Calvinism Everywhere: Preface to Series

Calvinism everywhere. That's my religion. And I'm sticking to it. Why? you ask. Well, because it's biblical, and it's everywhere. So here is a preface to the beginning of a series on Calvinism everywhere. It will not pretend to be comprehensive. But it will provide a significant sampling of the total scriptural witness.

The focus of this series of posts will be Judges through Chronicles. The reason for this focus is twofold: 1) this is mainly narrative; and 2) this is a neglected portion of holy writ. Now although many Christians in our time affirm the systematic statements concerning sovereignty of God found, say, in the epistles (e.g., Eph. 1:11, where God is said to be the one who works "all things after the counsel of his will"; see also Rom. 11:36), we characteristically don't see and acknowledge his sovereignty in the narrative and details of our unfolding lives, which lives are part of an unfolding narrative set on the grand stage of redemptive history. So this much neglected narrative portion of Scripture (Judges through Chronicles) sets God's sovereignty in bold relief against the backdrop of a storyline worked out in real history with the perspective of an "omniscient narrator." So it seems to me to be peculiarly helpful for the modern day American Christian who tends to view God's involvement in the world in a truncated and compartmentalized way. As this series unfolds, it will be clear how much we are actually out of step with Scripture in the way we think about God's presence, judgments, rule, care, and grace in our world.

One more exceedingly important word, a caveat really. When I say Calvinism, let it be crystal clear what I mean. I mean (and this is what I always mean and what I believe everyone should mean when using the technical term) what J. I. Packer means as set forth in his fine book A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (129): 

It would not be correct simply to equate Calvinism with the 'five points'. . . .  Calvinism is something much broader than the 'five points' indicate.  Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world's Maker and King. Calvinism is the consistent endeavor to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of his will. Calvinism is a theocentric way of thinking about all life under the direction and control of God's own word. Calvinism, in other words, is the theology of the Bible viewed from the perspective of the Bible—the God-centered outlook which sees the Creator as the source, and means, and end, of everything that is, both in nature and in grace. Calvinism is thus theism (belief in God as the ground of all things), religion (dependence on God as the giver of all things), and evangelicalism (trust in God through Christ for all things), all in their purest and most highly developed form. And Calvinism is a unified philosophy of history which sees the whole diversity of processes and events that take place in God's world as no more, and no less, than the outworking of his great preordained plan for his creatures and his church. The five points assert no more than that God is sovereign in saving the individual, but Calvinism, as such, is concerned with the much broader assertion that he is sovereign everywhere.

Now that's a definition of Calvinism that ought to not only become modern parlance but also ought to get into our bloodstream. And feel free to call it something else, if you please, like Augustinianism. But let's be clear what we mean when we throw these terms around. In any case, Calvinism is just shorthand for robust, high octane, good old fashioned biblical Christianity, as taught by Jesus and his prophets and apostles.