Nice beard!
Time has a piece on 10 ideas changing the world right now. (h/t Mark Driscoll’s blog) Number 3 is the renaissance of Calvinism.
Take this quote:
Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don’t operate quite on a Rick Warren scale. But, notes Ted Olsen, a managing editor at Christianity Today, “everyone knows where the energy and the passion are in the Evangelical world” — with the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle’s pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinist-flavored ESV Study Bible sold out its first printing, and Reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christendom’s hottest links.
Like the Calvinists, more moderate Evangelicals are exploring cures for the movement’s doctrinal drift, but can’t offer the same blanket assurance. “A lot of young people grew up in a culture of brokenness, divorce, drugs or sexual temptation,” says Collin Hansen, author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists. “They have plenty of friends: what they need is a God.” Mohler says, “The moment someone begins to define God’s [being or actions] biblically, that person is drawn to conclusions that are traditionally classified as Calvinist.” Of course, that presumption of inevitability has drawn accusations of arrogance and divisiveness since Calvin’s time. Indeed, some of today’s enthusiasts imply that non-Calvinists may actually not be Christians. Skirmishes among the Southern Baptists (who have a competing non-Calvinist camp) and online “flame wars” bode badly.
Calvin’s 500th birthday will be this July. It will be interesting to see whether Calvin’s latest legacy will be classic Protestant backbiting or whether, during these hard times, more Christians searching for security will submit their wills to the austerely demanding God of their country’s infancy.
When Time says ‘world’ it means America of course – the New Calvinism is not (yet) one of the ideas shaking Australia.
March 13, 2009 at 5:32 am
And when they say ‘world’, they also only mean certain limited areas of America, like Seattle.
I’m glad they’ve picked up on Driscoll (et al?), but honestly, Calvinism is not in ‘resurgence.
Not yet.
March 13, 2009 at 5:41 am
Not sure Ben.
If it were as small as Seattle I don’t think Time would pick it up.
The book ‘Young Reformed and Restless’ certainly describes a resurgence of Reformed thought within American Evangelicalism. There is of course still a gap to mainstream culture. Not as big a gap as here, but a gap.
Wonder what out top 10 ideas would be?
March 13, 2009 at 6:22 am
Are we going to celebrate his birthday – 500 years is amazing
March 13, 2009 at 9:23 am
Well Geneva are cashing in with a string of conferences. Lots of books being released. Reformation21 are blogging through the Institutes this year. Pilgrims are queueing to see the weeping portrait of John Calvin;-)
Similar things happened with Luther’s birthday. Buy your tickets now for Wittenburg Door celebrations in 2017!
Is anyone planning to do something local? You’ve made me wonder if I should get my student minister (who is writing an essay on Calvin & sin this week) to give us a one off sermon on Calvin & Sin for his birthday!
March 13, 2009 at 10:51 am
“Seattle’s pugnacious Mark Driscoll…”
Pugnacious?
“An overseer, then, must be above reproach…not addicted to wine or pugnacious…”
– 1 Timothy 3:2-3
March 13, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Ted
don’t believe everything you read in Time…