In November, Christ Over All offered a decade-by-decade engagement with evangelicalism. We would encourage you to go read many of those fine essays. In this two-part “Encore Essay” by Mark Devine, we return to our November theme, Engaging Evangelicalism, because of its many applications for our January theme: Roe v Wade after Dobbs.
While Evangelicals should not define themselves by politics, they have had an outsized role in political affairs throughout America’s history. Therefore, to understand evangelicalism one must grapple with the various ways politics, and especially the Pro-Life movement, have intersected with one another. To that end, Mark DeVine follows the last twenty years of evangelicalism to show the cross currents which have blown through our country.
Picking up a theme introduced by Jeff Robinson in his two-part narrative, the most significant movement among young evangelicals in North America between the years 2000 and 2020 was the resurgence of Reformed theology. Heading into the 2000’s Mark Driscoll and his Mars Hill Church and the Acts 29 church planting network influenced a broad swath of young evangelicals with Reformed theology. On the other coast, it was New York City pastor and The Gospel Coalition co-founder Timothy Keller who greatly influenced the Reformed resurgence among young evangelicals—what Colin Hansen called the “Young, Restless, and Reformed”—penetrating even the largest evangelical denominations and publishing houses. In the middle of the country were streams identified with the preaching of John Piper in Minneapolis, Don Carson’s writing and scholarship in Chicagoland, and Albert Mohler’s institutional leadership at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Perhaps the most surprising development in these yearly years of the Reformed Resurgence was its embrace by entity heads from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).[1]  Likewise, representing the rising generation of multi-site church pastors, Matt Chandler understood and shared with younger SBC-ers the staying power of institutions. At a 9Marks at 9 event, he said, “movements come-and-go, but institutions stay.” In this way, the staying power of this Reformed resurgence would occur largely within the safe harbor of larger denominations such as Keller’s own Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) the immense SBC.
1. Despite an abundance of anti-Calvinists present at all levels of the Southern Baptist Convention, Keller’s gospel-centered appeal to a rising generation of Calvinists in SBC seminaries and other institutions led to an ever-widening embrace of the Keller movement.
In what follows I will give a broad brushstroke of this movement along with some of its key thought leaders.
Making Calvinism Cool
The Reformed Resurgence found rich soil in the theological ground cultivated for decades by bestselling theologians John R. W. Stott, J. I. Packer, R. C. Sproul, John MacArthur, and John Piper—men who led movements of their own. But by the mid 2000s, Driscoll—who also gained notoriety for his work in the emerging church—was arguably the face of the burgeoning recovery of Calvinism among young evangelicals sweeping the country. One impressive feature of the movement was its effective targeting of notoriously resistant contexts for gospel advance—the great cities of America. 20- and 30-somethings in skinny jeans were in cities across the nation, by the tens of thousands, happily sitting under candid preaching about sin, hell, and predestination. Through his nationwide reach, Driscoll helped make Calvinism cool.
Multiple scandals that eventually came to a head in 2014 led to the demise of Mars Hill and the dimming of Driscoll’s once bright and rising star. But other Calvinistic preachers continued preaching and leading, and one of them rose to greater prominence: Timothy Keller.[2] Keller had amazed church planters across the evangelical world by his success in Manhattan, and once The Reason For God appeared in 2008, Keller emerged as a nationally recognized star, a uniquely gifted apologist for the faith, and a church planting guru. With keen cultural awareness, Keller’s engagement within the context of a metropolitan city not only opened doors to share the gospel in New York—and in The New York Times—but it also resonated with Christians across the country hungry for a doctrinally-based approach to evangelism.
2. While it’s difficult to assess popularity, a rough metric in google trends (which shows how often certain terms are searched for by millions of people online) shows the general rise of Driscoll and then his eclipse by Keller after 2014—as measured by search results of “Mark Driscoll” and “Tim Keller.”
Indeed, both Driscoll and Keller sought to advance a robust Reformed theology in urban settings. But Keller’s strategic posture could hardly have contrasted more sharply with Driscoll’s. Driscoll assaulted Seattle audiences with an at times in-your-face, confrontational brand of preaching. Keller’s relaxed, open, comforting dialogical style prioritized the approach commended under the “About Us” tab on The Gospel Coalition website. What is true of the organization he co-founded is also true of himself—Keller strives to provide resources that are “winsome and wise, and centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
When Cool Begins to Freeze Evangelical Light
By 2016, the Keller movement—at least in its theology of a sovereign God, its church planting philosophy, its Christocentric preaching method, and its apologetic posture toward the culture—found itself deeply ensconced within both the PCA and the SBC and many other centers of evangelical influence. Keller had released one bestselling book after another and had become for evangelicals something of a national sensation. Yet in 2016, Keller and his movement found itself the subject of unrelenting and withering criticism, not from the politically progressive communities they served, but from their conservative theological siblings who charged them with accommodating their message to the progressive urban cultures they inhabited.
