How is the God of 5-Point Calvinism Not Worthy of Worship?

Do Arminians and Calvinists Worship the Same God?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2014/05/do-arminians-and-calvinists-worship-the-same-god/

Roger E. Olson

May 21, 2014

Comments

This question never dies. While most Christians on both sides of the divide say yes, some on both sides say no. Because I have openly admitted here that consistent Calvinism turns God into a monster and makes it difficult to tell the difference between God and the devil, some have assumed I believe the answer must be no. However, I have never said that Arminians and Calvinists worship different Gods. I have said that if it were revealed to me in a way I could not doubt that the God of consistent, five point Calvinism is the one true God over all, the maker of heaven and earth, I would not worship him because I would not think him worthy of worship.

What makes God worthy of worship is God’s perfect goodness combined with his greatness. God must be both great and good to be worthy of worship. Garden variety Calvinists do believe God is good as well as great. A few have stepped out of the pack and have said that God is the creator of sin and evil. I think they are more logically consistent than their fathers who are garden variety Calvinists. Of course, even they affirm God’s goodness but only by believing that God is freely good and that whatever God does is automatically good just because he is God. Or, in some cases, they defend their belief in God’s goodness by appeal to a “greater good” that justifies God creating sin and evil. In that case, of course, sin and evil aren’t all that bad.

Observing Theological Inconsistencies

The vast majority of Calvinists have always denied that God is the author of sin and evil and have affirmed that sin and evil arise from creatures’ natures and wills (angelic and human). They appeal to God’s permission, as do Arminians, to explain why and how God is not the author of sin and evil.

The “crunch” comes with the question of whether God “designs, ordains and governs” sin and evil and everything else we consider awful, bad, horrendous, etc.—such as childhood death from agonizing illness or accident. From an Arminian perspective it’s difficult to see the difference between affirming that God is the “author” of all that and that God “designs, ordains and governs” all that [as a distinction that a Calvinist does, and will, make. - res].

[As an example,] Calvinists typically accuse Arminians of “felicitous inconsistency” and at the same time use that to explain how and why Arminians are fellow Christians. The inconsistency they think they see in Arminianism is that Arminians affirm both that salvation is gift and that it must be freely received. To Calvinists this makes the human decision to respond positively to the offer of grace “the decisive factor” in salvation. Of course, Arminians never say that and we deny it... [it more rather rests upon the nature of God's prevenient grace. - res]. Most Calvinists hear us and say “Well, that is the good and necessary consequence of what you believe.” But, for the most part, they do not excommunicate us from Christianity due to our perceived inconsistency. Inconsistency is not heresy.

I say the same about garden variety Calvinism. It is inconsistent. When they say, for example, God is not the author of sin and evil (and all their consequences) but that God “designs, ordains and governs” everything without exception I accuse them of inconsistency. It’s a “felicitous inconsistency” and I choose to focus on the fact that they believe God is not the author of sin and evil. Those who go so far as to say God IS the author of sin and evil sully God’s character to the point that I cannot embrace them as brothers or sisters in Christ.

Reflecting on Theological Inconsistencies

What I have said, and do now say, is that if I were a garden variety Calvinist I would not be able to live with the inconsistency and would have to go all the way to affirming that God is the author of sin and evil and all their consequences. If I were a Calvinist I would join the ranks of those who step out of the pack and say that God is the creator of sin and evil (or at least their author). That is no different than Calvinists who say that if they were Arminians they would have to believe Christ did not die to save us but only to give us an opportunity to save ourselves (which is what they think Arminian theology logically implies).

When I say that Calvinism makes God monstrous and makes it difficult to tell the difference between God and the devil I am talking about from my perspective—not what all Calvinists actually believe. I am talking about the logical implications of Calvinism.

So here is a parable (not an allegory) to illustrate why I think Calvinists and Arminians worship the same God in spite of very different pictures of God’s involvement with sin and evil.

Imagine…a motley group of resistance fighters inside an enemy occupied country. All of the fighters are followers of a great national hero who organized them, gave them their “marching orders,” directs them from his exile, sends them representatives with messages, and promises to return to help them defeat the occupying enemy and drive them from the country. The exiled leader is the resistance fighters’ common hero; all of them believe in him and are committed to his cause. But they have very different “pictures” of what he is like. Some of them think he is a socialist who will abolish differentiating wealth once he is in power. Others think he is a democratic capitalist who will abolish government control of the economy and allow free enterprise. His messages to them imply both. Some of the resistance fighters think the leader knows something none of them know about economics and that somehow the two approaches will be combined. However, others think that’s nonsense and point to passages in his written messages to them that, to them, strongly imply their own belief about his plans.

In the meantime, during the occupation and their leader’s exile, the resistance fighters agree to disagree about economics and social policy. They stand together to follow their common leader and fight the evil occupiers of their country.

