A recent article in Time, and another (and older) one in Christianity Today cited a growing trend of the new Calvinists in the United States. They’re interesting articles, so go ahead and read them whenever you get a chance. I thought, as this is a blog mostly about religion, that I should give a few cents worth of thoughts.
I am pretty far from Calvinism. Granted, I understand it a lot better now than when I was nineteen and stupid, but it is still not on my theological radar. My litany of objects can wait for some other time, as I am not really an “anti-Calvinist” as many Christians are.
There are few good things I should say anyway. I am actually not surprised, and think it is a good thing, that people are attracted to … doctrine. Such a word is just as scandalous as “religion” in many evangelical minds. It’s good to know that people are paying attention to the theological well, instead of scorning it as un-spiritual. Secondly, there seems to be a great sincerity in feelings one’s sinfulness and being truly amazed that God would save anybody. I think this is a nice check to a lot of the “touchy feely west coast evangelicalism” that is common in southern California. Finally, reformation theology poses a nice challenge to the dispies of the world.
Still though, I always cringe at the phrase “biblical.” I do not affirm the reformed doctrine that one can only believe what you read in scripture and nothing outside of it. This is sola scriptura in the “exclude all else” sense not in the “above all else” sense. Such a thing, I believe, leads to a bad hermeneutic as one must constantly search for where scripture speaks to some issue it was never meant to speak to. People eventually start proof-texting. Also, many of the “young reformed” are passionate about how they came to believe Calvinism via studying the Bible, and not by listening to Calvinist. Isn’t this alleged purity a little naïve? No one reads the Bible without assumptions, and if you’re guided by a charismatic Calvinist preacher chances are, you’ll start reading the Bible like a Calvinist. I’m still Wesleyan at the core myself.
In the larger picture though, I still think this is probably a good and expected thing. I feel that a lot 20-something Christians are dissatisfied with the evangelicalism handed down from the Jesus people generation. It is no surprise that something different attracts our attention, just by virtue of it being different. For some it’s Protestantism with a capital P. Others it’s the emergent church. Some may jump ship completely and go to the RCC or EO.
So I expect, at least for now, for Neo-Calvinism to grow into the next generation. Unless the rapture happens, of course.
