap into our inner cage fighter.  Michael McKinley chips in here.

Another blog blizzard

I had a blast through the blog reader recently, and whittled it down, knocking away huge chunks of debris.  Here is a selection of what caught my eye as worth considering a little more.

• Al Mohler addresses evangelical discernment and The Shack, the idolatry of youth, children’s online existence, and the importance of preaching.
• Steve Weaver posts a series of links to articles by Michael Haykin in Reformation & Revival, most addressing aspects of Baptist history.
• Trevin Wax assesses the state of the blogosphere.
• Euan Murray explains why rugby takes second place to true religion.
• Kevin DeYoung laments the fetid pool of self-promotion, as well as offering three posts on writing that are insightful.  He also reminds us (saw this ages ago, still funny) of the sort of counselling that I think some pastors are sometimes tempted to:

• Iain D. Campbell points us to advice on how not to be a missionary.
• The Resurgence suggests that we identify passion builders and stealers and strategies to deal with them.
• Justin Taylor offers: Sunday’s comin’; suggestions for initiating gospel conversations; Plantinga’s beautifully and biblically balanced thoughts on the redeemed life; some perspectives on depression and medicine; thoughts on evangelical biblical illiteracy; and, ambition for evangelical academics.

OK.  Nuff.

Having your pastoral training cake and eating it

A good call from Al Mohler in many respects:

Nevertheless, count me as one seminary president who believes that the local church is even more important to the education of the pastor. The local church should see theological education as its own responsibility before it partners with a theological seminary for concentrated studies. The seminary can provide a depth and breadth of formal studies–all needed by the minister–but it cannot replace the local church as the context where ministry is learned most directly.

At the same time, I cannot help feeling that Dr Mohler is far more persuasive about the centrality of the church in this regard than he is about the legitimacy of the seminary.

Women in combat

Al Mohler addresses the creeping normalization of women in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, contrary to Pentagon doctrine and – worse – contrary to every moral norm that ought to dictate such practice.  I do not know what is the situation in the British and European armed forces, but – as Dr Mohler points out – the whole thing reeks of moral and military folly.  It is not about courage, but a matter of right and wrong, of role and calling, of design and capacity, of God-ordained identity and purpose.

Mohler on evangelicalism’s terminal generation

Al Mohler reposts a helpful challenge to the current generation of young evangelicals.  Here is his conclusion:

Sociologist James Davison Hunter has long warned that younger evangelicals tend to go soft on this doctrine [of the exclusivity of Christ as Saviour]. Educated in a culture of postmodern relativism and ideological pluralism, this generation has been taught to avoid making any exclusive claim to truth. Speak of your truth, if you must–but never claim to know the Truth. Unless this course is reversed, there will be no evangelicals in the next generation.

Charles Spurgeon stated it plainly: “We have come to a turning-point in the road. If we turn to the right, mayhap our children and our children’s children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word.” Those words ring with prophetic urgency more than a century after they were written. Evangelicals must regain theological courage and conviction, or we must face the tragic reality that this may be evangelicalism’s terminal generation.

Gently murdered, and with the best intentions

In the UK, we like to call euthanasia “assisted dying.”  It makes us feel better than calling it “assisted suicide” – we phrase it in a way that makes it all nicely passive and neutral.  Certainly it’s not murder, any more than “aborting a foetus” is killing a baby.

Al Mohler picks up and comments on thoughts from Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, Professor of Palliative Medicine at Cardiff University.  Here is the core of her argument:

Proposals to allow “assisted dying”, while undoubtedly well intended, have an air of unreality about them that is worrying to anyone who works with seriously ill people. They assume the existence of a perfect world – a world in which all terminally ill people are entirely clear-headed and make life-or-death decisions on completely rational grounds; and a world in which all doctors know their patients well and have limitless time and skill to assess requests for euthanasia.

Hers is not a Christian argument, but we can be grateful that she is making one.  Mohler himself offers a more vigorous Christian perspective:

This world is not just imperfect — it is fallen.  The reality of human sinfulness explains why no human agent is morally equipped to determine who should live and who should die.  But human sinfulness also explains why humans will try to act as if we are God — even in seeking our own death.

