Down the Christianity Rabbit Hole
A couple of days ago I stumbled upon a blurb in Twitter linked to some post on “neo-Reformed.” I actually do consider myself Reformed, in the broad Anglican/Lutheran/Presbyterian sense of the term, as in Luther, Barth and N.T. Wright are all Reformed. But one of the benefits of currently sitting happily in the East Coast evangelical camp is that I have been spared the craziness of the neo-Reformed movement that is seemingly eating the rest of American Christiandom alive. Whether it is good or bad, I don’t know. I just hear snippets about it, like hearing rumors of war from the front line. For me, it is all quiet on the Western (Christianity) front.
But stumbling onto this blog, and then looking at its blog roll, I realized this whole conversation swirling around me that I am blissfully ignorant of. There are conversations going on that remind me of the dull chronologies of theological battles over baptism in William Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation (full text here, see page 384 for the baptism “controversy”). The Puritans of old in Rhode Island were fighting over the exact way to baptize infants. From my cursory view, it seems like the neo-Reformed movement is carrying on this fine Christian tradition of knit-picking. It’s an adventure down the rabbit hole of Christianity.
The dark side of renewal movements like the neo-Reformed movement are that they can spiral out of control, and you end up leaving normal life and entering a place like Wonder Land. It’s a place where every little jot and tittle of religious views become lock-step requirements and disagreement is a declaration of war. The “Queen of Hearts” is orthodoxy, and anything that stands in her way must be thwarted, expunged and excommunicated.
The rabbit hole of the neo-Reformed movement is one I will gladly stay away from. I will remain happily above the surface, waiting for people to come wandering back from Wonder Land, and gladly listen to their adventures.
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I appreciate this little piece of historical analysis. Like your theology my theology is broadly formed and informed by Reformed theology, but not in the narrow strain out a gnat sense. I am not sure if I would use the term ‘Reformed’ to describe my theology because it seems so fraught with baggage in our American context. Perhaps, Reformational?
Reformational might be good. I think it’s more positive than being a “Protestant” (I don’t like protesting much of anything…it’s not really unifying to be protesting other Christians). I do agree that any discussion we have, even this one, is weighed down by baggage of our American context. I used to think that was a bad thing, but the more I think about it every time Christianity exists within a distinct culture the baggage comes with it, starting with the church fathers in Acts. It’s just a necessary part of wrestling through our faith and I’m glad to be on the journey.