Here’s a simple example. Think about yourself if you had just spent three years with Jesus. How would you treat illegal immigrants? For vast numbers of typical American Christians, their immediate instincts are to either argue a political position or look for a way to end the conversation. . . . Some of [their] answers could be better, and some could be a lot worse, but it’s the process of how we consider the issues that matters to me. (Mere Churchianity, p. 51.)
You can put down your Sunday Times Book Review section now. I have your reading list for the next several months right here. Like my list of my five favorite fiction titles, I am going to start off with some honorable mentions. And there is one book in the top five you are going to want to argue with me as to whether it belongs in this list or the fiction list.
And as you did with the list of novels, please add to my list as you see fit. I am not saying these are the only non-fiction titles worth reading, or the only ones you should have in your library. These are my five favorites, and they are my favorites for various reasons. Your reasons will, of course, be different, so read accordingly.
So many books to read, so little time to read them.
Classic iMonk Post by Michael Spencer Originally posted July 15, 2008
MOD Note:Back in 2008, Michael found this good word about what it means to be “Truly Reformed,” from one who is. Follow the link to read the entire post.
Whatever divides us emotionally from other Bible-believing, Christ-honoring Christians is a “plus” we’re adding to the gospel. It is the Galatian impulse of self-exaltation. It can even become a club with which we bash other Christians, at least in our thoughts, to punish, to exclude and to force into line with us. What unifies the church is the gospel. What defines the gospel is the Bible. What interprets the Bible correctly is a hermeneutic centered on Jesus Christ crucified, the all-sufficient Savior of sinners, who gives himself away on terms of radical grace to all alike. What proves that that gospel hermeneutic has captured our hearts is that we are not looking down on other believers but lifting them up, not seeing ourselves as better but grateful for their contribution to the cause, not standing aloof but embracing them freely, not wishing they would become like us but serving them in love (Galatians 5:13).
My Reformed friend, can you move among other Christian groups and really enjoy them? Do you admire them? Even if you disagree with them in some ways, do you learn from them? What is the emotional tilt of your heart – toward them or away from them? If your Reformed theology has morphed functionally into Galatian sociology, the remedy is not to abandon your Reformed theology. The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only. Let it humble you. Let this gracious doctrine make you a fun person to be around. The proof that we are Reformed will be all the wonderful Christians we discover around us who are not Reformed. Amazing people. Heroic people. Blood-bought people. People with whom we are eternally one – in Christ alone.
There’s a lot of things I’d like to say, but this is so good that I’m just going to leave it alone…although I’m pretty sure some quarters of the blogosphere won’t be able to do so.
Classic iMonk Post by Michael Spencer Originally posted February 18, 2009
‘Twas not so long ago, on a Calvinistic web site you’ve all visited, that one could hear a serious call to present one’s reformed credentials if one planned to be part of the discussion.
‘Twas also not so long ago, on more than one Calvinistic web site, that a person disagreeing with the main points of the host would be asked to answer “What is the gospel?”
And ’twas not so long ago, that I said, “I’m not a Calvinist,” an announcement that has now earned me at least a weekly email or two telling me that I am about to leave the faith or become a Roman Catholic.
In my own journey, I had happy days as a Calvinist. My days at Southern Baptist Founder’s Conference meetings as a “Timothy George” type SBC Calvinist were good times. Then there were the bad times. Posts about me at certain flaming blogs. Days of posts about me after the word went out through certain Calvinistic chat rooms that I was leading my audience outside of accepted boundaries. Letters to publishers and my employer, and weirdness on comment threads where my name was invoked as “emerging” and “apostate.”
When I finally swore all this off, it wasn’t to become an Arminian, or a Catholic or a one man band. It was to get the heck away from whatever was/is going on among the newly energized reformation police. [Continue reading]
Reading the title of Collin Hansen’s book, Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists, one might surmise it would be a chronicle and evaluation of the movement from a journalist’s somewhat objective point of view. Turns out that Hansen’s book is more of an homage to a phenomenon he considers a genuine religious revival taking place in our day.