However, one night, around their campfire, leaders of the two sides fall into argument about the hero. One says to another that when the hero returns and defeats the occupation and drives the occupiers out, he will take away all private property and establish a communist regime. The other responds “No, you’re wrong. When he returns he’ll establish democracy and free enterprise.” Both say to each other “If you’re right about him, I will not support him when he returns and establishes what you say he will. But I’m not even worried about that because I know you’re wrong.”

A young freedom fighter listening to the two leaders debate turns to one of them and says “Wait! You don’t support our leader even now! What are you doing here?” The accused resistance leader responds “No, you’re wrong. I do support him. He’s just not what you think he is and you’ll see that you’re wrong when he returns. But if you could convince me you’re right, that he is a communist, I would stop fighting for him now because that’s no better than the enemy occupying our country right now. But fortunately, you’re wrong about him, so I will stay and fight alongside you.”

The young freedom fighter, a communist, responds “Well, then, you are not loyal to our leader!” The accused resistance leader says “No, you’re wrong. I am as loyal to him as you are if not more so! Your problem is that you cannot distinguish between your image of our common leader and our leader himself. We must agree to disagree about our hero’s economics out of our common loyalty to him and our common resistance to his and our enemy—the occupying force.”

Now (parable over, interpretation starting…), both sides within the resistance group believe in and follow the same exiled hero/leader and look forward to his return and victory over their common enemy. There’s no question about that. The only question is about his economic philosophy and intentions. Both sides are certain they are right about that, but neither side can prove it (beyond doubt or question) to the other side’s satisfaction. [Thus], both sides have reasonable interpretations of the exiled hero’s messages even though they think the other side’s interpretation is fraught with inconsistencies.

continue to -

Index to past articles on "Calvinism v. Arminianism"

      

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Assyrian Nineveh

Who Built the Hanging Gardens of the Babylon?

The Secrets of the Dead - "The Lost Gardens of Babylon"

by PBS

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Assyrian Nineveh

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-near-eastern-world/hanging-gardens-of-babylon-in-assyrian-nineveh/

Sennacherib’s garden without a rival...

by Noah Wiener

May 13, 2014

“In this palace he erected very high walks, supported by stone pillars; and by planting

what was called a pensile paradise, and replenishing it with all sorts of trees, he

rendered the prospect an exact resemblance of a mountainous country.”

- Josephus, Contra Appion, lib.1. c.19-20 (quoting Berossus).

This Assyrian relief from Nineveh (now housed at the British Museum) shows trees hanging in the air on terraces and plants suspended on stone arches that resemble those from Sennacherib’s waterways, supporting the idea of a hanging garden at Nineveh.

Okay, I know what you are thinking. We know where the Seven Wonders were, because the locations are included in their names. The Great Pyramid of Giza. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Let’s stop at that last one. In the third century B.C.E., Berossus wrote that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II built the Hanging Gardens almost three hundred years earlier, and his statement was copied by later historians, including Josephus. However, there is no archaeological evidence indicating the presence of massive gardens at Babylon, and while we have hundreds of documents by Nebuchadnezzer describing his building activities, none mention his horticultural pursuits. Who else may have built the legendary gardens?

Imagine a gardener and a tranquil picture probably comes to mind. When Biblical Archaeology Review readers think of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, tranquility is probably the last thing that comes to mind. Sennacherib rampaged through Judah, laying waste to Lachish (immortalized in his extensive reliefs on the siege—click here for seven seminal articles on the city) and besieging Jerusalem until he had King Hezekiah “locked up like a bird in a cage.”

Oxford scholar Stephanie M. Dalley presents a different side of Sennacherib in The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder, in which she presents Nineveh as the actual location of the Hanging Gardens. Dalley entertainingly presented the theory in a recent episode of the PBS series Secrets of the Dead entitled “The Lost Gardens of Babylon” (PBS has the entire episode online for free here).

Swinging Assyrians. A drawing by Layard's draughtsman of a bas-relief found at Nineveh shows Assyrians enjoying the Hanging Gardens by playing sports, boating and even enjoying what appears to be a swing-set.

Sennacherib’s construction of a new capital at Nineveh was a massive endeavor, and the city and its garden were supplied with a water management project unparalleled at the time. Sennacherib’s canal system, which was some 50 miles long and as wide as the Panama Canal in some sections, featured advanced sluice gates, aqueducts, millions of dressed stones and waterproof cement. His construction paid off as the city quickly flourished, and the site caught the eye of famed 19th-century archaeologist Austin Henry Layard. Much of the canal system has been buried under recent construction, so archaeologists are using Cold War-era Corona spy satellites to identify the canals and other landscape patterns before the construction (click here to view Nineveh in the late 1960s and early 70s via the University of Arkansas’ new Corona Atlas of the Middle East). The PBS episode features conversations with Harvard University’s Jason Ur, a pioneer in the adaptation of Corona photography for archaeological purposes.

