What’s New About ‘New Calvinism’?
00:00:00.000 | Lately, you've been talking a lot about New Calvinism, Pastor John, a phrase which appears
00:00:10.040 | to have been coined back in 2007 or 2008 by Crossway Books titling committee, as they
00:00:15.680 | were thinking about subtitles for Colin Hansen's book, Young, Restless, Reformed, a journalist's
00:00:21.120 | journey with the New Calvinists. And the phrase was born. And it's a phrase that has become
00:00:25.960 | part of our vocabulary over the years since. And obviously, this New Calvinism is built
00:00:31.060 | on a long legacy of Old Calvinism. So explain this further for us. And in your mind, Pastor
00:00:36.440 | John, what's new about New Calvinism?
00:00:39.720 | Well, the first thing I would say is that what the New Calvinism has in common with
00:00:46.320 | the Older Calvinism is a thousand times more important than what makes it different. That's
00:00:52.640 | the most important thing to say, probably. The truth is not new, and the truth is the
00:01:00.520 | root and the ground of all the applications, new and old. But the doctrines of grace, summed
00:01:08.900 | up into five points, the five soul laws of the Reformation, the sovereignty of God over
00:01:16.240 | all our suffering, the supremacy of an infallible scriptures, overall tradition, all these are
00:01:24.760 | common and supremely precious, old and new. That's the first thing I would say. The commonalities
00:01:33.080 | that define the truth dimension of Calvinism, old and new, are vastly more important than
00:01:39.920 | the distinctions. Here's the second thing I'd say. Any attempt to describe the New Calvinism
00:01:47.200 | as distinct from the old is almost certainly going to run into historical contradictions,
00:01:54.440 | because the Older Calvinism goes back so far, so many centuries, and has found expression
00:02:01.200 | in hundreds of different forms and cultures and emphases and strategies and personalities.
00:02:10.120 | As soon as you say such and such is new, someone with a good historical nose is going to find
00:02:18.440 | an example in history that shows it's not new. And so I'm not eager to claim newness.
00:02:27.520 | And the third thing to say is, well, you are using the term, Piper, so come on. Why are
00:02:32.960 | you using it then? What is new about the New Calvinism if you're going to keep using the
00:02:38.760 | term? And so here's, I jotted down seven things that I think we can say give good warrant
00:02:48.280 | to the term New Calvinism. Number one, the New Calvinism has a strong complementarian
00:02:54.760 | flavor with an emphasis on the flourishing of men and women in relationships where men
00:03:02.320 | embrace the call to robust, humble, Christ-like servant leadership. Now that has been true
00:03:11.520 | for 99% of Reformed people and Reformed history. And the only reason it stands out as new is
00:03:21.480 | because in the last 50 years, many Reformed people have turned away from that part of
00:03:28.760 | the history. And so ironically, in being a conserving element at this point, the New
00:03:36.240 | Calvinism looks new over against a lot of the trajectories of the older Calvinism that
00:03:42.240 | have become egalitarian. Number two, the New Calvinism feels new because so much of it
00:03:49.920 | embraces contemporary forms of music and worship. In principle, that's not new. Isaac Watts
00:03:58.840 | in the 1700s was quite avant-garde in his hymnology, but it feels new because there
00:04:06.640 | are strong traditions of Calvinism who resist this trend. Number three, there is a strong
00:04:13.600 | Baptistic element in the New Calvinism. Now, historically, Baptists have been mainly Calvinistic
00:04:22.320 | over the entire history of their life from the 17th century, but they have seemed like
00:04:32.220 | stepchildren historically, and today they don't, and that feels new. Fourth, the New
00:04:40.000 | Calvinism includes significant numbers of Charismatics and Non-Charismatics. Historically,
00:04:47.560 | that's new. Number five, in the New Calvinism, Jonathan Edwards seems to play a historically
00:04:55.000 | unusually large role over against, say, John Calvin on the historical spectrum. That's
00:05:03.920 | a newer development. Number six, the New Calvinism is vibrantly engaged in the world of internet
00:05:13.880 | with hundreds of energetic bloggers and social media activists and Twitter users. Now, that's
00:05:21.400 | totally new. I mean, that just didn't exist, and it's no fault of the older Calvinism because
00:05:27.320 | there was no opportunity to use it. Number seven, there is a strong emphasis in the New
00:05:34.040 | Calvinism on multi-ethnicity of the church and a passion for racial harmony and diversity,
00:05:43.240 | and even more amazing, the convictions of God's sovereignty, this big God theology,
00:05:49.920 | for breaking out in ethnically indigenous ways that have not been managed by anyone
00:05:58.880 | on the earth. And I think, historically speaking, the scope of that diversity is probably new.
00:06:11.400 | So those are my seven, I think that was seven, marks of newness. But I'll end again by saying
00:06:18.760 | again what the new has in common with the old is all important. Truth is always the
00:06:25.480 | root that can break out again and again in new ways from generation to generation, and
00:06:31.520 | holding fast to that, spreading that is what I care most about.
00:06:35.520 | Yes, amen. Thank you, Pastor John. And speaking of New Calvinism, where did all these Calvinists
00:06:40.920 | come from? That was the question. That was the topic of our discussion in episode number
00:06:45.440 | 237 in the Ask Pastor John podcast series. Find episode number 237 along with 300 other
00:06:51.440 | episodes in the Ask Pastor John app, which is a free download for the iPhone and the
00:06:55.840 | Android. And in the iPhone version of the app, we recently added a search bar at the
00:07:00.080 | top of the screen, which makes it really easy and convenient to navigate the entire podcast
00:07:04.520 | archive.
00:07:05.520 | Tomorrow, we will return to talk about the prosperity gospel again, specifically how
00:07:10.480 | to discern a subtler version of the prosperity gospel message that can creep into the sermons
00:07:14.780 | that we hear today. I'm your host Tony Reinke, we'll see you tomorrow.
00:07:18.120 | [End of Audio]
00:07:19.120 | 1
00:07:19.120 | 1
00:07:20.120 | 2
00:07:21.120 | 3
00:07:22.120 | 4
00:07:23.120 | 5
00:07:24.120 | 6
00:07:25.120 | 7
00:07:26.120 | 8