Our Present Sufferings. Paul speaks of “the sufferings of this present time,” not “the suffering.” He’s speaking of “the time” between Jesus’ resurrection and return. In the “present time” we experience “the sufferings” of persecution at the hands of the world and the devil. “Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13). Ministers experience “the sufferings” of being “jars of clay . . . afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; stuck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:7–9). Added to these are all “the sufferings” we experience because Adam’s sin caused the world to be a fallen place: women’s suffering in childbirth and men’s suffering agony in the course of their work (Gen. 3:16–19). “The suffering” of a fallen world include hunger and loneliness, illness and disease, and the sorrow of death.
Our Future Glory. In contrast, Paul speaks of “the glory that is to be revealed to us.” He’s just said in Romans 8:17 that we’re united to Christ in His suffering and glory. What Jesus experienced as Son we, too, will experience as sons. Think of kids playing with modeling clay or Play-Doh. How do they know how to transform it into a whale, a tiger, or a person? They either have a picture in their minds or in front of them. Jesus is that picture, we’re the clay, and God is the molder. One day, the ultimate experience of fellowship with God will be “revealed” when He glorifies and “transform[s] our lowly bod[ies] to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). When Paul “consider[s] the[se] sufferings” in light of “glory,” he says they “are not worth comparing.” Our sufferings are earthly; God’s glory is eternal. Our sufferings are temporal; God’s glory is eternal. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). Our sufferings are as light on a scale as a feather compared to an elephant, are as insignificant as a dot compared to extending lines with arrows on a number line.
Groaning For Glory (Rom. 8:19–27) 
Creation’s Groan (Rom. 8:19–22). Paul illustrates that this age’s sufferings aren’t worth comparing with glory “because the creation waits with eager longing” (Rom. 8:19). The image is of someone lifting up their head, longing to see something on the horizon, as one might climb a hill in the morning to see the sunrise. What does creation long to see? “The revealing of the sons of God.” All creation waits for us to enter glorious, face-to-face fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Why is creation groaning? “For” or “because the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it” (Rom. 8:20). Something happened to change creation: it became “subjected to futility,” reflecting Genesis 3, where God cursed the ground to produce “thorns and thistles.” Creation no longer lives up to its promise. It’s become “vanity, vanity” (Eccl. 1:2). Everything seems pointless, meaningless, and futile. We know the frustration of not living up to our potential, but this is frustration on a cosmic scale. The creation was “subjected . . . not willingly” but passively; the active cause was “him who subjected it”: God.
He isn’t the author of futility, but He executed His curse because of Adam’s sin. Creation’s subjection is not God’s fault. Like a parent who makes terrible choices stunting the emotional, social, and spiritual growth of their children, so with Adam and all human beings who descend from him by ordinary generation. God, though, didn’t place a curse on creation for cursing’s sake; He did so “in hope” (Rom. 8:20). God placed in the DNA of creation itself this hope: “that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). Bondage now, freedom then; corruption now, renewal then; futility now, glory then. Paul summarizes in verse 22: “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” Paul switches the image and says creation is like an expectant mother in labor pains (Gen. 3:16). The pain is serious, but it will soon pass.
Paul isn’t adopting pagan mythology of “mother earth.” He’s personifying creation with human characteristics. Why? To encourage we who eagerly longing for sufferings to end so that we can enter glory face-to-face. Be encouraged; we’re not alone in longing for the renewal of creation. Everything around you is too. Every couple of months I go out into the front yard to trim my Phoenix robelinii. I find them an astounding example of hope and patience. I’m constantly cutting off branches, cleaning up dead ones, and removing messy flowers. But I hardly water or fertilize them. Yet, they’re taller and more lush than before, as if they are patiently enduring my neglect. What’s amazing is how the trees hidden under the shade of my neighbor’s roof and nestled in the back of my planter have grown toward the sun. Entire trunks contorting. Branches from one tree stretching out over those closer to the sunlight. All in the hope of light. In a similar way, creation is waiting for its renewal, patiently yet earnestly groaning for restoration.

Written by S. Donald Fortson, III |
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
New Calvinism may not be as “new” as some suggest, but rather the latest installment of an older version of Calvinism which has had its unique expression among every generation of American Calvinists since the era of the colonial revivalists. 