Assyrian records support the idea that the Hanging Gardens were actually built at Nineveh. The British Museum’s Garden Relief (see the image at the top of this article) from Nineveh shows trees hanging in the air on terraces and plants suspended on stone arches that resemble stones uncovered by archaeologists along from Sennacherib’s waterways. A bas-relief from Sennacherib’s palace, copied in a drawing by Layard’s draughtsman, shows sporting events at the garden (including an Assyrian swinging on a swing). The garden includes a roofed pillared walkway with the roots of trees growing out of the roofing. Sennacherib himself compares his hanging terraced garden to mountain growth:

I planted a great park beside the palace, like that of the Amanus Mountain, with all

kinds of herbs and fruit trees which came from the mountains and from Babylonia.

But how did the water reach these high terraces? Canal building was a feat of labor, but Sennacherib needed an equal feat of engineering to raise the water. I imagine that when Dalley noticed that Sennacherib’s language describing a date palm tree–which features screw-like bark patterning–matches the shape of an an Archimedes screw, she must have had a ‘eureka!’ moment to match that of the Greek mathematician himself. This water-raising screw is traditionally attributed to Archimedes, who lived hundreds of years after Sennacherib, but it has long been assumed that the invention was older than its eponymous “inventor.” A clip from the PBS series shows how the Archimedes screw would have been used to carry a steady supply of water against gravity.

Archimedes' Screw and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

This is just a brief clip from the Secrets of the Dead’s “The Lost Gardens of Babylon,” which is available for free online. The program explores Assyrian texts and art, ancient water systems, satellite photography and even sends an Iraqi film crew to explore the site itself, located in a turbulent region of the war-torn country.

---

Related Content in the BAS Library

Mordechai Cogan, “Sennacherib’s Siege of Jerusalem: Once or Twice?” Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2001.

Deborah A. Thomas, “Uncovering Nineveh,” Archaeology Odyssey, September/October 2004.

David Ussishkin, “Answers at Lachish,” Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1979.

From Babylon to Baghdad: Ancient Iraq and the Modern West examines the relationship between ancient Iraq and the origins of modern Western society. This free eBook details the ways in which ancient Near Eastern civilizations have impressed themselves on Western culture.

PBS series link - click here
(posted May 6, 2014)

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

by BBC

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one of the wonders that may have been purely legendary. They were purportedly built in the ancient city-state of Babylon, near present-day Al Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq. The Hanging Gardens were not the only World Wonder in Babylon; the city walls and obelisk attributed to Queen Semiramis were also featured in ancient lists of Wonders.[1]

The gardens were attributed to the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled between 605 and 562 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his homesick wife Amytis of Media, who longed for the plants of her homeland.[2] The gardens were said to have been destroyed by several earthquakes after the 2nd century BC.[citation needed] The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are documented by ancient Greek and Roman writers, including Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Quintus Curtius Rufus. However, no cuneiform texts describing the Hanging Gardens are extant, and no definitive archaeological evidence concerning their whereabouts has been found.[3][4]

Ancient writers describe the possible use of an Archimedes screw-like process to irrigate the terraced gardens.[5] Estimates based on descriptions of the gardens in ancient sources say the Hanging Gardens would have required a minimum amount of 8,200 gallons (37,000 litres) of water per day.[6] Nebuchadnezzar II is reported to have used massive slabs of stone, a technique not otherwise attested in Babylon, to prevent the water from eroding the ground.

America's Linguistic Melting Pot

America's linguistic melting pot
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/20/americas-linguistic-melting-pot/?sr=fb052114linguisticmeltingpot130pVODtopphoto

by CNN's Jason Miks
May 20, 2014

Here at GPS, we love deep data dives. We also revel in the fact that America continues to be the melting pot that it has always been. So we were interested to see a piece on Slate.com last week analyzing the most common languages spoken in each state using U.S. census data.

This first map is predictable – other than English, Spanish is the most spoken language in almost all U.S. states. But watch what happens when you remove Spanish from the equation. Now there is the melting pot.

In Michigan, Arabic clocks in as the third most commonly spoken language.

In Minnesota, it's Hmong.

In Oregon, it's Russian.

It's Vietnamese in four states – Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Washington.

It's a Filipino language called Tagalog in Hawaii, California, and Nevada.

In four states, its Native American languages.

It's French in 11 states.

And in 16 states, it's German. If you're surprised at that number, according to recent census measures of countries of ancestry, people of German heritage outnumber all other groups in the United States – even Irish! Remember, until World War I, by some accounts, German was the second most widely spoken language in all of the United States. And that tradition seems to linger.

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Tagalog in California, Cherokee in Arkansas

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/05/language_map_what_s_the_most_popular_language_in_your_state.html

by Ben Blatt

May 13, 2014

What language does your state speak?

Illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker

Last month, I wrote about the fun and the pitfalls of viral maps, a feature that included 88 super-simple maps of my own creation. As a follow-up, I’m writing up short items on some of those maps, walking through how I created them and how they succumb to (and hopefully overcome) the shortfalls of viral cartography.

