Comments on: Paleo- and Neo-Reformed

By: Camden Bucey

Camden Bucey — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:34:34 +0000

Groups like the Gospel Coalition are downplaying distinctions as they organize around the really important issues. I suppose “coalition member” may be the new “evangelical.” If this is the new trend, we won’t end up with verbicide, but rather acronym soup reminiscent of a Vern Poythress CV. There may be no end to listing all the particular memberships we maintain.

By: Zrim

Zrim — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:37:30 +0000

Gary and DGH,

The e-term pre-dates and post-dates plenty of things. It also coincides others like catholic and apostolic, none of which I have any problem with in their proper Reformed context. Certain asterisks are weird things to have in Christian confessions. Either erase them and just using one big R, little e’s, c’s and a’s or put more asterisks in. I’m for the former.

Re Clinton, if his remarks about work and Calvinism are any measure I don’t see any highjacking hijinks going on. I’ll take him while the theonomoists can have his Methodist wife. After all, “theonomy is Calvinism’s version of Methodism,” as the man once said. And since work sanctifies us, urban-pilgrims fighting the world, the flesh and the devil I think Clinton is quite onto something.

By: GLWJohnson

GLWJohnson — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:13:40 +0000

Come to think of, if this kind of label highjacking is allowed to go on, then what are we going to do with Bill Clinton calling himself a ‘Calvinist’?!

By: GLWJohnson

GLWJohnson — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:01:57 +0000

DGH
Actually, I am perfectly happy to use the word the same way that Warfield did-the way the word was intended to be used in the 16th century. But if that happens then folks like McKnight, McLaren & co. would find themselves out in the cold. Mind you I am not the least bit interested in being part of the ‘Big Tent’ Evangelical circus, but it is a pity that we have lost a perfectly good word in the process.

By: DGH

DGH — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:50:19 +0000

Gary, the problem is that “evangelical” also post-dates the Great Awakening, as well as World War II and John Paul II. If we could establish a federal agency to oversee the uses of the term, maybe it would be worth using. It seems that McKnight may have been writing with you in mind. Do you have the authority to determine who is and who is not “evangelical?” If so, can you also get me a job?

Nick, yes, the Reformed confessions can be and have been revised. The point of being confessional is not to treat the creeds as reference works, but to stand in the company of a Reformed witness that took expression in these statements and continues to be expressed by communions for whom these statements are a summary of God’s word.

By: GLWJohnson

GLWJohnson — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:37:28 +0000

Zrim
The term ‘Evangelical’ pre-dates the Great Awakening. It was coined to describe the followers of Martin Luther’s understanding of ‘Sola Fide’- Calvin understood that way. It strikes me as a form of skullduggery when someone like Keith Fournier comes along calls himself an ‘Evangelical Roman Catholic’. This is as troubling as Roger Olson calling himself a ‘Reformed Arminian’.

By: Zrim

Zrim — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:14:56 +0000

Rob, it’s really not that hard. Neo- and Paleo- depend on what you think of the First Great Awakening. If you do think it was great, or even pretty good, chances are you’re neo-.

Bill Cinton suggested a thumbnail once that one knows he’s a Democrat if he thinks the 60s were mostly advantageous, a Republican if he thinks they were mainly disadvantagous. Similarly, if one thinks Billy Graham is mostly a good phenomenon he is probably an evangelical, mostly a bad thing probably a confessionalist.

That may not help Rob or Gary, but it’s as plain as day to me. Last I counted, “evangelical” wasn’t a four-letter word, so I don’t think the point here is to delete it so much as to put into a context. There is at once a fine line and wide distinction between being evangelical and being an Evangelical, which methinks Warfield understood pretty well.

By: Nick Mackison

Nick Mackison — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:42:13 +0000

DGH,
I’m on something of a pilgrimage towards confessional Reformed theology, piety and practice. A question I have is, if our definition of Reformed is to be found in the 3 forms of unity and the Westminster Standards (and I believe they embody Scriptural teaching), is it possible for us to ammend the confessions (if necessary) and keep the label ‘Reformed’?

By: GLWJohnson

GLWJohnson — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:51:50 +0000

DGH
You do know that we are also constantly having to qualify the word ‘Reformed’as well. Warfield bemoaned what C.S. Lewis once described as ‘verbicide’-the death of a precious word. It is highly ironic, given McKnight’s blurb, that NT Wright claims to be ‘Reformed’. To answer your question, Warfield and those like him, used the word ‘Evangelical’ to define those who could affirm the Reformation’s understanding of the importance and centrality of ‘sola fide’-and as such, Wright, in their eyes ,would be neither ‘Reformed’ or ‘Evangelical’.

By: DGH

DGH — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:39:01 +0000

Gary, how long does it take an evangelical Calvinist to learn a new trick? Answer: he never does because he still thinks Jonathan Edwards hung the moon.

Yes, Warfield employed the word evangelical. And he also condemned the Plan of Organic Union of Evangelical Churches (1920), and would have likely opposed had he lived to read it, Shailer Matthews defense of modernism as evangelicalism updated with the insights of science (1925).

When you have so much confusion over a word, why not just use a different one? Isn’t Reformed much clearer? And if it is not as clear as it might be, isn’t that because the Neo-Reformed have been haning out with evangelicals so long.

BTW, Warfield thought Baptists and Lutherans were evangelical also. So what does the word “evangelical” clarify if used for these different Protestants who are not in fellowship? I suspect that “evangelical” is supposed to make the differences that lead away from fellowship disappear. Nice try, but the Baptist, Lutheran, and Reformed confessions still disagree in ways that matter to being Baptist, Lutheran and Reformed.