Why are some mainline and conservative denominations Calvinistic and not Reformed. I dunno? You can fully embrace T.U.L.I.P and reduce Christianity to individualistic personal piety, withdrawal from culture with a false sacred/secular distinction, confuse the Kingdom with the church, be void of a doctrine of creation, etc. Wow.
This may explain, in part, why so many of my Calvinistic friends read Herman Bavinck, Abraham Kuyper, Henry Van Til, Al Wolters, and others and reject it.
Maybe this explains why many Calvinists have no interest in justice issues, being incarnational in culture, seeing that all of life is spiritual, etc. Somebody oughta do a book on this!!
Thoughts?
Read the whole thing.
3 comments:
Very interesting stuff and things I've been thinking about a lot lately. I may buy Creation Regained by Wolters.
I think that some Calvinists who are not of the Kuyperian "redeeming-the-culture" school of thought simply want to protect the message that Paul said was "of *first* importance" (my emphasis there, to emphasize Paul's point):
"that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures..." (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, NASB)
Given that Paul writes that this message is "of first importance," I can understand why some Christians, and churches, overreact by not being involved in social justice issues. These churches do not want to become "Social Gospel" churches that do good works but no longer preach the Gospel. That *can* happen to a church, if the good works that are *implications* of the Gospel begin to be emphasized more than the Gospel itself. We must be very careful about what we emphasize most.
Having said that, I do think it is an *overreaction* for Bible-believing churches (Reformed, Calvinistic, or otherwise) to not be involved in social justice issues at all. Such involvement is *not* the Gospel; it is an *implication* of the Gospel, but it is an implication which is described in strong terms in both the Old and New Testamants (such as in what characterizes "pure religion"-- taking care of orphans and widows, etc.).
I meant "Testaments"-- it's apparently too late for me to be typing long comments!
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