Lately, you've been talking a lot about New Calvinism, Pastor John, a phrase which appears to have been coined back in 2007 or 2008 by Crossway Books titling committee, as they were thinking about subtitles for Colin Hansen's book, Young, Restless, Reformed, a journalist's journey with the New Calvinists. And the phrase was born.

And it's a phrase that has become part of our vocabulary over the years since. And obviously, this New Calvinism is built on a long legacy of Old Calvinism. So explain this further for us. And in your mind, Pastor John, what's new about New Calvinism? Well, the first thing I would say is that what the New Calvinism has in common with the Older Calvinism is a thousand times more important than what makes it different.

That's the most important thing to say, probably. The truth is not new, and the truth is the root and the ground of all the applications, new and old. But the doctrines of grace, summed up into five points, the five soul laws of the Reformation, the sovereignty of God over all our suffering, the supremacy of an infallible scriptures, overall tradition, all these are common and supremely precious, old and new.

That's the first thing I would say. The commonalities that define the truth dimension of Calvinism, old and new, are vastly more important than the distinctions. Here's the second thing I'd say. Any attempt to describe the New Calvinism as distinct from the old is almost certainly going to run into historical contradictions, because the Older Calvinism goes back so far, so many centuries, and has found expression in hundreds of different forms and cultures and emphases and strategies and personalities.

As soon as you say such and such is new, someone with a good historical nose is going to find an example in history that shows it's not new. And so I'm not eager to claim newness. And the third thing to say is, well, you are using the term, Piper, so come on.

Why are you using it then? What is new about the New Calvinism if you're going to keep using the term? And so here's, I jotted down seven things that I think we can say give good warrant to the term New Calvinism. Number one, the New Calvinism has a strong complementarian flavor with an emphasis on the flourishing of men and women in relationships where men embrace the call to robust, humble, Christ-like servant leadership.

Now that has been true for 99% of Reformed people and Reformed history. And the only reason it stands out as new is because in the last 50 years, many Reformed people have turned away from that part of the history. And so ironically, in being a conserving element at this point, the New Calvinism looks new over against a lot of the trajectories of the older Calvinism that have become egalitarian.

Number two, the New Calvinism feels new because so much of it embraces contemporary forms of music and worship. In principle, that's not new. Isaac Watts in the 1700s was quite avant-garde in his hymnology, but it feels new because there are strong traditions of Calvinism who resist this trend. Number three, there is a strong Baptistic element in the New Calvinism.

Now, historically, Baptists have been mainly Calvinistic over the entire history of their life from the 17th century, but they have seemed like stepchildren historically, and today they don't, and that feels new. Fourth, the New Calvinism includes significant numbers of Charismatics and Non-Charismatics. Historically, that's new. Number five, in the New Calvinism, Jonathan Edwards seems to play a historically unusually large role over against, say, John Calvin on the historical spectrum.

That's a newer development. Number six, the New Calvinism is vibrantly engaged in the world of internet with hundreds of energetic bloggers and social media activists and Twitter users. Now, that's totally new. I mean, that just didn't exist, and it's no fault of the older Calvinism because there was no opportunity to use it.

Number seven, there is a strong emphasis in the New Calvinism on multi-ethnicity of the church and a passion for racial harmony and diversity, and even more amazing, the convictions of God's sovereignty, this big God theology, for breaking out in ethnically indigenous ways that have not been managed by anyone on the earth.

And I think, historically speaking, the scope of that diversity is probably new. So those are my seven, I think that was seven, marks of newness. But I'll end again by saying again what the new has in common with the old is all important. Truth is always the root that can break out again and again in new ways from generation to generation, and holding fast to that, spreading that is what I care most about.

Yes, amen. Thank you, Pastor John. And speaking of New Calvinism, where did all these Calvinists come from? That was the question. That was the topic of our discussion in episode number 237 in the Ask Pastor John podcast series. Find episode number 237 along with 300 other episodes in the Ask Pastor John app, which is a free download for the iPhone and the Android.

And in the iPhone version of the app, we recently added a search bar at the top of the screen, which makes it really easy and convenient to navigate the entire podcast archive. Tomorrow, we will return to talk about the prosperity gospel again, specifically how to discern a subtler version of the prosperity gospel message that can creep into the sermons that we hear today.

I'm your host Tony Reinke, we'll see you tomorrow. 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8