Calvinised

    

Defining Calvinism and the illusive nature of being a true Calvinist has again become quite a challenging growth industry. Bless his heart, in his own lifetime even Calvin found himself struggling with his legacy, the masthead of the movement of Calvinism. I suppose the same might be said of Luther or Anglic (ah, the illusive Anglic), but I don’t think it’s simply my sensitivities of being Calvinised that dampens a realization of various Lutheran traditions, of say, full 95-point Lutherans, 57-point Lutherans, Lutheran Baptists (oh wait, there are a number of those), Neo-Lutherans, or the New Lutherans. No, even the Charismatic Movement has nothing on the diversity of the Calvinistic spread across denominational barriers. I think the nomenclature deserves a new front-runner – Calvinised (or Calvinized, for the Yanks). It’s much more illusively particular than being a Calvinist (or true Calvinist), and so is much more honourable and accurate a term for the ravages of age affecting Calvinism and the Calvinist.

I am a Calvinised Christian. But don’t think you’ve assembled Mr. Potato(e) Head just yet. I’ve read of Geneva and I’ve read the Institutes and other Calvinist artefacts (many of which even predate Calvin, oddly enough) and I’m fully prepared to confess (well, maybe not en oath) that I “sincerely receive and adopt” the Calvin of this Church, “as containing the system of doctrine taught in Holy Scripture”. But, as in the great centuries-long confessional wars of the oranges, or, as I like to call it, Orange Julius (sort of a Caesarean Confessionalism, which I usually hail), everything of Calvin didn’t exactly transmigrate into present day Calvinism, and much of what is adequately termed Calvinism has as much Beza, Edwards, Hodge, or a host of other assorted Helvetic or Dortian knots (to say little of Van Til or G. Clark, Sproul or White, Frame or Hart, or even MacArthur, Piper, or Driscoll) just waiting a close thread tracing to the Calvin source. I’m sure there are a variety of Calvinistic Litmus Tests and sliding Calvinism scales, but this fish is willing to have his mouth opened to whatever rendering belongs to Caesar, Calvin, or God.

But, OK, for our Mr. Potato(e) Head creative Picasso types, inclined to put an eye where my ear goes or confuse my moustache with Hobbit feet, I support the sovereignty of God, the humility of man, Christian charity, the 5 solas, the 5 points, the Word of God as the infallible rule of faith and practice, systematic theology, a compendium of the Reformed confessions, complementarianism of the sexes, egalitarianism of the races, a lean toward supralapsarianism, the abrogation of Christmas, Easter, Halloween and the like, and I prefer knelling or prostrate prayer and a regulative principle of worship that favours rich creative confessional elements of spiritual gifts building the Body. I am transformationalist in cultural engagement while acknowledging the ever-present need and deplorable state of the Church’s spiritual life. If I could hide in a cave and make the Church lovelier I would. If I could cease confessional arguing and make the Church lovelier I would. But the Christian love-mark by which we are rightly measured is no ambassador at all without brightening the world it is “in but not of”, which includes the apologetic of peace and purity that is the Gospel, and shining a victorious light in overcoming social ills.

Perhaps not too awfully removed from Genevan Calvinism, I am Calvinised, but I humbly confess I am a far cry from and almost unrecognisable in many ways to Calvin. There were evils of those days we’ve seemingly quite overcome, and virtues of those days only a distant reflection for many. Though Calvin rightly shied from being called a Calvinist, and preferred the Biblicist label, I don’t mind so much being called a Calvinist or even hyper-Calvinist, if it helps a right understanding of Scripture. No, I don’t know that there remains a true Calvinist, but I’m thankfully Calvinised.