Christianity Today recently published a cover story titled “Young, Restless, Reformed.” Interestingly, the subtitle reads: “Calvinism is making a comeback - and shaking up the church.” I find it interesting that they feel that Calvinism is making a “comeback.” I can say that I’ve held to the Doctrines of Grace for at least ten years now if not more, and I’ve never felt particularly isolated. In fact, I have always found a strong support of like-minded believers and churches. Granted, they are the minority within modern American evangelicalism, but believe it or not, we’ve always been here.

What interests me here is the fact that the magazine genuinely seems perplexed about first, the presence of Calvinism and second, its recent upsurge in publicity. Anyone conversant with church history knows that throughout the history of the church, these doctrines have have always been a steady theological underpinning of the church.

While it seems that many of these doctrines decreased in prominence after Augustine until the 1500’s, they once again rose to prominence with the Protestant Reformation. Since that time they have remained a consistent presence worldwide. Yet we must give the editors of Christianity Today the benefit of the doubt and admit that as far as many popular-level evangelicals are concerned, these doctrines have been nearly non-existent in modern evangelicalism.

The reason for this does not seem to be aversion to the doctrines themselves, but doctrine in general. We seem to emerging from an extended period of anti-intellectual sentiment in the church. Right or wrong, much of this sentiment has been aimed specifically at reformed believers and we must be fair in examining why that might be. I have personally encountered many reformed believers who are quite concerned with crossing their theological “t’s” and dotting their doctrinal “i’s” at the expense of genuine worship. Don’t misunderstand me, I am quick to defend the importance of doctrine. But doctrine that does not result in doxology has missed the point and not seen God for who He truly is.

There is a sense in which Calvinism has risen to a new level of prominence in the popular evangelical consciousness. The reasons for this are many, but probably chief among them has been the rise of a new generation of believers who understand the connection between the head and the heart overflowing into all of life. We are witnessing a surge of younger believers who are repenting of the theological arrogance that has often gone hand in hand with a copy of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Many of these same believers reject the notion of the sour-faced theologian who frowns on fun. Instead, the central role of joy flowing from God’s glory has once again been grasped and Calvinism, perhaps more than any other theological approach understands and strives for God’s glory.

Another factor in the increased prominence is an increased ecumenical approach demonstrated in the recent “Together for the Gospel” conference which plays a large role in the cover story. Reformed believers have often been more successful at excluding other believers over non-essential doctrines than in rallying around the essentials in unity. There is now a healthy emphasis within reformed circles to move beyond some of this. This is not to say that issues such as polity, baptism and the like are unimportant, just that they are not sufficient cause to separate when so much more unites us. Many like-minded reformed believers are truly beginning to believe that we can maintain our distinct theological identities and still be “Together for the Gospel.”

There do seem to be some factors that lend credence to the idea that Calvinism is rising to a level of public awareness we’ve not seen in several years. Yet with all that said, to paraphrase James Todd Smith (ladies love cool James), “don’t call it a comeback, we’ve been here for years…”