The New Calvinism... Not Really So New...

Author: TheRobinsons /

"Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don't have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by "glorifying" him. In the 1700s, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards invested Calvinism with a rapturous near mysticism. Yet it was soon overtaken in the U.S. by movements like Methodism that were more impressed with human will. Calvinist-descended liberal bodies like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) discovered other emphases, while Evangelicalism's loss of appetite for rigid doctrine — and the triumph of that friendly, fuzzy Jesus — seemed to relegate hard-core Reformed preaching (Reformed operates as a loose synonym for Calvinist) to a few crotchety Southern churches." Quote from "The New Calvinism" By DAVID VAN BIEMA

I read this quote tonight and find it all too true. The encouraging thing I find is that, despite the negative connotation that Reformed Theology - particularly that associated with the moniker Calvinism - is finding a resurgence. It seems too that this resurgence is among people around my age who have been confronted in real life with the disconnect between the "friendly, fuzzy Jesus" which dominates contemporary Christianity today and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as found in scripture. Praise God that He is working in and through His word to confound the wisdom of this day and change the lives, hearts, and minds of men and women who were once wretched and godless sinners... into a righteous and glorious remnant. Sure, we realize it is a foreign righteousness and glory, but in Christ we can desire nothing of our nature and only that which is bestowed upon us through the amazing grace and mercy of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. May His name be glorified and magnified throughout the earth. Amen!

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