I’ve recently been spending a lot of time studying Reformed Theology, often referred to as Calvinism. The fundamental difference between this view of Christianity and what I think of as the “popular” view is that God is in charge, God is sovereign. He chooses. He draws. He saves. The “popular” view says that we have free will, that we participate in our own salvation by choosing.
I believe that the Reformed Theology is correct, that we can’t have the power to somehow thwart God. But whether I’m right or not will have to wait for another day, another post, another discussion. What I want to write about today is the fact that I struggle with Reformed Theology because, as John Piper puts it, we have lost the passion of it. To me it seems so “hard,” intellectual, and often elite.
I recently listened to a John Piper presentation about Augustine. He called for reformers to return to the passion of Augustine, to live, feel, teach, and preach that loving God with passion is the antidote for sin, indifference, and elitism. He said that we shouldn’t be teaching people to refrain from sin because it’s wrong but because it is a cheap replacement for the magnificent realities of following God.
Oh, to have that kind of passion for Jesus!