Reformed and reforming

A few days ago I was slightly put out.  I had recently read the Time magazine article suggesting that “New Calvinism” was a significant player in the current marketplace of ideas, and the evangelical blogosphere was substantially awash with excitement.

But what is a “New Calvinist.”  Is it a style?  Do you have to be young?  Would restless and reformed help?  Do you have to be soteriologically Calvinistic, or will Amyraldian do?  If you have a concept of a sovereign God who saves sovereignly, does anything else go?

I think it is too soon for the kind of triumphalism (contra Don Carson’s oft-quoted warning from the blurb of Young, Restless, Reformed) that this article has spawned.  I also am intrigued by some of the attitudes that seem to be gaining ground among some of the “New Calvinists” as defined by Time or by themselves (see the above book title for an example).

I write this as one who is probably not a “New Calvinist” by my own or by their definition, but who does not recognise the caricature that is often painted of the “Old Calvinist” that I seem destined to be because someone else has made up a label to stick on me (for more on such labels, see here).  “Old Calvinists” seem to be stuck with the reputation of being cool, arrogant, exclusive, and passé.  However, while some of those accusations may be open to debate, there can be something arrogant and exclusive about the new Calvinism as well.  By this, I do not mean to do a reverse sweep and tar many evidently godly and humble men with the same brush.  It’s not a revenge attack, not even an attack, more of a concerned observation.

There are two things that I wish to identify, and the reaction to the Time article has brought them to the fore again.  Please note that I am not giving a blanket condemnation: these are things that can be true, not are invariably the case.

Firstly, some neo-Calvinists can be historically blinkered.  I acknowledge that this is far from universally true: witness some of John Piper’s excellent treatment of historical figures, for example, or the clear insights from the past gained and then given by other movers and shakers.  It may be a reflection of the freshness of the movement.  Many have only recently come to grasp some of these wonderful truths and are still digging into their foundations.  At the same time, a lack of historical awareness can become not only embarrassing but unfair and even dangerous.  Mark Driscoll – whom I appreciate in many ways – can be a culprit in this regard.  I have blogged before about his quite staggering assertion that until he managed to get Vintage Church into the marketplace, nothing of any substance post-Reformation had given any serious consideration of ecclesiology.  Mark swiftly responded to Time‘s piece with the following ‘insights’ into old and new Calvinism:

1. Old Calvinism was fundamental or liberal and separated from or syncretized with culture. New Calvinism is missional and seeks to create and redeem culture.
2. Old Calvinism fled from the cities. New Calvinism is flooding into cities.
3. Old Calvinism was cessationistic and fearful of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. New Calvinism is continuationist and joyful in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
4. Old Calvinism was fearful and suspicious of other Christians and burned bridges. New Calvinism loves all Christians and builds bridges between them.

Talk about caricature!  Now, Mark seems to have backtracked a touch, and is now giving us a Long Live the Dead Guys Week at The Resurgence.  Athanasius is first up.  In this respect, I have changed the title of this section from ‘historically myopic’ to ‘historically blinkered.’  We all have a tendency to read into history – and Scripture, and other sources of data – just what we would like to find there.  By all means disagree with those who have gone before, wisely and sensitively and intelligently and – above all – Biblically i.e. with Scriptural grounds.  By all means assert that you do not think that they got it all right.  But do not suggest that because you have not read something that you agree with, or you do not like what history seems to teach, that no-one has ever taught it.  History is a handmaiden to Scripture, not her mistress, but assertions about church history need to be substantive, even if the interpretation can be debated.  Leaving that argument aside, I am still concerned at the initial caricature of “Old Calvinism” and the historical inaccuracy of the statements Mark makes.  It is not true of the past, and it is not true of the present.

Number 1 is wrong.  There were and are fundamental and liberal strains of “Old Calvinism” which rapidly became and remain unworthy of the label.  However, Mark invests his own notions of what is Biblically credible in the ideas of mission and culture-creation and redemption.  With regard to mission, it is not for nothing that the academy in Geneva was called “Calvin’s school of death”: its nickname arose because so many of its alumni went forth to preach the gospel and perished as witnesses to the truth.  Yes, at times there seems to have been more introspection than we might appreciate and commend, but are we to believe that Whitefield, Carey, Judson, Brainerd, Martyn, and men of their stamp and kidney were not “missional”?  What about Spurgeon?  Furthermore, a distinctively Protestant art has been long recognised.  Men of God who were statesmen, scientists, artists, authors, poets, architects, musicians, and the like have long had a profound and God-honouring role to play in their cultures.  There are still men and women whom I imagine Mark would dismiss as “Old Calvinists” who are actively and prayerfully engaged in the work of gospel mission, even if their notions of creating and redeeming culture may not quite match those of Mark.

