The New Calvinism

This article was published in TIME magazine more than 6 years ago, and I am happy that it's still on their archives.

Just in case they take the decision to take it down, I am posting it here, for later reference.
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By David Van BiemaThursday, Mar. 12, 2009

If you really want to follow the development of conservative Christianity, track its musical hits. In the early 1900s you might have heard "The Old Rugged Cross," a celebration of the atonement. By the 1980s you could have shared the Jesus-is-my-buddy intimacy of "Shine, Jesus, Shine." And today, more and more top songs feature a God who is very big, while we are...well, hark the David Crowder Band: "I am full of earth/ You are heaven's worth/ I am stained with dirt/ Prone to depravity."

Calvinism is back, and not just musically. John Calvin's 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination's logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.

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.

No more. 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.

Like the Calvinists, more moderate Evangelicals are exploring cures for the movement's doctrinal drift, but can't offer the same blanket assurance. "A lot of young people grew up in a culture of brokenness, divorce, drugs or sexual temptation," says Collin Hansen, author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists. "They have plenty of friends: what they need is a God." Mohler says, "The moment someone begins to define God's [being or actions] biblically, that person is drawn to conclusions that are traditionally classified as Calvinist." Of course, that presumption of inevitability has drawn accusations of arrogance and divisiveness since Calvin's time. Indeed, some of today's enthusiasts imply that non-Calvinists may actually not be Christians. Skirmishes among the Southern Baptists (who have a competing non-Calvinist camp) and online "flame wars" bode badly.

Calvin's 500th birthday will be this July. It will be interesting to see whether Calvin's latest legacy will be classic Protestant backbiting or whether, during these hard times, more Christians searching for security will submit their wills to the austerely demanding God of their country's infancy.

Hill Song and U2 - Is there a connection?

I was just talking to my daughter yesterday about the new U2 Album, Songs of Innocence, while we were on the car, listening to it.

Nathalie made a very interesting observation. She said, "they sound like the Christian songs that we sing at church". Yes, at our church, we sing HillSong songs.

Today, I find that there's already an article written about my daughter's observation. Get Religion reports:

The sound has evolved over the decades, but is now sometimes compared to U2’s. Tom Wagner, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Edinburgh, said Hillsong’s music was characterised by rich orchestration, but simple harmonies, and was often regarded by listeners as “spiritually anointed.”

“They’re very good at writing songs that are catchy,” Mr. Wagner said. “They know what works.”

The concern is that they are packing their services just to serve a youth culture, and not the whole church over all, which is in tune with today's culture of consumerism, which targets the young, and does not pay much attention to the rest of the community.

Ed Stetzer and Albert Mohler also have a go at HillSong:

But its critics, and there are many, deride Hillsong as hipster Christianity, suggesting that its theology is thin, its enthusiasm for celebrities (Justin Bieber is among its fans) unbecoming, its politics (opposition to abortion and a murky position on homosexuality) opaque.

“It’s a prosperity movement for the millennials, in which the polyester and middle-class associations of Oral Roberts have given way to ripped jeans and sophisticated rock music,” said R. Albert Mohler Jr., the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “What has made Hillsong distinctive is a minimization of the actual content of the Gospel, and a far more diffuse presentation of spirituality.”

I am bit surprised that after Victoria Osteen's debacle, I have noticed that more scrutiny is given to prosperity Gospel preachers. Hopefully, these Prosperity-Thin Gospel proponents will lend an ear and change their ways, and make Jesus the center of their Gospel.

In the meantime, I am enjoying U2's latest album.

The Quest for the Historical Jesus

In my spanish speaking blog, I've been dealing with the issue of the Historical Jesus, and how he has been "understood" in the last 400 years.

I would like to offer you the whole book by Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, that is available online.

It is my hope that you will enjoy the reading as much as I have enjoyed it.

You can read the book following this link.

Mohler doesn't get it Wright

I like Mohler. But it sounds more like Luther cannot be wrong on any front!!!

Luther is one of my heroes, but if Mohler would have hold to his view of Justification by faith, that alone (no pun intended) would not have been enough to spare him of Luther's wrath because Mohler stands for believer's baptism, as well as Mohler's view of the Lord's supper. Therefore, Luther would not care if he held to the Gospel, as we saw in Zwingli's case.