One of the most interesting data sets for aspiring mapmakers is the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Among other things, that survey includes a detailed look at the languages spoken in American homes. All the maps below are based on the responses to this survey. However, an ACS participant does not select his language from a list of predeteremined options; he fills in a blank box with his self-selected answer. For instance, some people answered the ACS with “Chinese,” while others gave specific dialects such as “Mandarin” or “Cantonese”. These were all treated as different languages in the ACS data and when constructing these maps. (See the raw data here.) New York is marked “Chinese” because more people responded with “Chinese” than any other language other than English or Spanish. If all Chinese languages (or languages under the umbrella of a larger language family) had been grouped together, the answers for many states would change. In addition, Hawaiian is listed as a Pacific Island language, so following the ACS classifications, it was not included in the Native American languages map. The spelling of each language is based on the language of the ACS.*

Data source: Census Bureau American Community Survey. Map by Ben Blatt/Slate.

OK, that map is not too interesting. Now, let’s remove Spanish from the mix.

Data source: Census Bureau American Community Survey. Map by Ben Blatt/Slate.

Given these new parameters, we now see a pair of Native American languages, Navajo and Dakota, on the map. Navajo is the most prevalent Native American language, with more than 170,000 speakers, while Dakota lags behind with just 18,000. According to the census, there are more speakers of Navajo in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona than there are speakers of other Native American languages in all other states combined.*

Data source: Census Bureau American Community Survey. Map by Ben Blatt/Slate.

Here are a couple more language groups of interest. First, the Scandinavians. The census categorizes Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian as Scandinavian languages.

Data source: Census Bureau American Community Survey. Map by Ben Blatt/Slate.

Next up, Indo-Aryan languages. For the purposes of this map, we consider Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu, Bengali, Panjabi, Marathi, Nepali, and Sinhalese to fall into that category.

Data source: Census Bureau American Community Survey. Map by Ben Blatt/Slate.

Finally, African languages. The choices here are Amharic, Berber, Chadic, Cushite, Sudanic, Nilotic, Nilo-hamitic, Nubian, Saharan, Khoisan, Swahili, Bantu, Mande, Fulani, Gur, Efik, Mbum, as well as “Kru, Ibo, Yoruba,” which the census lists as a single language.

Data source: Census Bureau American Community Survey. Map by Ben Blatt/Slate.

See more of Slate’s maps.

Correction, May 13, 2014: This article originally misspelled Arapaho in the map of most commonly spoken Native American languages. (Return.)

Update, May 16, 2014: This paragraph was revised to clarify the how the maps were constructed. (Return.)

My Journey Out of Inerrancy to a Broader Hermeneutic

Seeing the Son in a new Light

Relevancy22 was purposely created three years ago to debate the idea of Calvinism as the most sufficient explanation of God's free-willed universe. It does also debate the idea of inerrantism as the most proper foundation for biblical study. The following paragraphs will be hard to read - especially as it was for this author here when coming from his own inerrantist-informed Christian faith. However, as hard as it is to read these following paragraphs it must be said with as much grace and candor for those, like myself, who find themselves driven to discover a greater enlightenment of God's Word and divine will than the one provided by this line of biblical interpretation.

As such, an inerrant theology, or a hermeneutic of inerrantism, is a type of theology that occurs upon  an "inerrant" foundation where the Bible is literally read and believed. One subjected to ideas and beliefs about God, sin, man, and the bible, that are already pre-formed and classically bound, but are not coherent with contemporary science nor philosophy except to debate, criticise, and ostracize.

Weathering storms of uncertainty

Moreover, the term "intellectual" when used of the inerrant position has become a specious term used only by inerrantists of their own internally driven scholarship. More rather, the term "intellectual" outside of these conservatively dominated circles connotates the idea of a "religiously pre-informed church body" that has established its own hermeneutical rules (that is, rules of "knowing and epistemology") by conservative religious standards, preference, and prejudice. Rules based upon a set of closed systems, a closed bible, and a closed constituency unopen to contemporary theological construction. This has been spoken of in the sectional sidebar entitled "An Open Faith and Open Theology." I have also written a similar article earlier this month entitled, "The Problem of Faith and Religion in Christianity," and another a year ago entitled, "Voices of Dissent - Unfolding God's Love Within the Heart and Conscience of Humanity."

Accordingly, an inerrant study of past church history and theology, such as is done using "biblical word study" methods, or in a compendium study of systematic theology, will be arranged to support an inerrantist foundation with in-vogue subject matters. Appeal to the "outside world" of science, archaeology, church history, etc, is selective, uses nuanced circular reasoning, and is driven by systematic logicism, dogma, church folklores, and traditions. (And yes, all this has been discussed ad naseum in the past to help give  definition to what is meant by being Christianly orthodox without being inerrantly orthodox.)

