I recently had the privilege of guest lecturing at the University of Texas on the topic of the Resurgence of Mission & Reformed Theology in America. Eileen Delao-Flynn, Professor and Religion writer for the Austin American-Statesman, was kind enough to extend me the invitation to address her Journalism & Religion class. The entire lecture would be too long to reproduce here. However, I have included a section on “Resurging Calvinism” below.

The "New Calvinism"

In an article entitled “10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now,” TIME magazine numbered the "New Calvinism" as the third most influential idea changing the world in 2009. In an effort to explain this "New Calvinism," New Calvinists are laboring to shake off a fundamentalist, religious image and articulate the old gospel in fresh, biblically faithful ways. They are making five important distinctions:

1. Gospel/Religion:

New Calvinists point out that the Gospel is not Religion. This came as a surprise to some of the students. Religion says, “You must impress God,” but the gospel says, “Jesus impressed God for you.” Religion says, “Perfect yourself and God will be happy.” The gospel says, "We are all imperfect people, but Christians cling to a perfect Christ who obtains the pleasure of God for them." The gospel is good news, but religion is burdensome news. Religion tells us to perform for God, but the gospel reminds us that Jesus has performed perfectly on our behalf. The Gospel is not Religion.

2. Us/Them:

The Gospel makes a distinction between arrogant separatism and humble evangelism. It doesn't exaggerate an Us/Them mentality. New Calvinism doesn't evangelize out of superiority but empathy. We recognize that we all need Jesus before the judgment of a holy God. The only difference between true Christians and non-Christians is that Christians are recipients of God’s grace in Christ. But we all are equally in need of that grace. There's not one person in this world who needs God's saving grace more than anyone else. The New Calvinism does not pit the human race against one another—Us versus Them—but views all humanity in light of our standing with God.

3. Big/Small:

New Calvinism is recovering a gospel that is bigger than "fire insurance" from hell. It is articulating the gospel as “good news” for the whole world—society, culture, people, and the environment. The gospel is not an LCD, a lowest common denominator of the bare minimum facts you have to believe to get into heaven. Rather, it is a TOE, a theory of everything that addresses God’s purpose for humanity, society, culture, cities, environment, justice, and the future. It possesses an explanatory power that addresses everything from human motivation to environmental concerns. New Calvinists are embracing all goodness, truth, and beauty as God’s truth, goodness, and beauty, and redemptively engaging those things that are false, ugly, and evil. The gospel is much bigger than people think, but it is not smaller than personal redemption.

4. Conservative/Liberal:

New Calvinists are distancing the gospel from politics. They are not preaching a political gospel, though the gospel does have political implications. In short, Jesus is not a Republican or a Democrat.

5. Urban/Suburban:

New Calvinists are returning to the city, to engage the beauty and brokenness of urban life. They are recovering a commitment to justice and mercy in the city, returning to cities from the white suburban flight.

Where Do These Distinctions Come From?

These distinctions are the direct result of a high view of the sovereignty of God—his reign over all of life, not just in so-called religious matters. These distinctions flow from a big gospel that can be articulated as the good news that Jesus has defeated sin, death, and evil through his own death and resurrection and is making all things new for those who hope in him. The dying-rising-from-the-dead Messiah alone has the power to break the back of evil, redeem sin, and exchange life for death. It is the gospel that awakens us to this marvelous news.

Continuity from the Old to the New Calvinism

Much more could be said regarding this resurgence. One student asked what remains the same between the "Old Calvinism" and the "New Calvinism." There is much more continuity between the New Calvinism and John Calvin than with some of his followers. However, what essentially remains the same is the soteriological core—God's sovereign grace in redeeming broken sinners, which has been popularly captured by the TULIP acronym: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints (limited atonement appears to be more negotiable among the New Calvinists). This understanding of God’s sovereignty over salvation extends into a life lived under his sovereignty post-salvation.

