Putting the Conservative Reformed Theology movement (Piper, MacArthur, and Dever) in perspective

great post – nice overview of all that’s happening.

i have a number of related posts at my blog, most of them bemoaning the rise of Calvinism and the arrogance of everyone associated with it in thinking that, finally – FINALLY – after 2,000 years of arguing about all this stuff, a group has come along with all the right answers at just the right time. praise God – where would we have been without them?…

i specifically am amused at how the only people consistently arguing for strict election are those who consider themselves elected… imagine that.

to say that the T4G was dominated by white males would be the understatement of the year. and they actually refunded my money for the associated ‘band of bloggers’ meeting for which i’d registered and asked me not to come! 🙂 so much for agreeing to disagree…

good luck with your studies. were i 25 years younger i’d like to be in your shoes – it would probably have kept me from becoming the voice-crying-in-the-wilderness heretic my momma never wanted me to be…

mike rucker
fairburn, georgia, usa
mikerucker.wordpress.com

You said:
“But Piper and friends see theological kinship even with others who disagree with them about Baptism and other polity issues…one of the main things that unites this disparate group is the Conservative part of their theology. The “Reformed” part varies greatly.”

The kinship of Piper with many non-Baptists (around conservative theology) is understandable to me. What has sometimes mystified me is his kinship with C.J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace, which is neither Reformed nor Baptist in its polity, some would say apostolic/authoritarian in its approach to leadership and governance. I wonder if anybody else has noticed this…

Gordan,
Thanks for reading it and if you got the points you mention, I’m glad.

Perhaps my post is a response to posts like your colleague Mole’s:
Surprised at the Reformed Resurgence?
http://reformedmafia.blogspot.com/2008/05/surprised-at-reformed-resurgence.html

He writes,

If you do not know by now, the doctrines of grace (a.k.a Calvinism), is on a resurgence among young evangelicals. Many may be surprised that the theology that many great men of faith professed, the greatest reformers, puritans, and evangelists, and the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention professed, is having an appeal to young minds everywhere. Are you surprised? Well you shouldn’t be. I have met many young Calvinists and the stories are the same. They knew something was missing. They knew what they had was not enough. They looked around in churches, and in their culture, and neither was giving them the answers they were seeking. So they turned to the scriptures . . . The resurgence is coming. Calvinism is making a comeback. Calvinism is having its struggles right now, especially in the SBC, but in ten to twenty years, the SBC will be predominately reformed. Just wait. The resurgence is coming!!

A warm mafia / galactical greeting to you.

grace and peace,

andy

Gordan,
You are right that the PCUSA and United Methodists and other mainline denominations continue to struggle but in my experience those who are trying to renew those denomionations are fueled by Barth!

Most of the professors at Duke Divinity School (Richard Hays, Stanley Hauerwas, Allen Verhey, Curtis Freeman . . . I could name the whole faculty basically), Princeton Theological Seminary (Darrell Guder of missional church fame and many many more) and Yale (George Lindbeck, Hans Frei, Brevard Childs, etc.) who want to see orthodox, biblical theology, give credit their awakening to reading Karl Barth. They believe Barth was saying “no” to the liberalism of his day and they turn to him for strength in doing the same in the mainline circles they find themselves in. Barth spends much of his systematic theology exegeting specific biblical texts. His Romans commentary was radical at the beginning of his career for suggesting that God cannot be tamed or watered down. Now all of this is a bit confusing and commonplace for evangelicals and fundamentalists who are very familiar with churches that take the Bible as authoritative. They ask questions like, “Does Barth believe in the inerrancy of Scripture?” and things like that. Barth, because he was not in the United States does not address the issue like that. Rather, he demonstrates his high view of Scripture by trying to root every line of his theology in Scripture. Now, evangelicals may have some disagreements with him – some wonder whether he was a universalist and as I mentioned before he does not use the uniquely American “inerrancy” word – but the name he is never called in mainline circles is “liberal.” There are a few evangelicals who have also found great strength in reading Barth because they grew up in anti-intellectual fundamentalists environments. They were relieved and heartened for find substantial academic engagement that supports a high view of Scripture and the orthodox understanding of God.

At Duke Divinity School, Curtis Freeman, a theology professor, gave a lunch-time lecture this spring for students that it is a basic Barth introduction.

It is available at:
http://dukesocraticclub.blogspot.com/2008/04/socratic-audio-files.html

Quote from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth) on Barth which supports what I said above:

Barth was originally trained in German Protestant Liberalism under such teachers as Wilhelm Herrmann, but reacted against this theology at the time of the First World War . . .
The most important catalyst was, however, his reaction to the support most of his liberal teachers had for German war aims. The 1914 “Manifesto of the Ninety-Three German Intellectuals to the Civilized World”[2] carried the signature of his former teacher Adolf von Harnack. Barth believed that his teachers had been misled by a theology which tied God too closely to the finest, deepest expressions and experiences of cultured human beings, into claiming divine support for a war which they believed was waged in support of that culture, the initial experience of which appeared to increase people’s love of and commitment to that culture. Much of Barth’s thinking is also a direct response to the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel and the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher.