Sailing the tradewinds of God's grace

As such, the inerrantist worldview construction is difficult to break from and usually cannot be accomplished by mere insiders alone. And when doing so, those wishing to break free may feel as if their God has become "unreal," while at the same time causing all church doctrine-and-theology to become similarly "untrue" as they each strained against their inerrant moorings. At once, great doubt and skepticism can arise to personally destabilize (or scandalize) the erstwhile believer burdened to move beyond time-honored Sunday School lessons and sincere biblical rhetoric by pastor or prof, family or friend, teacher or synod. This was mine own experience and it required the persistent presence of the Holy Spirit to get past so many of these fundamental barriers that had theologically-tethered my soul to its hard-fastened reef. Like a ship at anchor in safe harbor I did not expect to depart from my conditioned past to the siren shores of an unknown land. Nor to navigate across unfamiliar sea lanes on my own without a proper captain and provisions. Or to weather the storms of  fear and uncertainty so loathsome to my Christian faith but so necessary to its renewal. Especially because I would then become my own navigator which is never a very good idea to start an exploration upon when facing wreck, ruin, and foreordained apostasy.

However, the Lord continued to burden me without respite or relief. Who caused me to set sail and explore the oft neglected (or is it oft forgotten?), but very orthodox church doctrine, of Arminianism (think, basic Wesleyanism)... which is the polar opposite to the Calvinism I grew up within (note: Jacob Arminius was a contemporary of John Calvin). At once, when prayerfully coming across this doctrine, I could feel the inner release of the epistemological anchors that cabled mind-and-soul straining to break free of their more comfortable shore-bound moorings. And then, with the unlooked for help of science and process theology, the all-knowing (and much revered) philosophical notion of inerrantism had begun to be released from within to put me underway through newly discovered non-inerrantist philosophies (I will tell of these in a moment). One of the first was the approach of continental philosophy that proved most helpful in providing the foundational elements necessary for a theology known as process-relational thought. A philosophy that was opposed to the analytic thought that I grew up with in my Reformed tradition (think formulaic creeds and confessions). One that stressed existential thought and questioned all personal, social, and institutional motives, values, and beliefs. Even those of the authors of the sacred biblical text and leaders of the church.

But there were other epistemological drivers that helped to continue my journey across the turbulent seas of doubt and fear. One was the idea of  postmodernism that helped to "deconstruct" 19th century church enlightenment while providing a much needed antipathy for 20th century secular modernism which gripped my evangelical past. Though this idea of postmodernism had been much maligned within my fellowship for the past decade or two, I found the elements within postmodernism especially helpful in breaking free of the dogmatic certainty an inerrantist would feel to his or her's unquestioning (dogmatic) beliefs. Specifically, it helped to externalize my personal sense of self-awareness, group-awareness, and basic belief structures. And when once done, could re-position all within a post-modern, post-structural, post-foundational, framework. This was not an insignificant task especially as each area relates to specific personal beliefs and descriptors of one's confidences, assurances, values, and philosophies.

Discovering new Streams of Living Water

To these many areas I next approached the subject of God and man relationally through God's love as a theologically sufficient basis in which to throw off the last mooring lines of inerrantism. The idea of an open future (rather than a closed future of wrath and judgement) as a sufficient eschatological teleology found its home in open theism (while not denying the former, but simply altering its emphasis upon all of theology). And all the while I labored to constructively criticise inerrantism's self-contained system by  pointing out its basic weaknesses and deficiencies that would hold its faithful participants back by fear and uncertainty, divine wrath and condemnation, self-doubt and distrust, including a withering sense of personal retribution to any who may hold to a wider, broader, more relative world of post-foundational theology.

Hence, my seafaring journey over these past three years has been done sympathetically in knowledge of other similarly burdened wayfarers struggling with their own personal inerrantist positions. Who, perhaps, may not knowing which sea lanes to navigate upon to break free of its chaining bonds, nor may be able to find a more adequate sense of self-release (or personal respite) against past theological positions. Thus it is that I write of mine own discoveries by journaling of its theologic progress. In place of a inerrantist hermeneutic I now hold both an anthropologic - and relational - hermeneutic. One that must be Jesus-centered in all things. The one uses existential thought to interpret both the Bible and the would-be interpreters of the Bible of any era or time period. While the other focuses on God's grace and love as the primary passion and reason for His divine relationship with creation (remember the slogan, "Love Wins!?" Eh, verily!). It took many years to accomplish this task with any kind of sufficient theological argument or authentic biblical support against the austere religious background I was immersed in. And was done with great personal difficulty and struggle as core centers and foundations moved. But at the last, when the torrent broke I found myself writing feverishly (not perfectly, nor with full knowledge) by "journaling" of my steady progress out of the lands of conservative fundamentalism and evangelicalism, unto the broader planes of freedom's lands which held more promising - and theologically relevant - Jesus-centeredness. Jesus missional witness. And, Jesus-based pathos and service. One that was not centered upon its own theologies but upon a theology that could appropriately question itself as to its motives, values, and basic social drivers. For a theology that cannot question itself is a theology not worth knowing.

