Neo-Boastfulness

Published on by D. G. Hart

Our western Michigan correspondent sent word of a recent piece in the Christian Reformed Church’s magazine, The Banner, that fairly well captures the sense of superiority that runs in Reformed circles. Some boast in liturgy (not many, really), some boast in doctrine, some in earnestness, and others in world affirmation. Now comes the double boast of neo-Calvinism’s superiority and its taking credit for evangelicals’ engagement with the world. According to Robert Joustra:

Times columnist David Brooks calls these young evangelicals “the Cynic Kids.” He writes that “the harsh events of the past decade may have produced not a youth revolt but a reversion to an empiricist mind-set.” These Cynic Kids, he says, “don’t like the system—however, they are wary of other alternatives as well as dismissive of their ability to actually achieve the desired modifications. As such, the generation is very conservative in its appetite for change” and “deeply resistant to idealism. Rather, the Cynic Kids have embraced the policy revolution; they require hypotheses to be tested, substantiated, and then results replicated before they commit to any course of action.”

Entitled, in other words, they are not. Just when the world badly needs the affluent, educated young to risk everything on an audacious idealism, something beyond themselves, beyond fear and uncertainty, beyond recessions and terrorism, First World problems are getting deadly serious.

Young evangelicals badly need a Christian theology that makes sense of this orgy of brokenness they are inheriting without turning them cold and cynical. They need, to quote Bob Goudzwaard, “hope in troubled times.”

Enter world-reforming Calvinism—“neo-Calvinism,” some say for short—and its practical theologies. It lacks the triumphalism and the culture-conquering religious wars of the last few decades, fueled as it is by its frank Augustinian confessions of sin and brokenness. Like our postmodern blockbusters—Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, pick your HBO/AMC prime time award-winner—this Calvinism is earnest about feeling the painful, terrifying wounds of ourselves and our world.

It doesn’t offer escapism, it doesn’t offer conquest, at least not by us mere mortals. It is unflinching in its encounter with the world’s darkest places because it knows this is not the way it’s supposed to be. Calvinism’s practical theology answers the painful moral questions of the Cynic Kids while offering real evidence, real foretastes of hope for a better world. It is slow theology, working among the ruins—“proximate justice,” Steven Garber calls it—but it is resilient theology, theology manifest in outcomes, in malaria meds and clean water, in fair loans and growing businesses.

Joustra also takes neo-Calvinist credit for evangelicals’ discovery of the importance of institutions:

Public justice is political, but it’s also more than that: it’s the social, cultural, and religious virtue that makes the political possible. It is, in the words of Mike Gerson, the architect of PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), “the banality of goodness”—of small, repeated, habituated, ritual acts of long obedience.

And it’s what Jamie Smith calls “loving faithful institutions” in his bracing manifesto in last fall’s Comment magazine. He says young evangelicals are dabbling, experimenting with institutions because they see the lasting power of those social forms, both in the destruction they bring when systems behave badly, and in the renewal when systems are restored. “Institutions,” he says, “are ways to love our neighbors. Institutions are durable, concrete structures that—when functioning well—cultivate all of creation’s potential toward what God desires—shalom, peace, goodness, justice, flourishing, delight.”

We who are already Reformed have a taste of that kind of good inheritance passed down in the structures of churches, of colleges, retirement homes, aid agencies, think tanks, and more. As it turns out, “they’ll know we are Christians by our love” is just a good paraphrase of “they’ll know we’re Reformed by our institutions.”

This neo-Calvinism may, as Joustra puts it, lack “the triumphalism and the culture-conquering religious wars of the last few decades.” But it’s hardly lean on self-promotion. Nor is this boosterism for Dutch Reformed Protestantism (which is indeed impressive on many historical registers) all that candid about the cultural engagement and institution building in which evangelicals were engaged long before Albertus Van Raalte ever set foot in Holland, Michigan. Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, the Women’s Temperance Union, the Young Men’s Christian Association, and the Evangelical Alliance were all up and thriving long before Dutch-Americans translated Abraham Kuyper into English.

In which case, readers may wonder if cultural engagement and institution are all that Reformed. Or could it be that the habit of most Christians is to baptize what they like and do in the idiom of their confessional or communal religious tribe. I for one would surely like to see neo-Calvinist policy wonks and evangelical institution builders taking hope not from their engagement but from the God described in Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 1:

Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own, but belong— body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Put not your hope in NGOs, think tanks, or the smartest guys in the Reformed Protestant seminar room.

39 thoughts on “Neo-Boastfulness”

  1. The neos seem to think that good (Reformed) theology will sanctify programs and methods that have doubtful provenance and a demonstrated tendency to train wreck. They’re doing nothing that Finneyites, revivalists, late 18th/early 19th c. libs, and 20th c. Southern Baptists, and current mainliners haven’t already done.

