Posts Tagged ‘Neo-Calvinism’
Best Links of the Week
Great fake travel posters made by artist Ali Xenos. There are some great ones of Rivendell, Tatooine, Dagobah, and Winterfell.
Kevin DeYoung on the New-Calvinism
‘Gravity’ Spinoff: Watch the Other Side of Sandra Bullock’s Distress Call – Jonas Cuaron’s seven-minute companion short, filmed in Greenland and featuring Bullock’s voice
Brutal personal piece on about one young man’s battle with our present culture of death – “I Lost My Daughter to the Culture of Death”
Modalimy – Co-parenting for those that want children but not a relationship or marriage. You really cannot make this stuff up.
“Nelson Mandela: A Candid Assessment” – from Catholic site Crisis Magazine
Interesting piece from personal finance blog Mr. Money Mustache entitled, “Get Rich With: The Position of Strength.” Makes some salient points.
Woofmaker.com – just click on it, especially if you are a Home Alone fan.
Interesting piece in the Atlantic dealing with Clickbait and UpWorthy’s game changing headlines
Best Links of the Week
Kevin DeYoung has a brief writeup of Keswick Theology (from Andy Naselli). This is the “let go and let God” theology and the divorcing of salvation from Lordship (ie. I got saved when I was ______ old and I accepted God as Lord/re-dedicated when I was ________ old). This kind of language was par for the course in my Dispensational upbringing and its view of sanctification is quite problematic. The writeup has a nice brief history and summary of Keswick theology.
Avoiding Missional Idolatries. Some lucid and thoughtful analysis of some pitfalls of missional church thinking.
The problem of groundwood paper vs. archival quality paper in modern book publishing.
Technology is re-wiring our brains. I have felt the pinch of technology on myself. Compulsive e-mail checking and always being on the grid actually stinks. In the same vein is this article: “Does the Internet Make us Dumber?”
Some thoughtful analysis of Two Kingdom Theology and Neo-Calvinism.
The culture of narcissism among millennials.
Our National Debt is about to overtake our GDP.
Rahm Emmanuel and Joe Biden supersoaker fight on the White House lawn (you can’t make this stuff up).
If you don’t know what UVB-76 is, you may find this wikipedia article interesting. It ceased broadcasting this week.
Apparently the financier of the much-maligned Gaza bound Flotilla is also the same financier of the proposed Ground Zero Mosque.
Obama’s trifecta of policy failure.
What in the world does “Spiritual But Not Religious” mean?
Video of the expansion of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam over time. Its a bit reductionistic, but worth a watch.
Adidas World Cup Commercial = Star Wars Cantina Scene + David Beckham + Snoop Dogg + Lightsabre = Awesome
Two videos this week: Neat time lapse video, shot .1fps on motion track, and set to some Jonsi:
Best Links of the Week
Apparently Nancy Pelosi makes all of her public policy decisions based on “The Word.” One of my pet peeves is politicians isogeting Scripture, it is almost sure to be a disaster. I am wondering what part of the “The Word” encourages abortion. Do yourself a favor and watch the incoherent trainwreck that was her speech.
Interesting article on the massive contraction of the U.S. Money Supply.
David Byrne, of Talking Heads fame, is suing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist for unauthorized use of his music.
Apparently Michelangelo sketched a human brain into the head of God in the Sistene Chapel.
Some interesting analysis of the sociology of Facebook.
For all you GUT folks: Neutrinos have mass.
Hillary Clinton thinks ‘the rich aren’t paying their fair share’ of taxes. I guess $.40 on the dollar isn’t enough for the sticky fingers of Uncle Sam.
Some in-depth analysis of the “New Calvinism.” Don’t agree with all the conclusions from the article, but a worthwhile read. On a sidenote, people need to more properly delineate the terms “Neo-Calvinism” and “new calvinism.” Neo-Calvinism is Dutch Reformed thinking from mainly Abraham Kuyper and also Herman Bavinck. New Calvinism is a term associated with the surging sub-group of Reformed Evangelicals who have some small distinctives from the traditional arc of Calvinists.
Burk Parsons also offers some thoughts on the New Calvinism.
I am so glad I don’t have to do this for salvation and blessing.
