New Calvinism

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

Responding to criticism and the role of the radio show

My name is Mike Abendroth, and I have a policy, and that policy is pretty rigid, pretty fixed, pretty strict, pretty literal, and that is I don't respond on Facebook, in the comments, on blogs, in the comments.

I don't get involved in those kind of things, but I read them. My daughter has a Facebook account, so I'm on her account looking at things that she posts and stuff like that, and then I see things. And of course, you can just go to the Facebook site, even if you don't have Facebook, and go to No Compromise Radio's site, and you can just look, right?

You can just, I don't think you're going to interact, but you can look. And so, sometimes I like to see what people say, and of course, my pride, I want the good comments, but I get some negative comments.

I got some negative comments over at Worldview Weekend's site, not from Brannon, but one of his listeners, because if you, for some people, if you're not King James only, you're in trouble. So, I think in that, I think they said there that I was, Steve and I, on one of the Tuesday shows we did, we were irreverent wannabe comedians, maybe.

I guess out of the 1 ,500 shows that we've done, maybe there's one where we've been irreverent wannabe comedians. It could be true, right? It absolutely could be true. So, I think we say up front, don't we, this show might not be for you.

If you don't like irreverent wannabe comedians on Tuesday, you ought not to listen. All right, what do we have up for today? By the way, I don't, like I said, I don't respond to those things, and, you know, the good news, I guess, is as No Compromise Radio's footprint increases, so do the wackies.

I got an email, a letter the other day, I think it's posted online too, somebody posted some letter to Mike Avenderoff, some compromising person that I am. I'm a modern, he said I was a modern pastor.

Post-modern pastor, post-Christian pastor, I don't know, I'd like to know how many, I'd like to, you know what? Here's the thing, if you're struggling with No Compromise Radio, and you're just tuning in to see what you don't like this week about the ministry, or me, or something else, would you go to our website, bbcchurch .org, would you go to the YouTube channel, the No Compromise Radio channel, the Bethlehem Bible Church channel, and just watch the Romans sermons, and or listen.

The Ruth series. I think you would have a different perspective on things, and remember, there are certain compartments in life, and I talked to Carl Truman about this as well, there's the dad compartment where I'm a dad and try to act like a dad, there's the husband compartment and I try to act like a husband to my wife, there's a neighbor compartment, there's a friend compartment, there's a preaching compartment, there's a, I'm a member of a church with everybody else compartment, and so on Sunday mornings, while occasionally I might say something about Catholicism or church growth or something like that, I think it's rare for me to name names.

I don't often name names. I think maybe when I was younger and didn't have No Compromise Radio as an outlet, couldn't bear things, couldn't get them off my chest, I had no forum, I never had any way to, I didn't have any other way to take care of these things than maybe, but I think fewer Sunday mornings, maybe sometimes on Sunday nights because only the elect of course show up on Sunday nights.

Where are you on Sunday nights? That's a good question. If your church body has a Sunday night worship service, do you show up? All right, so back to this, I'd hate to be stepping on people's toes. I have also No Compromise Radio and so it's always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

Honestly, since I can't and don't have the preaching gifts and skills and the rhetorical acumen of some folks, MacArthur or others, why would you listen to me? Why would you listen to me preach? Well, if you're a member here at the church, you'd listen to me because your kids can't go up to John MacArthur and grab his leg and say, this is my pastor, you can't do that.

So I guess if you're at a big church that has video screens, you can't do that either. But there's more to me than No Compromise Radio, but when I do No Compromise Radio, I usually have a little, I have a tact, I have a strategy, I have a plan.

And so that's why we don't have sermons every day, right? So some people, that's their radio ministry, every day is a sermon. Listen, I like that. I could listen to MacArthur all day long, as it was Johnson all day long, but this is more talk.

This is talk. This is talk with a kick. This is a monster drink talk. Actually, I'm stuck these days because some want me to be harder on people and some want me to be softer. So occasionally I'll have to say, listen, you know, there are other ministries out there that they're just radio ministries and that's their ministry.

It's fine. It's good. It's dandy. But I'm also a pastor. And so as much as I might want to just go ballistic on something, I tone it down usually. So just think about if I didn't tone it down, wouldn't that be amazing?

