"New Calvinism" in Time Magazine

The latest Time magazine has a cover story on the top 10 Ideas That Are Changing the World Now. The #3 idea is what is deemed as the "New Calvinism." Mentioned in the article are the usual suspects - John Piper, Mark Driscoll, and SBTS president Al Mohler, along with one of the heroes of the Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards. The author begins,

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."

The article is pretty fair except for one point:

. . . it [New Calvinism] offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!) . . .

Maybe I'm a little rusty on my theology, but I think that is a little bit too deterministic sounding. But then again, who am I to judge, I've never even read the Institutes.

An Interesting Critique

I think that it's always interesting to hear what others are saying about what's going on in the SBC. NOBTS president Dr. Chuck Kelley recently addressed some of the growing concerns in SBC life. His sermon was critiqued by imonk here. Here's an excerpt of what he had to say:

A. The current SBC has the opportunity to leave some things behind that are
not Biblical. No matter how much we associate those things with the “golden
age” of the SBC, non-Biblical practices shouldn’t be looked back on as
somehow important in our future.

. . .

G. Dr. Kelley has an admiration for aspects of fundamentalism and revivalism
that many younger Southern Baptists are never going to share. The ironic reason
is that the conservative resurgence actually got these younger leaders reading
the Bible.

If you havn't listened to Dr. Kelley's sermon, listen to it first (there's a link to the sermon on the imonk site). Then check out what imonk has to say and feel free to post your agreements/disagreements in the comments.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

This billboard caught my attention on my way home the other night, and I've been thinking about it (and the role of the church in general) for a while now. For those of you in the New Orleans area, it was at the bottom of the off ramp going from I-610 to Franklin Ave. (it has been replaced with another billboard, so you can't see it now) If you can't read the sign, it says: A Church That Is Proud to Participate In The HIV/AIDS Fight - FREE Condoms - FREE HIV Tests and more! St. John #5 Church - www.myspace.com/campacehiv

What say you?

What's the answer concerning Christ?

“Does Christ come merely to improve our existence in Adam or to end it, sweeping us into his new creation? Is Christianity all about spiritual and moral makeovers or about death and resurrection — radical judgment and radical grace? Is the Word of God a resource for what we have already decided we want and need, or is it God’s living and active criticism of our religion, morality, and pious experience? In other words, is the Bible God’s story, centering on Christ’s redeeming work, that rewrites our stories, or is it something we use to make our stories a little more exciting and interesting?”

- Michael Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Baker Books, 2008), 24.

What's the correct answer and why?

JES

Language vs. History?

"For the more deeply one penetrates the formulations as they have been transmitted to us, the more sensitive he is to the roles which words and motifs play in a composition; the more he concentrates on the ways in which thought has been woven into linguistic patterns, the better able he is to think the thoughts of the biblical writer after him"
James Muilenburg, SBL Presidential Address 1968.

If Muilenburg is correct and the language and style of the Hebrew Bible can reveal as much about an author's intention as that author's historical situation then why should we spend so much time in biblical studies trying to determine absolutes concerning historical background?

Any thoughts?

JES