It was if my Pauline-driven doctrines had to be completely reset and re-orientated around Jesus and not simply God's Word (curious as that may sound!). And when once done, would find their Lord and Savior in greater proportion to the Pauline theology I had learned to apply and believe. Not one orientated around the church, but very God Himself. Not one orientated around man's preferences, but around the dissettling missional witness and pathos of Jesus. Nor one centered around my own enculturated values, but one having a shared sense of appreciation for other social values and mores beyond mine own culture. And it was wonderful. For there were the new lands of discovery thriving with freedom, living, and joy. Which were full of new hope and bright promise. For myself, this surprised discovery made under so difficult a process helped soften the blow I had experienced for so many long years by my inerrantist position - especially my previously tightened construction of the world. It opened everything up and I was glad to do it with great thanksgiving and praise to the Lord, our Saviour and Redeemer. Thus Relevancy22 was born as an online resource and reference site to help move similarly estranged wayfarers from a world of inerrant evangelicalism to a post-evangelical view of God, man, and the world, with an openness to our future and missional responsibility. One that might be known as post-Reformed (or postmodern) orthodoxy but not neo-Calvinistic nor neo-Reformed (see the next article below for further explanation). One that hearkens to the age-old rhythms of the Reformation itself that deeply understood the pathos of the church to be always reforming: "Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda" ("the church reformed and always reforming"). Amen!

Peace,

R.E. Slater

May 22, 2014
updated May 27, 2014

"Yes, Virginia, newer is better."

Continue to -

Index to past articles on "An Open Faith and Open Theology"

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John Calvin

The Troubling Trends in America's 'Calvinist Revival'

http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2014/05/20/troubling-trends-americas-calvinist-revival/

by Jonathan Merrit
[select additional comments by R.E. Slater]

May 20, 2014

Comments

When Mark Oppenheimer declared that “evangelicalism is in the midst of a Calvinist revival” in The New York Times earlier this year, he was only partially correct.

According to a 2010 Barna poll, roughly three out of 10 Protestant leaders describe their church as “Calvinist or Reformed,” a proportion statistically unchanged from a decade earlier. According to the research group, “there is no discernible evidence from this research that there is a Reformed shift among U.S. congregation leaders over the last decade.”

And yet, Oppenheimer is correct that something is stirring among American Calvinists (those who adhere to a theological system centering on human sinfulness and God’s sovereignty that stems from 16th century reformer John Calvin). While Calvinist Protestants—including Presbyterians, some Baptists, and the Dutch Reformed—have been a part of the American religious fabric since the beginning, Oppenheimer points to a more vocal and visible strain that has risen to prominence in recent years.

They’ve been called the “young, restless, and reformed” or neo-Calvinists, and they are highly mobilized and increasingly influential. Their books perform well in the marketplace (see John Piper or Paul David Tripp), their leaders pepper the lists of the most popular Christian bloggers (see The Gospel Coalition and Resurgence), and they’ve created vibrant training grounds for raising new recruits (see Reformed Theological Seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary).

This brand of Calvinists are a force with which to reckon. But as with any movement, America’s Calvinist revival is a mixed bag. None can deny that many have come to faith as a result of these churches and leaders. The movement is rigorously theological* [think, inerrant theology, or a hermenuetic of inerrantism here - res] which is surely one of its greatest contributions. Just as Quakers teach us much about silence, Mennonites teach us much about peace, and Anglicans teach us much about liturgy, so Calvinists spur us on with their intellectual rigor* [as debated at this website here, "intellectual" has become a specious term used only by inerrantists of their own scholarship - res]. And yet, from where I sit, there are several troubling trends that must be addressed if this faithful faction hopes to move from a niche Christian cadre to a sustainable and more mainstream movement. (*See my opening comments above - res)

ISOLATIONISM

One of the markers of the neo-Calvinist movement is isolationism. My Reformed friends consume Calvinist blogs and Calvinist books, attend Calvinist conferences, and join Calvinist churches with Calvinist preachers. They rarely learn from, or engage, with those outside their tradition. (My feeling is that this trend is less prevalent among leaders than the average followers.)

The most sustainable religious movements, however, are those which are willing to ask hard, full-blooded questions while interacting with more than caricatures of other traditions. When neo-Calvinists insulate and isolate, they hyper-focus on those doctrines their tradition emphasizes and relegate other aspects to the status of afterthought. The Christian faith is meant to be lived and not merely intellectually appropriated. This requires mingling with others who follow Jesus, are rooted in Scripture, and are working toward a restored creation.

