Burek, Josh. "Christian faith: Calvinism is back." Christian Science Monitor, March 27, 2010., N.PAG, MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 14, 2010).
A few citations to whet the appetite of any serious student. A fair and balanced article. This is bad news for bad preachers, 98% of evangelical semi-Pelagianists, Romanists, or the Orthodox.
At a predestinarian Baptist Church, we're told:
"What newcomers at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) hear is hardly `Christianity for Dummies.' Nor is it `Extreme Makeover: Born-Again Edition.' Instead, a young woman named Kasey Gurley describes her disobedience and suffering in Old Testament terms.
"`I worship my own comfort, my own opinion of myself,' she confesses. `Like the idolatrous people of Judah, we deserve the full wrath of God.' She warns the women that `we'll never be safe in good intentions,' but assures them that `Christ died for us so we wouldn't have to.' Her closing prayer is both frank and transcendent: `Our comfort in suffering is this: that through Christ you provide eternal life.'"
More widely, denominationally-widened involvements, we read:
"Today, his theology is making a surprising comeback, challenging the me-centered prosperity gospel of much of modern evangelicalism with a God-first immersion in Scripture. In an age of materialism and made-to-order religion, Calvinism's unmalleable doctrines and view of God as an all-powerful potentate who decides everything is winning over many Christians – especially the young.
Twenty-something followers in the Presbyterian, Anglican, and independent evangelical churches are rallying around Calvinist, or Reformed, teaching. In the Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant body, at least 10 percent of its pastors identify as Calvinist, while more than one-third of recent seminary graduates do."
Anglican scholar and Reformed Churchman, Dr. Gerald Bray says:
"`Like it or not, he is one of the great minds that shaped our modern world,' says Gerald Bray, a professor at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala. `Ideas of democracy, open-market capitalism, and equality of opportunity were aired in his Geneva and put into practice as far as they could be at that time.'"
A comparsion to Pelagian and semi-Pelagian evangelicalism (98% of it):
"By most logic, the stern system of Calvinism shouldn't be popular today. Much of modern Christianity preaches a comforting Home Depot theology: You can do it. We can help. Epitomized by popular titles like Joel Osteen's "Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential," this message of self-fulfillment through Christian commitment attracts followers in huge numbers, turning big churches into megachurches."
Even my former professor, a Reformed and Anglican Churchman, a first-rate scholar and consummate story-teller, Dr. Allen C. Guelzo, gets into it (so refreshing to find and savour good Calvinistic Anglicans...a rare breed):
"'Calvinism is big picture Christianity,' says Allen Guelzo, the author of `Edwards on the Will: A Century of American Theological Debate.' 'It is less interested in asking why God lets bad things happen to good people, and asks instead whether there have ever been any genuinely good people.'"
Dr. Gerald Bray continues:
"'Today we have more Bibles and more study guides to Scripture than ever before, but people know the text itself less and less," says Bray. "This is disastrous. Calvin's deep and expository approach to it is therefore more necessary than ever.'"
Calvinism, an anti-dote of "Chummier-ism:"
"Ultimately, Calvinism's contrast with chummier, Jesus-is-my-friend forms of evangelicalism may highlight a more fundamental change in the world of faith. Bestselling religion writer Phyllis Tickle sees the interest in Calvinism as the first phase of a backlash against the dominant religious trend of today: the rise of `Emergence Christianity.'"
Calvinism, Joel Osteen and his sinking progency:
"Or, as Ms. Hagopian puts it with uncompromising Calvinistic clarity: `The dominant philosophy of American Christianity is so far removed from biblical truth. Life is not hunky-dory.'"
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