Tradition, and a bad one at that!!!!

Homosexuality, yet again!

I have a friend that tells me that talking about gays and homosexuality is my favorite subject. Well, it's not my favourite subject, is actually Jesus. But there is no place or time where I am at, that the homosexuality issue raises its head.

On this subject, Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Seminary, has written for CNN, and I would like to share with you this piece. This will help to to answer the objections and also point a way forward when this issue comes up in conversations and places that you visit.

Without further delay, here it's the article.

My Take: The Bible condemns a lot, but here's why we focus on homosexuality 

Editor's Note: R. Albert Mohler Jr. is president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world.

By R. Albert Mohler Jr., Special to CNN
Are conservative Christians hypocritical and selective when it comes to the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality? With all that the Bible condemns, why the focus on gay sex and same-sex marriage? 

Given the heated nature of our current debates, it’s a question conservative Christians have learned to expect. “Look,” we are told, “the Bible condemns eating shellfish, wearing mixed fabrics and any number of other things. Why do you ignore those things and insist that the Bible must be obeyed when it comes to sex?” 

On its face, it’s a fair question. But it can be posed in two very different ways.
First, the question can be asked to suggest that the Bible’s clear condemnation of sexual sins can simply be set aside. The other way of posing the question represents a genuine attempt to understand how the Bible is to be rightly applied to life today. 

In truth, those asking the question the first way really don’t want an answer.
An honest consideration of the Bible reveals that most of the biblical laws people point to in asking this question, such as laws against eating shellfish or wearing mixed fabrics, are part of the holiness code assigned to Israel in the Old Testament. That code was to set Israel, God’s covenant people, apart from all other nations on everything from morality to diet. 

As the Book of Acts makes clear, Christians are not obligated to follow this holiness code. This is made clear in Peter’s vision in Acts 10:15. Peter is told, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” 

In other words, there is no kosher code for Christians. Christians are not concerned with eating kosher foods and avoiding all others. That part of the law is no longer binding, and Christians can enjoy shrimp and pork with no injury to conscience. 

The Bible’s commands on sexual behavior, on the other hand, are continued in the New Testament. When it comes to homosexuality, the Bible’s teaching is consistent, pervasive, uniform and set within a larger context of law and Gospel. 

The Old Testament clearly condemns male homosexuality along with adultery, bestiality, incest and any sex outside the covenant of marriage. The New Testament does not lessen this concern but amplifies it. 

The New Testament condemns both male and female homosexual behavior. The Apostle Paul, for example, points specifically to homosexuality as evidence of human sinfulness. His point is not merely that homosexuals are sinners but that all humanity has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. 

The New Testament condemns a full range of sexual sins, and homosexuality is specified among these sins. In Romans, Paul refers to homosexuality in terms of “dishonorable passions,” “contrary to nature” and “shameless.” As New Testament scholar Robert Gagnon has stated, the Bible’s indictment “encompasses every and any form of homosexual behaviour.” 

Some people then ask, “What about slavery and polygamy?” In the first place, the New Testament never commands slavery, and it prizes freedom and human dignity. For this reason, the abolitionist movement was largely led by Christians, armed with Christian conviction. 

The Old Testament did allow for polygamy, though it normalizes heterosexual monogamy. In the New Testament, Jesus made clear that marriage was always meant to be one man and one woman. 

“Have you not read that He who created them made them male and female?” Jesus asked in Matthew. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” For this reason, Christians have opposed polygamy on biblical grounds. 

Why are Christians so concerned with homosexuality? In the first place, that question is answered by the simple fact that it is the most pressing moral question of our times. Christians must be concerned about adultery, pornography, injustice, dishonesty and everything the Bible names as sin. But when my phone rings with a call from a reporter these days, the question I am asked is never adultery or pornography. It is about homosexuality. 

Christians who are seriously committed to the authority of the Bible have no choice but to affirm all that the Bible teaches, including its condemnation of homosexuality. At the same time, our confidence is that God condemns those things that will bring his human creatures harm and commands those things that will lead to true human happiness and flourishing. 