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  2. the harsh events of the past decade…

    huh?? They were drafted to fight in Nam and came home in a coffin or wheel chair?

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  5. How about Neo-Predictability as well:

    1. The usual rejection of “culture wars” – (I’m assuming this includes saving unborn babies)
    2. Pursuit of social justice, flourishing, peace, shalom – (is this a UN program or what?)
    3. A shout-out to Michael Gerson – recall the wondrous benefits of “compassionate conservatism”
    4. Pop-culture references to “postmodern blockbusters” – demonstrate your cultural cred to secular
    millennial hipsters. We don’t want to look like Old Hidebound Fundamentalists. Christians know
    stuff!
    5. But what about references to The Arts, Whole Foods, Starbucks, Museums, and The City.
    The article is incomplete without these.

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  6. “We who are already Reformed have a taste of that kind of good inheritance passed down in the structures of churches, of colleges, retirement homes, aid agencies, think tanks, and more. As it turns out, “they’ll know we are Christians by our love” is just a good paraphrase of “they’ll know we’re Reformed by our institutions.”

    One institution that he left out is perhaps the most important one that has made Reformed communities strong and so many other communities weak is functioning, intact families.

    The church has a role to play in the family — by encouraging catechesis, in family visitation, and in accountability — especially from husbands and wives — in keeping their marriage vows. Without healthy families these other institutions are not very effective.

    I spent the past weekend at the Iowa State track meet and saw a lot of kids from Dutch Reformed communities doing well. Being Dutch doesn’t make them fast, but being in communities with healthy churches, healthy economies, and healthy families helps them succeed in ways that kids from other communities may not.

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  7. Back in the mid sixties, GRCHS put on the play, The “Mouse That Roared”. I get it now.

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  8. Not coincidentally, kids from Catholic schools also performed well. Success that flows from institutions with religious roots is not reserved for the Reformed.

    The ability to recruit doesn’t hurt, either, though.

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  9. How do poets, good novel writers, theologians who actually talk about, write about and preach the good news of the Gospel accurately fit into the success equation of the neo-Cals? Here is a quote from a post-modern poet that I read yesterday:

    [Pause] Poets don’t drive cars. [Laughs] Poets don’t go to the supermarket. Poets don’t empty the garbage. Poets aren’t on the PTA. Poets, you know, they don’t go picket the Better Housing Bureau, or whatever. Poets don’t… poets don’t even speak on the telephone. Poets don’t even talk to anybody. Poets do a lot of listening and … and usually they know why they’re poets! [Laughs]

    Poets live on the land. They behave in a gentlemanly way. And live by their own gentlemanly code.

    [Pause] And die broke. Or drown in lakes. Poets usually have very unhappy endings…”

    Maybe poets could be accused of being antinomians- my addition.

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  10. John,

    Great art and literature often come from people who do not have the most “traditional” of values, but they do tend to have pretty good, consistent work habits. Philip Roth, Woody Allen, and Wallace Stevens come to mind. For every one of these guys there are ten William Burroughs, Malcolm Lowry, John Kennedy Toole, David Foster Wallace, and John O’Brien, though.

    Alcohol has also played a big role in the work of novelists from John Steinbeck, to John Cheever, to William Faulkner.

    http://www.salon.com/2014/05/25/mad_mens_great_influence_a_shows_secrets_hidden_in_plain_sight/

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  11. Perhaps the greatest difficulty for the Christian artist is the demand that they produce PG-rated art in what is largely an R and X-rated world. It can be done, and done well, but the entire range of human experience is probably not available to the Christian artist. Certainly many subjects probably need to be left to the imagination that can be made explicit by the artist without Christian scruples. This is not necessarily a bad thing. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?

    “Leaving Las Vegas” is a good example. That is in many ways a profound film, but one that could probably not be written or made by a Christian.

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  12. Let me quote a poet for my friend John:

    “Don’t quote, say for yourself….”

    “Self-reliance is not organized religion”

    “We do not begin as a pair, but we need to get there.”

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  13. I am still loving Bill Smith’s blog, and this one about Ladd’s drinking problem

    http://thechristiancurmudgeonmo.blogspot.com/2013/03/more-already-than-not-yet.html

    1 Corinthians 1:29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

    1 Corinthians 4:7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

    2 Corinthians 11:30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

    2 Corinthians 12:5 but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses—

    Galatians 6: 12 It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. 14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

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  14. Workload for a willing neo-Calvinist male in some locales–following marriage: boys’ club leader, youth group leader (along with his wife), church school teacher, Christian school board member, church committee member, deacon, elder. In their free time, they raise their families and make a living. Decades ago, men were simultaneously on school boards and church councils. Above tasks are listed in typical chronological order. Not much opportunity, it may be noted, for lengthy appreciation of the fine arts.