The TULIP is flowering more vibrantly than it has for some time in the U.S. The Reformed resurgence has led to a missional resurgence that is set on holding the formerly "liberal" and "conservative" agendas together with the gospel, promoting robust engagement of social, cultural, and spiritual spheres of life. In this regard, the New Calvinism has more in common with the Calvinism of Abraham Kuyper, who argued that Calvinism is not merely a soteriological system, but an entire life- and worldview. The New Calvinism is broader than some of its narrower conceptions. All in all, I believe this resurgence is a very positive resurgence, a winsome Calvinism for the 21st century that advocates a whole gospel for the whole person and country.

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I've been asked several times in the last couple of days about whether I'm upset about the new remix of "We Are the World."



The Christians contacting me about this are disturbed by what they see as a startling omission from the '80s-era song in its 21st century update, performed by artists in support of Haiti relief. Willie Nelson's line "As God has shown us by turning stone to bread..." is gone. These Christians are outraged, and they wonder if I am too.


Well, yes, I am outraged. Willie Nelson should have been invited to participate. He's still every bit as talented as he was in 1985, and if Nick Jonas can be invited, then certainly Willie should've been too.


Oh wait.



That's not what these folks are outraged about. They're afraid this is indicative of the secularization of American pop culture, and that there should be a Christian backlash.



But wait, again.



God didn't turn stones into bread. 

It was Satan, not God, who suggested our Lord Jesus turn rocks into bread (Matt. 4:3-4). God sends bread down from heaven (Exod. 16), a Manna he ultimately gives to us in the body of Jesus (Jn. 6), signified in the communion meal (1 Cor. 11).


Misguided Christian Outrage

These Christians mean well. They don't want to see the gospel disrespected. But there's something parabolic here, I think. It's the same sort of thing we see when Stephen Colbert interviews a U.S. Congressman who wants to legislate the Ten Commandments in federal courthouses but can't name them. We'd almost rather have the affirmation than the revelation.


Why are we so desperate to see "God" affirmed by the outside culture, even when the "God" they're talking about more closely resembles Zeus (or, as in this case, Lucifer) than Yahweh? When we reach this point of perpetual outrage, are we closer to identity politics than gospel proclamation? I'm afraid so.



Could it be that the problem is we really want the reassurance that we're "normal"? We'd like a shout-out in our pop culture and our political speeches to signify that we're acceptable, that Christianity isn't really all that freakish. But, if that happens, apart from submission to the Cross, is it really Christianity anymore (Jas. 4:4)?


Preaching vs. Product Placement


What if, instead, we loved the world the way God does (Jn. 3:16), and not the way the satanic powers ask us to? What if we loved the world through verbal proclamation and self-sacrificial giving, not by seeking product placement for the Trinity? Rather than expecting our politicians and musicians and actors to placate us with platitudes to some generic god, let's work with them where we can on "doing good to all people" (Gal. 6:10). Let's proclaim the God of a crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus. And let's teach our kids and our converts the actual content of the biblical revelation.


That project is more difficult than signing Facebook petitions. But it's more Christian than pouting when our culture mavens misspell "Elohim" on the golden calves we've asked them to make for us.

You can find Dr. Moore’s writing and preaching at Moore to the Point.

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1. The opportunity for extensive culture-making in the U.S.

In an interview, sociologist Peter Berger observed that in the U.S. evangelicals are shifting from being largely a blue-collar constituency to becoming a college educated population.

His question is, will Christians going into the arts, business, government, the media, and film

• assimilate to the existing baseline cultural narratives so they become in their views and values the same as other secular professionals and elites?
• seal off and privatize their faith from their work so that, effectively, they do not do their work in any distinctive way?
• or will they do enough new Christian 'culture-making' in their fields to change things?

2. The rise of Islam

How do Christians relate to Muslims when we live side by side in the same society? The record in places like Africa and the Middle East is not encouraging! This is more of an issue for the Western church in Europe than in the U.S., but it is going to be a growing concern in America as well.

How can Christians be at the very same time a) good neighbors, seeking their good whether they convert or not, and still b) attractively and effectively invite Muslims to consider the gospel?

3. The new non-Western Global Christianity

The demographic center of Christian gravity has already shifted from the West to Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The rising urban churches of China may be particularly influential in the future. But the West still has the educational institutions, the money, and a great deal of power.

What should the relationship of the older Western churches be to the new non-Western church? How can we use our assets to serve them in ways that are not paternalistic? How can we learn from them in more than perfunctory ways?