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To frame the issue as a question, does God’s Word warrant the inclusion of a paragraph in our BCO that disqualifies from ministry (as Deacons or Elders) “men who describe themselves as homosexual?” Having wrestled with this question, I believe that the answer is yes. Indeed, I am more and more convinced of the biblical genius of Overture 15. To understand how I reached this conclusion, we would do well to walk through a few preliminary matters.

This year, twelve proposed changes to the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) Book of Church Order (BCO) will come before the denomination’s eighty-eight presbyteries for consideration.[1] Three of the twelve proposals address aspects of ministerial qualifications and examination.
Perhaps the most talked-about item is that which resulted from Overture 15 before the 49th Stated Meeting of the General Assembly. Upon the proposal’s successful passage by two-thirds of the presbyteries and ratification by the 50th General Assembly, a new paragraph will augment Chapter 7 of the BCO (on Church Officers in general) as follows:
7-4. Men who describe themselves as homosexual, even those who describe themselves as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy by refraining from homosexual conduct, are disqualified from holding office in the Presbyterian Church in America.
It is undeniable that the substance and phrasing of this proposed addition to the BCO has attracted special attention before,[2] during,[3] and after the 49th General Assembly. Already, the post-Assembly discussion on this proposal has been unsurprisingly vigorous on both sides of the issue.[4]
It is not my purpose in this brief post to respond to any of the missives that are already circulating the Internet. Instead, I intend to explore the biblical propriety of what this proposed addition to the BCO will do upon ratification: specifically banning (and thus, singling out) homosexual self-description by those who hold spiritual office in our Church.
To frame the issue as a question, does God’s Word warrant the inclusion of a paragraph in our BCO that disqualifies from ministry (as Deacons or Elders) “men who describe themselves as homosexual?” Having wrestled with this question, I believe that the answer is yes. Indeed, I am more and more convinced of the biblical genius of Overture 15. To understand how I reached this conclusion, we would do well to walk through a few preliminary matters.
Christ the King over His Kingdom
The preface to the BCO opens with a glorious description of Jesus Christ as “The King and Head of the Church.” The third and fourth paragraphs set out the place reserved for Christ to rule and govern the Church as His Kingdom.
It belongs to His Majesty from His throne of glory to rule and teach the Church through His Word and Spirit by the ministry of men; thus mediately exercising His own authority and enforcing His own laws, unto the edification and establishment of His Kingdom.
Christ, as King, has given to His Church officers, oracles and ordinances; and especially has He ordained therein His system of doctrine, government, discipline and worship, all of which are either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary inference may be deduced therefrom; and to which things He commands that nothing be added, and that from them naught be taken away.
In this exalted language drawn from Scripture and our doctrinal Standards, we read of Christ reserving to Himself both decisive authority over His church and the means of communicating that authority. In the publication, preservation, and propagation of His Word, He has established and continues to build up the Kingdom of Heaven in and as the visible church.
The Westminster Confession of Faith defines the visible church as “the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ” (WCF 25.2).  Geerhardus Vos likewise argued in favor of understanding “the visible church as a veritable embodiment of [Christ’s] kingdom.”[5] Vos made the point that though the Kingdom of Heaven is fundamentally spiritual and ultimately more expansive than the church, it nonetheless finds visible expression in the visible church as one manifestation among many.
If Christ the King rules over the church as His Kingdom,[6] then we must evaluate every proposal affecting the government of His Kingdom – including the qualifications of that Kingdom’s officers – against the record of the King’s righteous administration of His Kingdom in times past. What has Jesus done in the past to inform our deliberations in the present as He continues to rule over us by His Word and Spirit?[7]
Christ the King in His Kingdom
When “Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to Himself a true body, and a reasonable soul” (WSC 22), He descended from heaven to earth to inaugurate His heavenly Kingdom. Thus, His preaching ministry was one of glad tidings of the Kingdom of heaven (Matthew 4:23ff), proclaiming the gospel of release, recovery, and redemption (Luke 4:16-21; Isaiah 61:1, 2).
While it is entirely proper and necessary to speak of Christ doing something new in His earthly ministry, His mighty deeds of deliverance in the first century A.D. cannot be divorced from His mighty deeds of deliverance recorded in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Indeed, the Old Testament background of Christ’s kingship is crucial for understanding rightly what He intends for His Kingdom today.[8] Christ came not to destroy the essence of the Kingdom of old, but to fulfill all its purposes in Himself (Matthew 5:17). His ministry is one of reformation and fulfillment, not of abrogation and invention.
How did Christ righteously administer His Kingdom when its visible expression was that ancient nation of Israelites dwelling in the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Two passages of Christ’s royal charter come to mind as especially relevant to our consideration of the proposal to disqualify any man from ordained office who would describe himself as homosexual.
