A while ago I posted a few thoughts on the idea that Evangelicalism is somehow dying, and while we’re waiting for the next round of statistical data to roll in, the Christian Science Monitor — which first popularized the idea that Evangelicalism is about to collaspe — has come up with this hearty piece on something else happening in Evangelicalism.
When people today hear the name John Calvin, they think mainly of predestination – the controversial idea that God has foreordained everything that will happen, including who will and won’t be saved, no matter what they do in life.What people often forget is that the 16th-century French theologian transformed Western thought both by what he taught and how he taught it. His 700-page “Institutes of the Christian Religion” became the reference manual for Protestant faith. And his detailed and explanatory style of preaching – he spent five years expounding on the book of Acts, verse by verse – became an example for generations of clergy.
Detractors, and there are many, see Calvin as a harsh theocrat who punished heretics (including one who was famously burned at the stake) while molding the city where he preached, Geneva, into a model of his fatalistic and hopeless ideology.
But supporters view him as a man who recovered God-centric Christianity, set the stage for religious freedom, and encouraged countless believers to read the Bible for themselves.
“Like it or not, he is one of the great minds that shaped our modern world,” says Gerald Bray, a professor at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala. “Ideas of democracy, open-market capitalism, and equality of opportunity were aired in his Geneva and put into practice as far as they could be at that time.”
You might read the whole thing before you register your objections in the comments.
March 29th, 2010 | 10:45 am | #1
That cheerleader graphic is frightening!
March 29th, 2010 | 10:48 am | #2
That cheerleader graphic is arrogant!
March 29th, 2010 | 10:58 am | #3
Sorry, had to get in the “arrogant Calvinist” comment in before anybody else.
March 29th, 2010 | 11:05 am | #4
That cheerleader graphic is creepy!
March 29th, 2010 | 11:27 am | #5
I just wanted to point out that she was meant to be creepy, arrogant and frightening.
Soli Deo Gloria.
March 29th, 2010 | 11:55 am | #6
this link may give you better results
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0327/Christian-faith-Calvinism-is-back
March 29th, 2010 | 12:11 pm | #7
As I noted in my piece last year in The City:
This is why if Evangelicalism is to survive, it has to grow up and not “emerge.” It needs the wisdom of David Wells’s The Courage to Be Protestant rather than the beatnik aphorisms of Donald Miller’s Oprah-fied narrative, Blue Like Jazz. It needs more Augustine and less Pelagius, and a theological and pastoral leadership that understands that it is not above its pay grade to suggest to its people that a purpose-driven life requires a purpose-driven death.
http://homepage.mac.com/francis.beckwith/TheCitySummer2009.pdf
March 29th, 2010 | 12:53 pm | #8
I hate it when I can’t argue with Beckwith.
Hate. It.
March 29th, 2010 | 1:27 pm | #9
I love you, man.
March 29th, 2010 | 2:41 pm | #10
[...] Program (5)Caleb Land: David, Hmmm…I would phrase things a little differently. Yes, I… A follow-up on the Death of Evangelicalism (9)Francis Beckwith: I love you, man. A follow-up on the Death of Evangelicalism (9)Frank Turk: I hate [...]
March 29th, 2010 | 4:34 pm | #11
Frank,
[with due apologies in advance]
Did you date her? Or (reflecting on that old Chicago parody piece “Wheaton College Girls”) is she the type of girl that goes to a reformed seminary?
March 29th, 2010 | 5:20 pm | #12
Collin –
I am sad that you tempt me to make “Reformed Girl” jokes …
… because I don’t know if I can resist …
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