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  15. Mark – That was a good post by Evans.

    nocable – Nothing wrong with all those activities. Interesting that Calvin has a film studies department, though, so some in the CRC must move in more artistic circles. What you are referring to may be more of a URC phenomenon these days. Then again, Calvin faculty probably have never been overly representative of the CRC as a whole.

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  16. The CRC and it’s institutions have an admirable tradition in the arts and humanities–Calvin is synonymous with world class learning (one benefit of the mistaken notion that heaven implies earth is that its adherents can end up doing earth pretty well, though no better or worse than even those who deny heaven). But while imaginative reading is always a good thing, it’s when creativity is applied to preaching that I get nervous…

    http://calvinseminary.edu/academics/continuing-education/imaginative-reading-for-creative-preaching/

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  18. Also, I found the chart linked at the bottom of the article to be fascinating. It listed Carl Trueman as one of the “sample theological leaders” in the Neo-Puritanism column. Really?

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  19. nocable, that was a perfect send-up of a neo trying to one-up everybody.

    No matter what I do, they have 50 things to excitedly berate me with that I’m not doing and therefore not godly or contributing to their view of the Kingdom, which I didn’t ask for in the first place.

    I doubt they do 10% of what they boast about, show off how busy busy busy they are, which I also did ask about either, come to think of it…

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  21. CW, maybe it’s just that there’s more room in the PCA to make it up to suit themselves than in the URC. But mainly you have to figure he’s friends with Keller, so that track is all greased up for him into the foreseeable future.

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  22. My URC is scheduled for a serious discussion on the footnote for Belgic 36, and all the implications for subscribers.

    Not the place to beeeee is you want to put on a groovy rock and roll circus.

    Who has time for a boring confession?

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  25. RLK, CRT is not a neo-Calvinist. He does like Owen. If you have to choose, you’d put him in the neo-Puritan world. But I don’t think those are the only options. And I’m not sure CRT can be labelled.

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  26. Sean, but DeYoung is also friends with Mark Dever. Why not the SBC? Oh, that’s right, the PCA is the Presbyterian version of the SBC.

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  28. Thanks, DG.

    Granted that I’m no expert on these things, I certainly wouldn’t have put Trueman in the neo-Cal column, but I never would have thought he’d appear in the neo-Puritan column either. Strange to me that he appeared at all.

    He certainly didn’t hesitate to jump on the anti-TT bandwagon. Maybe that’s the connection. (Or maybe that’s neither here nor there.)

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  29. BTW, I attend University Reformed Church in East Lansing, where DeYoung is the pastor.

    Seeing as how I post here on occasion, I thought full disclosure might be in order.

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  32. RL,

    That is an interesting chart. I would like to see a column added for Paleo-Calvinists, aka Old Lifers.

    Hope things go well for your church during the transition.

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  34. McMark and Erik,

    The point I was trying to make is that the neo-Cal point of view is sanitized and does not adequately deal with the messiness of life. I bought into that view for many years and tried to be respectable by seeking after things, positions, relationships and anything that would make me look like I wanted to be but really was not. I could never live up to it and I became a big failure in my own eyes and in the eyes of all those who knew me the best. However, looking back on it all, failure speaks louder than success. I have accepted what I have gone through as part of a bigger purpose than my own petty failures or successes. They don’t matter much anymore. I am all ears to those who can unite people (with their perceived failures and successes) around the accurate gospel.

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  35. I Cor 1: 26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

    Our failure is not our righteousness. Our suffering is not our righteousness. Our lack of wisdom is not our righteousness. Our weakness is not our righteousness. Our faith is not our righteousness. Nietzsche was right to criticize the Billy Graham kind of sermon which spends almost all the time on the problems of the world and then at the last moment announces that “Christ is the answer”. We need to focus not on our failure or success, but on what God did in Christ to satisfy the law for the elect.

    There is a big difference between God’s imputation and our faith

    We receive the righteousness by imputation, once for all time (Romans 5:11, and 17)

    We receive the righteousness by justifying faith, and justifying faith continues for our entire life after we are justified the first and only time

    But a lot of Reformed folk skip right over that one time imputation, and assume that every “receive” is “through faith” John, too many Reformed folk even seem to think that God ‘imputes faith as the righteousness, this is why I think we need to go back to first base (the nature of justification)

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  38. It’s a great resource, RLK, helped me find a new home in NAPARC 5 years ago. Pretty slim pickings in my city, I may be at the only one within a 40 minute drive, several drive a lot further than that to attend.

    The only squabbling I’ve noticed comes from those who don’t like the hyper label.

    Not sure in a scientific sense but I think they are the one’s with Hoeksema (not the s-less Hoekema) as a leader. But even the PRCA journal and resources are a good read.

    Following your exciting move and fondly best wishes on it.

    And yes, life is good in the URC or OPC… 😀

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