From Calvinism to Adapted Calvinism to Neo Calvinism
In this article I would like to deal with the question “What
is Calvinism and who is Calvinist”. Calvinism essentially refers to Calvin’s conviction
and philosophy that can be found in his “Institutes of the Christian Religion”
(5 volumes), sermons, and other writings. Calvinism was clearly seen in the
model of the Geneva Church that Calvin has established and controlled, and also
in the running of the Geneva local government. According to Calvin’s
conviction, these two institutions were not independent from one another. The
approximation between the church and the state was not only as the result of
him being both the ecclesiastical leader and a powerful politician, but also as
the result of his conviction that a “national church” was a necessity to
counter the Roman Catholic Church. This idea of a “national church” was
commonly shared by almost all the reformers.
When Calvinism is defined by Calvin’s conviction and
philosophy, and the way in which he managed both the Geneva church and the
local government, defining “Calvinist” would be quite straight
forward. Obviously, Calvinist is one who has read and understood Calvin’s
writings and sermons and accepted Calvin’s conviction as his own conviction. In
this sense, Calvin and his close associates in Geneva and some other parts of
Europe were the first Calvinists.
What about the Puritans who subscribed to both the teachings
of Zwingli and Calvin? What about the Methodists who were under the leadership
of George Whitefield? These believers were regarded as Calvinists by church
historians, but were they actually Calvinists? Strictly speaking the Puritans
were not Calvinists simply because they did not subscribed 100% to Calvin’s
conviction. The fact that the Puritans, while subscribing to Calvin’s teaching,
they also included Zwingli as their mentor, speaks clearly that certain part of
Calvin’s teaching was not suitable for their struggle. They did not subscribe,
but adapted Calvin’s teaching. Similarly, George Whitefield and his associates did
not subscribe but adapted Calvin’s teaching for their ministry.
What about reformed faith in general and reformed Baptist
conviction (The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith) in particular? I have
established that both the reformed faith and reformed Baptist
conviction are no Calvinism in one of my articles[i].
Should there be any trace of Calvinism and it should be regarded only as
adapted Calvinism at most, because it does not agree totally with Calvinism. This
is obvious with reformed Baptist conviction. The word “reformed” is employed
and not “Calvinist” simply shows that the early believers did not want to limit
themselves with Calvin’s teaching alone. They preferred to have the freedom to
select what they deemed as suitable from the other reformers’ teaching. The
name “Baptist” suggests an independent local church and this is an obvious
break away from Calvin’s and other reformers’ idea of a national church. Its
conviction of believer baptism also played a role to distant themselves from
Calvin’s permission to allow child baptism. Under such circumstance, do we
still insist that reformed faith and reformed Baptists are Calvinists? Judging
from history, reformed faith and reformed Baptist conviction is the result of a
long process of adoption and adaptation of theological thinking. The whole
process is dynamic and it cannot just be equated with Calvinism alone.
Strangely, yet, there is a dispute among the reformed people
about Calvinism. At the global level, there is this group of conference
speakers, with reformed background, who managed to attract to themselves a good
following with their reformed teaching. Unfortunately, they have also attracted
to themselves the unnecessary attention and criticism from certain party from within
the reformed circle. They called them the New Calvinist because allegedly they
have compromised the Calvinist conviction. Alarm has been sounded to the
reformed believers to dissociate themselves from these New Calvinists. Such
accusation can be heard also among the reformed Baptists locally. Reformed
Baptists is such a small group of believers and yet we have fallen into this
illogical dispute and division.
The question is, why bother to label another as New
Calvinist when Calvinist does not exist? Why a reformed believer should condemns
another reformed believer as New Calvinist? Strictly speaking, most of of the reformed believers are adapted Calvinists but never Calvinists. We do not
uphold all the teaching of Calvin as the tenet of our faith. We have adapted
Calvin’s teaching selectively . Our struggle
therefore should not be between choosing either Calvinist or New Calvinist, but
a firm commitment to preach the gospel fully as the Bible has taught it. We
have to actively preach it to men and women who come from different cultures,
different age groups, and different political situations.
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