Okay, what else? So by the way, so if you don't like No Compromise Radio, I would like it if you would be blessed through the preaching ministry here at Bethlehem Bible Church and Sunday schools and IBS classes and all that stuff, bbcchurch .org.

I think you'd hear a lot about Jesus and you'd go, yeah, you know what, I could talk about Linger Conference today. Here's what I'll say about the Linger Conference. What kind of name is that? Just who wouldn't linger?

I mean, without knowing much about it, it just seems like let's just stick around. I did read about the Linger Rooms open. You just linger around and then what? I mean, I come from, I at least live in, you know, I live super close to Walden Pond.

So we don't linger around Walden Pond because that would be not Thoreau-ian, Utah-ian, Utahns. This would not be like Henry David Thoreau. Did anybody ever read Walden Pond or they just read the Cliff Note version?

I'm not sure. Anyway, he saunters, right? You can even get those bumper stickers at the Feministic Gift Shop. Although it's pretty fun to swim in the pond there. It's cool to do that in the winter, of course, and it's fun to do it in the summer.

Saunter. It's the Saunter Room. I don't know. I don't know. Does this linger? I don't know who makes up those conference names. Of course, every conference I speak at, if they ask me to come speak, it's always called No Compromise.

Am I painting myself into the proverbial corner? Oh, see, that is the problem. That's the problem with No Compromise Radio. Just by theme, by name, by everything else, you know, that's why I've got to teach some positive things.

The imputation of Christ's righteousness and how to understand sin and what is confession, what about the soon return of Christ, all that. So I want to do a big series on covenant and dispensationalism someday, someday when I have time to study.

Right now, I'm working on this S. Louis Johnson Romans commentary. It's killing me. Time Magazine, not that long ago, 2009, Scheme of Things, named New Calvinism the third most powerful idea. Huh, okay.

Ten ideas changing the world right now. Number three, the New Calvinism. David Van Bianca, if I can read this print that's not very bright, if I misspoke his name, sorry, if you really want to follow, he says in Time Magazine, the development of conservative Christianity, track its musical hits.

It's interesting. In the early 1900s, you might have heard of the old rugged cross, a celebration of the atonement. By the 1980s, you could have shared the Jesus is my buddy intimacy of a shine Jesus shine.

And today, more and more top songs feature a God who is very big. While we are, well, Hark the David Crowder band, I am full of earth. You are heaven's worth. I am stained with dirt, prone to depravity.

Calvinism is back according to Time Magazine. And not just musically, John Calvin's 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy your way out of purgatory excesses is evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utter sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity.

I mean, can you believe this is in Time Magazine and the combinations logical consequence? What is the logical consequence? Since man is depraved and God is sovereign, predestination, the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save or not unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.

You know what? Here's what I have to say. I have to say that's pretty good. So far, I'm liking this. I'm liking this better than most books and most blogs that I have read or probably will read. Calvinism's cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim.

It offers a rock steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness. And then it says, our home foreclosure. By logic, we may not understand, but don't have to second guess. Now skip the foreclosure comment, but I like it that it says we don't have to doubt.

Right? You don't have to understand, but you don't have to second guess. Our satisfaction and our purpose is fulfilled simply by glorifying him. In the 1900s, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards invested Calvinism with a rapturous near mysticism.

That's this guy's got it. Yet it was soon overtaken in the U .S. by movements like Methodism that were more impressed with human will. Calvinistic descendant, I mean, I won't talk about Whitefield's Methodism, but that's right, still pretty good.

Calvinistic descended liberal bodies like the Presbyterian USA discovered other emphases while evangelicalism's loss of appetite for rigid doctrine and the triumph of that friendly fuzzy Jesus seemed to relegate hardcore reformed preaching.

Reformed operates as a loose synonym for Calvinist to a few crotchety Southern churches. Mike Abendroth today, 10 ideas changing the world right now. No more. Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don't operate quite on Rick Warren's scale, but notes Ted Olson, a managing editor at Christianity Today, everyone knows where the energy and passion are in the evangelical world.

With the pioneering new Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle's pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Al Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention, the Calvinistic flavored ESV study Bible sold out its first printing and reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christiandom's hottest links.

