Evidences of God’s Grace in the New Calvinism and more...

In yesterday’s video, “Where Did All these Calvinists Come From?,” I provided a brief introduction to the New Calvinism—the recent resurgence of Reformed theology. I described how, in my assessment, it came about at least in part as a response ... --------------------------------------------------------------- In This Issue... - [Evidences of God’s Grace in the New Calvinism](#0) - [A La Carte (October 24)](#1) - [4 Ways We Get the Reformation Completely Wrong](#2) [] [Evidences of God’s Grace in the New Calvinism]( In yesterday’s video, “[Where Did All these Calvinists Come From?]( I provided a brief introduction to the New Calvinism—the recent resurgence of Reformed theology. I described how, in my assessment, it came about at least in part as a response to the excesses of the church growth movement (and an alternative to the emerging church movement). Today, in a video for the watchers and a transcript for the readers, I want to point out some of the evidences of God’s grace we see in and through it. (Note: Much of this material is drawn from a chapter I wrote for a forthcoming book titled New Calvinism: New Reformation or Theological Fad?. It is set to release in January.) [Play YouTube video]( Rush Transcript Whatever else we can say about New Calvinism—and there’s lots to say—we can’t deny this: It displays many evidences of God’s grace. It is beyond dispute that God has been blessing his people and glorifying his name through this movement. In this video I want to point out 6 evidences of God’s grace in this Reformed resurgence. 1. Enthusiasm for Sound Doctrine If there is an unofficial textbook for New Calvinism it has to be Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology. If there is an unofficial study Bible the honour has to go to the enormous ESV Study Bible. The elder statesmen of the movement are pastor-theologians and its rising generation of male leaders are primarily preachers and female leaders are Bible teachers. Its conferences for men and women are based on teaching how the Bible applies to all of life. Its books are committed to displaying the centrality of the gospel and to promoting the glory of God in all things. Even its music is deliberately theological, helping generate a revival of hymnody and other forms of theologically-robust music. From beginning to end, New Calvinism is a movement founded upon and defined by the doctrine laid out in Scripture. 2. Local-Church Centrality It would be easy to define New Calvinism by its many conferences. From Shepherds’ Conference, Bethlehem Conference for Pastors, The Basics, The Gospel Coalition, Together for the Gospel and on and on, New Calvinism is a movement made up of many conferences. It would also be easy to define New Calvinism by its many ministries and organizations: Grace To You, Desiring God, Ligonier, and again, The Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel. Yet to define the movement by any of those ministries would be to miss the point because New Calvinism is first a movement of Christians within their local churches. One of the most important marks of New Calvinism is its focus on the centrality of the local church and its emphasis on healthy local churches. Each of these conferences and each of these organizations is committed to strengthening and equipping rather than displacing the local church. This is a right emphasis because God’s plan for the world is not conferences or parachurch ministries but strong, Bible-based, local churches led by qualified leaders. 3. Biblical Ecumenism It is a sad reality of life in a fallen world that we find it far easier to splinter than to unite. Really, so much of church history can be told by the divisions that have kept Christian from Christian. At times these divisions have been necessary to protect the purity of Christ’s church, but far too often they have been petty disputes over the finest theological nuances. From the very beginning, New Calvinism has been a movement that has emphasized a biblical ecumenism. It has united on the gospel and on a few key implications of the gospel, then has deliberately brought Christians into shared relationship, ministry, and mission. Many of its conferences and ministries are diverse by their design, so they can draw together denominations, churches, and individuals that might otherwise prefer to remain independent and unaffiliated. New Calvinism is committed to keeping the main thing the main thing. 4. International Impact New Calvinism began primarily in America, was given its names by American publications, is led primarily by Americans, and is dominated by American Christians. Despite all of this, it is and always has been an international movement that is making its mark all around the globe. Its books are shipped around the world and its blogs accessed from every country on earth. Its major conferences may draw people from all over. Wherever there are Christians and wherever those Christians are eager to be taught and trained, there are people who associate themselves with this movement. It is increasingly a truly international movement. It’s also growing in its mission reach. John Piper, David Platt, Paul Washer and others like them have emphasized the responsibility of all Christians to serve and support global missions. Churches, denominations and sending agencies associated with New Calvinism have been faithful to send missionaries across the world and also to create excellent resources to serve them there. 