Calvin’s Kin: Where They’re Headed
Collin Hansen finished his talks with a look to the future. I have kind of weighed in on this before. He really looked a lot at why Reformed theology seems to flourish in secular schools more so than "Christian" schools, even schools like Calvin College that bear the name of Calvin.
Collin attributes a lot of it as hand in hand with urban ministry. In those settings, being a Calvinist is not controversial, being a Christian is controversial! Calvinism is also academically rigorous, demanding, hard but rewarding. He is a big fan of "Gospel outposts" in the big urban areas, where ideas spread outward.
I think that much of it stems from the fact that in a secular school, if you are going to be a Christian, you are going to be persecuted to an extent. You either grow stronger in your faith or leave it all together and demonstrate that you never really were committed to it in the first place. It is easy to be a cultural Christian at a Christian school because it is likely no one will challenge your faith, so you can drift along just like you can in a big, institutional church. Plus in a secular school, you are free to read the Bible and great theologians without being influenced by some of the elements in "Christian" schools that tend to be hostile in most cases to Reformed theology.
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