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Reformed and Evangelical
by Lee Irons
It’s good to see that there are still some Reformed people these days who embrace the label “evangelical” (see the posts by Stephen Nichols and Sean Lucas on the Ref21 site). I don’t sympathize with the Reformed trend that utterly scorns and detests the label. I have no desire to set myself apart as a “Reformed Confessionalist” who has nothing in common with evangelicalism. This separatist attitude is wrong for several reasons:
(1) It smacks of spiritual pride and elitism. I consider myself to be a Christian first, then a Protestant, then an evangelical, and only then Reformed. To exalt ”Reformed” über alles is to downplay our central identity as Christians. To exalt the Reformed confessions is to downplay the primary New Testament confession that “Jesus is Lord.” I’m not a Reformed person who happens to be a Christian. I’m a blood-bought Christian who happens to believe in the Reformed understanding of the gospel. And I do not view myself as a superior Christian for having this belief. It is only by the grace of God that I understand what I do of the grace of God, and even then I betray it all too often in my practice.
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1 comment:
This is one of the few places where I disagree with Irons and side rather with Clark.
We define ourselves as confessional protestants because the meaning of evangelicalism has been changed, and no efforts to "use it in it's historical sense" will change it's current use. We do not/cannot have the power to change common parlance.
We likewise cannot be christians first because "christian" is likewise used by everyone and his brother to describe any particular form of it that they choose, wether LDS, Wesleyan, or Roman.
The spirit of what Irons is saying here is very good, sweet, and admirable, but a bit idealistic.
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