Gregory Alan Thornbury is a Calvinist Christian and president
of The King’s College in New York City. He encourages his
students to “read promiscuously.”
– Photo credit: New Southern Photography

Gregory Thornbury, a Calvinist and president of The King’s College in New York City, told me, “I think the ‘young, restless, and reformed” are different than the Dutch stream in that they tend to stay with authors and leaders that they know. It does run the risk of being provincial, but I don’t think it is intentional. There are universes where people stay, and they read the things they know.” [I tend to agree with this observation. I came from this same tradition and it takes some doing to read "outside" of one's comfort zone. - res]

To guard against this, Thornbury says he encourages King’s College’s students to be “intellectually gregarious” and to “read promiscuously.”

“People need to read outside of the tradition,” Thornbury says. “We say we want to have contact with people outside of our culture, but we ghettoize so easily.”

His words remind me of Yale theologian Miroslav Volf, who speaks of “thin” and “thick” expressions of religion:

“[Thin religion is] religiosity reduced to a single symbolic gesture. And once you reduce religion to that . . . you can project everything that you want onto that . . . [Thin religion] isn’t textured. It doesn’t have depth. It doesn’t have relief. It doesn’t rely on a long history of that religion with all the varieties of reflections that have gone on in the religion.”

Co-inhabitation with other Christians guards a movement against “thin” expressions of religion.

TRIBALISM

Another troubling trend I see in the movement is tribalism. This is the kinship tendency within a group to protect insiders while combating outsiders.

Several prominent Calvinists, for example, declined the opportunity to comment on this story due to fear that their words might be used to disparage the movement. Said one well-known leader via email, “I don’t want to be a brick in a wall that’s used against the tradition/movement I identify with.”

To be sure, neo-calvinists don’t shy away from controversy and aren’t reticent to critique those outside of the movement. (One might refer to some Calvinist’s blistering responses to Donald Miller’s announcement that he doesn’t attend church.) Yet these same leaders are often resistant, delayed, and then tempered with their critiques of other Calvinists who seem to stray.

An illuminating example of this might be the recent glut of Mark Driscoll controversies—from sexist comments to charges of plagiarism to proof that he bought his way onto the New York Times bestsellers list using ministry monies. Leaders in the movement were effectively mum until a select few broke the silence of late. The first accusations of Driscoll plagiarizing were revealed on November 21st, but the first truly critical response posted by neo-Calvinist mega-blog, The Gospel Coalition, trickles out on December 18th. One might compare this with the response to Rob Bell’s book “Love Wins” that was in full bloom before the YouTube trailer finished buffering.

Even those who were brave enough to critique Driscoll were mostly moderate. And several Calvinists told me off-the-record that many who offered full-throated criticisms of Driscoll—like Carl Trueman of Westminster Theological Seminary—have been relegated to the margins as a result.

Tullian Tchividjian is pastor and blogger at The Gospel Coalition who has been challenging neo-Calvinists from within the ranks. He announced just this morning that what he calls “the powers that be” were forcing him to take his blog elsewhere. The decision was less than ideal, he said, and is a result of having “some differences with some of the other contributors.” Tchividjian said the decision was “probably over due” since “the messaging of The Gospel Coalition has morphed over the last seven years.”

Tim Keller is a leading Calvinist pastor
and New York Times bestselling author.

We might also make mention of Tim Keller, a paragon among neo-Calvinists if there ever was one. Keller is a part of Francis Collins’ Biologos and a theistic evolutionist. He holds many of the same views that triggered the forced resignation of Old Testament professor Bruce Waltke from Reformed Theological Seminary. Another Calvinist leader, Southern Baptist Seminary president Albert Mohler, has called theistic evolution “a biblical and theological disaster” and said that Biologos leaders were “throwing the Bible under the bus” with “ridiculous” logic.

Because Tim Keller has become something of a prize hen for Calvinists—New York Magazine called him “the most successful Christian evangelist in the city”—you won’t likely hear other neo-Calvinists mention Keller’s views. Tribalists attempt to “clean house” when it comes to outsiders but “sweep under the rug” when it comes to insiders.

As Roger Olson, Baylor University professor and author of “Against Calvinism“, told me, “[Neo-Calvinist's are] a tribe, and they’ve closed ranks. Somehow they’ve formed a mentality that they have to support each other because they are a minority on a crusade. Any criticism hurts the cause. I’ve seen the same thing among feminists and black theologians.”

Olson says that when he speaks to Calvinist leaders, they will often critique the movement and its other leaders in private, but never in public. My experience has been identical.

“There is a fundamentalist ethos in [neo-Calvinism],” Olson says. “You get pats on the back and merits for criticizing outsiders, but not for criticizing insiders. There is a system where if you are young coming up in the ranks, you get points for criticizing or exposing those outside the movement but it’s not your place to criticize those who are above you in the movement itself.”

This tendency is more curious given that neo-Calvinists claim to be rooted in the ancient rallying cry, “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda” or “The church is always to be reformed.” You can’t maintain a constant state of reformation when you refuse to self-reflect, when you preserve for preservation’s sake, [when] your modus operandi is both “circle the wagons” and “fire the canons.”