In 2008, Christianity Today’s Colin Hansen, wrote a fascinating book, Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists, which captured a lot of attention.[1] In a commendation of the book, evangelical historian Doug Sweeney, of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, acknowledged the increasing popularity of Calvinism among young Americans, and noted how this “New Calvinism” is “the latest trend in our (endlessly trendy) evangelical movement.”[2] That is perhaps a reluctant acknowledgement by a Lutheran, but of course Presbyterians and other Reformed types have been delighted by this resurgence of interest in Reformed theology. Those involved in higher education, have been watching this trend unfold for a number of years. Young people on college campuses and in seminaries across the country are finding Calvinism to be an intellectually satisfying articulation of the faith, especially attractive in an increasingly anti-Christian American environment.
Hansen’s book, Young, Restless and Reformed, through a series of stories and interviews, chronicles the turn to Calvinism among the young, noting the significant Baptist connection. John Piper is at the headwaters of the movement, along with Southern Baptist leader Al Mohler of Southern Theological Seminary. Hansen describes how Calvinism has become a major point of contention in the nation’s largest Protestant body, the Southern Baptist Convention. The intramural debate among Baptists tends to focus on whether Calvinism encourages or discourages evangelism – each side throwing statistics at the other about who is more committed to reaching the world for Christ. Those familiar with the seventeenth-century history of the English Baptist movement find the Baptist connection quite natural. The New Calvinism has not been without its naysayers in Presbyterianism also. A few Presbyterians appear to view these Baptists as intruders, wondering how these New Calvinists can be “Reformed” if they don’t embrace infant baptism.
Regardless of its critics, the New Calvinism is growing, cutting across denominational lines. Hansen observes that this ecumenical Calvinism has a healthy respect for Christian tradition,[3] but also notes its “openness to the Holy Spirit’s leading.” In one chapter he discusses the emergence of charismatic Calvinism, described as “one sure sign of Reformed resurgence. Such a combination would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago.”[4] Hansen opines, “Considering domestic and international trends, it’s likely that Reformed evangelicals will become more charismatic if Calvinism continues to spread.” An historical role model for these Calvinist charismatics is Jonathan Edwards who famously offered his balanced appraisal of the Spirit’s work during the eighteenth-century awakening in America.[5] The Jonathan Edwards connection is a fascinating one, given the priority New Calvinists give to church membership, discipline, holiness and missions, all significant themes in Edwards’ theology and practice.
Those familiar with nineteenth-century American evangelicalism watch the current commotion over this broader expression of Calvinism with some amusement, noting that much of the “New Calvinism” sounds remarkably similar to the old New School Presbyterianism. One obvious point of contact would be the deep respect for Jonathan Edwards. New School Calvinism was often identified with the work of “President Edwards,” who some considered a father of New School Presbyterianism.[6] While historical context would certainly make the two movements distinct in significant ways, there are some intriguing parallels.[7]
American Presbyterianism for generations has included a significant contingent of clergy who have found their primary Christian identity within the evangelical movement, while also considering themselves a part of the Reformed tradition. A ground breaking work linking the New School with the broader evangelical movement was George Marsden’s book, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience(1970).[8] As Marsden indicates, in the nineteenth century, a progressive party within the Presbyterian household, dubbed the “New School” party, was known for its broader evangelical perspectives on a host of issues. The New School won many hearts and minds, eventually composing half of the Presbyterian family in nineteenth-century America. For a few decades they had their own denomination which reinforced commitment to the issues that separated them from the “Old School.”
New School Calvinism
An outside observer of Presbyterianism in the nineteenth century described Presbyterians this way, “Presbyterians are like hickory, good timber, splits easily.” This was an apt description of American Presbyterians, especially in the years up through the end of the Civil War. The Presbyterian General Assemblies in the 1830s were so raucous that one journalist, commenting on an upcoming General Assembly meeting, declared that there was a “jubilee in hell, every time that body meets.” Notwithstanding the Presbyterian propensity to fuss, in the early 1830s there was one major Presbyterian body in America. By 1861, that one denomination had been split into four separate ecclesiastical bodies.
