Paul's Passing Thoughts

“How long will Christians continue to fall for this ruse? These guys have been running the show in an increased continuum for 43 years!”

New Calvinism is the Christian version of “Blame it on Bush.” People like new things, and New Calvinism is still being sold as something new. Fact is, they have been selling this “resurgence” pitch for forty-three years now. New Calvinism was hatched in 1970 and is a return to authentic Calvinism. The New Calvinism movement and its ideology have completely dominated the American church since 2008. In a 2009 Time Magazine article, New Calvinism was said to be one of the top ten ideas changing the world in our day. This ministry is constantly informed by people throughout the U.S. that the only churches in their general geographical area are New Calvinist without exception.

Nevertheless, The Neo-Calvinists continue to draw what’s left of American Christianity into their megacult by claiming that their “rediscovery” of the Reformed gospel is the answer to the carnage that they have in fact created. The New Calvinist movement is directly responsible for the mass exodus from the formal church presently taking place.

The hybrid form of this rabid mysticism (evangelicalism) that has survived its (authentic Calvinism) social deaths in church history have always been crippled with vestiges of the same ideology: primarily, weak sanctification. This has always primed future “resurgences” of the despotic original. New Calvinism is weeding out the competition and dominating the Christian landscape for the following reasons:

1. Protestantism has always disarmed its congregants theologically with its Romish-like spiritual caste system. American Christians do not have the theological wherewithal to fight this movement.

2. The mentality, again, created by Protestantism, that the laity are not responsible for the overall landscape of the church because they are the Sudra at best, and the Untouchables at least.

3. Because of number 2, alternatives are not being created and many are merely checking out of the church scene.

New Calvinism will continue to dominate Christianity unless alternatives are created along with necessary education. New Calvinism will continue to create carnage and then offer itself as the solution, leaving itself as the only alternative embodied with mindless followers. What is left of the formal church must repent of Protestantism; embrace the priesthood of believers, and the plain sense of Holy Writ. The Reformation gospel teaches that the law can give life because Christ fulfilled it for us. The result is the antinomianism that the Bible clearly states will dominate the last days. Pastors of the formal church must humble themselves and admit they didn’t know that Reformed total depravity also pertains to the saints, and sola fide also pertains to sanctification. They must also admit they didn’t know sola Christus really means Christ alone in regard to the other Trinity members, not just the way to the Father.

This is the backdrop for the “resurgence” motif constantly propagated by James MacDonald and associate Mark Driscoll. The latter is actually, and this is totally unbelievable to me, writing a book entitled, A Call to Resurgence: Will Christianity Have a Funeral Or a Future? The following is stated about the book in a promo:

It’s tempting to believe that the Christian faith is alive and well in our country today. Our politicians talk about God. Our mega-churches are filled. Christian schools dot our landscape. Brace yourself. It’s an illusion. Believe it or not, only 8 percent of Americans profess and practice true evangelical Christian faith. There are more left-handed people than evangelical Christians in America.

In this book, Mark Driscoll delivers a wake-up call for every believer: We are living in a post-Christian culture—a culture fundamentally at odds with faith in Jesus. This is good and bad news. The good news is that God is still working, redeeming people from this spiritual wasteland and inspiring a resurgence of faithful believers. The bad news is that many believers just don’t get it. They continue to gather exclusively into insular tribes, lobbing e-bombs at each other in cyberspace.

Mark’s book is a clarion call for Christians. It’s time to get to work. We can only do this if we unite around Jesus and the essentials found in his Word, while at the same time, appreciating the distinctives within each Christian tribe. Mark shows us how to do just that. This isn’t the time to wait or debate. Join the resurgence.

How long will Christians continue to fall for this ruse? These guys have been running the show in an increased continuum for 43 years! They have absolutely dominated the Christian landscape since 2008. I agree that the American church is in a dark age, but it is a New Calvinist dark age. They have mocked the intelligence of Christianity by calling for Reformed resurgence in the very midst of one since 1970.

Likewise, in James MacDonald’s Vertical Church, he devotes all of chapter four to this very idea, calling the contemporary church an “epic failure.” Under said heading in that chapter, he states a list of those failures:

1. 6,000 churches close their doors every year.

2. 3,500 Americans leave the church every day.

3. Only one pastor in ten retires while still in ministry.

4. Less than 20% of Americans attend church regularly.

5. Only 15% of churches in the U.S. are growing numerically.

6. Only 2% percent of growing churches are effectively winning converts to Christ.

7. Only 9% of evangelicals tithe to their churches.

8. 800 new church plants survive each year.

9. 10,000 new churches would be needed annually to keep up with the population growth.

These are New Calvinist statistics. These are New Calvinist failures. This is their economy. And many pastors would do well to get a backbone and speak up about it.

paul