In the first place, we consider the record of righteous King Asa’s 41-year reign over Judah in 1 Kings 15:10-24. We are told that “Asa did what was right in the sight of the LORD, like David his father” (v. 11). Indeed, “the heart of Asa was wholly devoted to the LORD all his days” (v. 14). Interestingly, the very first example of Asa’s David-like righteousness before God is that he “put away the male cult prostitutes (KJV: sodomites) from the land and removed all the idols which his fathers had made” (v. 12). Exegetically, the parallel construction of these two clauses (“put away… and removed”) suggests that both of Asa’s commendable acts of reformation concerned the religious worship of the Kingdom (i.e., the visible church of Asa’s day). The evidence of Asa’s true and lively devotion to the Lord consisted in his expulsive ban of “the male cult prostitutes,” or “sodomites” from the religious worship of the people of God.
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[1] You can read a helpful primer of the twelve items here (thanks to Larry Hoop and byFaith). You can track the progress of the proposals here as the presbyteries vote upon them (thanks to Scott Edburg and Joshua Torrey).
[2] See Scott Edburg, “New Overtures for a Pressing Concern.”
[3] For example, see “Great Speeches of PCAGA49,” which includes links to the floor debate surrounding Overture 15. Watch the speeches by RE Matt Fender, TE Richard D. Phillips, and TE O. Palmer Robertson for the best examples of the argument presented at the 49th General Assembly in favor of Overture 15. Consult as well The Aquila Report’s helpful transcription of Dr. O. Palmer Robertson’s speech.
[4] See the following opinion pieces on The Aquila Report: Joe Gibbons, “Exploring Overture 15 from the PCA General Assembly;” Larry Ball, “Overture 15 – The Tipping Point for a Split in the PCA?;” Luke Kallberg, “A Response to “Exploring Overture 15 from the PCA General Assembly” – Revised;” as well as Jared Nelson’s fine piece on this site, “Stepping Up to Overture 29.”
[5] Geerhardus Vos, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church (New York: American Tract Society, 1903), 161. Readers can find a .pdf version of this excellent little book for free online here.
[6] For a classic biblical theological presentation of Christ Jesus as the incarnate Shepherd King promised and anticipated in the Old Testament, see F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Development of Old Testament Themes (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1969), 100-114.
[7] If ever you find yourself wondering “what would Jesus do?” the better questions to bring to Scripture are “what did Jesus do?” and “what is Jesus doing?”
[8] For a helpful presentation of the relationship between the Kingdom of God in the Old Testament and in Christ’s teaching, see Vos, The Teaching of Jesus, 11-25.
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Written by Aaron M. Renn |
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
If you are on the political right and want to change institutions, your best bet is to think like a private equity firm: take it over, restructure from the top, and be indifferent to the squawking about the changes. This isn’t always easy to do, of course. But as the case of state universities show, red state governments actually have the ability to do a lot of things they are not actually doing.

One of the principles I keep highlighting between left and right is asymmetry.
The left and right have different values, operate in different ways, and are in different positions in society.
Hence, if you are on the right, you have to remember that what worked for the left won’t work for you. You need to use different tactics.
Yes, there are some techniques that are available to anyone, but it doesn’t work to simply read Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and think you can make those same rules work for you.
Today I want to highlight that institutional capture works completely differently for the right vs. the left.
The left seems to do well at burrowing into organizations, working their way into positions of authority or leverage, and then using those to transform the institution from the inside out.
People on the left typically don’t care about the actual mission of the organization. In fact, they frequently think the organization has a bad mission, and that it’s their job to change that. Hence, they can devote all of their efforts to institutional capture and transformation. Conservatives are often bad at stopping this because they are more interested in the mission than organizational politics.
This left approach is sometimes called the “long march through the institutions.”
Some people have advocated that conservatives try to do the same thing. However, it’s highly unlikely to work. For one thing, left controlled institutions are not dumb enough to let conservatives in the door, or allow them to do any sort of subversion. And by nature, few conservatives have the interest, conscience, or stomach for successfully capturing institutions from the inside.
However, there’s a right wing version of institutional capture. Rather than attempting a bottom up project of capture and infiltration, the right wing model is a top down restructuring of an institution modeled on a private equity approach.
The way someone on the right captures and restructures a failing institution is to take it over from the top, the way a private equity firm would buy out an underperforming company, and then reform the organization to function well and on mission.
I will highlight some examples of this.
The first is what Ron DeSantis is doing at New College of Florida (NCF). In many states, governors nominally control state universities because they appoint a majority of the board. But most of them stuff those boards full of milquetoast cronies who rubber stamp what the administration wants and even enthusiastically support the administration in empire building endeavors.
DeSantis saw an opportunity with NCF. It would be very politically challenging to try to shake up, say, Florida State. But NCF was a very small, liberal arts type public school without a high profile. Thus it was a good test bed for his approach.
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