Defining Neocalvinism?

In a prior post I made an offhand reference to neocalvinism, and my friend and regular commenter Brendt sheepishly asked what neo-calvinism is, afriad that he was showing his ignorance in not knowing.

There is nothing to be sheepish about here as I am sure many don't know what neo-calvinism is.  And frankly, I shouldn't call myself a neo-calvinist because I have only dabbled in their writings and don't know enough about it to consider myself a member of the club.   However, I have read a few of the books that descend from the neo-calvinist tradition and several of the leading neo-calvinist blogs and find it to be a very attractive theological/philosophical/pragmatic approach to life under the sun. And I thought it would be helpful to point Brendt and others to some definitions and resources that are helpful in this regard.

Basically, neo-Calvinism descends from the thought of Abraham Kuyper who famously taught that there is not one square inch in all creation over which Jesus does not say "this is mine."  The link to Calvinism comes in it's emphasis on the sovereignty of God.  The neo-Calvinists flesh this out in different directions, and do not limit their discussion of divine sovereignty to the theological.  They are seeking to flesh out the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in all areas of life - social, economic, vocational, the arts, politics, education and so on and so forth.  From what I can tell the neo-calvinists have varying degrees of affinity to the traditional statements of Calvinism, like the TULIP, with some being fully on board and others less so.  It seems to me that the neocalvinists are particularly concerned with the implications of divine sovereignty for all of life, thus though many affirm the soteriological aspects of calvinism, that is not the heartbeat of their movement (if you can call it a movement).

In the post-continuation  I've got a couple of comments where some neo-calvinists speak for themselves.

Macht at Prosthesis refers to well-known neocalvinist Gideon Strauss in what I believe is a good concise description of neocalvinism.

Gideon Strauss has defined here what it takes to be a neocalvinist: A neocalvinist is someone who ...

... confesses Jesus the Christ as God and Lord over all of life.
... recognises the enduring design of the world and seeks to shape their life in attentive response to that design.
... grieves the agony of evil, pain and failure in the world.
... brings hope and healing in their spheres of responsibility, conscious that hope only finds its fulfillment in the return of the Christ.
... cherishes the dignity of the human person as created in the image of God.
... accepts human responsibility for the cultivation of the world and therefore for the shaping of culture.
.... relishes the rich natural and cultural diversity of the world, and seeks to conserve and elaborate that diversity.
... works against the social effects of both individualism and collectivism, by taking part in the building of a diverse range of social relationships and helping to make room for social diversity in society.

Elsewhere, Gideon says about neocalvinism,

"Neocalvinism seeks to bring about cultural renewal in diverse cultures, starting out from a few basic convictions. These include convictions shared with most Christians: That the world belongs to God, and that God structured this world in wonderfully complex ways, ways that are in the deepest sense good; that the world is broken and hurt by human evil, and that our evil reaches into every nook and cranny of the world, and yet, that there is hope and healing in the world because of the redemption worked by the Christ; that people really matter. Perhaps more than most Christian religious traditions neocalvinism emphasizes the need for Christian engagement in every sphere of human culture. While its emphasis on normative patterns given in creation is not extraordinary, its emphasis on the complexity and diversity deriving from those patterns is.

One consequence of these convictions is a neocalvinist politics that is "structurally pluralistic," in contrast to both political individualisms (such as libertarianism) and political collectivisms (such as fascism). But David Koyzis can discuss that more knowledgeably than I can."

If you are interested in learning more on neo-calvinism, my own personal go-to blogs in this regard are Gideon Strauss and Prosthesis.

I have also benefited from reading An Accidental Blog by Steve Bishop and Notes from a Byzantine-Rite Calvinist by David Koyzis. 

Also, from time to time Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost will do a post post on neocalvinism and if you read him long enough you will see that neocalvinist thought influences a good deal of what he writes.   He even has a post called What is Neocalvinism?

I also just discovered, through Joe, Gregory Baus at Honest to Blog.

Hope this helps.

