Thinking With the Church

Toward a Renewal of Baptist Theology

Hatch

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781532611179
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

Over the centuries, Baptists have labored to follow Christ in faithful devotion and service. More recently, they have occasionally partnered with fellow Christians from other traditions in these efforts while learning from each other along the way. In Thinking With the Church, Derek Hatch argues that Baptists need to follow the same pattern when it comes to their theological reflection, engaging the wisdom of all Christian pilgrims across time. This will require a new theological method--ressourcement--that embraces Baptists' place within the Great Tradition of the Christian faith. Such work will not abandon long-held Baptist convictions but offers resources for renewing Baptists' theological vision as they participate in the fullness of the mystical body of Christ.

Part One

1

Calvinism on Campus

We know what God could not possibly be: for example he could not be a god. Why? Because gods are bits of the world or anyway bits of the universe. They stand alongside heroes and human beings and teacups, none of which are gods. Gods are different; they are a superior kind of being . . . [T]he gods are items in the universe. Top items maybe, but still items.

—Herbert McCabe32

On the campuses of many Baptist and free church colleges and universities, one can discern a common theological trend: students are captivated by the conversations surrounding divine sovereignty and human free will. To be sure, this is not the only influence on the theological scene, but it is a prominent one.33 These discussions typically involve various forms of what has been described elsewhere as “the new Calvinism” or “neo-Calvinism,” but here preference will be given to the moniker “resurgent Calvinism.”34 In dialogue with students and underneath a variety of religious discourse, one can detect concerns about God’s justice against God’s love, God’s renown and passion for God’s own glory, and the role that human beings play in the economy of salvation. This set of ideas certainly has intellectual and historical links to the sixteenth-century Protestant reformer, John Calvin, yet its deeper sources are actually much more recent. While people such as R. C. Sproul, D. A. Carson, and J. I. Packer figure prominently in students’ exposure to this theological perspective and its tacit formation, the work of John Piper, former pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, looms large in their imaginations. His focus on the works of Calvin and other Reformed thinkers such as Jonathan Edwards and Charles Haddon Spurgeon underscores the supremacy of God over all reality. While Piper’s prominence throughout the Christian world and his emphasis on what he calls “Christian hedonism” has grown through his widespread preaching and his numerous books (such as Desiring God, God’s Passion for His Glory, The Pleasures of God, and Future Grace),35 his involvement in and influence on the youth-focused Passion movement has also significantly communicated this resurgent Calvinist perspective to the theological imaginations of college students.36

Others have made similar observations and discern the same trend among Baptist and free church college students.37 H. Leon McBeth described a broader movement among Baptists to reclaim a Reformed emphasis, seeing in this trend four factors that contribute to this resurgent Calvinism as providing “unchanging truths for changing times.”38 Arminian theologian Roger Olson describes an encounter where he was not considered a Christian because he was not Calvinist.39 Peter Thuesen discusses the peculiar American fascination with the operations of divine providence, seeing it as “the proverbial elephant in the room of American denominationalism.”40 Indeed, for many Christians, it serves either as “the rock of Christian certainty” or “the most dangerous of doctrines.”41

The impact of this school of thought is not recognized from a distance. Indeed, as a former student of a Baptist institution (and now a professor at another), these observations are derived from my own experience as well. When I was a student, numerous cafeteria and dorm room conversations centered on questions of divine sovereignty and human free will. For instance, could some lose their salvation by simply deciding to no longer believe in the truth of the gospel? Or, was it impossible to remove oneself from God’s hands? I encountered classmates who were committed Calvinists (i.e., adherents of the doctrines of grace or the so-called five points of Calvinism) and others who were “on the fence.” As a teacher as well, I have crossed paths with students who are captivated by the same queries and perceive the heart of the gospel to be at stake therein. Consequently, students can be found asking questions such as whether God’s sovereignty extends to determining the actions of human beings and nature, whether salvation is a personal human decision or foreordained by God before the foundations of the world, whether God’s grace is intended only for the elect, but not the damned, and whether God chooses that some people will not receive salvation.

Beyond personal conversations, though, one can observe other instances of resurgent Calvinism. For example, chapel worship bands tend to sing songs that emphasize Reformed themes of God’s holiness over human depravity.42 Moreover, the books that students read independent of class reflect this emphasis. One is likely to find interest in texts by Mark Driscoll, David Platt, Francis Chan, R. C. Sproul, J. I. Packer, Matt Chandler, and even Piper himself, among others. These authors diffuse the resurgent Calvinistic themes into multiple fields beyond just theology, including missions, biblical studies, gender roles, and personal relationships (including dating and marriage). Thus, regardless of what form it takes, students have significant contact with this resurgent Calvinist perspective.

What prompts such widespread interest in resurgent Calvinism? Sociologists Christian Smith and Melissa Lundquist Denton have described the religious sensibilities of American teenagers with the term “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” According to them, the creed for its adherents states that a creator God who ordered the world into existence wants all people to be good, nice, and fair to each other; the goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself; God’s only particular involvement in someone’s life is to resolve a problem; and good people go to heaven when they die.43 The divine being found in this “religion” is “something like a combination Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist: he is always on call, takes care of any problems that arise, professionally helps his people to feel better about themselves, and does not become too personally involved in the process.”44 Consequently, many young people cannot articulate important religious topics, such as “repentance, love of neighbor, social justice, unmerited grace, self-discipline, humility, the costs of discipleship, dying to self, the sovereignty of God, personal holiness, the struggles of sanctification, glorifying God in suffering, hungering for righteousness . . .”45 Smith and Denton offer this summary:

What very few U.S. teens seem to believe, to put it one way, is that religion is about orienting people to the authoritative will and purposes of God or about serious, life-changing participation in the practices of a community of people who inherit the religiocultural and ethical tradition. As far as we could discern, what most teens appear to believe instead is that religion is about God responding to the authoritative desires and feelings of people.46

With the emergence of this trend, one which concerns many religious scholars, some have seen the fruits of individualism and relativism.47 Journalis...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Series Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One
• Part Two
• Conclusion
• Bibliography