Thursday, March 12, 2009

Time Magazine: The New Calvinism Is Changing the World

Time Magazine's cover story for next week is on 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now. Here are the top 10--but I'll warn you in advance that you probably didn't see #3 coming:
  1. Jobs Are the New Assets
  2. Recycling the Suburbs
  3. The New Calvinism
  4. Reinstating the Interstate
  5. Amortality
  6. Africa, Business Destination
  7. The Rent-a-Country
  8. Biobanks
  9. Survival Stores
  10. Ecological Intelligence
Non-evangelical journalists often produce cringe-inducing attempts to restate and understand, but I thought David Van Biema did a very nice job at seeking to find out what's really happening and to identify some of the key beliefs and voices.

I think it's good to pause to reflect on the blurb that Carson wrote for Hansen's Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists:
While other movements have been making a bigger splash in the headlines, a number of strategic ministries have been quietly (and sometimes not so quietly!) upholding the doctrines of grace, planting churches, seeing people converted, teaching the whole counsel of God. These are now beginning to coalesce in a variety of mutually encouraging ways. It is a pleasure to recommend Collin Hansen's survey of some of these movements. This is not the time for Reformed triumphalism. It is the time for quiet gratitude to God and earnest intercessory prayer, with tears, that what has begun well will flourish beyond all human expectation.
Amen and amen.