April 22, 2010

The Hallway and the Rooms

Michael Horton has written again in response to the Piper / Warren controversy this time reflecting on what it means to be “Reformed” and the state of the “Young, Restless and Reformed” movement.

I rather like his suggested label for the YRR movment, “Evangelical Calvinism”. What are you thoughts?

Be sure to read the whole thing, but here is an excerpt:

“Reformed” has a specific meaning. It’s not defined by movements, parachurch ministries, or powerful leaders, but by a confession that is lived out in concrete contexts across a variety of times and places. The Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, and Canons of Dort) define what it means to be Reformed. Like Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Anabaptism, Reformed Christianity is a particular tradition. It’s not defined by a few fundamentals, but by a whole system of faith and practice. If being Reformed can be reduced to believing in the sovereignty of God and election, then Thomas Aquinas is as Reformed as R. C. Sproul. However, the Reformed confession is a lot more than that. Even the way it talks about these doctrines is framed within a wider context of covenant theology.

Continue reading The Hallway and the Rooms.

Evangelical Calvinism.”

Tagged as // , , , , , , ,
Filed in // General

Comments [14]

February 19, 2010

Video: The Doctrines of Grace

Steve Lawson gave a really clear and concise summary of the “Doctrines of Grace” (or the “Five Points of Calvinism”) in just over 3 minutes when he appeared on Iron Sharpens Iron back in 2008. I edited the audio and uploaded it to Vimeo.

Tagged as // , , ,
Filed in // Videos

Comments [1]

December 17, 2009

There Are More than Tulips in the Reformed Field

Many, including Dr. Muller, have said it before; there is more to Reformed theology than the “five points” of Calvinism. Thanks to Eric Landry over at the White Horse Inn Blog for pointing me to an article by J. Todd Billings where he concludes:

The New Calvinists, with their God-centered message and their focus on dogmatic theology, make a robust contribution to contemporary ecclesial theological conversation. But they tend to obscure the fact that the Reformed tradition has a deeply catholic heritage, a Christ-centered sacramental practice and a wide-lens, kingdom vision for the Christian’s vocation in the world. The New Calvinists pick the TULIP from the Reformed field, overlooking the other flowers. There is much besides the TULIP in this spacious field that has grown from the seed of God’s word.

You can read all of J. Todd Billings article entitled, Calvin’s Comeback? – The Irresistible Reformer, over at The Christian Century.

Tagged as // , , , , , , ,
Filed in // General

Comments [7]

December 11, 2009

The Canons of Dordt

The Canons of Dordt (often referred to today as the “Five Points of Calvinism”) are expounded and explained by R. Scott Clark in an edition of Tabletalk Magazine from 2008:

Everyone knows the acronym TULIP, but not everyone knows where this acronym comes from. The Canons of Dordt are among the most famous but unread deliverances of any Reformed Synod. The canons are more than five letters. The canons teach a pastoral doctrine of grace and provide a model for the stewardship of the Gospel.

Read The Canons of Dordt by R. Scott Clark

Tagged as // , , , , , ,
Filed in // General

Comments [2]

November 27, 2009

Dr. Muller asks "How Many Points?"

In an age where to be Reformed is equated with an adherence to “five points,” Dr. Muller asks the question, “How Many Points?”

I once met a minister who introduced himself to me as a “five-point Calvinist.” I later learned that, in addition to being a self-confessed five-point Calvinist, he was also an anti-paedobaptist who assumed that the church was a voluntary association of adult believers, that the sacraments were not means of grace but were merely “ordinances” of the church, that there was more than one covenant offering salvation in the time between the Fall and the eschaton, and that the church could expect a thousand-year reign on earth after Christ’s Second Coming but before the ultimate end of the world. He recognized no creeds or confessions of the church as binding in any way. I also found out that he regularly preached the “five points” in such a way as to indicate the difficulty of finding assurance of salvation: He often taught his congregation that they had to examine their repentance continually in order to determine whether they had exerted themselves enough in renouncing the world and in “accepting” Christ. This view of Christian life was totally in accord with his conception of the church as a visible, voluntary association of “born again” adults who had “a personal relationship with Jesus.”

In retrospect, I recognize that I should not have been terribly surprised at the doctrinal context or at the practical application of the famous five points by this minister — although at the time I was astonished. After all, here was a person, proud to be a five-point Calvinist, whose doctrines would have been repudiated by Calvin. In fact, his doctrines would have gotten him tossed out of Geneva had he arrived there with his brand of “Calvinism” at any time during the late sixteenth or the seventeenth century. Perhaps more to the point, his beliefs stood outside of the theological limits presented by the great confessions of the Reformed churches—whether the Second Helvetic Confession of the Swiss Reformed church or the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism of the Dutch Reformed churches or the Westminster standards of the Presbyterian churches. He was, in short, an American evangelical.

You can read Muller’s full article reproduced from the Calvin Theological Journal, Vol. 28 (1993): 425-33 over at the Riddleblog.

Tagged as // , , , , , ,
Filed in // General

Comments [1]