Number 2 is wrong.  Old Calvinism did not flee from the cities.  Paul headed for the cities.  Many of the church fathers (of varying reliabilities) were found preaching and teaching in cities.  Geneva was a city.  The Reformation spread through a network of cities.  The Puritans worked from the university cities and were prominent in London churches, spreading across the country.  Whitefield preached in the cities in the UK and the US.  Spurgeon headed for the city.  There may be a danger at times of wishing for a rural retreat, and the development of a fortress mentality – a danger with which I strongly agreed – but “Old Calvinism” was and is not running from the cities.

Number 3 is wrong.  As I have begun to argue elsewhere, what is labelled “cessationism” does not and should not imply being “fearful of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.”  Did the first Great Awakening not take place?  Did Spurgeon not preach in the power of the Holy Spirit?  What about Whitefield?  Did Edwards not begin the Humble Attempt concert of prayer?  Was it not revived by the eighteenth century Baptists?  Did the Calvinistic Methodists not exist – men who were, under God, used in some of the most Spirit-drenched periods of blessing upon the Western church?  Apart from the fact that cessationism and continuationism are not labels that refer to antagonism toward the Spirit on the one hand and his embrace upon the other, it is simply not accurate to say that “Old Calvinism” is simply fearful of and resistant to the Spirit of God, even though at times it may either give that impression or, indeed, be so (and arguments to be made on the other side for misunderstanding of the person and work of the Spirit of God among some New Calvinists).  (Furthermore, are all the men to whom Time made reference continuationists?  Al Mohler?)

Number 4 is wrong.  The best men have generally been the most irenic men.  Again, there have been exceptions and aberrations, but few would assault John Owen’s Old Calvinistic credentials, and he is on record as one of those who most ardently pursued every legitimate expression of Christian union.  Jeremiah Burroughs was of the same spirit.  Richard Baxter commented of the Westminster Assembly that “if all Episcopalians had been as Archbishop Ussher, all Presbyterians as Stephen Marshall (the great preacher of the Assembly), and Independents as Jeremiah Burroughs, the divisions of the church might soon have been healed.”  Spurgeon was an unashamed Baptist who preached against the baptismal regeneration implicit in the teaching of the Established Church, yet was not so narrow that he could not appoint a Presbyterian as Principal of his pastors’ college.  “New Calvinism” is sufficiently new to suggest withholding judgment at this point might be wise.  Loving all Christians is right, but the truth must not be sacrificed for the sake of unity.  Besides, Mark’s subsequent assertion that this is the most important point of the four is made to ring a little hollow at this point:

Sadly, Cruel Calvinists are a small but loud bunch. Thus, now more than ever, it is vital that all Christians in general, and Reformed Christians in particular, demonstrate the kind of love and humility that our theology requires. The cruel, flame-thrown half-truths and misquotes between Christians do not speak well to the watching world of the love we are supposed to share. Therefore, it is vital that we distinguish between what I will call state and national theological borders.

Very sweet, but Mark just made his ‘state theological borders’ grounds for calling “Old Calvinists” “Cruel Calvinists.”  Hardly the most irenic statement ever delivered!  Such swingeing assertions rather undermine Mark’s plea to overlook the state boundaries, do they not?

Why have I gone substantially to history to make these points?  Because Mark puts “Old Calvinism” in the past tense.  He is wrong.  The “Old Calvinists” of history were not what he paints them to be (quite how this ties in with “Dead Guys Week” I am not sure), though they doubtless failed at many points.  The “Old Calvinists” of the present are – in many respects – failing to live up to their inheritance, and I would be among the first to recognise it, mourn it, and respond to it.  But the caricature is not accurate, the inheritance is not the one that Mark pictures, and some Old Calvinists remain alive and kicking.