4. The growing cultural remoteness of the gospel

The basic concepts of the gospel—sin, guilt and accountability before God, the sacrifice of the cross, human nature, afterlife—are becoming culturally strange in the West for the first time in 1500 years. As Lesslie Newbigin has written, it is time now to 'think like a missionary'—to formulate ways of communicating the gospel that both confront and engage our increasingly non-Christian Western culture.

How do we make the gospel culturally accessible without compromising it? How can we communicate it and live it in a way that is comprehensible to people who lack the basic 'mental furniture' to even understand the essential truths of the Bible?

5. The end of prosperity?

With the economic meltdown, the question is, will housing values, endowments, profits, salaries, and investments go back to growing at the same rates as they have for the last twenty-five years, or will growth be relatively flat for many years to come? If so, how does the Western church, which has become habituated to giving out of fast-increasing assets, adjust in the way it carries out ministry? For example, American ministry is now highly professionalized—church staffs are far larger than they were two generations ago, when a church of 1,000 was only expected to have, perhaps, two pastors and a couple of other part-time staff. Today such a church would have probably eight to ten full-time staff members.

Also, how should the stewardship message adjust? If discretionary assets are one-half of what they were, more risky, sacrificial giving will be necessary to do even less ministry than we have been doing.

On top of this, if we experience even one significant act of nuclear or bio-terrorism in the U.S. or Europe, we may have to throw out all the basic assumptions about social and economic progress we have been working off for the last 65 years. In the first half of the 20th century, we had two World Wars and a Depression. Is the church ready for that? How could it be? What does that mean?

Copyright © 2010 by Tim Keller. Used by permission.
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Michael Horton explains moralistic therapeutic deism and how it shows up in our churches and literature.

In this interview series, Mars Hill PR Director Nick Bogardus interviews Dr. Michael Horton. For more information and resources from Dr. Horton, check out White Horse Inn.

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June 17-18, San Diego: A conference about identifying the Truth and the Lie of life. Learn more.

How should Christians relate to Muslims? Why should we learn about Islam? Sojourn Church in Louisville has a 5-minute interview with Pastor Daniel Montgomery about these issues on their Inside Sojourn podcast. You can also stream the interview directly.

Sojourn is also hosting a forum this week called “Developing a Christian Response to the Challenge of Islam,” taught by Dr. Albert Mohler of Southern Seminary. [Updated with link to the audio from Dr. Mohler's lecture]

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Valentine’s Day is often loved by women and loathed by men, who drop their cash on flowers, jewelry, candy, and cards. Perhaps comic Jay Leno expressed the male dilemma about Valentine’s Day best in one of his monologues: “Today is Valentine's Day—or, as men like to call it, Extortion Day!” Conversely, the hopelessly romantic at heart enjoy the opportunity that Valentine’s Day affords for thoughtful romance and unbridled passion.

Whether you love or hate Valentine’s Day, the fact is that it has evolved into an enormous holiday. The question remains, however, who is Valentine and how did he come to be associated with everything from the color red to some secret known only by a woman named Victoria?

Who Was Valentine?

While the details of his life are sketchy at best, Valentine was allegedly a Christian who was canonized by the Catholic Church as a saint. His name was common and is derived from the Latin word valens, meaning strong and powerful.

One legend claims that Emperor Claudius II (or Claudius the Goth) outlawed marriage because he decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families and he wanted to bolster the strength of his military. But a priest named Valentine secretly performed marriages, thereby defending romance and love.

Another legend claims that just prior to being beheaded, Valentine prayed over the daughter of his jailer. This led to the curing of her blindness and the conversion of her entire family, including her father, though he still put Valentine to death toward the end of the third century.

Further contributing to all of the confusion is the fact that there may have been as many as three Christians named Valentine who were all martyred, thereby making it seemingly impossible to know which stories are true and to which men they apply.

