What kind of "Reformed" are you?
(Post-Reformed Redux)
Are you...

• a Reformed catholic? (emphasis on small "c" for our purposes.)


• a Reformed Evangelical?


• a Reformed Puritan?


• Reformed? What's "Reformed"... Somebody who went to reform school?
  

The above question and the options offered come from two strands.

The first strand goes back a month or so to Tim Etherington's attempt to put some definition to the term "Post-Reformed", a term for which he was taken rather severely to task, and which term he recanted, though not recanting the ideas he was seeking to label. The new label became Compassionate Calvinism which did catch at least the spirit of Tim's concerns; concerns that I also share and enter in to.

The second strand came into play when I came across an old e-mail from an old friend, the friend who was used of God years ago to introduce me to the Doctrines of Grace and Reformed theology in general. In that Christmas e-mail of several years ago is the following:

"You are probably wondering if I've reverted back to a Puritan Scrooge?? Nah. Never happen. I am a very contented confirmed Reformed Catholic. In fact, I'm almost a confirmed Reformed Orthodox..."

By the way, the friend who made this statement is a Presbyterian Pastor in the PCA.

So there is the multiple choice question, and the answers that I believe get down to some of the issues that were of concern and discussion in the "Post-Reformed" debacle. I now better understand why I never really fit in at our former church. It was Reformed Puritan in perspective, and this round Reformed Evangelical never could really fit, nor wanted to fit, that square hole.

What kind of "Reformed" are you? It is my thesis that how you answer this question has direct bearing on how you view and understand semper reformanda...

Sola Deo Gloria,

~ The Billy Goat ~