5. Deploying New Technologies Even a brief survey of church history shows that worldwide Christian movements have often followed close on the heels of new technologies. The spread of the gospel in the early church was made possible largely through the recent technology of the Roman roads. Fifteen hundred years later the new technology of the printing press provided a way to distribute the writings of the Reformers and, even more so, for the new translations of the Bible. Today we are witnessing the dawn of the digital revolution. In just a short time we gained access to all kinds new tools and all the capabilities they bring. Most of these tools exist for going and communicating—the very tasks God calls us to in the Great Commission—the tasks of evangelism and discipleship. Never before have we been able to have people and words go so far so fast. New Calvinism has been on the front lines of creating, adapting, and using these new tools. Web sites, blogs, conference live-streaming, podcasts, YouTube, digital books and Bibles—though none of these existed even a few short years ago. Yet each of them has been understood and harnessed for God’s purposes. 6. Grounding in Church History Every generation grapples with the temptation to neglect history, to assume they have little to learn from Christians who have gone before. New Calvinism, though, has been shaped by previous generations of Christians and by pastors and teachers who lived in centuries past. New Calvinism has a good desire to orient itself within the long history of the Christian faith. As much as it has emphasized correct doctrine, it has also emphasized church history. It focuses a lot of attention on the lives and legacies of great Christian men and women of days past. People are going back to the Reformers and Puritans to read their works. Here in 2017 nearly every major conference has focused on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. In this way New Calvinism is looking back even as it looks forward. It’s drawing from ancient sources of wisdom and applying it to modern realities. In these ways and so many more New Calvinism is displaying evidences that God’s hand of blessing is upon it. Souls are being saved, lives are being transformed, churches are being strengthened, missionaries are being sent, the work the Lord has given us is being carried on. Stay tuned for my next video where I’ll offer some potential areas of weakness in the movement. [Like on Facebook]( [Share on Google+]( [Pin it!](https%3a%2f%2fwww.challies.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2016%2f10%2fSidebar.jpg) [Tweet This]( [Subscribe by email]( [Subscribe by RSS]( Related Stories - [Where Did All These Calvinists Come From?](   • [Email to a friend]( of God’s Grace in the New Calvinism;5820497) • [] [A La Carte (October 24)]( Today’s [Kindle deals]( include a whole stack of excellent books. There were too many to list for a single day, so be sure to check in again tomorrow. [Five Parenting Myths I Used to Believe]( “The few hours between arriving home from work and putting the kids to bed will be the most challenging, and often the most rewarding, of my day. Raising children frequently brings me face to face with my own ignorance, foolishness, and inadequacies. My children presented me with problems I never anticipated, disobey in ways I never imagined, and bless me in ways I only dared to dream.” [25 Bible Reading Tips]( Looking for some Bible reading tips? You can find 25 of them here. [What’s the Worst Taste in the World?]( “As it turns out, “disgust” is relative—yet another of the half-million interlocking social constructs which impede our desires, enrich various wealthy profiteers and, in this particular instance, prevent us from dining on diseased rat carcasses.” [What Does the Roman Catholic Church Believe About Justification?]( R.C. Sproul explains what the Roman Catholic Church believes about justification. [10 Things You Should Know about the 144,000 in the Book of Revelation]( Sam Storms writes: “Will the debate ever end about the identity of the 144,000 servants in Revelation 7? Perhaps not, but I hope these ten truths will contribute something to our understanding of who they are and what they do.” [The 15 Most Influential Websites of All Time]( How many of these sites have you used? How many do you still use today? [Here’s What They Grabbed]( “Fire evacuees had minutes, or seconds, to save memories. Here’s what they grabbed.” What would you take from your home if you had just minutes to choose? [Flashback: Death to Clickbait!]( I hate clickbait. I absolutely despise it. Clickbait is lazy. It’s manipulative. It’s distracting and disappointing. It’s an abomination. Death to clickbait! Love can grow only if it is rooted in the soil of true obedience. —Alexander Strauch [Like on Facebook]( [Share on Google+]( [Pin it!](https%3a%2f%2fwww.challies.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2017%2f10%2fChallies_Oct22-28-02.png) [Tweet This]( [Subscribe by email]( [Subscribe by RSS]( Related Stories - [A La Carte (October 23)]( - [Weekend A La Carte (October 21)]( - [A La Carte (October 20)](   • [Email to a friend]( La Carte (October 24);5820497) • [] [4 Ways We Get the Reformation Completely Wrong]( This sponsored post was prepared by The Good Book Company, publisher of [90 Days in Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, & Galatians]( with Calvin, Luther, Bullinger and Cranmer. It seems like every publisher, organisation and church has been waving the reformation flag in some way as we celebrate 500 years of the protestant revolution. No doubt there are many church members who have been helped to discover an aspect of our evangelical heritage that was invisible to them. But I wonder if there isn’t a different category of Christian that needs a different kind of help. Like any slice of history and heritage, we can easily get the wrong impression about what was really going on. Here are four common ones … you may have others. 