The Global Church Era · c. 1998-present · N. America, then global (digital)
New Calvinism (Young, Restless, Reformed)
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About This Movement
In September 2006 Christianity Today ran a piece by Collin Hansen called 'Young, Restless, Reformed', and it gave a name to something already under way: a wave of younger American evangelicals adopting Reformed theology, organized through networks rather than through denominations. Its most-cited earlier text was John Piper's Desiring God (1986). Its church-planting turn came earlier than its name — Mars Hill in Seattle in 1996, and the Acts 29 network founded in 1998 by David Nicholas with Mark Driscoll — and its institutional wave came after: The Gospel Coalition, initiated by D. A. Carson and Tim Keller in 2004, first meeting in 2005, launched with its Confessional Statement in 2007; Together for the Gospel, whose first conference was in 2006. It ran on conferences, seminaries and publishing rather than on denominations, and it crossed a great many of them. Hansen's book followed in 2008.
Sources
- Collin Hansen, 'Young, Restless, Reformed' (Christianity Today, September 2006) and Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists (Crossway, 2008) (primary) — Participant journalism — the author later took office in one of the movement's own institutions, a real connection named here rather than hidden.
- The Gospel Coalition foundation documents: the Confessional Statement and Theological Vision of Ministry (initiated 2004–05 by Carson and Keller; launched, with the confession adopted, in 2007) (primary) — The movement's dated own-voice statement; the commonly cited 'founded 2005' resolves as initiated 2004, first meeting 2005, launch 2007.
- John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986); Together for the Gospel conference records (from 2006, ended 2022); Desiring God and 9Marks media (primary) — The wider own-voice corpus; editions and the T4G dates from standard reference.
- The Acts 29 and Mars Hill record: Acts 29 founded 1998 (Nicholas with Driscoll; incorporated 2000); Mars Hill Seattle 1996; Driscoll's 2012 handoff of the Acts 29 presidency to Chandler; Acts 29's published removal of Driscoll and Mars Hill (August 2014); the dissolution announcement of 31 October 2014 (primary) — Dated institutional record about living people — founding dates, organizational actions and published statements only.
- Christianity Today, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill (podcast, Mike Cosper, 2021, 12 episodes) (primary) — A dated published journalistic account; the key public record of the collapse, and of how it connects to the deconstruction and ex-vangelical current.
- Brad Vermurlen, Reformed Resurgence: The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle over American Evangelicalism (Oxford, 2020) (secondary) — The current's one dedicated scholarly monograph found to date.