TIME names "New Calvinism" 3rd Most Powerful Idea Changing the World

TIME Magazine ^ | March 12, 2009 | David Van Biema

[CondoleezzaProtege]

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.

[RnMomof7]

Nevertheless, it seems odd that God would have a plan for salvation where events that would take place AFTER His Sacrifice would benefit some and not others. What is mean is, prior to about a hundred years ago a sizable percentage of children died in infancy or within a few years of birth, in some countries this is still the case. Today, at least in the west, this is not a real factor.

Did it seem "odd" that God would save Noah and not the rest of humanity? Or lot and not the rest of Sodom or that He choose israel out of all the nations to bless ?

The Bible tells us that God has a remnant not that he has a whole "bolt" :)

There is much that remain a part of the secret counsel of God ...we do not need to know the answer, we just need to trust God knows what is right

[raynearhood]

Good. But that is entirely inconsistent with a construct that children are born into a condition wherein they, by virtue of their being born, are as worthy and deserving of Hell as the worst of sinners. If they are innocent in a spiritual sense until they reach some latter stage in life, then the whole construct of Total Depravity seems to fall by its own weight.

Wow, did you ever take that one sentence out of context. The immediately following paragraph reads:

But, I don't think that that is completely accurate. I lean more towards the former [that they are condemned] than the latter [that they are innocent], and very heavily towards the former because I know that there is Scriptural basis for it. Some children at the age of 5, 6, 7, or whatever will die condemned, I think.

Is your understanding of scripture equally as limited? Are you willing to consider that the construct which you follow, i.e., Calvinism is as ripe with possible errors as your understanding of the Nature of God's justice? Could it be that maybe Calvinism is not the end all and be all of scriptural understanding? That maybe your understanding of soteriology is as flawed as those whom you criticize here as being Arminian or Catholic? Are you willing to concede that maybe you are wrong?

What?! Wow, that's a whole lot that doesn't follow. Admitting a short coming on my part does not equate to admitting to anything else. Maybe I can explain better.

I love my children unconditionally. There is nothig that they could do to make me stop loving them. I may discipline them and I may reject somethings that they do, but I will not stop loving them. I know, that as a father, my love for my children and their love for is a picture of God's love for his children and his children's love for him.

However, I am not perfect in my love for them. I will fail to discipline them properly at some point (and I'm sure I have already). I will over do it or I will be lax in their discipline. I will fail to instruct them perfectly. I will at some point, intentioanlly or not, put a condition on my affections towards them.

So, my understanign of God's love for his people is not only instructed by Scripture, but also by my love for my children, for my father, and their love for me. As a result, my sense of God's unconditional love towards me is limited by my limitations. That isn't to say that God's love isn't perfect. It is. And he instructs perfectly, disciplines perfectly, and offers affection perfectly.

Are you willing to concede that maybe you are wrong?

If it can be logically and Scripturally shown that I am wrong, I would concede. I don't see that happening, though. I did have to admit that I was wrong about soteriology a number of years ago. Believe I'm wrong, it doesn't matter, but the Doctrines of Grace are the most Scripturally sound soteriological doctrines, despite the caricatures that abound on this board.

That maybe your understanding of soteriology is as flawed as those whom you criticize here as being Arminian or Catholic?

I haven't criticized anyone as an Arminian or Catholic. On this board, I don't remember ever addressing Arminianism. As for Romanism, I have argued against it, but never criticized someone as a Catholic. What is that anyway? Like saying, "You Catholic swine!" or something?

[wagglebee]

It means if we have been given God's saving grace we will "do something" that is God-pleasing and God-glorifying. And only then.

Oh?

Please explain which portion of Matthew 25:31-46 even suggests that those caring for the least of His brethren necessarily even know who he is.

[RnMomof7]

You remember ...LOL

He is well .. still working Praise God !! His girls are getting big ...He still comes here some I believe but is too busy being husband and father to post alot..

[wagglebee]

The Flood and the destruction of Sodom, etc. PRECEEDED Christ’s Sacrifice.

What you are describing is the notion that the rules can somehow change AFTER His Sacrifice.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

How is that any less offensive than a doctrine which states that God alone chooses who will or will not be sent to heaven and hell merely by virtue of his own unconditional application of grace to whom he so chooses?

