17 thoughts on “New Calvinist Exceptionalism”

1. Did Westminster East provide a concierge to look after Piper’s encircling bright python or did he take it onto the dais with him? Just curious.

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2. DGH,

   Will you ever unite with your fellow anti-coalitionists Trueman, et al for an episode of MOS?

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3. Didn’t Spurgeon and Whitefield pre-date Westminster East? Pretty sure they invented New Calvinism.

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4. There is no ‘Calvinism’ neo or other without ecclesiology.

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5. The New Calvinism, as defined by John Piper and backed by his influential peers, is a smart way of seeking to give an authorative seal to a movement like T4G and the GC which actually inverts the real meaning of aspects of what the Reformers stood for. For example, the creeds and confessions which are vital to Protestant theology and ecclesiology – where are they in the practise and statements of men like Piper and their influential friends? They are quite absent, along with the rule of elders as defined in the confessions as being the lynchpin of Reformed church government, not influential men in a para church set up. T4G and the GC actually dilute and compromise Protestant practise as given in say the Westminster Confession by accepting as equal church practise like that of CJ Maheney and worship practises like those advocated by Kevin DeYoung which includes a worship/rock band to beef up the singing.
   Open, honest rebuttal of such movements is not negative, it is a way of saying stop trying you folks in these carefully crafted para church set ups from trying to be the defining model of Reformed practise in the guise of New Calvinism when in fact your trajectory is more generically evangelical than anything else, with a heavy topping of Piperism on top.

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6. mboss, I’m still on hold.

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7. New Calvinism in the capital:

   To reverse the fortunes of a flagging downtown congregation required skill, pluck, and some sanctified grit. Dever had all of these, but he also put in place a strategy that most church growth gurus would have deplored. For example, he began to preach sermons that lasted upwards of one hour. Next, the church excised from its rolls hundreds of inactive members—some so inactive that they had long been dead! The practice of church discipline was begun. Members were also required to subscribe to a confession of faith and to say “an oath”—this is how a secular journalist described the church covenant—at the monthly communion. Entertainment-based worship was replaced by congregational singing, including many long-forgotten classic hymns from the past. Instead of driving people away, however, over time this approach to church life—to the surprise of many—attracted droves of new believers, many of them millennials and young professionals. Today, the average age of members at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (as Metropolitan is now known) is thirty-one, and the place is bursting at the seams, with standing room only on Sunday mornings.

   What explains the success of this counter-cultural congregation? Do we see here what Jonathan Edwards might have called “a surprising work of God,” a mysterious movement of grace that defies analysis? Perhaps. But could it also be that the rising generation has developed a hunger for a more substantial spirituality than that on offer in bland, postmodern construals of religion? Could it be that more and more young adults are finding too thin the “I love Jesus but don’t need the church” mentality? CHBC is marked by doctrinal and ecclesial intentionality. Unlike many evangelicals who stress a personal relationship with Jesus at the expense of churchly commitment, Dever stresses their coinherence. “It is impossible to answer the question what is a Christian? without ending up in a conversation about the church; at least in the Bible it is.”

   Dever is a good preacher but his sermons are not characterized by rhetorical or poetic finesse. Instead, he offers a steady diet of biblical exposition—the first of “nine marks” he has outlined for a healthy church. Dever does not often preach topical sermons but rather follows the lectio continua method of preaching through a given book after the model of Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin in the Reformation. Not long ago, as Dever prepared to preach to his congregation on Psalm 143, he said, “You will be bored if you don’t open your Bible and leave it open. All I’m gonna do is talk about what’s in the Bible.”

   CHBC has been described as the epicenter of the new Calvinism sweeping across many evangelical churches today, including the Southern Baptist Convention. (CHBC belongs to the SBC.) However, the church’s literature does not speak of the tenents of Calvinism. Its statement of faith is not the more Calvinistic Philadelphia Confession, a “baptized” version of Westminster, but rather the less precise New Hampshire Confession of Faith. Still, there is no doubt that the church does honor the Puritan heritage of the Reformation and embraces the theology set forth by such Baptist heroes of the past as John Bunyan, Roger Williams, Andrew Fuller, Adoniram Judson, and Charles Haddon Spurgeon himself.

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8. Hello, Can you explain about J MacDonalds situation? Jacob

   Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 16:30:12 +0000 To: jvhalteren@sympatico.ca

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9. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/februaryweb-only/james-macdonald-resignation.html

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10. It’s no accident that the CHBC turn-around coincided with the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, the growth of evangelical-friendly think tanks, and the gentrification of the neighborhood in which it sets. It’s a Sunday social club for Southern, white evangelicals who work in DC as staffers, analysts, etc. If you want to move up in that world, you go to CHBC. Besides, Dever’s authoritarianism fits well with the way many of these young staffers view the world.

    Also, it’s no accident that New Calvinist churches are so young. Once people mature intellectually, they need more than bravado and authoritarianism.

    That being said, weren’t there 300+ NAPARC (PCA/OPC) pastors who signed a letter extolling C.J. Mahaney for beating the rap on the sex-abuse cover-up? Never mind that it appears that he did so only because the statute of limitation had run. It’s time to call Machen’s experiment a failure.

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11. evan773, so how do you escape being a product of your times? What’s your secret?

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12. Source for this please?: “That being said, weren’t there 300+ NAPARC (PCA/OPC) pastors who signed a letter extolling C.J. Mahaney for beating the rap on the sex-abuse cover-up? Never mind that it appears that he did so only because the statute of limitation had run. It’s time to call Machen’s experiment a failure.”

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13. Noe,

    I heard someone say that that was the case. That’s why I phrased it as a question. If I were on a PCA/OPC session and one of the pastors even attended Mahaney-Fest in Louisville a few weeks ago, I’d have no qualms sacking the guy on the spot. That’s akin to attending a Klan rally, in my book.

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14. Evan, “sack on the spot”?

    Great, a Klan that moisturizes instead of a Klan that wears sheets.

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15. Who’s authoritarian now?

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16. It’s not “federalism ” (it says nothing about God having already imputed the sins of the elect to Christ) but “the federal vision” is “new Calvinism” and it IS about ecclesiology. NT Wright asks the “Reformed” question—why talk about justification and soteriology when you could be talking about conditional membership in the covenant?

    http://www.exposingthefederalvision.org/

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17. Are you saying that even historians convert Reformation narratives into something that fits the times? Wny talk about soteriology when you can do something INSTEAD OF the five points or Dordt or the sacramental sectarianism of Martin Luther? http://www.refo500.nl/rc/pages/623/reformation-conferences.html

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