Monday, June 14, 2010

Reformed for the sake of being Reformed

Excellent thoughts from Tim Challies on the temptation to see “Reformed” as a banner or a flag we wave around, A Parody of Ourselves. I liked this a lot:

I love the word Reformed; it has a long and noble heritage. And yet somehow it seems that Reformed has transitioned from a kind of theological short-hand, a useful way of describing a lot of theology in just one word, and has instead become an identity, a flag which I run up a flagpole as a means of self-identification. Reformed used to be a terse and convenient short-hand to express “I believe in the doctrines of grace, I believe in God’s total sovereignty, I adhere to certain creeds and confessions, and so on.” In one word we could summarize an entire theological position. Today, though, I fear that it is associated far more with names and personalities than theology. Reformed means “I listen to this pastor, I read these books, I go to these conferences.” But my theology may be vastly different from the Reformed guy beside me. It is an identity, not a theology, a connection to a group, not a belief. It’s a pass card, credentials allowing admittance into a community, an experience. And as such it generates swag, it generates junk, it generates all of that stuff like talking vegetables, Bible superheroes and Bible-zines.

I don’t agree with some of Tim’s conclusions but I think he is on the right track. Having said that, Reformed self-flagellation is a common pastime. The blogosphere is full of Reformed mea culpas. It is necessary because far too often the caricatures of Reformed believers are dead on. We love to wave the flag of “Reformed” as we battle the unwashed hordes of ignorant Arminians. We especially love to fight with one another over who really is or is not Reformed. One misstep, one questionable quote or association and you find yourself out of the club (Exhibit A: John Piper, the man perhaps most responsible for introducing the doctrines of grace to the wider church). We see Paul first as a brilliant theologian and scholar when he saw himself as chiefly a sinner and a servant. We are far more likely to start a sentence with “Calvin wrote” or “Edwards said” than we are to start a sentence with “Jesus taught”.

Good stuff, you should check it out.

1 comment:

Tim A said...

One of the things that leads me to think the movement is misdirected is that from scripture we understand there is no end to the process of reformation or transformation in our lives. It's like the movement has said they have arrived are no longer in need of reform. Reform is past tense. There are so many things the reformed movement needs to reform now. One other funny thing is some reformed baptists have gone back on the reforms of the baptist movement and are baptizing babies again - paedobaptist. What's up with that?