Lately, you've been talking a lot about new Calvinism, Pastor John, a phrase which appears

to have been coined back in 2007 or 2008 by Crossway Books, Titling Committee, as they

were thinking about subtitles for Colin Hanson's book, Young Restless Reform, a journalist

journey with the new Calvinists, and the phrase was born.

It's a phrase that has become part of our vocabulary over the years since, and obviously

this new Calvinism is built on a long legacy of old Calvinism.

So explain this further for us, and in your mind, Pastor John, what's new about new Calvinism?

Well, the first thing I would say is that what the new Calvinism has in common with the

older Calvinism is a thousand times more important than what makes it different.

That's the most important thing to say, probably, the truth is not new.

And the truth is the root and the ground of all the applications new and old.

But the doctrines of grace, summed up in the five points, the five solas of the Reformation,

the sovereignty of God over all our suffering, the supremacy of an infallible scriptures,

over all tradition, all these are common and supremely precious, old and new.

That's the first thing I would say.

The commonalities that define the truth dimension of Calvinism, old and new, are vastly more

important than the distinctions.

Here's the second thing I'd say.

Any attempt to describe the new Calvinism as distinct from the old is almost certainly

going to run into historical contradictions because the older Calvinism goes back so

far, so many centuries, and has found expression in hundreds of different forms and cultures

and emphases and strategies and personalities.

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