Paul writes - NZ Anglican priest Peter Carrell reflects (a little) on a new US-book title, Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists by Collin Hansen.
“…What makes today’s young Calvinists tick? Collin Hansen investigates the Reformed resurgence among young evangelicals, talking to the leading pastors and theologians of this growing movement. He uncovers common threads in their diverse testimonies and suggests what the church might look like when these young evangelicals become tomorrow’s leaders…”
Prologue and Chapter 1 temporarily here.
Peter asks some good questions and wonders if we need something other than a return to Reformed Calvinism:
“…But the bigger question to me is not the growth of new Calvinism, but the question of whether there is another formulation of Christian teaching which has a wider reach into the world of 2008. It is good that people are crowding into churches to hear the Word of God preached tuliptically, but what about the greater number of people who are not drawn in by Calvinism (nor by its similarly growing-in-popularity Catholic counterpart, the Latin Mass)? We can celebrate that which is good within Calvinism - I suggest - while also wondering whether there is an expression of the gospel, which is even better, suited to the world today!”
I wonder with Peter. I also wonder if the appeal of Calvinism to younger people is similar to my own formative Jesus-following days. I was looking for what I thought was a solid grounding in the Christian faith, a doctrinal grounding. So my early years were spent absorbed by what one friend referred to as “dead authors” – the English Puritans, Jonathan Edwards, (the very much alive) JI. Packer, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, John Calvin etc. It both grounded me and gave content to my faith, but it isn’t the place that I stayed. My journey broadened; it became more contemporary; it appreciated the diversity and richness of the Christian tradition (and theological thinking) and found a way of holding that diversity and richness together within the Anglican tradition.
So while it might be needful for some, I think it’s a journey that will throw up the same (or similar) questions many of us discovered latent within Calvinism – questions of spirituality (and spiritual formation), questions of the Spirit, questions around the place of Jesus and the Gospels, questions of prayer, questions of mission and cultural engagement, (what has come to be known as) practical theology, questions around what it means to be church, questions themselves and the place of doubt in faith development and growth, and the place of embodied and enacted love.
Perhaps the supposed “resurgence” is needful for many, but I’m not convinced (on a wider front) that it is a way forward into uncharted territory and the missional questions that are being thrown up in these Post-Christendom times.
You can read Peter’s full post here.
There's also the article from Christianity Today a while back with the same title. See http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/september/42.32.html
Posted by: Stephen | Sunday, 21 September 2008 at 10:13 PM