Nick Bogardus

Reflection & Influence

Christians love catch-phrases and keywords. Making fun of or lamenting “Christianese” or the Christian subculture is a relatively easy and lazy thing to do. The more fruitful approach - the one that would hopefully build up the church rather than armchair quarterback it - is to lovingly critique it.

How we use language is something that really interests me. It’s something that’s important to see and think about because, while I’m not a linguist, I can see that language carries with it two big factors. First, language is a reflection of what we think, believe, and value. Secondly, language influences what we think, believe, and value.

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Blurred Definitions

Which brings me to the word I want to bring up in this blog article: missional. “Being missional” or “to be missional” has been a descriptive or imperative catch phrase for about the last five years, particularly among younger Emerging churches. It’s a word that I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable with because of it’s relative ambiguity (but that’s another article).

A recent Q&A video from John Piper helped me see more clearly the restlessness I felt about the word. In this clip he makes a very good distinction between “evangelism” and “missions”.

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Cause & Effect?

I’m left with a couple questions:

1) Do churches and Christians use the word “missional” because they are afraid of the word “evangelism”?

2) Though it claims to do otherwise, will this North American emphasis on being “missional” negatively effect global missions and the global Church by affirming (instead of challenging) our culture’s narcissism and producing culturally insular Christians?

Time recently did an article on big ideas that are changing the world right now and ranked “New Calvinism” as the third biggest. Though the article itself was a bit snide, I wasn’t so concerned with it as with Mark Driscoll’s response.

“What?!”, you say. Those who know me at all will probably be shocked at this. I have a lot of respect for Driscoll, have read his books, and have been listening to his sermons weekly for about two years. I appreciate all that he has done for the Gospel in one of the most secular cities in America, not to mention how he has served the international Church by speaking around the world and offering his sermons, ebooks, and teaching materials for free. He has inspired a lot of young men (myself included) to, as he might say, man-up and be a Christian man. I’m genuinely thankful for the man and his ministry.

But, I think his response to the Time article was inaccurate in its generality and thereby uncharitable to history, as well as harmful for people who consider themselves Reformed. For comparison, see Thabiti Anyabwile’s wise and even-handed response to the Time piece.

First I want to deal with how he was inaccurate and uncharitable in his generalities. Then, more importantly, I want to look at why this is actually harmful.

Here is what Driscoll said:
“Four Ways ‘New Calvinism’ is So Powerful
1. Old Calvinism was fundamental or liberal and separated from or syncretized with culture. New Calvinism is missional and seeks to create and redeem culture.
2. Old Calvinism fled from the cities. New Calvinism is flooding into cities.
3. Old Calvinism was cessationistic and fearful of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. New Calvinism is continuationist and joyful in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
4. Old Calvinism was fearful and suspicious of other Christians and burned bridges. New Calvinism loves all Christians and builds bridges between them.”

To begin, Time only declared that New Calvinism is ‘an idea changing the world’, but he added the word “powerful”. Is “powerful” a helpful goal, measurement, or distinction for the church? I don’t remember the Bible saying that churches or Christians were to be “powerful”. Attractive in how we live our lives? Yes. Bringing about change by service and selflessness? Yes. The word ‘powerful’ seems out of place to me.

First, I’ll briefly look at each of his points.

1. Can we really say that Old Calvinism was either fundamental or liberal. Was there really no middle ground? Could they be both at once? And is it really fair to say that Old Calvinists separated from culture and WEREN’T missional? George Whitfield, who preached thousands of sermons to millions of people on two continents would disagree. [Sidenote: Can someone please explain to me what exactly “redeem the culture” means? It sounds like a catch phrase and when I hear catch phrases I’m forced to wonder what someone is hustling in with it.]

2. Did old Calvinism really flee from the cities? Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones preached in London. Horatius Bonar was in Edinburgh. I don’t think it’s fair to say that they “fled” from cities.

3. Again, Spurgeon spoke quite a bit about the Holy Spirit. This is kind of what bugs me about Driscoll’s generalizations; Spurgeon is one of his heroes and yet, in saying the things he does, he does little justice to the man.