[I should note that – since beginning this piece – I have seen that the insightful R. Scott Clark has also entered the fray at this point.  It will be quickly clear that Dr Clark and I will not agree at many points.  For example, he sees the Reformation as coming to its final expression at a high-water mark that he puts at a very definite point in the history of the church and the development of doctrine.  My understanding of its past and present progress is different to his.  Nevertheless, I have often appreciated many of the points he makes and warnings he gives.]

Secondly, some neo-Calvinists can be immediately blinkered.  This may be in part due to its American bias.  I am not suggesting that there is no international flavour to “New Calvinism,” and I applaud such a flavour, but America is not a nation always noted for its awareness and insights of life beyond its own borders.  I have remarked before that there is something a touch incestuous about the fact that nearly all of the people who puffed Young, Restless and Reformed were either referenced in the book itself, or are intimately associated with those referenced.  “D’ya wanna be in my gang?”  If not, you may be out of the loop.  This struck me forcibly again the other day when I was reading the blurb for a new book.  Some of the movers and shakers of neo-Calvinism (among others) were falling over each other to praise this book to the hilt.  Several of them mentioned the novelty of the treatment.  “At last,” rings out the cry, “someone has addressed this most vital topic!”

“Actually, brothers, there have been books written on this topic, and that quite recently.  Some of them cover the same ground.  You may be discovering certain things for the first time, and I relish your excitement and the fresh sense of God’s wonder.  In fact, I have a holy envy of some of it.  But you are not the first to discover, record, and broadcast these things, not even in the present days.”

I freely acknowledge that none of us have a monopoly on truth.  None of us can read everything that is written: especially today it seems that “of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh” (Ecc 12.12).  None of us can know everything.  None of us are infallible in our assertions, unless those assertions reproduce Biblical truth.

But the world is bigger than certain churches, preachers, authors, hymn-writers.  If the Old Calvinists are called upon to break out of their ghettoes and recognise that grace operates in more spheres than their own, then it does the neo-Calvinists just as well to face the same fact.  The kingdom is bigger than their stake in it.  I love some of the preaching and teaching that these men are doing; I read their books with critical relish; I appreciate their labours; I rejoice in the souls brought into the kingdom by these means; I wish I knew more of the blessing that they enjoy.  But just because the neo-Calvinist gang is big and powerful doesn’t mean that they have a monopoly on the grace, glory, and progress of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It might be wise to remember that when they are patting each other on the back.

I am not an old Calvinist.  I may be an Old Calvinist by some measures and definitions.  I am far too new by others.  But none of us can afford to be historically or immediately blinkered.  God is greater and more glorious than any of us can imagine him to be.  God’s church is bigger than any one part of it.  We have no scope for bitterness, pride, triumphalism, or self-congratulation, on any side of any divide.  Let my Old Calvinist brothers not deny the work of God among the New Calvinists, but rather encourage and support it, be encouraged and taught by it, and invest in it insofar as they can with a good conscience, and set out to instruct it where they cannot.  Let my New Calvinist brothers not ignore the work of God before and apart from them, but pray for it and learn from it where they can, listen to it and accept it.  Let us remember that each of us are called by God to serve him: to our own master we will stand or fall.  Do you have work to do?  Do it with all your might.

Update: Paul Grimmond at The Sola Panel has some reasoned and reasonable things to say.

Fatherhood and the future of civilization

An interesting post by Al Mohler worth reading here.

“Young, Restless, Reformed”

Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists by Collin Hansen

Crossway Books, 2008 (156 pp, pbk)

Dever; Driscoll; Duncan; Challies; Harris; Horton; MacArthur; Mahaney; Mohler; Piper; Sproul: these are the meats sometimes uncomfortably sandwiched between the pages of this book, together drenched in “Reformed” mayonnaise. Young, Restless, Reformed is the exploration by Christianity Today editor-at-large Collin Hansen of the phenomenon of the new Calvinists, the so-called Reformed resurgence.

