Caution and Encouragement for the "New Calvinists"

There is a very helpful article on Justin Taylor's blog today. It's a reaction to the growing movement of Reformed theology in the younger generation by Thomas McCall from an Arminian perspective.

This article embodies the interaction I think that both sides of the Calvinist/Arminian issue should display. I clearly fall into the Reformed camp and I was blessed by Dr. McCall's rejoicing at the way this movement displays an interest in theology and a pursuit of holiness in people my age.

Even more so, I was blessed by the challenges and cautions that he brings. Here are two that I drew out.

1. We need to know our theological tradition better as well as understand the broader traditions of the historical church. In other words, we should expand our reading and knowledge outside the Puritans and beware not to ultimately rely on and deify those famous contemporary teachers that are highly regarded in Reformed circles. Personally, I know I want to spend more time learning about the early church fathers and learning more about church history in general.

2. We need to guard against arrogance and cultivate humility. With the low accountability Internet as a main medium of communication added to the youthful tendency towards arrogance, I can appreciate his concern in this area. I know my own tendency towards pride. Even if we do believe that the tenets of Reformed theology are clearly taught in the Bible, we have to remember that we didn't come up with them, God did. And we didn't figure it out of our own accord without his help, so we can't take pride in that either. We need to receive the Scriptures with humility and we need to speak with humility.

Overall, I this post challenges me to interact with differing brothers and sisters with charity and love. It's not that we shouldn't value our doctrine strongly, but we need to evaluate our attitudes and our hearts. We should be marked by a desire to know and understand God more rather than a desire to be right. We need to realize that God still has a lot for us to learn. Abraham Piper had a blog post a while ago with a title that sums it up well, "When arguing, it's better to be convincible than invincible."