“Young, Restless, Reformed” may have been accurate 20 years ago, but many who first fit the label are no longer very young, very restless, or very Reformed. “Gospel-centered” was tried and found wanting or inadequate. Whatever the movement is or was, it has now splintered into many parts, some of them antagonistic toward the others.

I was intrigued by Aaron Renn’s recent article The Maturation of New Calvinism. His thesis is that “New Calvinism has shifted from an ‘All-Star team’ model designed to exert influence over the broader evangelical world to a post-superstar model that primarily serves its own community. This represents the maturity of the movement, perhaps putting it on a sustainable footing for the future.” And what is that future? He believes it’s a future of being a subculture within broader evangelicalism rather than being what it may have once aspired to—a gatekeeper or shaper of evangelicalism. Its particular subculture is made up of “educated strivers in urban centers, college towns, and professional class suburbs.” Renn believes that New Calvinism would do well to simply embrace and serve this narrow but significant demographic rather than attempting to reach far beyond it.

All Stars

Renn points out rightly that many of the “all-stars” who were first associated with the movement, who took a leading role in it, and whose ministries drew many people to it have now died (e.g. R.C. Sproul, Tim Keller), retired (e.g. John Piper—from local church ministry, at least), or moved on (e.g. Mark Driscoll). It is certainly true that the movement does not have the same kind of “statesmen” it did in the heady days of the first Together for the Gospel. By and large, these leaders have not been replaced by younger alternatives whose voices reach far into broader evangelicalism. While this new reality means the movement is not drawing as many people as it once did, Renn believes this is actually a positive development as it ultimately offers greater stability and viability.

Taking my cue from Renn, I want to share a few of my thoughts and recollections about the early days of the movement and consider what its future may be.

Beginnings

I have no knowledge of anyone who was deliberately trying to manufacture a new wave of Calvinists around the turn of the century. Thus, I have understood the New Calvinism to have begun in a kind of spontaneous and decentralized way—a way that was unique to the early days of the internet but repeated across a host of interests, hobbies, subcultures, and even religions.

While there may have been many background factors, an especially important one was this: A lot of people in Western contexts found themselves restless in their traditional churches or church growth churches. They were looking for an alternative that promised something more—more than the triteness of church growth philosophies and more than the deadness of certain traditional churches. Some took the route of the Emerging Church and gravitated toward theological liberalism. Some took the route of the New Calvinism and gravitated toward theological conservatism.

In my understanding, then, this movement began on a peer level with people passing along sermons, books, and articles and forming online communities through the early forms of social media—forums and blogs. (Remember: at this time there was no YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or podcasts.) As people engaged with this content, they went in search of churches that were pastored by men who believed the same things as the people they were reading or listening to—Piper, Sproul, MacArthur, and so on. This movement had all the passion and brashness of youth and grew quickly.

A Weak Core

In these early days, there was a lot of excitement about TULIP and the Five Points. There was excitement about the Five Solas, perhaps especially around 2017 and the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Calvinistic soteriology was the heart of it all and to so many it was eye-opening and heart-stirring.

But over time, people stopped writing books and preaching sermons about Calvinism. The doctrine became assumed instead of explicit and optional instead of necessary. It became acceptable to be a four-point Calvinist or perhaps something more like a three-and-a-half-point Calvinist. The nomenclature changed from “New Calvinism” or “Young, Restless, Reformed” to “Gospel-Centered” at least in part because this framing deprioritized Calvinism and allowed broader inclusion.

Read More