Via Justin Taylor comes Mark Dever’s top-ten list on the factors that spawned the New Calvinist phenomenon (given Tim Keller’s precise definitions, I’m loathe to describe the young and restless as a movement). Here’s the list (each one receives a separate post at Dever’s blog):
1. Charles H. Spurgeon
2. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
3. The Banner of Truth Trust
4. Evangelism Explosion
5. The inerrancy controversy
6. Presbyterian Church in America (PCA)
7. J. I. Packer
8. John MacArthur and R. C. Sproul
9. John Piper
10. The rise of secularism and decline of Christian nominalism
Before offering an OldLife perspective, it is worth noting that Dever buries his lead by ranking John Piper at number nine. My impression, after reading Collin Hansen’s book, is that Piper and Desiring God (DG, you know, not always about me) is largely responsible for turning Millenials into Jonathan-Edwards-is-my-homeboy T-shirt wearing evangelicals. Dever agrees even if number nine doesn’t reflect the agreement:
When all those seminarians and ministers in their 20′s stood up at Together for the Gospel in April of 2006, if I couldn’t give a 10-part answer, but if I had to give a 2-word human explanation for their presence there, I know what two words I would utter: “John Piper.”
What is curious about this list, with all due respect (going Hollywood alert) to my friend, Mark Dever, is how culturally and historically thin it is. Granted, as an OPC elder, I am surprised that the PCA (nos. 4 and 6) gets more credit than my own communion and its influential scholars such as Machen, Van Til, Young, Murray, Stonehouse, Kline, VanDrunen, Fesko, and even — dare we say — Trueman.
But denominational bragging rights aside, the list is decidedly Anglo-centric and recent. Nothing on the list suggests the sixteenth-century origins of Reformed Protestantism in Zurich and Geneva, nor the huge contribution that French-speaking Protestants made in the initial phases of Calvinism (Calvin, after all, was not English). Nor does this list acknowledge the remarkable nature of the Dutch Reformation, both in its hiccups and fits during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in its modern phase guided and inspired by Abraham Kuyper. And not to be discounted is the influence of Scottish Presbyterianism (though Banner of Truth is in Edinburgh) again in the initial phases of reformation, a presence at the Westminster Assembly, and the important struggles of the nineteenth century in which Thomas Chalmers figured so prominently. This does not begin to admit the important influences on American Calvinism by immigrants from these various communions who settled in North America and established denominations and schools to propagate the Reformed faith. Princeton Seminary would surely be high on such a list, as would its step-child, Westminster. So too would be the Dutch-American contribution from western Michigan.
All of this raises a question about how well the New Calvinism represents the Old Calvinism. Does it stand in continuity or is it really new? And if new, how much might it need to learn from the old, especially if wearing the Calvinist badge? If most of your sources of influence and inspiration come from the twentieth century when a theological tradition is four hundred years older, and if it draws largely on the English variety of experimental Calvinism without listening to French, German, Dutch, Scottish, and Swiss voices, you may be guilty of selling a Wendy’s hamburger when you could be serving Julia Child’s boeuf bourguignon.
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Mark Mcculley: II Peter 1:1 “To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.”
RS: There are multiple ways of looking at this verse. “A faith” can simply mean the Christian faith or the truths of the Christian faith. It can also mean that by the work of Christ in His life and death each person that has had faith purchased for him or her will then have that faith. But to say that this is the imputed righteousness of Christ is perhaps not the best interpretation of the text.
Mark Mcculley: The reason we need to be careful about John Owen’s trilemma is that Christ did not die to forgive any elect person of the final sin of unbelief of the gospel. Christ died to give every elect person faith in the true gospel.
RS: But we all need to be careful here and see both sides (or more sides if need be). If unbelief is a sin, then it must be forgiven. The sin of unbelief must be given and then that sin must be taken away so that there will be belief. Another way to put it would be that Christ died for the sinner so that his or her unbelieving heart could be forgiven and taken away and also that the person could be given as a free gift a believing heart. It is a two-sided issue that cannot be separated, though as you point out it can be distinguished. The unbeliving heart must be taken away for there to be a believing heart.
The difference between “moderates” (Calvinists who think that Arminianism is the gospel) and those they dismiss as “John Owenites” is not for the need of the Spirit’s work or faith in the gospel. Even though at the end of the day, we have different gospels (objects of faith), we do not disagree about justification being through faith. We who are called “Owenites” do not teach eternal justification, or justification apart from faith, even though our accusers claim that this makes us inconsistent.
We do NOT teach that the elect are free from condemnation before being “baptized into Christ”. Although John Owen taught that God only imputed the sins of the elect to Christ, John Owen did not teach that all the elect were justified as soon as Christ bore those sins. Owen taught with Romans 6 that the elect must come into legal union with Christ’s death. Until the elect are placed into that death, they remain under the wrath of God.
But those who accuse us of thinking there is no need for faith or knowledge of the gospel claim that it is not consistent for us to teach such a need for faith. If the substitution has already been
made, then all for whom it was made should logically already be justified. If the righteousness has already been obtained for the elect alone, then all for whom it was earned should logically already
be justified by it. This is the claim made by those deny that the exact substitution was already made at the cross. These people want to say that the righteousness of Christ is potentially universal.
It’’s clear that Owen did not teach justification apart from faith. It’s also clear that Owen did not teach that faith was a mere recognition that we were already justified. (See Carl Trueman’s
various books and essays on John Owen).
Those who think we are inconsistent in insisting on faith in the gospel, what is it that those folks are teaching about the atonement? Some like the Torrance brothers think that saying that Christ died only for the elect leads to a denial of the need for faith in the gospel.. Some like Andrew Fuller and John Piper think that Christ’s purchase of faith is what’s limited about the intention of the
atonement. (Andrew Fuller is not the only one to have regarded the transfer of the sins of the elect to Christ as figurative and as not legally possible.)