Pretty good. Like the Calvinists, more moderate evangelicals are exploring cures for the movement's doctrinal drift but can't offer the same blanket assurance. A lot of young people grew up in a culture of brokenness, divorce, drugs, or sexual temptation, says Colin Hansen, author of Young, Restless, Reformed.

They have plenty of friends. What they need is a God. Mohler says the moment someone begins to define God's being or actions biblically, that person is drawn to conclusions that are traditionally classified as Calvinist.

Of course, that presumption of inevitability has drawn accusations of arrogance and divisiveness since Calvin's time. Indeed, some of today's enthusiasts imply that non-Calvinists may actually not be Christians.

Skirmishes among Southern Baptists who have a competing non-Calvinist camp and online flame wars broke badly. Calvin's 500th birthday will be July and that's back in the day. So Time Magazine, The New Calvinism, 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now, which leads me here on No Compromise Radio.

Always positive, always encouraging, always in that order. Here, Time Magazine article is addressed by Mark Driscoll. Now, this was some time ago when he did this, but it's popped up again when I was reading an Uprising .org article about Piper and Venable of Hip Hop Together at the Linger Conference.

Why does John Piper linger at this kind of conference? Lingering at Linger. The lingering effect of lingering at Linger. Linger. Now, here's what I'd like to talk about. That was all an introduction, see?

Pastoral introduction. If I was grading that at Southern Seminary's preaching class, I would give that an F. Not because of content, but because it was too long. Time to text. This Sunday, just see how fast you're pastor and make sure it's an average because there are certain exceptions.

But I like this little rule, time to text. T-T-T. Time to text. How long does it take your pastor to get to the text? If he has 40 minutes to preach, how many minutes does it take for him to open his Bible and start explaining what God says when he gets up to preach?

Mark Driscoll’s four reasons New Calvinism is powerful

Here's what Driscoll says. Four ways New Calvinism is so powerful. So he is addressing Time Magazine's recognition of New Calvinism's power, and then he wants to parse it out a little bit more because we don't really have a lot of this in the Time Magazine article, even though I love the article and can't believe I missed it years ago.

Ryan didn't send it to me. Four ways New Calvinism is so powerful. Mark Driscoll. I think this must be Acts 29 website, the old days. You just type in Time Magazine names, New Calvinism, third most powerful idea, Mark Driscoll, and you will get it.

Number one, this is New Calvinism versus old. Old Calvinism was fundamental or liberal and separated from or syncretized with culture. New Calvinism is missional and seeks to create and redeem culture.

2K. That was my only response, 2K. Van Droonen. I need to have my brother on the radio show and we could be two wannabe comedian brothers. You know, what's worse than two wannabe comedians that are irreverent is two irreverent wannabe comedian brothers.

So you have to go to OmahaBibleChurch .org and pull up some sermons if you'd like some good Bible preaching, Christ-centered Bible preaching. Okay, I don't want to talk too much about that right now.

We'll save that. If I run out of time, fine. I mean, old Calvinism was liberal or fundamental. Okay. Old Calvinism fled from the cities. I don't think it fled. I think as our demographics have moved as a country toward the city, I don't know what the number is, 75 of people, 80%.

I've heard there's no fleeing. There's no we as a movement need to flee. It's just everybody was leaving the cities, going to the suburbs, going to the country. Are they living in the country? You know, that kind of thinking.

New Calvinism is flooding into cities. No, I think new Calvinism is flooding everywhere. It's flooding all kinds of people. Talk to MacArthur and Moeller, you know, this is like a revival of unprecedented proportions.

Old Calvinism is number four. I'm going to skip number three because I'd like to camp on three. Old Calvinism was fearful and suspicious of other Christians and burned bridges. New Calvinism loves all Christians and builds bridges between them.

I'm speechless. Number three. I don't think old, I mean, it's a caricature and it's a generalization. Some of it hits true. What do you mean burn bridges? Because they stood up for truth? You mean like J. Gresham Machen?

He was an old Calvinist. But here's the one that I particularly do not like. This is the one that sticks in my craw, or as we say here in New England, sticks in my craw. I'm going to have to have my craw looked at because there's a lot of things sticking into these days.