So much so, in fact, that the Gospel Coalition announced on July 10 that Hansen will be joining the organization as their editorial director, writing and editing pieces “that spotlight the advance of the gospel worldwide, feature trustworthy and effective local church ministries, and bring theological discernment to cultural trends.”
In my opinion, Hansen’s book does provide a valuable overview of the “new Calvinist” movement, and is particularly helpful for discovering what’s different about this present manifestation of Calvinism. However, one should realize from the outset that Hansen is a cheerleader as well as a chronicler of the ministries and leaders about which he is writing.
This post will not be an in-depth review of the book. Rather we will use it to answer the question, “What’s ‘NEW’ about the New Calvinism?” How does this contemporary upsurge of interest in Reformed theology, much of which has emerged because of dissatisfaction with contemporary evangelicalism, differ from older manifestations of Calvinist teaching and practice in American churches and ministries? [Continue reading]
Today, we resume IM’s popular feature, “The Liturgical Gangstas,” a panel discussion involving representatives from different liturgical traditions who will be answering questions regarding theology and church practice. Lord willing, the Gangstas will appear on the final Monday of each month to share with our IM audience.
Rev. William Cwirla is a Lutheran pastor (LCMS) and one of the hosts of the excellent podcast, The God Whisperers.
Rev. Daniel Jepsen is the senior pastor of Franklin Community Church, an evangelical non-denominational church.
Today’s Question: THE GOSPEL
On Internet Monk, we try to make the point that the Gospel is not simply a message we proclaim to non-believers but a message that Christians also need every day. In your tradition and church, how do you make sure the Gospel remains central in your preaching and practice?
In this post, we’ll hear from Fr. Ernesto, Wyman, Bill, and Dan.
For the past twenty years, I have lived in America’s heartland, in the region where the Second Great Awakening occurred. It’s almost all revivalism all the time around here. Churches that predominate are Methodist, Baptist, Wesleyan, Nazarene, Church of God, Campbellite Christian, and so on. If churches in our area are not connected with those denominations, they tend to follow more modern forms of revivalism, such as the seeker-oriented model. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had discussions with people about how weak the Bible teaching and how shallow the theological depth is in these parts.
I consider myself blessed to have had extremely good teachers in my Christian walk. My youth pastor led in-depth Bible studies. Our minister practiced expository preaching. I attended Bible college because the Word was so prominent there. As a fairly new convert, I was like a sponge.
The school I attended was strongly dispensationalist in orientation. The only mentions of Reformed (or covenant) theology were negative in tone. Our school intentionally separated itself from “Calvinism” because we claimed to take the Bible literally, whereas Reformed theology spiritualized its plain teaching. After all, they believed in things like amillennialism and infant baptism, as well as the TULIP outline of salvation, which we thought went too far. Our church history education as well as our grasp on the history of interpretation was sorely lacking. You might say we were “Bible only” fundamentalists. [Continue reading]
The third week of our conversations about “Three Streams of Post-Evangelicalism” will focus on a movement that has received attention from the secular media as well as from within the church. It has been deemed the “New Calvinism”.
We are responding to Scot McKnight’s recent article in which he identified three alternative paths replacing the old “neo-evangelical coalition”: the Emerging movement, the Ancient-Future movement, and the new Calvinism. We invite you to join us this week as we discuss this third alternative, keeping in mind that we are aiming for a robust and healthy discussion.
We are doing this precisely because we are NOT experts with regard to these movements. We want to learn more. We want to hear your experiences. As pilgrims trying to negotiate the post-evangelical landscape, we are interested to hear of your involvement and interaction with these groups that have grown so much in recent years. Please join the conversation.
Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don’t operate quite on a Rick Warren scale. But, notes Ted Olsen, a managing editor at Christianity Today,“everyone knows where the energy and the passion are in the Evangelical world” — with the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle’s pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinist-flavored ESV Study Bible sold out its first printing, and Reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christendom’s hottest links. (emphasis mine)
In this Sunday’s text, we find Jesus at a familiar place in the Gospel of Luke—at a table, talking to people who struggle to grasp grace and its implications.
