Neo-Calvinist - I am not.

I recently had a conversation the past week which really highlighted a theological distinction I have with other Christians. Neo Calvinism. In the course of our conversation it became very clear to me that I am not a Calvinist/Reformist.

Recently Time magazine had an article which was titled, "Ten ideas that are changing the world". Idea number 3 was the "New Calvinism". This was out of the March 12, 2009:

Here is the article, written by David Van Biema for your consideration:

If you really want to follow the development of conservative Christianity, track its musical hits. In the early 1900s you might have heard "The Old Rugged Cross," a celebration of the atonement. By the 1980s you could have shared the Jesus-is-my-buddy intimacy of "Shine, Jesus, Shine." And today, more and more top songs feature a God who is very big, while we are...well, hark the David Crowder Band: "I am full of earth/ You are heaven's worth/ I am stained with dirt/ Prone to depravity."


Calvinism is back, and not just musically. John Calvin's 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination's logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.

Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don't have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by "glorifying" him. In the 1700s, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards invested Calvinism with a rapturous near mysticism. Yet it was soon overtaken in the U.S. by movements like Methodism that were more impressed with human will. Calvinist-descended liberal bodies like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) discovered other emphases, while Evangelicalism's loss of appetite for rigid doctrine — and the triumph of that friendly, fuzzy Jesus — seemed to relegate hard-core Reformed preaching (Reformed operates as a loose synonym for Calvinist) to a few crotchety Southern churches.


No more. 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.

Building vs. Nomatic

I have been struggling with the idea of a church having a building because buildings often result in the Church looking inward to maintain the building at least as much as they look outward to help usher in the KoG.

This is part of the "Church as a verb" sort of thinking, where Church is something you do (verb)and not some place you go (noun). If Church were a verb then there would not be a building but if Church is a noun than a building is essential.

Jesus was on the move a lot and so was the early church. They did not build buildings to my knowledge but met in each others homes and businesses for worship and fellowship. This is part of my own hesitation with a Church building, we may be missing some of the message of Jesus in building a structure. And then I heard something on the radio...

Buildings make a statement - "We are going to make a commitment to this community." The building is symbolic of the nature of the mission of the building. So perhaps a building is not too bad at all? But then I got to thinking, "couldn't actions make the same statement?"

Couldn't being a verb church say the same things as a building would suggest (commitment to the community, care for community, provide and serve community, etc.)?

So for a second I was back on board with a church building, then I wondered...

I still am on the fence.

And a child shall lead them...

I spoke with a Sunday School class last Sunday about being in the business of not making church "members" but "church planters". I received this facebook message from one of the members of the class. She gave me permission to post this here. I think it is exactly what we are talking about in terms of "church planters".

So, I'm trying to wrap my head around your discussion in Pathfinders on Sunday. Then, the passage from Isaiah during worship made me think. God cares enough about every star to call it by its name. So, what's in a name? As a Bible scholar, you know that "back in the day" to know a person's name was to know something about the fundamental nature of that person.

That got me thinking.

Knowing a person's name is intimate in a way. It's how we start relationships.

Then, I thought about how our 3-year old son (who just had a birthday the day before Jude's) is intent on asking EVERYONE he comes across, "What's your name?" This is quickly followed by "Hi, (the person's name) I'm Gabriel." At first I was embarrassed by his upfront questioning of every stranger. But then, I started to notice something. People seemed to leave the interaction with my son just a little lighter than they were when we first encountered them. A small interaction from a small person, but I think he really makes an impact.

I'm not sure that we completely understood your full vision about church planting. I'd love to know about the idea behind "planting churches" that aren't "churches" as we've defined them for so long.

To know a person's name is to know them, in a sense. Maybe my 3-year old is smarter than I am. If it is about deepening relationships in our life - not just in our church life - I wonder if maybe my son is a church planter. And, I'd love to know how I foster that to keep him that way.

Just some thoughts.

-Lynaia