With the exception of a few scant references, the focus is entirely on the US. Nevertheless, most of the names will be familiar to those with an interest in Reformed doctrine and practice. Hansen begins with John Piper and “the Piper fiends” (Pipettes?), before surveying “Ground Zero” (Southern Baptist Seminary, Louisville, where Al Mohler holds sway), then considering the Mahaney/Harris axis at Covenant Life Church and the New Attitude conference, and ending up with Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill in Seattle. In between and helping us along the way are a multitude of other movers and shakers and bit-players. Hanging over it all is the far-from-spectral but somewhat ambivalent figure of Jonathan Edwards.

It is, in many respects, a joyous read. To see a substantial recovery of Biblical truth on such a large scale cannot be anything but exciting. To see the unity and co-labouring it prompts and promotes is delightful. To read of predominantly young men and women in the modern West giving themselves to prayer and the study of the Scriptures is thrilling and humbling.

Hansen does take time to consider the detractors and the devaluers, but there is a sympathetic tone that makes plain that Hansen is fundamentally ‘on-side’ with those of whom he writes. This perhaps contributes to the fact that the book can read more like an exercise in comprehension than in analysis: it provides a snapshot rather than a vigorous assessment.

Another weakness is that the whole scene can appear somewhat incestuous and self-referential. The book is about or refers to people who endorse it in the blurb, read by them, reviewed by them (often in the Web 2.0 environment). The same people are writing books from the same publishers and referring to one another’s blogs. Is there a danger of self-congratulation, of failing to recognise that this is a much bigger community than it was, but still not that big or effective a community? Might the mutual back-slapping hide the fact of how much work there still is to do?

Furthermore, there is – if not a confusion – at least a question of terminology. Most of the subjects welcome the Reformed label, but how accurately is it being applied? It seems that most of those involved in this movement share a Reformed (or, at least, a Calvinistic) soteriology. The question is raised even in the book as to whether this really constitutes “being Reformed,” as well as how much it matters. Do we need, for example, a Reformed ecclesiology, a Reformed pneumatology, or Reformed doxology (or all of the above) in order to call ourselves genuinely ‘Reformed’? In other words, would the patron saint of the new Calvinists, Jonathan Edwards, recognise all these individuals and groups as Reformed? One could argue that this very question may be redefined by weight of numbers involved in this movement who do not embrace what has traditionally been, and been accepted as, part of the Reformed package. On this basis, there may be many who will wonder whether or not they are a part of this movement, and whether they want to be, and – if so – to what extent. This is especially so where the question is being begged over the extent to which the church is reaching the culture as opposed to the culture assimilating the church.

Finally, and leading on from this, one must ask, So what? and, Who cares? We must understand what is the trajectory of this movement, and what its terminus (or termini, if it splinters). We must watch its effects. Will the somewhat insular nature of the new Calvinist community betray it into a failure to preach the very gospel it boasts of recovering to those in need of Jesus on our doorsteps? In some circles there seems to be a very real temptation to preach to the converted (in the essential sense of that word), gaining ‘converts’ from other Christian camps rather than from the world around us, to argue other believers into our camp far more than to proclaim a saving Christ to needy sinners. Surely if we are constrained by what Warfield defined as of the essence of genuine Calvinism (of Biblical Christianity) – “a profound apprehension of God in His majesty, with the inevitably accompanying poignant realization of the exact nature of the relation sustained to Him by the creature as such, and particularly as a sinful creature”[1] – then it will work itself out in a determination to have God glorified in salvation as well as among the saved, in both reaching the lost and teaching the reached.

There is much that is splendid about the movement described by Hansen, but it contains within it some fascinating and fearful tensions, as well as some wonderful prospects. Much depends on the legacy of the present leaders, and the readiness of those who follow to pursue a comprehensive Scripturalism that will govern head and heart and hands. Reading this book will help observers and participants to gauge both the trajectory and the likely terminus of this curious company, but should also challenge us about the extent to which our faith and our life are keeping pace.

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[1] B. B, Warfield, Works, vol. 5, Calvin and Calvinism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1991), 354.

“The soul of Britain is dying”

Al Mohler has summarised and reacted to recent reports projecting the death throes of Christianity in the UK. Christianity, according to the statistics, is very rapidly becoming a minority religion.

It is always a desperately sad thing to see true religion in decline. However, this report – while it contains matters of deep concern even for smaller and faithful denominations, and may reflect the widespread erosion of common grace in our society – is not necessarily a record of the decline of true religion. What it may be exposing is the formalism and nominalism which often passes for Christianity in this country.

