An accidental blog

"If God is sovereign, then his lordship must extend over all of life, and it cannot be restricted to the walls of the church or within the Christian orbit." Abraham Kuyper Common Grace 1.1.

Monday 20 April 2009

When neo isn't new (again)

A little while ago I looked at the confusion between neo-calvinism and new calvinism: here.

Refwrite has also been doing the same:

I have been an adherent of a 150 years-old Protestant movement, self-understood as neo-calvinism, for much of my life. The difference between "old Calvinism" and "neo-Calvinism" is dependent upon a prior distinction between "old old Calvinism" and "old Calvinism." It turns out that both varieties are predestinationist; they believe in predestination, and prioritize that doctrine as the heart of Christianity. Old old Calvinism was rather solidly cessationist; they believed in the cessation of the gifts of the Spirit after the Apostolic Age. The newer old Calvinists are said to be continuationist in regard to the gifts today.

Neo-calvinists, on the other hand, are sometimes predestinationists, sometimes not; sometimes cessationist, sometimes continuist, sometimes neither. What distinguished the world-historical transformative vision of neo-calvinism was its onward spur by Abraham Kuyper's study of "the ethical-theology." He created the reformational movement to welcome in the reign of Shalom in every sphere of life.

He was best at inspiring a largely poor community that received his discipline in order to equip themselves for upward mobility toward making their own contributions to the society, starting with their neighbours, all this their Christian calling, their cultural mandate. Neo-Calvinism generates institutions sovereignly disciplined to the distinct societal place and task of each: academics, industrial relations and representation, vocations, entrepreneurship, intimate life in marriage, friendship, psychotherapeutic clinics, church life, all of life.


Bob Robinson at Vanguard Church has started a helpful set of posts on the difference - see here, here and here.

2 comments:

Bob Robinson said...

Steve,
I've tried to edit the Neo-Calvinism page on Wikipedia but my edits won't stick. Do you know what I'm doing wrong?

stevebishop said...

Hi Bob,

Thanks for dropping by.
Are you signing in?

That's the only thing I can think of as to why it won;t let you on.

Cheers,

Steve