4. Really, were they all suspicious and did they all burn bridges? And do the New Calvinists really love all other Christians and build bridges between them? Something tells me that unfortunately there are a lot of people who would disagree.

Now, here is why I think Driscoll’s words are harmful.

1. It sets up an unnecessary dichotomy by separating the ‘new’ from the ‘old’. In doing so he disengages his own people (Calvinists) from the past, because who wants to be lumped in with guys who were synchronistic, non-missional, isolationist freakshows? It also enables critics to say, “See! We were right about those Calvinists!”. It trips up your own team and it gives ammo to the critics.

In the public realm, in some kind of brand marketing, this would make sense. “We” are the new thing, “we” are important, “we” are better than the old stuff. But I’m not sure that’s how we’re to act in the Church. We’re not to make much of ourselves. We’re actually supposed to point, first of all, to Jesus and, if we’re humble, to wise saints who’ve gone before us. (Again, these are odd words of Driscoll to say the same month he is doing a blog series on past saints.)


2. The attitude of simplifying the contrasts between New and Old are also alarming to me. He has officially drawn a line and raised a flag as the face of New Calvinism. As, Thabiti pointed out, this seems more divisive than anything. To me though, I wonder about any intentions for marketing.

For example, the Emergent church movement came out, set up their site/community, and then created a whole industry that made money off of the movement; book publishers, speaking engagements, conferences, etc. Raising a definitive flag or label makes me wonder what might be sold under it’s umbrella, and at what cost.

3. In finely defining a New Calvinism movement, he has also just ensured it’s death. The clock is now ticking until this ‘fad’ goes the same way as The Prayer of Jabez, and hot on the heels of the Emergent Church.


All in all, I think he did more harm than good and that younger people who might identify themselves as Reformed or even New Calvinist, should learn from it. I think it would’ve been more wise for him to say nothing, to leave his identification as “a Christian who is a Calvinist from the same vein as the greats who’ve gone before us”, rather than separating himself from them.


As for me, I would totally wear this shirt. :)

I’ve had an image in my head for two weeks. I don’t remember exactly how it came about but I can tell you the things that birthed it. Here’s a warning in advance for anyone who is trigger-happy either way at a mention of the name of our President: I’m going to mention him first simply because I think the example is indicative of a larger trend, so I promise it will be brief and we’ll move on quickly from there.

The New York Times carried an account of a town hall-style meeting that Obama did in Greensboro, NC.

“Speaking at a town hall-style meeting here before a few thousand people, Mr. Obama was asked by a young man about the role that Jesus Christ and his teachings played in Mr. Obama’s life.

He began his response with a broad statement of faith: “I’m a Christian. What that means for me is that I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins, and, uh, and, and, uh, his grace and his mercy and his power, through him, I can achieve everlasting life.”

Invoking the golden rule, he also said he believed in treating all people of all faiths (as well as non-believers) with dignity and respect, and he noted that his mother was “not a believer as I am” – but was also the kindest person he ever knew.

“I’m sure she’s in heaven,” he said.

“I think it’s very important to think that you do not have to have the same faith as me to be a moral person – there are a lot of Jewish people who are as moral, or more moral than I am, there are a lot of Muslims who are decent kind people,” Mr. Obama said. “I don’t think they are any less children of God.”

My next dose of fuel came with a seeing a recent Barna Group Survey that contained these findings.

“Evidence of people’s willingness to part with church teaching was shown in other data from the survey regarding what people believe. Among individuals who describe themselves as Christian, for instance, close to half believe that Satan does not exist, one-third contend that Jesus sinned while He was on earth, two-fifths say they do not have a responsibility to share the Christian faith with others, and one-quarter dismiss the idea that the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches.”

And, more alarmingly astonishing, the Barna survey contained these “implications of the research”.

“The Christian faith is less of a life perspective that challenges the supremacy of individualism as it is a faith being defined through individualism. Americans are increasingly comfortable picking and choosing what they deem to be helpful and accurate theological views and have become comfortable discarding the rest of the teachings in the Bible. “

“Faith, of whatever variety, is increasingly viral rather than pedagogical. With people spending less time reading the Bible, and becoming less engaged in activities that deepen their biblical literacy, faith views are more often adopted on the basis of dialogue, self-reflection, and observation than teaching. Feelings and emotions now play a significant role in the development of people’s faith views - in many cases, much more significant than information-based exercises such as listening to preaching and participating in Bible study.”

