The Once and Future Calvin: Anglicanism

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/Once&FutureCalvin.pdf

The Once and Future Calvin
Michael A. Milton, Ph.D., President and Professor of Practical Theology,
Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina

A few lengthy, but interesting quotes about a renaissance of Calvinism in Anglicanism.

"But is the `future Calvin' heartier than only these hopeful movements in an otherwise bland and even broken evangelical Western Christianity? Calvinism, as it did when the magisterial
Reformer was on the world stage, is spreading to other places in our own generation; and one of
those places is the new Canterbury. We know that John Calvin and Martin Bucer and John Knox
all had a significant part to play in the formation of The Book of Common Prayer. And we know
that the Church of England’s Thirty Nine Articles of Religion are part of the doctrinal and
confessional bedrock for our own Westminster Standards. Today, in the midst of the collapse of
the Episcopal Church in the USA, a phoenix is rising. Splintered now into groups like CANA33
and AMIA34, Anglican Archbishops like Henry Luke Orombi of Uganda and Peter Akinola of
Nigeria and Gregory Venebles of the Anglican Southern Cone of America are all faithful Thirty
Nine Article of Religion leaders and are emerging as confessional leaders in this nation and in
the West. They all view America as ground for evangelism and their movements are growing.
And this is the new Canterbury in our midst. The old Canterbury still exists, but is more the
bastion for Western, secularized, Enlightenment-ridden religion. The new Canterbury has a
robust devotional life; an early church-like fire that is causing the Gospel to spread through
church planting and through revitalization work in old Western nations like ours, as well as in
older Colonial forms that need reviving. This is the new Canterbury. And as Calvinism impacted
the old Canterbury, so it is providing the theological engine for this tremendous movement in our generation. In our own seminary, we are meeting even now to form an Institute for Anglican Studies to help meet the growing need to provide theological education and vocational
preparation for this movement.

"We can expect more of this Anglican Calvinistic health in the world in days to come. Who would
have thought that an increasing number of Latimer’s and Ridley’s and Ryle’s sons would be
leading the way, on fire with the doctrines of grace, in the 21st century? But who would have
thought that the continuing Episcopal Church in America and the Church of England in that
“green and pagan” land would be led by Africans and Asians and South Americans to revive a
truly Calvinistic Prayer Book movement? This is a work of God in our midst. And it is wondrous
in our eyes.

“This past Sunday more Anglicans attended church in each of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the United States combined¾and the number of Anglicans in church in Nigeria was several times the number in those other African countries.ı This past Sunday more Presbyterians were at church in Ghana than in Scotland, and more were in congregations of the Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa than in the United States. ıThis past week in Great Britain, at least fifteen thousand Christian foreign missionaries were hard at work evangelizing the locals. Most of these missionaries are from Africa and Asia.”39

"Yet, I say, and Calvin would say, and the Bible would say, the next time you hear someone say
that Calvinism is the most contemptible system of doctrine ever known to Christianity, keep in
mind what happened to most of you in this room: and you may just be watching the next act in
the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in that person’s life. For it has been my pastoral
observation that many Pelagians and semi-Pelagians become Calvinists, but few Calvinists ever
go back the other way. I would suggest you ratchet this idea up one more gear the next time you
hear someone say that a powerful revival of Calvinism could never happen in the West. If their
words are not a hand-wringing in doubt that leads to an unholy contentment, but rather a
lamentation in faith that leads to concerts of prayer, then you may just be seeing the first act in a mighty act of Almighty God that would bring revival that would sweep through America and
Britain and Holland and France and Italy and Spain and Eastern Europe and bring about such a
powerful reformation and renewal of the Church of Jesus Christ that its result would be nothing
short of a new Calvinism among us.