Comments

[pgepps]

Interesting stuff, thanks. Goes in my reference file for when I have a bit more time to inquire. I've enjoyed the writings of several of these folks; when I'm being an academic, many of them are my natural confreres (though recently I've been a bit more "preachy" due to Japan's radicalizing me to "know nothing among [Japanese students] but Christ crucified."

It's interesting to reflect on how inappropriate cultural shorthand for theology is when one switches culture; but the truth of Scripture is still the truth. Thus, I find recently that I get a bit impatient when folks too quickly make movements within Christianity which have such (often invisible) cultural bounds.

Cheers,
PGE

[DLE]

David,

Huh? I graduated Summa Cum Laude from Wheaton College and for the life of me I can't make head nor tails of this description of neocalvinism. The only real distinction I take away is that neocalvinism more thoroughly engages culture (à la Francis Schaeffer) than some other Christian thought systems.

Perhaps a "compare and contrast" is in order with standard Old Line Calvinism. Otherwise I fear the subtleties will be lost on those of us who don't read masters of subtlety like N.T. Wright (who writes voluminously, but like a moth dancing around a lightbulb, never quite gets to his ultimate destination.)

Thanks.

[David Wayne]

Dan - like I said, I only have a cursory knowledge of the whole thing and am still learning. I think Al Wolters book Creation Regained and Paul Marshall's book Heaven is Not My Home are good places to start reading. I'd also recommend checking out Gideon Strauss's blog and the Prosthesis blog.

I think the connection you make with Schaeffer is correct because he was also influenced by Kuyper so it makes sense that they will be saying many of the same things. I think it does more thoroughly engage culture than other thought systems but there is more to it than that in that it seems to me that the neo-calvinists have a properly biblical pragmatism to them - they are actively working out their belief in God's sovereignty through the arts and politics and vocation and stuff like that. But again, I'd recommend checking out Gideon or Prosthesis for better info than I can give.

[Doc]

Just a lowly layman am I, but I must say that I, too, can't quite get the point of this 'neoCalvinism'. If they don't doctrinally adhere to the famous 5 points, etc, then they're not Calvinist, and are instead more likely to be some stripe of Arminian. If they are Calvinist, then in what way are they different from, say, White's ilk of the Reformed Baptists, or Sproul et al of the PCA? I didn't read anything in the links noted above that would serve to differentiate a NeoCalvinist from a thoughtful Calvinist. I must admit, suspicious guy that I am, that I suspect that the 'Neo' in NeoCalvinist somehow serves as an attempt to legitimize a more liberal (in the modern political sense) agenda, but that's probably just paranoia. Right?

[joel hunter]

David and Dan,

It may help to explore the historical "lay of the land" to see how neocalvinism relates to established ecclesiological and theological contexts.

To that end, you might check out Craig Bartholomew's article entitled "Relevance of Neocalvinism Today," available http://kuyperian.blogspot.com/2004/09/relevance-of-neocalvinism-for-today.html>here.

Another thinker and semi-blogger to keep up on is Theo Plantinga. He updates his http://www.redeemer.on.ca/~tplant/m/>site quarterly. Doc, it may interest you that Plantinga prefers the broader name "Reformational Movement" over "Neocalvinism," which you can read about in his (long) essays on the history of this movement. He wrote the http://www.redeemer.on.ca/~tplant/m/MDC.HTM>first installment last year, and the http://www.redeemer.on.ca/~tplant/m/MDH.HTM>second in January of this year. To wade through this unfamiliar history, it would be helpful to check out his handy "cast of characters" and "institutions and organizations" links, which are accessible on his http://www.redeemer.on.ca/~tplant/m/REFTOC.HTM#>History TOC page.

[cavman]

What little I have read of the neo-calvinists (and I do mean little) makes me say (apart from some fudging on the doctrine of election) "didn't Calvin believe that?" Dare I say that Calvin was missional (no need for a neo- there). Kuyper didn't add to Calvin, he may have just fleshed it out more, so no neo there.
But, I will eventually have to invest some more time on this.