Now, those pieces are loaded with things we can talk about and dissect, all of it harrowing news for the Church. I want to keep it simple and point out the combination of relativism and moralism that appears in those reflections of American Christianity. From Obama one second having a somewhat orthodox statement of faith and changing it minutes later to deny the exclusivity of Christ, to survey findings that make plain the average Christian’s combination of Biblical illiteracy and emphasis on good deeds and ethics (the result of “Deeds not Creeds”), we need to see something evolving that other, more intelligent, and articulate men have dubbed “Moralistic, Therapeutic Deism”. It’s like Oprah meets good ol’ American can-do spirit.

I would tack onto these examples the emphasis in the American Church over the past two decades or so for politicizing social justice issues - many of those issues being the reason the left-leaning portion of the Church voted Democrat this past election and why much of the right-leaning portion voted Republican before them.

Quickly of course, I need to include the disclaimer that I am in no way saying that treating people with dignity and respect is a bad thing; nor am I saying that being good or ethical are things unimportant to Christians; nor am I saying that it’s a bad thing that large portions of the church champion their chosen social justice issues. My concern is when those things are championed at the expense of, or unhitched from, the anchor, foundation, and centrality of Christ and the truth of the Gospel. My concern is what is reflected in that survey.

This is where the image in my head comes in. What I’ve pictured in my head is an army; one like you would see in Braveheart or Lord of the Rings with rows and columns. Usually when you’re given views of a battlefield in those movies you see a certain organization to it all; archers here, catapults there, calvary on the hill. But, what I imagine is a field of banners - row after row in every direction, banners. Though it looks organized - the army has a colorful array of flags - everyone seems to have their own banner or agenda. Worse yet, the troops are naked and unarmed. They are prepared to charge into battle with no organization, no plan, no swords, no shields - nothing but blind zeal (maybe).

My concern is that what is reflected in that survey is that Christians, large portions of the Church, treat Christianity more like a cause to rally behind rather than a vital faith with an eternal source and an eternal consequence. We might be busy and we might be loud, but we are illiterate, insubordinate, and apathetically tolerant. We might be busy, but we aren’t training disciples.

A.W. Tozer, with his typical surgical precision, said it well:

“Another substitute for discipleship I would mention (though these do not exhaust the list) is zealous religious activity.

Working for Christ has today been accepted as the ultimate test of godliness among all but a few evangelical Christians. Christ has become a project to be promoted or a cause to be served instead of a Lord to be obeyed. Thousands of mistaken persons seek to do for Christ whatever their fancy suggests should be done, and in whatever way they think best. The what and the how of Christian service can only originate in the sovereign will of our Lord, but the busy beavers among us ignore this fact and think up their own schemes. The result is an army of men who run without being sent and speak without being commanded.”

So, what do we do about this? What do we do as a largely illiterate, insubordinate, unprepared group of believers? My humble suggestion would be to constantly be teaching ourselves and training ourselves. I propose beginning with a look at Ephesians 6. That is what I hope to do in some small way with a coming blog series on Ephesians 6:10-20.

Maybe you’re like me and you’re (mildly) young, anxious, and revved up to save the world; and you’re ready to run into the thick of it in cargo shorts and converse. These stats and this passage should, like a loving parent, say, “Slow down, William Wallace.” Maybe you’re older and tired and think your days of action are behind you. Those stats and this passage should compel you to open your closet, move the boxes, and dust off that helmet that you once knew so well. Or, maybe you have no idea what I’m talking about and I sound like a raving, face-painted madman. “Army? Banners? This dude must have had a BB gun and a wild imagination as a kid. I’m a Christian. I just need my sandals and acoustic guitar, man!” Well, then I hope those stats and this passage stir you to get in the game.


(Please feel free to add comments or questions because I’m doing this for myself as much as anyone else.)