One of the reasons why Christianity gets such a bad press is that all manner of carelessness and carnality masquerades under its name. There are times when one only wishes that we were at least assaulted for the right things, for genuine Biblicism and committed godliness, rather than the faux-Christianity, the Christianity-lite, that most see when they think of the followers of Christ.

The subtle, social persecutions to which we have been subject in the UK for so many decades are taking their toll. There may be worse to follow – William Gurnall somewhere makes plain that where men strike with words, they will soon after strike with swords. The effects of this are now being seen. But, will it be such a bad thing for formalism and nominalism to be sloughed off, for the dead wood to be pruned? No one wishes for persecution, but is the persecuted church not in many instances a purer church? It is often composed primarily of genuine disciples, in whom the Lord Christ is truly dwelling. It knows its own identity, and of necessity walks closely with its Saviour. We do not need a hair-shirt mentality. There is nothing inherently holy about apparent failure and smallness, any more than there is in apparent triumph and growth. What is holy is likeness to Christ, and the principled obedience of his disciples to all his words.

Furthermore, the rise and fall of true religion in any place, measured in merely human terms, does not and cannot take account of the work of the Spirit of God. Reports such as these identify and then extrapolate a trend. What they cannot predict is the activity of God Almighty. Whitefield’s England hardly called the statisticians to project the rise of vital truth. The Wales of Howell Harris begged for the condemnation of the social scientist. Gross sin and national abandonment to ungodliness are fearful evils and much to be mourned over. Yet they also plead for divine intervention, for what greater platform for the display of divine grace could there be? Would the Lord our God not be honoured in the overturning of all statistical predictions, in a movement of true religion that flew in the face of all human expectations, in a mercy that reaches to those who can be reached by nothing and no one else? That is grace, is it not?

Let these statistics warn us, but not overwhelm us. The Lord our God is in heaven, and he does whatever he pleases (Ps 115.3). Let them also stir us – let them act as a call to arms. The Lord, through Ezekiel, laments the absence of an intercessor: “So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one” (Ex 22.30). Should we let that be true of us? The field for endeavour is vast. Are we praying the Lord of the harvest to thrust out labourers into the harvest field? Do we cry with Isaiah, “Here am I; send me?” We can respond in fear or in faith; with despondency over men or in dependence upon God; we can rise to the challenge or we can react with dismay. The great Baptist theologian, Andrew Fuller, in writing to his fellow saints, exhorted them in this way:

We may think the efforts of an individual to be trifling; but, dear brethren, let not this atheistical spirit prevail over us. It is the same spawn with that cast forth in the days of Job, when they asked concerning the Almighty, “What profit shall we have if we pray unto him?” At this rate Abraham might have forborne interceding for Sodom, and Daniel for his brethren of the captivity. James also must be mistaken in saying that the prayer of a single, individual righteous man availeth much. Ah, brethren, this spirit is not from above, but cometh of an evil heart of unbelief departing from the living God! Have done with all that bastard humility, that teaches you such a sort of thinking low of your own prayers and exertions for God as to make you decline them, or at least to be slack and indifferent in them! Great things frequently rise from small beginnings. Some of the greatest good that has ever been done in the world has been set a going by the efforts of an individual. Witness the Christianizing of a great part of the heathen world by the labours of a Paul, and the glorious Reformation from popery began by the struggles of a Luther.

It is impossible to tell what good may result from one earnest wrestling with God, from one hearty exertion in his cause or from one instance of a meek and lowly spirit, overcoming evil with good. Though there is nothing in our doings from which we could look for such great things, yet God is pleased frequently to crown our poor services with infinite reward. Such conduct may be, and often has been, the means of the conversion and eternal salvation of souls; and who that has any Christianity in him would not reckon this reward enough? A realizing sense of these things would stir us all up: ministers to preach the gospel to every creature, private Christians, situated in this or that dark town or village, to use all means to have it preached, and both to recommend it to all around by a meek and unblemished conversation.

We need to hear these same warnings and stirrings. Institutionalised religion may come and go, but vital Christianity can and will remain. Let us undertake that, while God grants us breath, he shall have a faithful witness in the land.