Why in the world is that so offensive to you? Do you not trust God to make the right decision?

"What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.

For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." -- Romans 9:14-16

How does it get much clearer than that? Paul anticipated your discomfort and answered it -- God is all holy and what He has decided will be. Period. Our running and our willing have nothing to do with God's mercy. The reason for compassion is compassion, not debt.

"When Moses prays to God not to break his covenant with Abraham, God answers, “I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” What does he mean? He means that the reason for God’s keeping some for himself and rejecting 295 others is to be sought nowhere but in God himself. When he says, “I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion,” the repetition may seem empty and dull; but it is in reality emphatic. . . . The reason for compassion is compassion itself..." -- John Calvin, Commentary on Malachi

[RnMomof7]

God has declared (in what I believe to be no uncertain terms) that he sent his Son to die for the sins of the "whole world"

You are a smart man..you know that there is not universal salvation for the whole world.. or at least I hope you do :)

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Every good thing we do or say or think or feel is the Holy Spirit within.

Boast of your own ability if you want to. As for me, I'll boast in the Lord.

[wagglebee]

Catholic teaching is fairly explicit that baptism is necessary. However, there are “provisions” for those cases when the lack of baptism is due to circumstances for which the child cannot necessarily be faulted. Nevertheless, the Church teaches that Christian parents should have their child baptised as soon as possible.

[wagglebee]

Every good thing we do or say or think or feel is the Holy Spirit within.

So, in light of Matthew 25, you are suggesting that people can have the Holy Spirit within them and NEVER have knowledge of Christ?

Boast of your own ability if you want to.

Where have I done this?

As for me, I'll boast in the Lord.

And do you blame Him for your transgressions as well?

[RnMomof7]

The Flood and the destruction of Sodom, etc. PRECEEDED Christ’s Sacrifice.
What you are describing is the notion that the rules can somehow change AFTER His Sacrifice.

It was the same God wag.. Gods righteousness and the sin of man did not change from the OT to the NT

Gods Holiness is the same. The sin of man is the same.. The offense before God is the same

OT men were saved by grace, just as they are in the new..

So the OT examples are still valid

God judged infants by the same standard in the OT that He judges men and infants by in the NEW Testament.

[RnMomof7]

Catholic teaching is fairly explicit that baptism is necessary. However, there are “provisions” for those cases when the lack of baptism is due to circumstances for which the child cannot necessarily be faulted. Nevertheless, the Church teaches that Christian parents should have their child baptised as soon as possible.

Do they still teach limbo?

[RnMomof7]

I can’t keep track of these discussions. 8~)

me either ...LOL

[RnMomof7]

Please explain which portion of Matthew 25:31-46 even suggests that those caring for the least of His brethren necessarily even know who he is.

No that is not what it says Wag...it says that the saved (the sheep) did these good works without a thought that they were doing a "God pleasing work"...Their kindness and good deeds flowed from the Holy Spiri , a work ordained by God ,not a desire to be saved. These were works that God put in their heart.

Scripture says what is not of faith is sin ...

[wagglebee]

God judged infants by the same standard in the OT that He judges men and infants by in the NEW Testament.

I'm not disputing this at all. What I am saying is that we have no reason to believe that He CHANGED the means of salvation AFTER the Pentecost.

[wagglebee]

Kinda, sorta, depends who you are talking to. Limbo has NEVER been a dogmatic teaching of the Church. The closest teaching is that God has bound salvation to baptism, but He Himself is not bound to the sacraments.

[wagglebee]

it says that the saved (the sheep) did these good works without a thought that they were doing a "God pleasing work"...Their kindness and good deeds flowed from the Holy Spirit, a work ordained by God ,not a desire to be saved. These were works that God put in their heart.

Yes, but what it DOES NOT say is that the person doing this necessarily has any knowledge of Christ.

[P-Marlowe]

Catholic teaching is fairly explicit that baptism is necessary. However, there are “provisions” ...

. Then it is not explicit and it is not necessary.

[P-Marlowe]

I believe that the target of the atonement was universal but the application is limited.

[wagglebee]

I did a little more checking. The Catholic Church says that baptism is necessary for all who have knowledge of baptism. However, it acknowledges that God is not bound by any of the sacraments.