While we lived in Richmond, Kelly and I spent nine years in a Presbyterian Church (PC-A) and much of my study and many of my theological influences came from theologically "Reformed" circles.
For those who don't have as much free time as the rest of us and aren't sure what exactly that means, Reformed theology is most famously known for a strong belief in predestination--God is the one who calls us to salvation, we do not "choose" it for ourselves because left to ourselves we would never choose God. God is always front and center, and his sovereign will and grace is the most active thing in the entire universe.
What I found in my nine years is that there are some wonderful things about Reformed theology--the emphasis on the centrality of God and His grace is strong medicine for our self-help and me-focused culture. When it is done well and right, Reformed theology is beautiful and freeing.
When it goes wrong, however, it becomes smug, self-righteous, and arrogant. There are a lot of gracious and wonderful and warm Reformed folks...and there's a lot of guys who are just angry about everything, particularly anything that's NOT Reformed. There is nothing worse in the pit of hell than Reformed theology gone wrong--like any misguided Christian religious tradition, it masquerades as Christian faith and so does damage to the Kingdom.
John Piper is someone to whom I owe a tremendous debt. His book "Future Grace" woke me up to theology done with passion and purpose--I started really thinking about my faith two years out of college as I spent two months re-reading "Future Grace" three times. Since then, I've read almost everything he's written...and at points over the past seven years I've been challenged by him and at other points he's started to sound like just another angry Reformed guy.
Last week Piper had cancer surgery, and on the eve of his surgery he wrote his weekly column Fresh Words about God's sovereignty and Piper's faith journey in the midst of fighting cancer. This is Reformed Theology at its' best--radically God-centered and God-honoring. Anyone who's ever wrestled with "why do bad things happen to good people" should take a look at what I think is a phenomenally Biblical view of this issue.
His surgery went well, by the way, and all reports seem to be that he will be full strength again very soon.
8 comments:
Thanks for this link. I have an anti-Piper prejudice (some from brief things that I have read by him, most from associating him with the smug, self-righteous members of another ministry or two who really gave me a hard time at UNCG), but really did enjoy and appreciate his words here. I have had my view of God's sovreignty challenged and broadened by some of my grace life classes, although I am still not able to accept any pre-destination explanation other than the one that Gary Deddo laid out for us in ST. I should know this answer but did Deddo's explanation fit well into your reformed framework? Love you, bro.
thanks, marsh. yeah, i think the thing about reformed theology is that it's really tight definitions tends to attract people who really like tight definitions--black and white people love reformed theology because they don't often leave much room for gray. this can create a sub-culture of smug, smart people that can annoy the rest of us. what gets lost in the persona is that there's good stuff in the theology.
deddo really rocked my world the first time around with his take on predestination--i was solidly in the piper camp at the time. i found that there's places of overlap that are really good/easy to deal with and places where there's conflict that i've had to reconcile. i would say on the whole that i'm much less theologically reformed as i was say five years ago, but i still lean that way. deddo does too, but the reformed-nazi folks wouldn't like him too much.
I would say that I am reformed, too, but as you said, for the black-and-white reformed guys, I would not be reformed-enough for them, which really makes me mad, or is it sad. I am thankful for winsome reformed folks like you and Tripp and my friend Scott.
My $0.02 on reformed theology:
As with most short-hand terms, "reformed theology" doesn't have a knock-down technical definition. In my own mind, I differentiate "Truly Reformed" theology from "reformed" theology.
Truly Reformed theology is the brand I generally find in theologically acute folks from the PCA. I so designate this brand of theology in this way because of the general communication from them that reads: We've got the lock on what it means to be reformed.
It seems to me, though, that reformed theology is a pretty darn big umbrella under which a whole lot of streams of theology fit in addition to Truly Reformed theology.
I imagine theological thought as a root system (go with me here): at the reformation, the main root branched into two - Roman Catholicism & Reformers. (No I'm not including the Coptic or Orthodox folks. It's my illustration, don't interrupt.) Then the Reformers root begins to branch with every Big Name Reformer getting his own branch, followed by several of their main students getting their own sub-sub branches, followed by their main students, followed by their main students. And all of these students, of course, are influencing each other, so for our illustration purposes, these sub-sub-sub-sub roots are here and there linking up, here and there diverging again.
So here we are in the 21st century and some say that to be reformed, you've got to take these mapquest directions:
Right turn at Reformed root (12 years)
Left turn at Calvin root (3 years)
Right turn at Calvin Student B (10 years)
U-turn at Calvin Student B3 (6 years)
Calvin Student B3 is now Calvin Student B3/Luther Student C6i (4 years)
Bear right at Calvin Student B3/Luther Student C6i split onto Luther Student C6ia.
Not that there is anything wrong with having such a theology! I have one and am enjoying it very much. But I take umbrage when someone implicitly or explicitly says that theirs is the only route from Reform Branch to Today which qualifies as reformed.
ok: Flame Away!
Let me quickly add: I've got nothing against PCA folks, I just mention them because Alex mentions them first. The PCA has no lock on it's-my-theology-or-the-highway folks. For a long time I thought that my denomination PC(USA) had the lock on it. Now I know that every group has their, er, black/white folks.
I also owe a great debt to Piper. The Lord, through His providence, used "Desiring God" to smack me upside the head and catapolte me into the Word. I praise God for Piper's faithfulness through this battle with cancer...what an encouragement it has been to my soul. Thanks for your post.
macon, thanks for your comments. i single out angry reformed folks in the pca because mostly that's what i'm most familiar with. i grew up southern baptist, so there's plenty of angry fundamentalists that were floating around. clearly, angry people are everywhere!
what's most insidious about angry reformed folks (what you call "trule reformed") is that they tend to be much more intelectual than angry fundamentalists. in other words, they're much more like the pharisees Jesus so vehemently called out than most other strains of false religion.
thanks for the post, jtoadvine! far and away his best book (and my favorite) is 'future grace.' it takes the basic framework of 'desiring god' and digs deep into all it's implications for our motivations for obedience. it's also a little bit controversial, so you'll get a good idea of why people can tend to disagree with him.
another really good book of his that had profound impact on me was "the pleasures of God." in each chapter piper takes a biblical 'pleasure of God' (i.e. justice, his own name being made known, bruising the son, etc) and unpacks it. a little more dense reading than future grace in some ways, but well worth the work.
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