"The Protestant age is coming to an end. That means that the Reformed faith and Presbyterianism are also coming to an end. The paradigm is exhausted, and the world in which it was worked out no longer exists. We must take all the great gains of the Calvinistic heritage and apply them with an open Bible to the new world in which we are now living. We must be aware that there is far more in the Bible than the Reformation dealt with, and that many of our problems today are addressed by those hitherto unnoticed or undeveloped aspects of the Bible. Those who want to bang the drum for a 450-year old tradition are dooming themselves to irrelevance. Our only concern is to avoid being beat up by them as they thrash about in their death-throes."
James Jordan, "The Closing of the Calvinistic Mind"
4 comments:
Total Bologna. Jordan left the Presbyterian fold years ago... and he's just sore that these people -whom he deems irrelevant- are still around... and that people are reading their books instead of his. Boo-hoo.
He can prophesize doom all he wants. But we're not going anywhere.
More to the point, Greg, is that he doesn't really understand Calvinism. If Jordan thinks it's about promoting TULIP, then I can understand his sentiment. Thankfully, Calvinism is about unfolding all the truth of Scripture and applying it everywhere. Who does he think is doing something comparable?
Paul, certainly what you say... that we are about applying the Scripture to all of life... and that no one else can make a comparable claim... this is true. But we are certainly also about "banging the drum" for TULIP, and this is 2000 years old, yea old as the Fall into sin (not a mere 450). His anti-tradition rhetoric is lame and empty. He wants to be "relevant," but without historical rooted-ness, his attempt will be nothing more than a passing wind.
If only God would kill Calvinism. But he's left the Devil to torment the world for so long that it seems he will probably let the Devil's most successful religion co-exist with its author until both are finally cast into the lake of fire at the end of time.
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