...and Time chooses to report it.
Time.com is reporting on the big trends of 2009. Surprisingly, the resurgence of Calvinism is on there. They note that the increasingly influence of men like John Piper, uber-cool Mark Driscoll, and my personal friend Al Mohler (he sends me an email every day whether I like it or not) in evangelical Christianity is helping fuel the resurgence.
I think the appeal of Calvinism is partly fueled by the rejection of the alternatives (seeker-sensitive church, dead mainline churches, exclusive emergent church, etc.). There simply aren't a lot of options out there for the believer passionate about the glory of God and the authority of His Word. They're out there, but clearly the dominant voice in conservative Evangelicalism is the voice of JC (John Calvin).
I don't like being assigned a label, but I understand that some believers are just so excited by the truths contained in the doctrines of grace, that it is easier to just proclaim they are Calvinists than to enumerate each truth that excites their soul.
The unfortunate thing is labels can be misleading. The meanings one ascribes to the term Calvinism can be quite varied. But I suppose it is easier to say one is a Calvinist that to pull out a doctrinal statement to identify oneself.
2 comments:
I'm not sorry to see the era of Jesus-is-my-girlfriend worship songs coming to an end....
I laughed to see your introduction of Al Mohler as your "personal friend" and the e-mail reference was a nice touch. But then I stopped laughing when I remembered that Al Mohler has not approved my Facebook Friend Request. I mean really... He okayed Charles Spurgeon's (aka Allen Raynor, I may just start calling him Allen Spurgeon)... and Derek's...
This ay scar me for life.
Oh... by the way, not only was the TIME article about trends of 2009, but current trends shaping our culture in 2009. Do you know there is a conference on the reformation in honor of the 500th anniversary of Calvin's b-day? It's in July... in Boston.
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