All you caffeine addicts… recent science shows your morning coffee doesn’t give you any real perk, rather it merely gets you to your baseline productivity. On a sidenote, why do so many evangelical ministers seem to be okay (and some even proud) of their coffee/caffeine addiction? Am I the only one that thinks this is odd?
Here is a pretty incredible action (and quite violent) sequence from a 1992 John Woo movie entitled Hard Boiled. Woo is an auteur of the fight scene:
Thoughts on Evangelicalism Past, Present, and Future… Part 7
Neocalvinism
It is easier to write about the past than to predict the future. Evangelicalism is quite broad today, perhaps so broad as to question the veracity of its use as a technical term. Regardless of whether evangelicalism remains the technical term to describe conservative Protestants, I shall try to look at some potential future (and semi-present) trends.
Networks of churches will be more common: Groups of churches, organized either locally/geographically and/or doctrinally, will be more common. Organizations like Acts29 will be a more attractive option for new churches planted over against denominations.
Multi-site: the multi-site movement is where one church has multiple campuses and the main pastor’s sermon is broadcast/simulcast to the other sites. I think we will see a movement here towards multi-sites that are geographically distant from the original site – this leads to…
Branding: I can envision some multi-site groups with a nationally (or internationally) recognizable pastor seeking to do multi-site in other cities across the country. Instead of one self-identifying with being, “Southern Baptist,” one might identify with going to “Superstar Pastor, Chicago” or “Superstar Pastor, Memphis.”
Church Planting: The church planting movement will continue to grow. As liberal churches continue to bleed, there will continue to be a need for church planting.
Denominational decline and growth: Denominations that fail to adhere to orthodox beliefs will decline heavily. I am sure some denominations will go unorthodox on a variety of theological issues. I can imagine social theological issues like abortion, homosexuality, and bioethics being some gateways to denominational error. Denominations that adhere to orthodox faith and seek balance of reaching their city and the world will grow.
Liturgy: There will be a growth in people who want more of God’s transcendence in the service in reaction over against the more entertainment and pop oriented worship.
Consumerism, Megachurch, and Smaller Local Churches: Consumerism has failed the church – ie. the church with the great ______ program(s). It makes for lousy discipleship and many people thinking they are legitimate believers when they are not. I think that there will be a decline in the megachurch movement. Megachurches will not go away because there will always be those drawn to a more anonymous worship experience and consumerism will always infiltrate evangelicalism on some level. However, I think people many (not all) will trend away from the megachurch, preferring real community. I think this will be in reaction to the great irony of globalization – as the world gets smaller and closer, it becomes more fractured and less communal. This will be a driving factor for many to leave the anonymous megachurch and go to a place where they can know and have friendship with real people.
Missional Church Movement: Time will tell if the missional church movement overemphasizes the local mission, an equal and opposite reaction to the imbalance of evangelicalism towards defining mission as unreached or international only. My guess is that the missional church will seek some balance and develop a positive identity that does not require a defunct evangelism as a host in order to survive (ie. post-modernity needing modernity).
Open Source and Kingdom Mentality: The redeeming principles of the open source movement that began in computer science will be applied and used well to resource the global body of Christ. Ministries like Third Millenium Ministries who collaborate across denominational lines and give away all their content for free will be more common (see also Desiring God Ministries). This will happen as technology is utilized to make edifying data more and more available instaneously – combined with visionary kingdom minded people seek to ensure that the worldwide church is well resourced.
Neo-Calvinism (I am not sure how to define it, but try some of these links- 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5): Neo-calvinism will continue to grow… whether as a reaction against something else (megachurch, anti-intellectualism, Dispensationalism, irrelevance, or unmissionality) or positively as an embracing of something substantive.
I fear that the internet era of podcasts and videocasts, people’s expectations of their unknown and unsung local pastors could become unrealistic. This fuels my concern over the already existing issue of celebrity and may lead to the aforementioned highly problematic branding. I wonder if the great contribution of the non-denominational world will ultimately be de facto denominations that have all their weaknesses without all their strengths.
How things will play out will depend on the actions/reactions of evangelicalism to multiculturalism, mobility, globality, pluralism, re-urbanization, technology, capitalism, democritization, and dualism. This concludes our look at the past, present, and future of evangelicalism as I see it.
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