Is Reformed Alternative Reality?

One of the fastest growing traditions among younger evangelicals right now is the reformed movement heralded by spokespersons like John Piper, Al Mohler, and Mark Driscoll. My friend Lucas has some good thoughts, which have got me thinking too about why the reformed tradition is catching so much momentum. One of Lucas' ideas is that Calvinism is strong because we live in a pluralistic society therefore a close-system religion is powerful. You don't have to listen or worry about anything else when you have all the answers, which 5 point Calvinism seems to do for evangelicals by providing answers for everything.

Here's my thoughts on why the reformed tradition has grown in strength for younger evangelicals. As the church, we live in a parallel and alternative reality to that which surround us. We are parallel in the sense that we live in the same world where we go to work, eat, sleep, send our children to school, and such. As a missional community though, we are to be different. The difference is our reality is shaped by a different narrative which takes its forms in song, sermon, community, ritual, tradition, doctrine, and beliefs that allow us to understand our reality so that when we face the alternative reality of the world, we can live counter-culturally.

Within our churches though, we find that our worship is informed and baptize by world. We've allowed culture to shape our ritual and song. This is why I think the reformed tradition is so strong. Within the reformed church you don't have to live alternatively, because your doctrine is very defined. Therefore, alternative reality takes shape in belief, but not practice. It's then easy to succumb to the "world's values of materialism and experiential consumerism, of narcissistic self importance, and personal taste, of solitary superficiality, and of ephemeral satisfaction (Dawn, A Royal Waste of Time, 335)."

Any community that desires to delineate itself and live a substantively different life from larger society must surround itself and maintain its own language, customs, habits, rituals, institutions, procedures, and practices that uphold this alternative reality. In this manner, the alternative life is nurtured and and encouraged in the face of pluralism. I think younger reformed evangelicals are doing the same thing that people in the emerging church are doing by looking at the church and seeing that it has failed to live in an alternative reality and thus lost all impact. Instead of reinventing the church for a pluralistic world though, the reformed movement allows for Calvinistic language and its alternative reality to effect itself in dogma. Orthodoxy is once again king, and orthopraxy is only secondary.

We must define and live in our alternative reality by knowing our story and practicing our rituals. It is easy to live in a tradition that has defined itself so narrowly and only reaches back 350 years. This is not an indictment to all reformed churches, but only an explanation of my viewpoint of why Calvinism has grown so strong as of late, especially among the younger materialistic, democratic, narcissistic generation that is my own.