Legends and Feasts

Although the celebration of the life of Saint Valentine was not initially met with much fanfare, he eventually grew in popularity for a very practical reason. Around AD 498, Pope Gelasius chose February 14 as the day for commemorating Valentine’s life because that was the day he reportedly died as a Christian martyr around AD 270. That day proved to be serendipitous, as the medieval legend emerged that birds select their mates on February 14, thereby associating the day with romance and love. Also, Saint Valentine’s Day fell the day before the Hefner-esque Roman fertility feast of Lupercalia on February 15. Lupercalia was a drunken, naked crazy-fest not unlike modern-day Mardi Gras celebrations. Lupercalia was dedicated to the god of partying, Faunus, and was marked by the usual frat-boy nonsense of naked guys running through the streets while crowds danced and drank heavily, and young singles enjoyed “hooking up.”

Once Saint Valentine became connected with the debauchery of Lupercalia, his Christian influence on the holiday quickly waned; the two holidays essentially merged and the spirit of Lupercalia remained but was renamed Valentine’s Day. At this point, Valentine’s Day quickly grew in popularity. Its association with the color red may stem from the fact that the color red was chosen to commemorate the death of Valentine who died the bloody death of a martyr. Also, the association with the chubby, winged pseudo-angel Cupid, who is the mythical son of the Roman goddess of love, Venus, is a Lupercalia leftover from pagan mythology.

Be My Valentine

Perhaps the most common present-day tradition associated with Valentine’s Day is the giving of valentine cards. No one is certain how this tradition began. One legend reports that Valentine actually sent the first valentine. The story goes that while in prison awaiting his execution, he wrote a love letter to a woman and signed it, “From your Valentine.” Apparently the expression stuck and remains perennially popular.

By the Middle Ages, Valentine’s Day was widely celebrated. The first Valentine’s Day card was reportedly a poem sent by Charles, the Duke of Orleans, to his wife in 1415 while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. That card remains on display at the British Museum in London to this day. By 1450, to be someone’s valentine was synonymous with being his or her sweetheart. By 1533, a valentine was synonymous with a piece of paper folded as a romantic card. By 1610, valentine gifts were also commonly given to sweethearts.

By the mid-1700s, Valentine’s Day grew in popularity throughout Great Britain, and around that time Americans also began exchanging handmade valentine cards. By the 1840s, the commercial greeting card companies began mass-producing valentines marked by such girlie adornments as lace and ribbon. Today, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, following Christmas.

Sadly, the holiday in his name completely ignores our Christian brother Valentine. As a pastor, he likely would have been mortified at much of what is done in the name of love to commemorate the day his head was chopped off because of his love for Jesus.

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In Martin Luther’s essay, “The Freedom of a Christian,” we read the following: “I believe that it has now become clear that it is not enough or in any sense ‘Christian’ to preach the works, life, and words of Christ as historical fact, as if the knowledge of these would suffice for the conduct of life.”

WWJD Is a Bad Question

Luther is claiming that asking “What Would Jesus Do?” is a bad question for your spiritual formation. Luther continues: “Yet, this is the fashion among those who today are regarded as our best preachers…and such teaching is childish and effeminate nonsense.” Luther’s 16th century words are still relevant today.

Thankfully, Luther explains why he considers WWJD a bad question:

There are some who have no understanding to hear the truth of liberty and insist upon their goodness as means for salvation. These people you must resist, do the very opposite, and offend them boldly lest by their impious views they drag many with them into error. For the sake of the liberty of the faith do other things which they regarded as the greatest of sins….Use your freedom constantly and consistently in the sight of and despite the tyrants and the stubborn so that they also may learn that they are impious, that their laws and works are of no avail for righteousness, and that they had no right to set them up.

Are You Offended by the Gospel?

Don’t get all excited because you now have a great theologian giving you a divine sanction on your favorite sins. Luther spends the rest of his essay talking about what it looks like to love God and your neighbor. He is no antinomian.

But do get angry if you’re offended by the gospel. That can be a good thing because it points you to some good news—that the remedy for guilt and condemnation is NOT your better law-keeping or adherence to your well-polished moral sense, but faith in the law-keeping of Jesus. Because of Christ, you are already vindicated in the eyes of God. God’s riches of forgiveness and freedom from guilt, condemnation, and shame are offered not on the basis of working or measuring up. Rather, you have a right standing before God because of the righteousness of Christ.

So, what would Luther do? In the face of suffocating religion and moralism, he would offend boldly and celebrate the liberty of faith for the sake of the gospel.

