From here:
After reading nearly five thousand blog posts from the Reformed blogosphere, I have no doubt that the Reformed, while stridently unified by Calvinistic theology though and far from being uniform in matters like baptism, can be described and critiqued as a diverse, but recognizable, movement. You might be a Reformed Christian: if you listen to Bob Kauflin, Caedmon’s Call, and Max Mclean’s reading of the ESV Bible (sometimes at work), use sermon illustrations from Pilgrim’s Progress, drink orange juice to the glory of God in the morning and wine highly diluted with water in the evenings, and always use the cheapest PC laptop you can find; if your reading list consists primarily of John Piper, Wayne Grudem, John MacArthur, D.A. Carson, Ligon Duncon, R.C. Sproul, Jerry Bridges, Mark Driscoll, Paul Helm, Rick Phillips, Phillip Ryken and James White (not to mention Mohler, Dever, Mahaney, etc.) and your sparring partners include Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, Brian McLaren, or that guy who wrote The Message Bible; if your idea of quintessential Christian discipleship is John Calvin, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, or just anyone named John; if you don’t like Al Gore or the liberal media or big government or Christians who vote Democrat or “contemplative Christianityâ€; if your political concerns are gay marriage and abortion and not so much poverty, AIDS, the economy, pre-emptive war policies, racism, and especially global warming; if you are into the Puritans, Van Til, or the Westminster Confession; if you like to talk about how Augustine and Aquinas believed in the “sovereignty of God†but gloss ove their Catholic convictions about justification; if you sleep tight at night assured of your salvation because you KNOW you are one of God’s elect; if you see the Bible as a storehouse of facts and divinely revealed propositions that can systematized into a body of truth that doesn’t have to reckon with reason, experience, or science and never be seen as collection of works written by human authors that share in the story of God’s redemption; if you know the inerrant truth and believe it inerrantly; if you’ve ever been creeped out by a church that appreciates art, architecture, sculpture, icons, and has a crucifix hanging on the wall; if you loathe words like “storyâ€, “narrativeâ€, “relationalâ€, “communityâ€, and “loving†and use words like “Doctrines of Graceâ€, “heresyâ€, “gloryâ€, “gloriousâ€, “God-centeredâ€, “God-entrancedâ€, and “supremacyâ€; if you grew up in a home that appreciated Billy Graham that in retrospect seemed too Arminian, man-centered, and seeker-sensitive; if you subjugate women to men in all levels of ministry, prioritize blogging over evangelism, and like your theology “robust†instead of “feminizedâ€; if you see your conservative theology having no divide from conservative politics; if you want to stop dating the church and start practicing church discipline; if you long for a community that is confessional, historic, and traditional like a rock or an anchor; if you believe love gets in the way of doctrine; if you believe God wants to save everyone but damns a lot of them before they did anything good or bad, that they deserve their punishment for sins that they were prepared for; if you believe God’s love for everyone has a little to do with his Son dying on the Cross and more to do with allowing them to enjoy the benefits of creation; if you believe following Jesus is all about believing the right things but not really about living the right way; if it really bugs you when people talk about “spiritual formation†instead of justification; if you disdain topical preaching; if you use the word “expository†as a code word for “preaching through Romansâ€â€”if all or most of this tortuously long sentence describes you, then you might be a Reformed Christian.







18 Comments(+Add)
You might be a Calvinist if you cannot understand the infinite expansiveness of the atonement for the world, but you have little doubt your own children are part of the elect.
Thought this was brilliant…I just read excerpts from the forthcoming “Why We’re Not Emergent” book and have been fuming at the broad, dismissive brush strokes the authors have used, especially in their “you might be emergent if” section…
This is a great tongue-in-cheek response…if only the original from the book had been the same…..
i went to a Caedmon’s Call concert once, and it was wonderful, so i resent the association with Calvinism.
the only thing the communicants of my former Calvinism diluted their wine with was more wine…
and yet their women never seemed to complain as long as they had full control over all of the household money-burning. talking about a specific church here…
oh, snap.
Yeah, how did Caedmon’s Call get associated with Calvinists?
Derek Webb is back with them now, and he’s almost a poster boy for Emergent (at least to the hyper-Reformed crowd).
Derek Webb has identified himself with reformed theology, albeit in an emergent kind of way. His lyrics do convey that theology as well.
Caedmon’s Call is pretty calvinistic. I have their complete catalog.
I do more evangelism than blogging, does that excuse me?
I’ll take your word for it. I have most of their stuff, although, I kind of gave up on them without Derek Webb. I guess I never looked at their lyrics looking for traces of Calvinism.
It’s just funny to me because I think Derek Webb, at least, would disagree with at least half the stuff on the list.
Someone pointed to the dumb “you might be an Emergent” on another blog, and I said would come up with a list for “you might be a fundamentalist if”. The first thing on my list is “if you still can’t listen to Amy Grant because she sold Christians out.â€
:rolleyes:
funny…
i listened to them b/c it was good MUSIC.
You might be a Calvinist if God hasn’t sovereignly opened your heart to the truth.
Chicken.
Phil, very offensive. After this post, I was simply picking out one thing that seemed out of place. You could put that under you might be an emergent, not you might be a calvanist. In other words, I wasn’t bragging.
Man, PB, sensitive much?
Anyway, if you would have said you “prioritize evangelism over blogging” that would be one thing, but you said you “do more evangelism than blogging”. I don’t see how that’s not supposed to sound like bragging.
Perhaps you didn’t mean it to, but it sure sounded like you were tooting your own horn to me.
PB,
Yep I agree emergents do a lot of evangelism… which might include blogging and why it has become so effective in reaching and connecting many of us together. Blogging has also brought together many of us who were alienated from the church so that we can begin to heal from people that have harmed us in the name of Jesus, but really in the name of they “doctrines”.
Really, I took it as you were tooting your horn also. = )
But, truthfully I wonder how many disciples are made out of you evangelism… not a put down, but we are not called to make converts, but disciples of Jesus.
iggy
Regardless to what you think, you are not my enemy…
You might be a fundamentalist if you believe the homosexual population of America has a cohesive ‘agenda’ that involves the destruction of Western Christianity, and believe a group of people can actually succeed in destroying God’s Church unless you use your blog to smash and destro…I mean “stop” them.
Joe
You might be a fundamentalist if you’d rather argue about the Trinity in Tampa than go and help the brothers in Darfur.
You might be a Calvinist if you’d rather pontificate about young girls waiting in line to see Hannah Montana than go and pass out tracts in that line.
You might be a Calvinist if you believe God is deceiving people while still criticizing them for being deceived.
Ouch!
iggy