Austin Fischer, Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed (Cascade Books, 2014).
Many young Christians throughout the last decade have been on a similar journey. They have faith in Jesus Christ, a passion to share God’s love with the world, and a desire to grow deeper spiritually. As they seek to grow, they encounter writers like John Piper, David Platt, R.C. Sproul, and J.I. Packer who challenge them to exchange a comfortable middle-class American gospel for a gospel that magnifies God’s glory. These Christians go to Passion conferences, listen to Lecrae, and fill rooms on college campuses at RUF and Campus Outreach gatherings. These young Christians are on a journey towards Calvinism.[1]
The journey towards Calvinism, New Calvinism, Neo-Calvinism, Neo-Puritanism, Reformed theology—whatever you prefer to call it—is one that I was on throughout college.
As I journeyed, I discovered the centrality of scripture, the depravity of humanity, and the beauty of the undeserved grace of God. Yet, I never arrived at the destination of being convinced that the Reformed understanding of God and his work in this world was true.
Austin Fischer, author of Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed, did arrive at this destination. When he arrived, he soon discovered a God who was primarily concerned with glory—a God who valued self-glorification even above the salvation of others. Austin discovered a God whose nature and work in the world did not connect to the ways humans conceived of love, justice, and goodness. Ultimately, he found himself in a relationship with a God who didn’t look like the Jesus found in the gospels. And so he began the challenging task of leaving one destination to journey towards another unknown one.
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[1] See Colin Hansen’s Young, Restless, and Reformed (Crossway, 2008) or Time’s article on “The New Calvinism” for more details about this modern incarnation of Reformed theology.