Humility (14:7-11)
In Jesus’ day, the seating arrangement at feasts was in a “U” shape, with the host at the center where the sides joined; the “head” of the table, as it were. The best, most sought-after seats were the ones next to him, and those who had been invited would do their best to procure them. Those to whom good seats had been promised beforehand would often arrive a bit late so that they would be seen “ascending” to the more desirable places. Sometimes, however, the host would invite a guest who sat farther down the line to come and take a seat closer to him. This was a great honor. Of course, this meant someone else got “bumped” down to a less coveted place farther from the head. That would be just plain embarrassing. [Continue reading]
Classic iMonk Post by Michael Spencer Originally posted July 30, 2008
I’ve been doing an interview on “Post-Evangelicalism,” and I thought it would be a good time to list some of the books that define post-evangelicalism for me.
First of all, a brief definition:
Post-evangelicalism is a way of relating to the present seriously compromised, perhaps terminal, condition of evangelicalism by accessing the resources of the broader, deeper, more ancient Christian traditions that contemporary evangelicalism, in its pragmatic idolatry, has largely abandoned as sources and influences.
Please note that post-evangelicalism isn’t a rejection of evangelicalism, but a rejection of the current way of doing evangelicalism and being evangelical. [Continue reading]
I’m back—did you miss me? Thanks to my designated pinch-rambler Adam Palmer for filling in for me last week. Taco Town? Who needs Taco Town when you have Deep Blue Fish ‘N Chips? England was wonderful, and I made a lot of new friends. But they talk funny over there. I was asked if I wanted a biscuit. I was picturing this buttermilk biscuit, hot from the oven, covered in butter and honey. Instead I was handed a cookie. So today, I won’t be messing with you. I’ll just say it straight. I’m here to give you 100% pure, gluten-free Saturday Ramblings…
Of all matters that draw people to the Ancient-Future path, worship is at the top of the list. As N.T. Wright explains in the following video clip, people all around the world are starving to meet with God in worship.
Wright draws from his own experiences of spiritual formation, his experience as a minister in cathedrals that practice daily, and even hourly worship, and his observation that life in a secularized world has created a deep hunger for worship.
And once a week is not enough.
He encourages us to be imaginative and to recognize the value of liturgy as well as spontaneity in our personal, family, and corporate worship.
It’s probably clear to many of you by now that I have a great deal of sympathy for the Ancient-Future path as a hopeful way of revitalizing evangelicalism in this post-evangelical era.
But I’m afraid people may have the wrong conception of what I’m talking about when I refer to the Ancient-Future path. I understand some of the confusion, because those who talk about it (including me) make regular reference to such things as historic churches, liturgical worship, and other traditional practices.
It’s important, however, to realize that there is no single uniform way of walking the Ancient-Future path.[Continue reading]
Yes, the non-capitilzation of the third word in the title is deliberate. I don’t think the god I am talked about deserves to be capitalized. For I am not talking about the God of the scriptures, but the god that is worshipped in much of modern American evangelicalism.
This god is good, but small and not very powerful. This god is not able to use the foolish, weak and lowly things of this world to shame and nullify the wise, strong, and powerful ((see I Corinthians 1:26-31). That is why those who lead this god’s churches must attempt to change the foolish things into things wise in the ways of this world, and must change the lowly and despised things into things this world likes and respects.
Oswald Chambers asks, “Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Himself?”
“Yes, Lord, I am.”
I will admit that my answer came so readily because God’s been hammering away at me for months to get me to see the distinction in a personal way. How often I pick the path of performing for him over loving him.
I’m embarrassed to tell you that I take refuge almost every day in my idea of what Jesus wants. I’ll venture to say that most of us have our own ideas of that and we feel satisfied or even prideful when we manage to put checkmarks in our spiritual ‘to do’ list or paste in gold stars when we successfully avoid what’s prohibited.
A passage from Michael Spencer’s Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality
Classic iMonk Post
, one might surmise it would be a chronicle and evaluation of the movement from a journalist’s somewhat objective point of view. Turns out that Hansen’s book is more of an homage to a phenomenon he considers a genuine religious revival taking place in our day.
By Chaplain Mike
By Chaplain Mike
By Chaplain Mike