How do you do radio every day of the week? Sadly, open up your computer and there you go. Internet, Time Magazine, Acts 29. Oh, you could open your Bible too, right? I just did that thing on Isaiah 6, though, so come on, help me.

Positive encouraging. You could also, if you don't want to listen to no-compromise radio, you can listen to our sermons online. You could get, you know, one of my books and send in your donations. Well, let's put it this way.

Until you send large donations that are big enough to bribe us into the direction you'd like to see the show go, you get what you pay for. I run the show. When there's no money sent in, I do what I want.

When there's big bills sent in, you can do that. You make the call. Actually, someone from Indiana just sent us some money at no-compromise radio, said we listen on iTunes, we appreciate the ministry.

Thank you. How cool is that? You've got to figure out how to send it to Bethlehem Bible Church because you can't figure out how to get it here. So, here it is. Number three, Mark Driscoll, responding to Time Magazine, Calvinism's third most powerful idea.

Why it's so powerful? Well, he said, it used to be fundamental, now it redeems and it's missional. It used to be away from the cities, now it's in the cities. It used to be fearful and suspicious and now it's just ignorant and accepting.

Did I say that? I didn't say that, of course. And number three, the third way, new Calvinism is so powerful. Old Calvinism was cessationistic, they were cessationists, and fearful of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

New Calvinism is continuationist and joyful in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Could there be anything more wrong? This isn't true at all. I have not met, I met a lot of people, but I've never met a Calvinist, an old school Calvinist who said, I'm fearful of the presence of the Holy Spirit and of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Because old school Calvinist, biblical theologians, they know how important the presence of the Holy Spirit is in regeneration, in illumination, in revelation, when God was revealing Himself in Scripture, in dwelling, sealing, fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Who doesn't want the ministry of the Holy Spirit pointing people to Christ Jesus, showing them His meaning of Scripture? Nobody's afraid of the Holy Spirit. I've never been afraid of the Holy Spirit in the sense that, well, I don't want to talk about the Holy Spirit, I'd preach a couple sermons, what if the Holy Spirit left Bethlehem Bible Church?

Well, what would happen? Well, nobody could understand their Bibles. I'd preach about myself and not Jesus. Everybody'd lose their salvation. Nobody would get saved. I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

And so, Reformed theologians, read John Owen on the Holy Spirit. I think most people would classify him as an old school Calvinist. And read what Owen says about the Holy Spirit. It's completely against this.

And we're fearful of the power of the Holy Spirit? I think old school Calvinists were fearful of people who abused their own power, set up psychosomatic and or demonic and or, you know, parlor trick deals, saying it attributed and attributed to the Holy Spirit.

I think we were afraid of that. I'm afraid of that today, where people say, the Holy Spirit did this, and then we figure out that it doesn't match up to anything that was in the New Testament. People calling themselves apostles today, they can't do what apostles did then.

People say they speak in tongues today, it doesn't match up to the New Testament gift of speaking in tongues. People say they have the gift of healings today and miracles and signs and wonders, but it doesn't match up at all.

People say they prophesy today and it's errant prophecy and it doesn't match up. Nothing there is continuing. But the Spirit of God, He does continue. He is alive and He is active and He's the third member of the triune God, and without the Spirit of God, there's going to be no Christ-centered preaching.

What does He do? He bears witness to Jesus, and so when you think about the Spirit's ministry, show me a Spirit-filled church, and I'll show you a church that focuses on Jesus Christ. Nobody's afraid of the Holy Spirit.

We need the Spirit of God. And this is where I think you get these arguments. Of course, everybody, I've said dumb things too, but here it is. Still, you just pull it up and find it. I think, no, this is the poor way to win an argument.

You can say, old Calvinism was cessationistic, it's true. New Calvinism is continuationist. Okay, agreed, granted. What if I said, old Calvinism was cessationist, and new Calvinism always blasphemed the Spirit of God by attributing to it, to Him, see, look at me, to Him, things that are irreverent and sacrilegious and aren't biblical.

It's just the same kind of arguments. We have to go back and approach it a different way. The good news is, God is sovereign, and He is working, and He is doing great things, and we have the Holy Spirit today.

I'm glad I have His presence and His power.

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio, with Pastor Mike Abendroth, is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church, firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.