Two decades before the sectional divide hit its peak in the national debate over slavery, Presbyterians had divided in 1837 into the Old School and New School churches. It was not an amicable parting of the ways, as the Old School had unilaterally booted out the New School, claiming that they alone were the “true” Presbyterian Church in the United States. The New School vigorously disagreed with that conclusion, making its own claim to the Presbyterian heritage, which they believed the Old School had abandoned. Out of the great schism of the 1830s, where Presbyterianism was essentially divided in half, a new denomination was born – what became known as the Presbyterian Church (New School). The new church would have a separate and distinct identity for thirty years in the north; a southern New School body (The United Synod of the South) would have its own separate existence for a mere seven years (1857-1864), separating from the northern New Schoolers in 1857 explicitly over the issue of slavery.
The Old School always asserted that the original divide of the 1830s was theological, a strict Old School contingent arguing that the New Schoolers tolerated Pelagian and Arminian errors. The New School vehemently objected to these accusations, which they considered slanderous and ill conceived. And so ensued a prolonged battle in writing between Old School and New School advocates, each claiming, “my version of Presbyterianism is better than yours;” and a concomitant assertion was, “my Calvinism is more consistent with historic American Calvinism.” Much of the ongoing debate centered upon the question of clergy subscription to the Westminster Confession and catechisms. The meaning of the old 1729 Adopting Act was fiercely debated between the Old School and New School leading up to the division of 1837, and throughout the period of their separation.[9]
The first General Assembly of the New School in 1838 issued a “Pastoral Letter” to her churches in which an account of the Presbyterian controversies leading up to the rupture was discussed and a justification for the actions taken was explained. Included in the letter was a statement wherein devotion to the Westminster Standards was made explicit: “We love and honor the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church as containing more well-defined, fundamental truth, with less defect, than appertains to any other human formula of doctrine, and as calculated to hold in intelligent concord a greater number of sanctified minds than any which could now be framed; and we disclaim all design past, present or future to change it.”[10]
The history of the New School Presbyterian Church in the decade of the 1840’s was a time of developing organizational structure and administration. Separation from the other body came to be viewed as an accepted fact with no expectation of a quick reunion. Tensions with the other Presbyterian body were unabated as conservative voices in the Old School relentlessly attacked the New School. In 1852 the New School Presbyterian Church established its own journal, The Presbyterian Quarterly Review.[11] Examining the pages of its ten years of existence, it is abundantly clear that a chief goal of the periodical was to both justify the New School Church’s existence and to defend her distinctives. For the New School men, who viewed themselves as the “true” constitutional Presbyterian Church, it was simply a matter of demonstrating how their branch continued to exhibit the characteristics of “American Presbyterianism” that had emerged in the eighteenth century. They believed the historical records were on their side and went to great lengths in the Review to substantiate these claims.
In the very first issue of the new journal, the editors utilized two articles to review the background of their denomination and rehearse the unjust impugning of her character by the other branch of the church. The Review editors reminded readers that those who had rent the Presbyterian Church believed, “the exscinded portion was radically unsound in theology, and without any fixed attachment to church order.” But now after fifteen years of existence as a denomination, “…in the body with which we are connected, no man has moved to alter a tittle of the Confession of faith, or an essential principle of Presbyterian church government.” The charge of unsoundness was unsubstantiated; in fact, the brief history of the New School as a separate body has demonstrated her commitment to biblical Calvinism. The editors state, “So far as we are informed, there is not a minister of our body who does not love and cherish the Westminster Confession of Faith as the best human delineation of biblical theology; while all are prepared to bow implicitly and finally and fearlessly, before the only infallible standard, the word of God. ‘Our church standards as symbols for union, but the Bible for authority,’ is the motto of our denomination.”[12]
The editors of the Review asserted that Calvinism had been distorted and deemed it their responsibility to defend “old fashioned, Catholic, American Presbyterianism.” The editors went on the offensive and stated specific distortions against which they would take a stand:
This Review is ‘set for the defense of the gospel’ against all assailants, especially those who professing to abjure philosophy, yet philosophize the Almighty into a tyrant, and man into a victim; who represent a holy God as creating sin in a human soul, anterior to all moral acts, and then punishing that soul for being as he made it; who teach that man has no ability to do his duty whatever, but is worthy of eternal punishment for not enacting natural impossibilities; who limit the atonement offered for a race to the elect alone, and then consign to a deeper damnation, souls for rejecting an atonement, which in no sense was ever provided for them. These excrescences on sound Calvinism, these parasites which antinomian metaphysics have engrafted on the glorious doctrines of grace, we shall deem it our duty to lop off….As we love the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Catechisms, we shall stand ready to vindicate them from Arminian, Socinian, and infidel assaults on the one side, as well as Antinomian glosses on the other.[13]
Between the years 1852 and 1855, the New School’s Presbyterian Quarterly Review carried a series of five articles entitled, “The Spirit of American Presbyterianism.” These articles expounded in detail the great themes of the New School mind. An essential framework throughout the articles was the idea that there had always been two great elements in the Presbyterian Church of America from its beginning. One group exhibited a “rigid” spirit which primarily was made up of the Scottish whose plan was to transplant the Presbyterian Church of Scotland in America. The other party, “liberal” in spirit, was comprised of more diverse Reformed elements from England, Ireland, Wales, France, Germany and Holland. This party had its affinity with the Puritans of New England and was more distinctly “American” in “a new and unparalleled age and country.” The great question was: which of these branches contains the “genuine Spirit of American Presbyterianism.”[14]
New Calvinism and New School
Looking at the character of nineteenth-century New School Calvinism, there appears to be much in common with the spirit of the New Calvinism. John Piper has highlighted twelve features of the New Calvinism; for the purposes of comparison, four of Piper’s distinguishing marks will function as a framework for evaluating continuities in the two “New” versions of Calvinism. Piper notes these four features (among others) of the New Calvinism:
1. The New Calvinism is inter-denominational with a strong (some would say oxymoronic) Baptistic element.
2. The New Calvinism is aggressively mission-driven, including missional impact on social evils, evangelistic impact on personal networks, and missionary impact on unreached peoples of the world. 
3. The New Calvinism, in its allegiance to the inerrancy of the Bible, embraces the biblical truths behind the five points (TULIP), while having an aversion to using the acronym or any other systematic packaging, along with a sometimes qualified embrace of limited atonement. The focus is on Calvinistic soteriology but not to the exclusion or the appreciation of the broader scope of Calvin’s vision.
4. The New Calvinism puts a priority on pietism or piety in the Puritan vein, with an emphasis on the essential role of affections in Christian living, while esteeming the life of the mind and being very productive in it, and embracing the value of serious scholarship. Jonathan Edwards would be invoked as a model of this combination of the affections and the life of the mind more often than John Calvin, whether that’s fair to Calvin or not.[15]
These four features (inter-denominational, aggressively mission driven, qualified embrace of limited atonement and priority on piety) especially seem to mirror very similar perspectives that are found in nineteenth-century New Schoolism. While the historical context has certainly changed dramatically, the substantive theological principles and ministry practices are remarkably alike.[16]
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Recently, as I was preparing to teach a seminary class, I became interested in researching the history of Christianity in Delhi. However, it shocked me how few resources I could find on this important topic.
As I dove into the few materials available, it surprised me to learn that Delhi’s first known Indian Christian received baptism only in 1852. This is around 1800 years after Christianity first came to India! Not only did the gospel take almost two millennia to reach Delhi, but it also means Christianity has had a short history in our nation’s capital.
The fact that Delhi now has an estimated 6 lakhs of Christians and thousands of churches means that the growth of Christianity in Delhi in the last 170 years has been nothing less than stunning.
Additionally, it surprised me to learn about the incredible life of Ramchandra, Delhi’s first known Indian Christian. He was a famous mathematician and a central figure in the 19th-century movement, the Delhi Renaissance.
Indian Church History Matters
Ramchandra was the de facto leader of the church in Delhi from his baptism in 1852 to his death almost 30 years later. We may justifiably call him the father of Christianity in Delhi. Yet, in my nearly 20 years of ministry here, I had never heard his name!
Learning about Ramchandra’s life has reminded me how much we lose when we neglect the study of history.
Below, I share a brief sketch of Ramchandra’s remarkable life. However, apart from the fascinating details of his story, my larger goal is to interest my fellow Indian believers in studying the history of Christianity in our country.
History provides us with a deeper understanding of where we are today. It gives us a broader perspective on what God has been doing in India and inspiration from those whose shoulders we stand on. We miss out on all these things when we neglect to study those who came before us.
The Early Life of Ramchandra
Ramchandra was born in 1821 into a family of the Kayasth caste. His father served in the government as a tehsildar (revenue collector) in the Delhi district. He was the eldest of six brothers.