I recently turned 23 a few weeks ago. A small milestone, and really not all that important a year or an age. But with a new year brings a new season of personal change.
Starting at a new school, getting deeper in my job, and closing an era of my life after four years of service has put me in a state of contemplation and reflection on my life the past few years and the life that is now before me. Things that I wish to change, things that I want to stay the same, and things that I want to see come about (i.e. marriage) run through my mind and, given where God has placed me in the present time, are examined. Undoubtedly, this means that my theology about God comes under a similar scrutiny, and over the past few months a conviction has arisen that I felt the need to write about: I am ready to move on from the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement.
It’s not that I think the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement has been a negative time of my life from me. Far from it, in fact; I have been blessed by it in numerous ways, and I have seen others blessed as well. It’s also not to say that I think ill of the movement; no movement within Christiandom has been free of mistakes or blemishes, and only the naive think that the YRR movement doesn’t have its shortcomings. Intellectual and personal immaturity is a common charge against the movement and I have (and will be) guilty of both. But just as one realizes that it’s time to begin swimming in the deep end, I have realized that, theologically, its time I grow up and move beyond TULIP, Piper, and all the other staples of this movement that I have identified myself with for the past few years.
Swimming in the deep end is a scary thing. If you’ve not done it before, you undoubtedly realize you need help. Once I realized that there was more to my faith than TULIP and wearing the Calvinist badge - that the Reformed belief system goes much deeper and spans a larger horizon - the once-confident-that-he-knows-everything Calvinist realized that he is a guppy in an aquarium of sharks. Mostly nice sharks - but still sharks that can swallow you in one bite.
So I dive into the aquarium of the confessions, of the creeds, of the history of the church, of paedobaptism and credobaptism (of which I presently hold the latter), of understanding the covenants, of many other things that I presently had not considered, and my mouth is silenced. I am not the expert in this area I once claimed to be. If anything I know nothing at all. Wrestling with the Westminster Confession of Faith, reading through Michael Horton’s “The Christian Faith” (which I cannot recommend enough), and struggling through Calvin’s Institutes with my church family has been one heck of a smack in the face of humility. Not that I have become pride-less, as my flesh would be happy to bring that out in me, but any confidence of theological boasting I once had isn’t quite what it used to be.
I realize that, demographically and practically, I am still a member of the Young, Restless and Reformed movement. Whether or not others identify me with it is irrelevant to me. There is still plenty of good hearted joking, rimshots and facepalming to be had (those darn "predestinated" jokes never get old or good). But, as far as my conscious before Christ is concerned, I am willing to re-enter the cage - albeit a much different cage from my Calvinist cage days - to submit myself to learning and listening, knowing that for every day I learn something new that there is a whole year of potential learning, falling, failing, and rising to be had. And not just learning for the sake of my own personal gain, but learning for the sake of blessing and benefitting others, sheathing the sword of debate only to draw it more infrequently than before. The old is gone; behold, the new slowly cometh.
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