"Young, Restless, and Reformed"

One of the books that has been on my "to-read" list for quit some time has been Christianity Today writer Colin Hansen's book Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists.  Anyone that has kept up with young Evangelicals will quickly find that there are basically two leading movements.  Since the writing of this book (2008) one group has sort of plateaued, or at least become less significant (apart from books that cause quit a stir only to fade like Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith and the more recent Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived), while the other seems to only continue to grow taking over entire seminaries (like the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), conferences (like Together for the Gospel and the Gospel Coalition), publishers (like Crossway Books), and leading pulpits (like John MacArthur's Grace Community Church among many others).

The two groups are the Emergent Church (or whatever you may want to call it now) and what has been called the New Calvinists.  Hanson notes that while a lot of attention has been given to the Emergent Church over the years, little has been said in comparison to the New Calvinists.  In his book, Hansen seeks to explore some of the leading churches, voices, leaders, and institutions fueling this new movement.

Hansen highlights what ought to be highlighted.  Though pastor and best-selling author John Piper at times dominates the book, he is right in beginning with him, his books, and his church.  In addition to Piper, however, Hansen highlights Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. and the institution he leads (and I attend as a student), the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Mark Driscoll, the Passion conference/worship movement, Covenant-Life Church lead by CJ Mahaney and Josh Harris, among others.

Hansen's goal is to offer a journalists look at this movement, not to necessarily critique or broadly discuss its theology.  If one wants to understand more fully what the New Calvinists believe (um, Calvinism?) then there are plenty of books written by them to find out.  Hansen writes as a journalists reporting what he sees.  Thus he attends campus, churches, and conferences.  He interviews leaders and average New Calvinists to really understand what this movement is all about and why it is growing.

This is a helpful book especially to those wanting to know more about the movement.  Though I do not particularly enjoy books by journalists like this, I still consider this an important read.  It is a short book that highlights much of what needs to be highlight.  Hansen says little to nothing about persons like Kevin DeYoung, Tim Keller, DA Carson, the Gospel Coalition, Crossway Books (who published the book), other institutions & schools, the rise of Calvinism in denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention, etc.  Simply put, there is no way he could have discusses these in any detail.  There is just too much.  Hansen does, however, pick the most important highlights and discusses them.

Just as the book Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger and maybe even The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier by Emergent leader Tony Jones are imperative to read in order to get a basic understanding of the Emerging Church, so too this book is imperative to read for anyone wanting to get a basic understanding of the New Calvinists movement and its appeal. 

Lets face it, twenty years ago few saw this coming and now it is a force to be reckoned with.  Hansen helps to show us why.