Eugene Peterson on Karl Barth’s The Epistle to the Romans (1933).

from Eugene Peterson, Take and Read: Spirtual Reading: An Annotated List (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 3

Barth wrote this commentary while pastor of a small congregation in the Swiss village of Safenwil. I read it when I was pastor of a small congregation in Maryland. I was trying to learn how to be a pastor in a territory bordered on one side by a believing (or semi-believing) congregation, on the other side by an indifferent (and occasionally scornful) world, and on the third side by the biblical text that I had promised to faithfully preach and teach. I was most at ease with the biblical text. When I had it to myself, it was almost simple. But when I realized that as a pastor I would never again have it all to myself, that I was not exposed on the two other fronts of church and world, I knew that I was in over my head and needed help. The textual front required intelligence and attention, but I was used to that and enjoyed it. The congregational front was a surprise. These people were my friends and allies, but they were constantly interpreting my interpretations through filters of self-interest. I found that the Scriptures that I was preaching and teaching were being rewritten, unconsciously but constantly, in the minds of my parishioners to give sanction to behaviors and values that, more often than not it seemed to me, were in the service of the American way (in which indulgent consumerism was conspicuous) rather than the way of the cross (where sacrificial love was prominent). The large Sinai and fresh Galilee proclamations that I made on Sundays were coming back to me on weekdays in the reporting that people unconsciously provide in their confidences and small talk as stale bromides and puny moralisms. I had, it seemed, a vigorous cottage industry in miniaturization thriving in my congregation. Meanwhile, on the third front, the indifference of the world to what I had grandly called the Kingdom of God put into question the validity of the whole enterprise. If I could be ignored so blithely and totally, could I be doing anything of significance? Barth helped me on every front in his commentary on Romans. He dove into the text, into these living waters, with abandon. He is such an exuberant exegete! It hardly mattered, I sometimes felt, whether he was right or wrong on a specific point; he was so patiently passionate with the text that it was at least safe from pedantry, a terrible fate. One the second front, the congregational, I found him page after page disentangling gospel spirituality from cultural religion, commending the former and rejecting the latter. All the subtle seductions to ‘another gospel’ that I was noticing around me Barth had also but more discerningly noticed. How much well-meaning religious nonsense he saved me from! As for the world, Barth was immensely knowledgeable but quitely unintimidated. He knew politics and labor and prisons; but he believed in prayer and Scripture and the cross of Christ. Every rereading of Barth’s Romans makes me less timid on the world front. Nobody in this century has done this better for me than Karl Barth.

Andy – As someone who’d probably get thrown in the young reformed crowd by most outside observers, there’s one other point that I think is important to make.

Within the young reformed crowd, there’s a general consensus on the doctrines of grace and women in church leadership, as you said. Beyond that, there’s a TON of diversity. There’s disagreement on church polity as you mentioned, but I think there’s two areas of disagreement more significant than polity: 1) Covenant theology – some are quite strongly covenantal, others are dispensational, others are somewhere in between. This plays a huge role in our understanding of the breadth of the gospel and our eschatology. It also affects our ideas about the church’s relationship to politics, social justice, etc. 2) Christ and culture. More disagreement. Some, like Keller, tend to have a very sympathetic, Christ-transforming-culture outlook. Others, like Mohler, tend to be either a very adversarial Christ-transforming-culture or an outright Christ-against-culture. This disagreement also manifests itself in issues of contextualization (IE Macarthur’s take on the issue vs.
Driscoll’s or Keller’s).

Anyway, all that to say, we’re actually a pretty diverse crowd and I think that’s going to become more apparent in the future as the T4G crowd and the Acts 29 crowd move in very different directions, with other groups like Desiring God and the PCA generally falling somewhere between those two groups. (IE, you’ll see Duncan and Sproul at T4G and Keller at Acts 29)

Good summary though :).

I’d also submit that the “Conservative Reformed” groupies look to theological direction/depth in the areas of biblical studies & contemporary scholarship as well.

See the following: Richard Baucham, Thomas Schreiner, D.A. Carson, Michael Horton (whom you mention), Andreas Köstenberger, David F. Wells, Paul Helm, Vern S. Poythress, Carl R. Trueman, etc.

Wow! This post has exploded. Good comments and conversation.

Just a small correction…Justin Taylor’s site is called, “Between Two Worlds” not “Beyond Two Worlds.”

Just a small correction. I appreciate hearing a critique and comment upon the socalled Reformed Resurgence. You certainly were keen to name all of the key figures in the movement. Their confidence can easily be mistaken as arrogance but having some interaction with lesser known folks who identify with this “camp”, I think much of it is good-hearted even as they intentionally draw up lines of distinction and emphasize certain doctrines…especially as they are re-defined by others, particularly juxtaposed to N.T. Wright. You ought to see the video interview of N.T. Wright at the “Said At Southern” site…from a Southern Seminary blogger.

I study at Southern Seminary in Louisville, though I have not attended a T4G conference.

Your website has quite a bit that is good and useful. Thanks for making it available.