Young, Restless, Reformed is only the second book I have finished from my Together for the Gospel book haul (the first being David Wells’ very important work The Courage to be Protestant). I really grabbed it off the shelf because of the conference I am going to this weekend. I figured I should read Collin Hansen’s book before I went to the conference. Despite being a pretty small book, it was surprisingly good. If you are looking for deep theological themes, exposition of Scripture, defending major doctrines of the faith try Pierced For Our Transgressions instead. This book is a great one for reading on the beach or on a Saturday afternoon while the kids are being quiet. If you have somewhere quiet to read uninterrupted, you should be able to knock it out in just a couple of hours.The basis for the book is the increasing number of younger Christians who find themselves drawn in various ways to Reformed theology, whether by exposure to it at conferences featuring John Piper or at seminaries like Southern Seminary where Calvinism flourishes. There is definitely a new, younger flavor to the Reformed ranks and that is a healthy trend in a stream of theology that has often seemed stodgy and stale. Collin Hansen, editor-at-large for Christianity Today, set off on a whirlwind adventure to find out what was causing this sudden “youthification” of Reformed theology.
The style of the book is mainly interview driven. Collin interviews someone and then draws conclusions based on that interview. But he does weave it together well so it is not just a string of unrelated interviews. By the end of the book, I think you have a greater appreciation of how it all ties together and you also start to see the mutual respect and admiration many of these men have for one another. Again, his focus is on the people who make up modern Calvinism, not on the doctrinal foundations of it. He gives a very brief overview of Calvinism, but I am assuming that the vast majority of his readers are probably already more or less Reformed and like me just skimmed that section.
Some key themes in the book…
The face of Calvinism is changing. It is no longer the old school, stern faced Presbyterianism but is younger and more vibrant. The challenge of course is to rein that youthful exuberance and enthusiasm in. The Reformed camp is growing younger and changing dramatically in some important areas. Look at who Collin interviews: Ligon Duncan, C.J. Mahaney, Mark Dever, Albert Mohler, John Piper, Mark Driscoll. Of the big names he interviews, only one (Ligon Duncan) comes from a traditional, Reformed denominational background. The same holds true at the Together for the Gospel conference. Collin rightly highlights the difference between the old school, Michael Horton, White Horse Inn flavor of Calvinism and the Together for the Gospel flavor. The eight speakers at T4G were: Mohler, Mahaney, Dever, Duncan, Sproul, Piper, MacArthur and Anyabwile. Of those, six of the eight are credobaptists. That is troubling to the older school Reformed, and is probably why few of them appear at or endorse the Together for the Gospel conference. That is something I am going to hopefully ask him about at the conference this week, the clear change from Calvinism being relegated to enclaves in Presbyterianism to being more mainstream and having a far more distinctive Baptist flavor.
Collin does a very good job trying to balance the “big guns” and the more rank-and-file. Reformed theology is dominated by the big names, by the famous theologians past and present. After speaking to a Piper or Mahaney, he also speaks to seminary students, church planters, less well known pastors like Steve Lawson. It would be easy to just interview the obvious leaders of the Reformed movement and use that as the basis for a book.
But where Reformed theology is really taking hold is not in merely the books of Sproul and Piper, but in local assemblies, in seminaries, in homes in front of laptops on blogs. Reformed theology is flourishing and will continue to flourish precisely because of the symbiotic relationship. While we are able to appreciate and even revere the great men of the faith like Sproul and Spurgeon and Edwards, where the rubber meets the road is in local assemblies in far away place, small churches in Des Moines, IA and Indian River, MI where Reformed theology is not a given and is looked at with some suspicion. As Collin pointed out, the Reformed movement is a building block movement with each successive generation building on the ones that came before, as exhibited at Together for the Gospel with thousands of younger men sitting at the feet of two generations of Reformed leaders. Today we read not just Calvin and Edwards, we read more recently deceased men like Spurgeon, Machen and Lloyd-Jones. Someday I fully expect my kids generation to look back fondly at Piper and Sproul, long after they are gone.
I would have liked for Collin to look more at some of the danger signs of Reformed theology. I worry that Calvinism is becoming a “fad” among some younger Christians. All the cool kids are Calvinists! I worry about them grabbing hold of Reformed theology for lots of reasons other than being convinced by Scripture. Piper’s books are great, but I am sure he would be the first to say that if you want to learn about Reformed theology, don’t read his stuff or listen to his sermons, read the Word and then, and only then, read his books. I am concerned about anyone who comes at Reformed theology without first having struggled mightily with it, because if you haven’t struggled with it, you don’t really understand it. The first time someone tried to explain election and predestination to me, I though they were nuts (Doug Alexander, I am talking about you!). It was only when the sheer weight of it in the Scriptures finally broke me down that I yielded to it.
Overall, the book is a pretty easy read. It reads like a series of magazine articles, so it is not deep and heavy stuff. I think it would be very useful for the people that are probably least likely to read it, those in the old guard of the Reformed tradition who look down imperiously at those young whippersnappers that are intruding on their traditions. But it is also useful for younger Christians as well, because one thing that rings out clearly in this book is that where we are today came at a price for many men who faced termination, being ostracized and ridiculed but held firmly to the Word and what it teaches about God’s sovereign grace.
A great quote from the book: "Christians must seek not a return to the Reformation or the First Great Awakening but a return to Jesus Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith." p. 62
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