Whenever I finish a book by James K. A. Smith, I feel encouraged, puzzled, and provoked. Perhaps that’s one reason I continue to read Smith’s books. I like when writers force me to think. Good books shift categories and reframe discussions in ways that shine light on truth from different angles.
Smith’s shortest book to date is Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition (Brazos, 2010)
Encouraged
I’ve counseled lots of guys who (1) grew up in typical evangelical churches, (2) went to college where they asked deep questions about their faith, (3) found in Calvinism some clear, seemingly biblical answers, and (4) came home ready to share their nuggets of wisdom with the rest of their congregation. I could probably put together my own collection of emails I’ve sent off to young Calvinists. (I should say younger Calvinists, since I still fancy myself as young!)
Much of Smith’s book overlaps nicely with the counsel I’ve given others. Most helpful is the warning against the sin of pridefulness. Humility should be the primary Calvinist virtue. Jamie writes:
“How strange that discovering the doctrines of grace should translate into haughty self-confidence and a notable lack of charity.” (xi)
“The way you talk in this most recent letter seems more concerned with pointing out what’s wrong with all the other Christians around you – especially our friends at church. I’ll be honest with you: it sometimes sounds like you think you’ve achieved some new secret knowledge, which somehow gives you license to mock those who don’t have it.” (6)
Right on. The last thing we need is a bunch of neo-Gnostic Calvinists impressed by their ability to read between the lines of Scripture until they can rightly discern all the ways of God.
Particularly helpful in Jamie’s warning against pride is his communal focus. He constantly prods his young Calvinist conversation partner toward the local church. Friends matter. The church matters. The church you grew up in, even if it is decidedly not Calvinistic, is the church God used as the instrument in your life to bring you to faith and shape your Christian character. You were loved into the kingdom. Jamie is right to remind us of our need to serve the church. I especially like this line of advice:
“What should you be doing to become a Reformed theologian? That’s easy: teach third-grade Sunday School.” (30)
Another positive aspect of this book is Jamie’s decision to begin his brief exposition of Reformed theology by emphasizing that everything is a gift, including our existence. “To be is to be graced.” (15) By speaking of grace that “goes all the way down,” he effectively reframes Calvinism as more than the doctrines of election and predestination. Instead, one must adopt a God-centered view of the world that widens the lens of Calvinism to all the earth, not just tulips.
Puzzled
As the book progressed, I found myself scratching my head at times, not quite sure regarding the direction Jamie wanted to take us. For example, in his letters about the wide scope of God’s redemptive work, Jamie writes:
“To say that God is concerned with more than the salvation of individual souls is not to say that he’s interested in less than the salvation of individuals.” (65)
He goes on:
“The you of God’s dealings is always an ‘us’. The gospel is always already a social gospel.” (68)
I think I agree with Jamie here, but I question the language he uses. Jamie prefaces his remarks about corporate salvation by insisting that individual salvation cannot and should not be undermined. I say something almost identical in Counterfeit Gospels.
But I don’t think it’s wise to call this a “social gospel.” Even if Jamie’s point is that God’s salvation incorporates us into the covenant community, the term “social gospel” has too many negative connotations for it to be a helpful description. There’s not enough room in this book for Jamie to further explore what he means here, which is why “social gospel” will throw up unnecessary red flags to conservatives on guard against last century’s liberal “social gospel” theology.
Another point that puzzles me is the way Jamie describes the storyline of the Bible. Granted, he traces the plot line in a way that emphasizes the covenant community (which is the subject of the letter this storyline appears in). But I fear this way of reading the Bible’s story is reductionistic:
The basic lineaments of the narrative are simple and unchanging: the Creator of the universe establishes norms and standards for his creatures (“the law”) and requires them to obey. In the face of their original disobedience, he doesn’t suspend those norms or standards; rather, he keeps calling humanity to that standard while at the same time graciously enacting countermeasures. But the call is the same: humanity, created in God’s image, is called to bear his image as Yahweh’s ambassadors, his vice-regents in the territory of creation, by continuing to unfold and unpack all the potential that has been folded into creation. And he calls us to do that well, in ways that accord with his norms and desire for the final flourishing of his creation “to the praise of his glorious grace” (Eph. 1:6). The core of the covenant remains the same. Unfortunately, our covenantal infidelity also remains constant – until the climax of the covenant when a Son of Mary lives up to the calling on our behalf, and then makes it possible for us, by grace, to live up to the covenant.” (74)
There’s nothing untrue in this summary of the Bible’s plotline. But the emphasis on the creation mandate appears to overshadow and even eclipse the weight of biblical testimony upon how the cross resolves our sin problem. If this is the major plot line of the Bible’s grand narrative, one wonders why so much of the covenant story deals with bloody sacrifices, the temple as the place of God’s presence, and the exile that is only ended when the Jesus – the true Israelite – lives, dies, and rises on our behalf.
Provoked
And then there is the underlying irony of this book that makes it difficult for me to recommend it to my young Calvinist friends. Despite his advocacy for a wider view of Reformed theology, Jamie takes an adversarial stance toward the young, restless, Reformed from the Westminster tradition.
While his desire to widen our view of Reformed theology is admirable (I too prefer the Heidelberg Catechism over Westminster), Jamie jabs at the Calvinists who want to “get people to toe the party line.” Included in this group are the Baptists (like myself) who may lean Reformed in certain aspects, and yet who are unashamedly Baptist in ecclesiology.
Jamie wants people to embrace Reformed theology as a full package, which includes infant baptism and Reformed ecclesiology. That simply won’t do for guys like me, and it’s the Reformed principle of sola Scriptura that keeps me from going there. I am beholden – not to Westminster, Heidelberg, or even the Baptist Faith and Message – but to Scripture above all. Jamie would surely agree with this conviction, but then he targets Westminster:
“The Westminster stream diminishes the catholicity of the Reformed tradition, so the ‘Calvinism’ that it articulates is just the sort of slimmed-down, extracted soteriology that can be basically detached and then inserted across an array of denominations.” (61)
The irony here is that – even as he assumes the role of peacemaker and advocate of big-tent Reformed theology – Jamie is actually narrowing “Reformed” in a way that excludes, rather than includes. He criticizes Westminster for diminishing catholicity, when it appears to me that Westminster-influenced Baptists, at least in this instance, have a greater understanding of the catholicity of the Christian church than he does. For all his talk against the party line and drawing lines about who’s in and who’s out, Jamie’s book is – at least at some level – an attempt to draw lines.
Conclusion
Encouraged, puzzled, and provoked. But overall, I believe Letters to a Young Calvinist contains good, pastoral insight into the pitfalls and promise of Reformed theology, even if I disagree with Smith in some of the particulars.