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Does Your Passion Have a Slow Leak? Click | View Series

Jesus Had an Internal Blueprint

Through the years, thoughtful students have studied the life and ministry of Jesus Christ from many and varied points of view. He is teacher, healer, evangelist, prophet, and discipler, to name just a few of his perceived roles. He spent days in some places and moved on rather quickly from others, leaving needs unmet and questions unanswered. He seemed to know when to stay and when to leave. He had an internal blueprint, a road map that seemed to guide him where he went, how long he stayed, what he did, and with whom he spent his time.

Well-Balanced, Well-Paced, and Well-Prepared

Jesus had an ability to know when to say “yes” or “no” to a perceived need (Mark 1:35-39; Luke 5: 15-16). He knew when it was time for rest and time for work. He accomplished more in 3 and a half years than many do in a lifetime. He never seemed to be in a hurry or “be driven onto a reef of frustration by other people’s demands.” He was well-balanced, well-paced, and well-prepared as each new day dawned. We can learn much as we observe what Jesus did and didn’t do.

In her excellent and provocative book, Jesus, CEO, Laurie Beth Jones made the following observation about the varied-but-focused ministry of Jesus. “Jesus had tremendous energy, and he knew how to direct it. He was so clear about his mission that he avoided many real and potential energy leaks.”

Avoid Energy Leaks

Everything I have read and studied about leaders leads me to believe that they are very careful about these “energy leaks.” It is easy to spend time, but the wise invest time for maximum impact. The area where we win or lose this battle is how we spend time with people. Those we decide to invest in are either passion builders or passion stealers.

A leader is a person who is always on the lookout for other potential leaders to discover, develop, and deploy. But if we are not careful, all our energy can leak out to passion stealers, stranding us on a sandbar of mediocrity and ineffectiveness.

To be continued.

Resurgence Literature

Re:Lit is a ministry of Resurgence. There you will find a growing line of books to help guide the resurgence of the new reformed. Find out more.

How NOT To Be a Missional Church series: Click | View Series

The missional church movement has been good and bad. On a positive note, let’s focus on the bad. I want to suggest three ways to not be a missional church. In continuation of the series, this post examines some of the defects of social action-driven mission.

Social Action-Driven Mission

This approach probably creates the best community of the three mentioned in this series. A socially-minded and active church attracts socially-minded non-Christians. When my City Group recently cleaned five apartments from top to bottom for some homeless women and children, we all got a little closer. There’s something about being on a common mission—the sweat, the jokes, the empathy, and the memory–that unites folks. Creating a missional memory strengthens community and mission. It also raises questions with non-Christians you serve. But is social action enough?

1. Social action-driven mission isn’t unique to the church.

There are plenty of non-Christians engaged in social mission—serving the poor, the needy, the abused, and the homeless. They don’t need a church to engage in social mission. There are thousands of non-profits that can do this. What sets the church apart? If we are banking on social mission to be the unique contribution of the church, we’ll lose the game, and more importantly, the souls.

2. Social action doesn’t create new community.

Although social action mission creates community, it doesn’t create new community. Regenerated, new creation is the unique work of God the Spirit (Tit. 2.11; Gal. 6:15) through faith in the Son (Tit. 3:6-7; 2 Cor. 5:17). If we convert people to community and social mission alone, and not to Christ, we offer a very incomplete gospel. Regeneration is both social (Matt. 19:28) and spiritual (Tit. 3:5). The Spirit, not social mission, makes men new.

3. Social mission can lead to liberal church.

When we reduce mission to social action, we run the danger of becoming a socially-minded liberal church that neglects large stretches of the Bible requiring repentance and faith in Jesus. When missional communities focus on social mission alone, they disregard their evangelistic identity, gifting, and responsibility as the church of Jesus Christ, the Jesus who died and rose to make all things new—people and products, souls and society.

This series has attempted to identify some of the shortcomings in expressions of missional church. When mission is driven by events or evangelism, or social action, we engage in incomplete mission. When we engage in incomplete mission, we offer an incomplete gospel to our neighbors, towns, cities, and world. In a future series, I will take a more positive tack by exploring three areas that promote being a missional church.

