– David Fitch asks an interesting question regarding Driscoll as the poster-boy for the Neo-Reformed Movement and the emphasis on hierarchical authority:
My question is: are these assumptions part of the larger Neo-Reformed movement as a whole and does this mean that the Neo-Reformed will always be inhibited somewhat from true missional engagement? (Can I say “just asking?”). It will always be a movement prone to attracting Christianized people who are already habituated to submit to a pre-established hierarchical (male) authority.
– Lydia issues a challenge: “Neo-Calvinists, your integrity is on the line here. The world is watching.”
– Pastor Jonathan Martin from Why Mark Driscoll is wrong about women in church leadership:
I find it hard to believe that he has not noticed that most women in ministry on the ground are not, in fact, mainline Protestant liberals who are embracing some leftist agenda, but fire-breathing Pentecostal females who are preaching the whole gospel with other-worldly boldness. Or is the neo-Reformed movement so elitist and self-congratulatory at this point, that this escapes their attention?
Related on TSK: Why I am not a New Calvinist, by one guy who should be.
It’s strange that the Neo-Reformed movement would be so hierarchical since Presbyterian government is not. Also, somebody in the movement with more clout then Driscoll really needs to take him aside and have a word with him.
If they are, in some way, attempting to duplicate and intensify Calivinism, then what they’ll have are confession-hearing, table-fencing Elders and a theological dictator (oft benevolent, but still) above them.
The trouble with any systematic theology is that you need to spend a lot of time teaching and training people to get through the theology. If there is a “correct” way to think and believe, to theologize, all the way to the jots and tiddles of Neo-Calvinism, then it will be the rare newcomer who finds it manageable, IMHO.
Exactly!
Let’s not put all our eggs in one theological and cultural basket. Driscoll is who he is. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but what he’s doing is working for some. Let others blaze completely different trails. Sift through the supra-cultural truths and make your best case and put something into motion.