THE NEW PRESODISTS:

The Barna group recently posted some interesting results from a survey related to Calvinism in today's evangelical world. "Is There a "Reformed" Movement in American Churches?"
Those of you who read magazines and blogs have likely noticed descriptions like "The New Calvinists," or, the "Reformed Movement." Until I read this article I was one of those who would have said that the theological wind was blowing in the direction of an emphasis on Divine sovereignty. My thoughts in that regard had to do with the popularity of some writes and preachers who it seems to me are on that end of the spectrum--Piper, Keller, DeYoung, Begg, Harris, and Mohler. A number of magazines have covered the phenomenon, here.

I won't quote any numbers from the survey, you can read it, but, at least it seemed to me, the survey results do not bear out any move toward Geneva. I would appreciate your take on these numbers and observations on the trend, or lack thereof, in general.

There was one aspect of the crunched numbers that reinforced a personal observation--"nobody is any one thing anymore." It used to be that if you identified a trait associated with say Calvinism, or Wesleyanism in a person's Theology, that you could with reasonable confidence conclude that this person also held to most of the other tenets of that Theological system. No more. Note this observation from the survey: "The study found that 31% of pastors who lead churches within traditionally charismatic or Pentecostal denominations were described as Reformed, while 27% identified as Wesleyan/Arminian."

It kind of reminds me of the pastor who went to a pastor's fellowship that had experienced a schism along Calvinist/Arminian lines. When he registered, for no reason that he could identify the receptionist sent him to the Arminian group. Not recognizing him, some of the delegates asked who he was and why he decided to join their part of the fellowship. When he told them that he had no choice, but was sent, they threw him out. Not knowing where else to go, he chose to go to the Calvinist meeting. You can finish the story. :) The moral is there are a lot of folk who don't fit in either end of the convention hall.

Maybe we can help each other understand what is going on.