http://www.rca.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=3776&srcid=3777

Essay
Reformed Intramurals: What Neo-Calvinists Get Wrong
by Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell

Essay
In Reply
by Nicholas Wolterstorff

Dave Watson, Kent, WA (WTS MAR ‘88)

Still, if Christ reigns over men and nations through providence, how can it be denied that a body politic dominated by professing Christians should be more humane and more justice than a body politic marked by it rebellion against the Messiah.

ZRIM, my point is that it is easier to oppose transformation in a culture that was long ago transformed than it is in a culture that has not. I think the Japanese RP’s would happily attest the fact. So would Christians in Iraq, China, and the Sudan.

Every upside of the West might not be directly rooted in the revelation of Christ’s Lordship but divorcing and parsing seems a work more fitting for left-leaning deconstructionists.

Baus, I’d rather not make specific in a public forum the leash holders I have in mind. But they are out there and they know better.

In Skillen’s case, I’m not sure what direct involvement he has with Wallis or Sider. I do think he could run rings around them theoretically. But I was struck when reading his 1990 book on Christians in public life that he used at that early date the language of social justice. From a strictly secular perspective (I know, I know you don’t think such a perspective exists) that phrase gives me the willies since it assumes that inequity of any kind is unjust. (So how does a mid-town Manhattan Presbyterian congregation live with its close to 9-figure budget when most of its sister congregations weigh in just over 6-figure? but I digress.) But the church proclaims forgiveness, unless you want to turn every preacher into an angry prophet intent on pulling down every injustice. (Is it just that my vertical leap was all of 8 inches?) Anyway, the way for Christians to be just, from a Reformed perspective, is by clinging to the righteousness of Christ, not by trying to legislate justice or redistribute income. When it’s all said and done, I think Olasky’s language of compassion and charity is far more Christian than justice.

In any case, (I should have previously said this in explicit terms) can we please not call the contextualists ’soft kuyperian’ ? I mean, how about we call John Frame a soft confessionalist, or Tim Keller a soft old schooler. Gary North is more a soft two-kingdom’er than these guys are any variety of Kuyperian. C’mon, really.

As for the neocalvinists not pulling on the contextualist’s leash… that assumes the contextualists are on our leash, or that we have their leash in hand. That’s an incorrect assumption.

If one finds contextualists (or even Romanists or secular fundamentalists) co-belligerents for some specific purpose, one has to count the costs. If you think Skillen or others (say, Gideon Strauss of the Work Research Foundation?) is compromising principles in a specific collaboration with, say, Tim Keller, you’ve got to spell it out. You should say more than “hurumph, birds of a feather” if you want to say something helpful.
(Forgive my firm tone, but I must insist).

Exactly. And it’s not all that conducive to inspiration to be told that “the poor you will always have with you.” It seems that certain conditions are just a part of this age. I hate my bad vision and sensitive skin; if we can actually pull off changing NYC, may my eyes and skin be next…pretty please?

With regard to a “Reformed” benediction, the funny(?) thing is that the transformationalist rhetoric takes huge chucks of credibility away from a tradition that gives so much shelter to those of us fleeing a “vacuous…naive view of culture and society in the West.” It seems the siren song of relevancy spans the spectrum of silly to serious. If anyone thinks that an overstatement, I invite him to watch some Dutch Reformed who have inherited a sober piety try to shed it and behave evangelically. I never know whether to weep or chuckle.

I would say, though, that even among some of the “hard” ones who can make useful distinctions among the spheres and affirm societal differentiation, also make arguments about social justice that make havoc of the ideas of forgiveness and grace. The language of social justice also appears to the the meeting ground for the likes of Jim Skillen (hard Kuyperian), Ron Sider (evangelical Anabaptist) and Jim Wallis (successful radical, ant-establisment minister to the Democrats in DC).

Zrim, I think you’re right about the American component. It’s just that the transformationalist rhetoric gives it a “Reformed” benediction. The odd thing is that transformation of a social justice variety makes nonsense of the beatitudes. If the poor and meek will inherit the earth, and if social justice eliminates poverty, who will be around to inherit the earth. Can making the poor and meek middle-class really be the point?

I wonder if this has a lot more to do with American religion than neo- or faux-Calvinism, etc. My sense is that much of this sort of discussion is met with a blank stare on the part of those who wax eloquent about transforming this or that, etc. After all, “isn’t it obvious that true religion is supposed to make the world a better place, make bad people good and good people better? If not, I have no idea what you trying to say”? That’s American religion and is the set of assumptions all this really seems to turn on. This principle of betterment seems deeply seated in the American (better, western) religionist and is applied in very diverse ways from Liberalism to Fundamentalism. No matter what shade of red or blue, it certainly seems more American than Pauline.

Bill,

I know you are not warm to the distinction, but there does seem to be a helpful difference between grace “restoring” nature and grace “renewing” nature. From what it looks like, the langauge in both seems to want to make a distinction between the “essence” of nature and the “condition” of nature. The essence of nature is “very good” while its condition is “sinful.” This is why I have no idea what is wrong with NYC in the first place, for example, or why it needs to change. I understand its condition is quite sinful, but so is every time’s and place’s condition (i.e. why the unequal fixation on NYC and relative neglect Podunkville?). But if its condition is sinful there is only One who can fix it. Furthermore, the only sinful condition being sanctified seems to be the individual believer/corporate Church…not general creation. So, I wonder what you mean when you say that “our day is different,” etc.? Much as there are ostensible and glaring differences between times and places, those seem always overwhelmed by their almost painful similarities. I have heard this response to popular transformationalism before where it is countered by “conservation.” But that seems to imply “we have gotten somewhere and just need to keep it mainatained.” Heavenn knows, I am all for maintaining over transforming, but I wince when it seems to be assumed that what we are maintaining is real progress.