‘Jonathan Edwards is my homeboy’ may not carry quite the same ring as Sola Fide, but as a rallying cry for the faithful it blazoned on a recent front cover of Christianity Today. Inside, the leader told the story of an emerging network of young, restless and Reformed Christians. What’s going on?
For some while now, John Piper (http://www.desiringgod.org) has advocated a passionate return to Reformed principles through his now well-known mantra of ‘God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him’. A self-styled ‘divine hedonist’, Piper has appealed to a whole new generation of evangelicals through the Passion conferences that stoke the flames of ardour for God, within a classically biblical (and Jonathan Edwards influenced) framework.
Together for the gospel
More recently, a couple of other pieces have fallen into place. Al Mohler became the President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s flagship Theological Seminary, Southern Theological Seminary in Louisville. Long recognised as an important engine of developing new pastoral leadership in the largest Protestant denomination in the world, Mohler began to recruit Reformed (and Conservative) seminary professors, several of whom hailed before from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (where Don Carson teaches).