Let me be clear: I’m not arguing that Calvinists should criticize themselves more harshly. Rather, I wish they might extend the same grace to others that they give to themselves.

EGOTISM

A final troubling trend I believe plagues America’s “Calvinist revival” is egotism. This one may sound like ad hominem at first blush, but I mean it more as an observation of the movement’s predominant tone. Talking so much of sovereignty and salvation and atonement can inflate the ego. It is the type of thing described in Helmut Thielicke’s book, “A Little Lesson for Young Theologians.” Attaining theological knowledge often leads to the idea that one is in a better place to understand God or more in tune with God.

As the ego inflates, the body rises and one begins to speak from above rather than from across. This is often seen in the way neo-Calvinists speak as if they are the arbiters of the term “gospel.” Search the term “gospel” on the web site of the Reformed publisher Crossway and you’ll see what I mean. Or listen to the way some neo-Calvinist leaders frame every ethical issue of the day, not as a difference of opinion among Christians of mutual goodwill, but rather an affront to the gospel itself.

“The perspective of many today is that if you aren’t a Calvinist, you don’t really have a grasp of the gospel,” Olson says.

Sometimes it seems as if Calvinists view themselves as judge, jury, and executioner of the Christian movement at large—determining who is faithful and not, who believes the gospel and who doesn’t, who is in and who is out. (One might call to mind John Piper’s iconic and infamous “Farewell, Rob Bell” tweet.) Some within the movement talk of God’s sovereignty while seeking to control the destinies of other Christians and often speak of man’s depravity with a haughtiness that undermines it.

As Scot McKnight, professor at Northern Seminary told me, “Calvinists can give really strong impressions that those who disagree with them are both unfaithful and that they theologically and intellectually lack courage. And that trend is relatively new.”

A large ego often precedes a harsh tone—an surefire influence limiter. Scholar Martin Marty says the religious world isn’t divided into liberal and conservative, but rather “mean and non-mean.” Those who opt for a mean or arrogant tenor—whether real or perceived—have a short-shelf life in the span of history.

Bethany Jenkins, director of The Gospel Coalition’s faith and work initiative, thinks some of her fellow Calvinists’ tonal problems may be unintentional: “I think some Calvinists have come to think that in order to be faithful you have to be strident, but you don’t need to be. As Tim Keller has said, ‘We are a chosen people, but we are not a choice people.’”

I reflect on the Apostle Paul’s observation that “Knowledge puffs up.” Which is to say, egotism is a human problem rather than a Calvinist one. Yet, the vice seems to afflict this movement with consistency. If neo-Calvinists don’t get a rapid infusion of humility—and quickly—then perceptions of egotism will be an albatross around their necks.

Though these problems are serious, I am for any movement that lifts up Jesus and proclaims the Christian good news. I have many friends within the neo-Calvinist movement that challenge me with their commitment to scriptural fidelity and the supremacy of Christ. If America’s “Calvinist revival” turns out to be a resurgence, I hope they abound in grace–both inside and out.

Ah yes, grace. Another cherished Reformed virtue.

---

Jonathan Merritt is senior columnist for Religion News Service and has published more than 1000 articles in outlets like USA Today, The Atlantic, and National Journal. He is author of "Jesus is Better Than You Imagined" and "A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars." He resides in Brooklyn.

"The Calvinist," by John Piper

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Index to past articles on "Calvinism v. Arminianism"

      

A little jammin' brings a little solidarity...

Amazing jam session - Three random guys sing together

Published on May 17, 2014

Description from Jaime Tatos Maldonado's video on Facebook:

'I was walking to Kroger and saw this guy playing a song. It sounded good so I

decided to record it. By the end of the song three guys started jamming. This

truly is music in its simplest form. It really reminds of the Austin days. Enjoy'.

Random Strangers Freestyle Together,

Show Us 'The Power Music Can Have On The Soul'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/19/three-strangers-sing-together-video_n_5352697.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000051&ir=Religion

The Huffington Post | by Ryan Grenoble

Posted: 05/19/2014 4:29 pm EDT    Updated: 05/19/2014 5:59 pm EDT

We've all been schooled in the perils of stranger danger, but who knew strangercollaboration could be so beautiful?

Exhibit A: This apparently spontaneous moment when three strangers joined together in song, captured on video by another bystander, Jaime Moldonado.

"I was walking to [the grocery store] and saw this guy playing a song. It sounded good so I decided to record it." Moldonado writes on Facebook. "By the end of the song three guys started jamming. This truly is music in its simplest form."

The guitarist has since been identified as Jesse Rya, a Texas musician, who says the moment reflects on "the power music can have on the soul."

"This is an example of how easy it should be for us to communicate," Rya added.

While some viewers believe the spontaneous outburst of song was staged, the Daily Dot argues to the contrary, noting "the universal pull of music, even among strangers, is a strong one."

Hey, stranger things have happened.