This series is based on Jonathan Dodson’s talks at the LEAD ’09 conference.

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How NOT To Be a Missional Church series: Click | View Series

The missional church movement has been good and bad. On a positive note, let’s focus on the bad. I want to suggest three ways to not be a missional church. In continuation of the series, this post examines some of the defects of evangelism-driven mission.

Evangelism-Driven Mission

These churches focus almost exclusively on evangelism. Their view of the gospel leads them to see social action as optional. For them, mission is synonymous with evangelism, and evangelism is highly programmatic. They focus on training individuals through evangelism training programs, apologetics, and use of evangelistic tracts. What’s wrong with learning evangelistic presentations, memorizing apologetic defenses, and using tracts?

1. Evangelism-driven mission is often answer-based and heaven-centered.

These churches train individuals and teams “How to present the gospel” in a brief period of time. Typically, these programs look for the person being evangelized to offer a specific answer. For example, “If you died tonight and stood before God and he said: ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ What would you say?” Notice that the questions are answer-driven. The goal is to get someone to say the right answer and to believe the right facts, like “Jesus died for my sins.” What we need is less belief and more faith.

In his new book, The Future of Faith, Harvey Cox makes a helpful distinction between belief and faith. He writes: “We can believe something to be true without it making much difference to us, but we place our faith only in something that is vital for the way we live.” We can believe without it making a difference.

Many Americans believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins, but it makes very little difference in their lives. They possess mere belief. This mere belief undermines the gospel. What we need is faith. Moreover, mere belief in the right answer baits people, not with Christ, but with heaven. It is heaven-centered, not Christ-centered. In evangelism-driven mission, Christ is subordinated to the treasure of heaven, instead of heaven being subordinated to the treasure of Christ. The goal is heaven, not Jesus. Answer-driven and heaven-centered evangelism leads to nominalism and distorts the gospel. Evangelism-driven mission can undermine, not advance the gospel.

2. Evangelism-driven mission can be defensive and fact-oriented.

Training in apologetics has its place; however, when our approach to non-Christians is driven by apologetics, we very often reduce people to projects. Apologetic mission can foster too much defense and too much offense because it aims at the head to the exclusion of the heart, to change someone’s mind, but not their lives. Just because someone agrees with our facts and embraces our logic doesn’t guarantee true conversion. We need to be prepared, not only to defend the faith, but to love people intelligently. Most objections to the gospel have existential and personal roots. If we can get beyond the arguments to the idols of the heart, we can show just how tremendously superior and satisfying Jesus is to whatever they love, desire, and pursue most!

3. Evangelism-driven mission is often outdated and fails to contextualize.

The methods used are often prepackaged and outdated. Evangelistic programs falsely assume that our listeners still understand the meanings of sin, Christ, and faith. But very often, they hear something very different, like legalism, moral teacher, and mere belief. When we fail to express the gospel in context and vocabulary that our listeners can understand, we fail to share the gospel. Christ dated and contextualized himself to all kinds of people so that his message would make sense and connect with their deep needs for redemption. Using packaged illustrations and methods assumes a one-size-fits-all, but the Incarnation reminds us that the gospel is much more personal and dynamic.

4. Evangelism-driven mission is individualistic.

This approach to mission trains individuals, not communities. It reduces the gospel to a conversation between two people, without focusing on embodying the gospel in communities. Statistics have shown that individuals are consistently converted to communities before they are converted to doctrines. Our methods are often doctrine-driven and individualistic.

Jesus prescribed a kind of communal evangelism in John 17, where our community is so redemptive and rich that it points people to Jesus. Paul called for a distinctive discipleship in churches that set the community of faith forth as an example, as salt and light in their cities, attracting others to them. Individualistic evangelism doesn’t create community because it doesn’t convert people to the church. It aims at converting individuals to a set of answers and to heaven. Evangelism-driven mission has very little to do with the Jesus of the Church, the Head of the Body.

To be continued.

This series is based on Jonathan Dodson’s talks at the LEAD ’09 conference.

Resurgence Literature

Re:Lit is a ministry of Resurgence. There you will find a growing line of books to help guide the resurgence of the new reformed. Find out more.