Streams of Reformed Christians Today

Reformed Theology is not a homogenous camp.  

We have intense, even vicious, debates with each other about various things.  Many people who come into the Reformed orbit through only one of these camps, are often weirded out, appalled, or take other streams as compromised or even heresy.  

This article is an attempt to describe the landscape, and call for Reformed people to have more charity with each other.  The camps are not always mutually exclusive.  But let us give more energy to a positive apologetic toward the unbeliever, and critique of the non-Reformed, before we fight with each other.

 

1. The Culture-friendly

Found mainly in the PCA, CRC, and maybe the ARP, this stream tends to welcome and be fine with people who adopt the same entertainment choices that the general world does.  Many of them send their children to public schools, and think it is fine.  Their churches offer programs from a more consumeristic mentality – classes and fun for the toddlers and teens, etc.

Publishers like Zondervan and Baker tend to cater to this market with theology more accommodating to cultural trends, and music that mimics pop culture.

 

 

2. The piety-minded

Another stream is focused on the means of grace: devotions, private and public worship.

Stricter denominations, like the RPCNA, and the Free Continuing Church of Scotland are in this camp.

Publishers like Banner of Truth and Reformation Heritage Books provide this camp with plenty of Puritan fodder.  Joel Beeke is a leading voice in this stream, today.

 

 

3. The hard-core theologian of the Truly Reformed

This camp consider themselves the policemen of the Reformed world, calling out every error and defining any deviance from Reformed thought.  Articulating down to the fine details what truly Reformed thought is.  Podcasts like Reformed Forum put forth this view today.  Guy Prentice Waters, Joe Morecraft, Louis Berkhof, and Herman Hoeksema are figures, past and present, that I’d put in this camp.  They are very confessionally-minded, and polemical against the error they see in others, or they write long, detailed systematic works articulating their theology.

 

 

4. Reformed Baptist

The resurgence of this view in American evangelicalism, Charles Spurgeon its most visible figurehead, has been remarkable in the last 30 years.  Thanks to John Piper, Steve Lawson, and others, there has been a welcome home in the Reformed camp for credo-baptists for a while now.  This camp typically holds to the London Baptist Confession of 1689, which articulated Calvinist soteriology, while maintaining a credo-baptist and congregational ecclesiology.

 

 

5. Interlude to note institutions spanning these camps:

Ligonier Ministries is an interesting phenomenon that seeks to span all 4 of these camps, and is fairly successful at it, thus their popularity.

 

P&R and Crossway do a good job as publishers maintaining orthodoxy, while not falling hard into any one of these camps.

 

You’ll find various seminaries aligning more or less with these camps.

Westminster West, with the hard core theologians.

Covenant in St Louis, with the PCA culture-friendly.

RTS with… none of the above, exactly?

 

 

6. The Post-Millennial Liturgists – the Communion of Reformed Evanglicals (CREC)

We are a different breed of cat.

 

While all of the above camps are almost uniformly a-millennial, the CREC is stridently post-millennial.  (Although I believe we tend to define this more culturally than exegetically.)  I am not as post-mil and high-liturgy as some in the CREC, but still place myself firmly in this camp.

 

1. In contrast with the culture-friendly, we are frankly, more “culture-hostile.”  We look to critique and refute cultural trends, welcoming those who agree with our critique, more than welcoming the normal person who hasn’t thought deeply about such critiques.  The discontent contrarians tend to flock to us.  There is a minority of PCA type churches with an affinity for higher liturgy, that are more friendly to the CREC.

 

2. In contrast to the Banner of Truth crowd, we eschew pietism.  Our Christianity is not 50 points of how to mortify sin in our hearts, and to exercise the means of grace in home and church, with no emphasis on exercising our faith beyond into the public square.  Rather, it is 3 points of mortifying sin in our hearts, 3 points of the church’s importance in our corporate life together, and 3 points of living out our faith in the public square.  If you wanted to be a bit more uncharitable, judging us by our appearance, we are 10 points railing on the culture, 5 points family life, and 2 points piety.

 

3. In contrast to the hard core, “Truly Reformed,” we are gracious regarding theological differences.  We hold to the historic Reformed confessions, yes.  But when some have questions, or demur on a minor point, we don’t prosecute or condemn.  This can tend us to be too tolerant of views that are Lutheran, or even Roman or Orthodox, rather than actually Reformed.

 

4. In contrast to the Reformed Baptist, we strongly encourage baptizing our babies!  But our history pushes us toward more toleration of the credo-baptist than most presbyterian groups.  We are working through how strongly we should welcome this camp amongst us, or maintain friendly fellowship in separate groups.  Many of our pastors are former Baptists.

 

 

A helpful tool could be to rate yourself on a scale of 1 (not me at all) to 4 (this is me) for each camp. 

I would “self-identify” as…

 

Culture-friendly – 2

Piety-minded – 3

Truly Reformed – 3

Reformed Baptist – 1

CREC - 4