In other words, we understand that the Bible condemns all forms of sin because our Creator knows what is best for us. The Bible names sins specifically so that each of us will recognize our own sinfulness and look to Christ for salvation and the forgiveness of our sins. 

Christian love requires that we believe and teach what the Bible teaches and that we do so with both strong conviction and humble hearts. The Church must repent of our failures in both of these tasks, but we must not be silent where the Bible speaks. 

Are Christians hypocrites in insisting that homosexual behavior is sin? We, too, are sinners, and hypocrisy and inconsistency are perpetual dangers. 

The church failed miserably in the face of the challenge of divorce. This requires an honest admission and strong corrective. 

At the same time, this painful failure must remind us that we must not fail to answer rightly when asked what the Bible teaches about homosexuality. Love requires us to tell the truth. 

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of R. Albert Mohler Jr.

The Historical Jesus and Apologetics (with special mention of Albert Schweitzer)

By Sebastian Moll
Theological Faculty
University of Mainz, Germany
March 2012

“If the existence of the historical Jesus could be refuted, Christianity would lose much, but by far not everything.”

Who said it?

A: Rudolf Bultmann	B: Paul Tillich
C: Albert Schweitzer	D: Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The answer is C. In his famous work “Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung” (first published in 1906) Albert Schweitzer comes to the above stated conclusion. This short essay obviously cannot comment on the question whether his conclusion is in itself right or not. Instead, I would like to point out a feature of Schweitzer’s theology which is often missed: his concern with the historical Jesus is motivated by an apologetic agenda.

This idea first entered my mind when I read a comment by Schweitzer on the history of the early church: “It should be remembered that between Paul and Origen Christianity was led by men of average minds – with the exception of the Apologist Justin.” Maybe it took a Patristic scholar to notice this fascinating statement. Of all people Schweitzer picked Origen, whom he values as the defender of Christianity against the philosopher Celsus, and Justin, that is, the Apologist Justin, whom he clearly distinguishes from the author of the Dialogue with Trypho. (Schweitzer does not actually deny the identity of the two, but he finds it hard to believe that one man should have written two so different pieces of work.)

This remark made me wonder. Then, in a letter to his friend Martin Werner, I found these remarkable lines by Schweitzer:

“I believe to be able to show that when thinking dares to think to the end, it will get to the absolute ethics of Jesus and to mysticism. This is the decisive factor to me. The deepest beliefs of Christianity are logically necessary.” If this is not a line by an apologist, then what is?

As recently pointed out again by Pope Benedict himself in his outstanding work on Jesus, the Christian faith is based on “history which took place on the face of this earth.” This is a distinctive characteristic of Christianity, which it does not share with every other religion. In fact, this feature proved to be an apologetic challenge from the earliest beginnings of Christianity. How do you combine universal religious thinking with the idea of a singular event in time and space? What about people who lived before that event? Or about those who lived in different parts of the world? This is the challenge that men like Justin and Origen took up in their apologetic works. In order to make Christianity more acceptable to his pagan audience, Justin identified the historical Jesus with the logos, the rational force operative everywhere and at all times, thereby justifying the Christian adoration for Jesus, but at the same time downplaying his importance, as it was possible to be in touch with the logos without being in contact with the historical Jesus.

With this brief, and certainly superficial, summary of Justin’s Apology in mind, it becomes understandable why Schweitzer showed so much appreciation for him. In a way, Schweitzer has a very similar agenda. What the logos is to Justin, the will is to Schweitzer. The ethical will of Jesus is the universal concept which everybody can get united with through mysticism (s. a.), and this is what constitutes Christianity in the eyes of Schweitzer. The ethical will was in the world, in us, before the appearance of the historical Jesus – just as the logos already existed before the incarnation. Jesus represented this ethical will in truth and perfection, and thus his appearance helped establishing this ethical will within us. However, his appearance was not a conditio sine qua non.

This is, again in daring brevity, the apologetic concept of Albert Schweitzer. As stated in the beginning, this is not the place to examine the sustainability of his system. But it is important to realize that even for a man like Albert Schweitzer, known as the incorruptible champion of the quest for the historical Jesus, it is not enough simply establishing historical results. He may have contributed to the ‘destruction’ of the traditional image of Jesus, but his real aim was to show that we do not really need it.