[ryan]

doc: you say "If they don't doctrinally adhere to the famous 5 points, etc, then they're not Calvinist, and are instead more likely to be some stripe of Arminian"
i should caution you that the reformed tradition is not a simple identity with tulip--it is wider than that. though a contentious issue, it is not clear whether calvin himself would qualify as a tulip calvinist (and that whole question is rather anachronistic at that). in north america you may find reformed folk who live out an identy of tulip with calvinism, but if one looks at europe or history, that is simply not the case.

d. wayne: schaeffer's introduction to neocalvinsim came by way of the great art historian, h.r. rookmaker. though 'how much a neocalvinist schaeffer was' is an open question.

DLE: the description here given seems rather vague to me as well, but if you interact with the blogs, essays, and posts mentioned, that vagueness should disappear. Byron Borger is also helpful on this subject.

fyi: n.t. wright--who i think gets a good much further to his destination that you apparently do--is himself influenced by neocalvinism, as demonstrated in his approach to historiography and it's relation to theology , very strong emphasis on the doctrine of creation and its redemption, as well as other ways. It should also be noted that NTPG was dedicated to his good neocalvinist friend, brian j. walsh.

[Baus]

Let me recommend to your readers my site on Neocalvinism: The Kuyperian... http://kuyperian.blogspot.com

It is best to view neocalvinism as the application of Calvin's (or "Calvinistic") insights to "non-ecclessiastical" and "non-theological" (that is, every thing in life outside institutional church and her teaching) within our contemporary context. So, is this "adding" to Calvin? Yes! Calvin doesn't address new urbanism, for instance, but we want to. He doesn't address globalizing economies, but we want to. He doesn't address genetic technologies, but we want to. In what sense are we applying Calvin's or Calvinistic insights? Sovereignty of God is the key idea being "applied."

I, myself, am completely insistant on Neocalvinism being fully (5-point) soteriologically calvinistic. Why? Because one doesn't really understand how Jesus is Lord of ALL and God is really Sovereign if one takes a less than 5-point view. Of course, I think Calvin himself was fully 5-point too. And of course biblical Reformed Covenantal theology is so much more than this, but neocalvinism isn't primarily theology.

The articles here http://kuyperian.blogspot.com should help clear things up for many jollyblogger readers.

For a more particularly "Reformational" view (aka Dooyeweerdian philosophy and academics) see:
http://reformatorische.blogspot.com
See especially the sidebar links.

[Brendt]

Well, I'll be. I've been playing catch-up on my RSSing, and just stumbled across this tonight. I'd rank David writing a post in response to my comment up there with the time that Al Mohler linked to one of my blog posts. ;-)

Thanks for the info and the links. I've got a lot of reading and parsing to do now, but right off the bat, something occurs to me. Embracing reformed theology was, for me, mostly about recognizing the sovereignty of God. Having been crowded out of a church that included many members who frowned on my Calvinism, I'm now in a church that is no more Calvinistic (at least by TULIP standards), but has a much better handle on God's sovereignty. I accepted that as quite possible and have often pointed to it as an example of how A's and C's can play nicely together, but maybe I'm starting to be able to put a handle on it (or maybe at least near it).

[Gary DeArment]

From my years of reading and hearing Schaeffer tapes and living in the Reformed community of NW Iowa and Calvin College for IO years or more and from being raised in the fundementalist Baptist I realise an atmosphere that many Christians remain with heads in the sand concerning a legitimate world and life view that allows for the full controll and interpretation of reality that allows the truth of God's Sovreign creation and controll of the universe. Thus the old compartmentalized approach of the secular and sacred push for us to break out into seeing what the Bible, both old and new testament writes about from Genesis to Revelation.All of Creation is created and controlled by the Sovreign God and Lord who revealed Himself in Christ.

[Gary DeArment]

Another fascinating aspect of the world and life view with Schaffer and Kuyper deals with the presuppositional theology of Van til and Carnell. Kuyper says something about a balanced apologetic and the Reformed perspective that its kind of like trying to adjust a window or door when in fact the whole foundation is out of whack. This is not a direct quote but I think he was refering to trying to answer inquiry aabout a proper perspective concerning ones interpretation of reality.The old fundementalist and in many cases the new evangelical thinking is out of whack in trying to give some proper well balanced explaination about the whole councel of God.