1. It’s all about a man with a hammer Not Thor—Martin Luther. The story of his 95 theses and the door of Wittenberg cathedral is widely seen as the starting point for the reformation. But like many revolutionary sparks, it is much less important than the volatile combustible material that it sets fire to. Widespread discontent with an authoritarian, corrupt and greedy church, combined with a hunger for education and personal knowledge was the tinder. Martin Luther was one focus of the revolution, but many others were significant parts of the picture Once the fire was started, there was no putting it out. 2. It was a clash between thinkers, theologians and powerful politicians History recounts the dealings between kings and popes and churchmen, and the councils and disputations they spoke at. But lost from view is the bigger thing that was happening. Ordinary men and women were discovering powerful, life-transforming truths as they read the scriptures for the first time. It is not just that there were no priests in the New Testament. Nor that purgatory and indulgences are nowhere to be found in the Bible. It was the intense and liberating idea that God forgives a person direct by grace, and that everyone has access to God through Jesus without the need for an intermediary, best a church or a priest. The great reformers we remember were scholars, and to some extent politicians or soldiers. But they shared a passion for communicating the doctrines of grace to ordinary people—the tinkers, farmers, merchants, mothers and milkmaids who comprise the substance of the reformation. We love the books of the leaders, but we do them disservice when we keep them as textbooks for seminary students, or for pastors. Their writings, once liberated from archaic translations, speak clearly and powerfully about the gospel of grace today to [ordinary people.]( 3. We think that “being reformed” is about having a certain kind of style It’s really not. “Reformed” has long been associated with a deep seriousness that expresses itself in more conservative forms of social interaction. Men in dark suits. Formal ways of doing church. Loooooooong sermons. But none of these things are core to what the reformation was all about. At its heart, being protestant is about faith and grace and scripture and the glory of God alone — but there are a million different ways to express these values within church structure and a church-family culture. Noisy or quiet. Formal or informal. Classical or contemporary. Calvin promoted the “regulative principle” (i.e. that anything not mentioned in Scripture is not obligatory in church), and yet so many of his descendants adopt a more Lutheran approach—who believed that anything that was traditional in church should be maintained unless it was directly taught against by Scripture. Being reformed in the Calvin tradition should cultivate a rich and diverse freedom of expression in church life. 4. It’s over It most definitely is not. The reformation is not something that happened back then. It is something that needs to continue today—even in reformed churches. The reformation was always incomplete, even in the places and the times when it took it’s strongest grip on a country or people group. What led to the need for a reformation was a vibrant early church that eventually lost its way. We are all in danger of that at all times. We need to keep being critical of our culture and own doctrine; to hold our thinking and practice and priorities up to the scriptures to see where we are falling short, and adjust accordingly. Semper reformanda—always reforming—must remain our watchword. To celebrate the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, why not let Calvin, Luther, Bullinger and Cranmer sit alongside you as you open up your Bible day by day with [90 Days in Genesis, Exodus, the Psalms & Galatians](. The writings of these Reformers have been edited, and in parts translated, by Dr Lee Gatiss. Each day includes helpful questions and prompts to apply the reformers’ insights to your life and bring the reformation to life in your own devotional walk with God. Download a free 5 Solas of The Reformation poster The Reformers of the 16th century were moved to put their livelihoods, homes, fortunes, and lives on the line to restore to the church the essential teachings of the gospel. These have come down to us by five Latin phrases. Translated into English, they teach that salvation is according to Scripture alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, for the glory of God alone. Loading… [Like on Facebook]( [Share on Google+]( [Pin it!](https%3a%2f%2fwww.challies.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2016%2f10%2fSidebar.jpg) [Tweet This]( [Subscribe by email]( [Subscribe by RSS]( Related Stories - [How to Talk To Your Kids About Human Dignity]( - [How to Burn Out During the Holidays: A Guide for Pastors and Church Leaders  ]( - [Is the Reformation Worth Celebrating?](   • [Email to a friend]( Ways We Get the Reformation Completely Wrong;5820497) • --------------------------------------------------------------- [Contact Us]( •[Past Issues](5820497/52189706/4dcf69b290868edad03c10ca31e27184) •[Unsubscribe]( [Click here to safely unsubscribe]( from "challies.com - Informing the Reforming." 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