What Happened to the Young, Restless, and Reformed?
The next decade is going to be a challenging time, as we face continued cultural pressure, and as the cadre of Gen-X leaders approach retirement and will need replacing. We need to learn the lessons of mistakes made in the past, but also to continue to sustain and develop our strengths.
I enjoyed listening to Kevin DeYoung, Justin Taylor and Colin Hansen reflecting on the Young, Restless and Reformed movement on Kevin’s podcast (you can find it here). They did not just have a ring-side seat watching the events that they discuss but were key participants. They set out to explain what the movement was, what it achieved, why it has fragmented and to assess the current context in the US. Although YRR was a US phenomenon, it has had a significant impact in the UK, and there are parallels with our own evangelical context.
In large measure they are positive. They regard the YRR movement as a period of revival which became institutionalised over time, as all revivals in history have done. I was especially struck by the comment that the Great Awakening only lasted 3-4 years. They point to the recovery of Calvinistic theology and a lasting publishing legacy of good books, especially by Crossway.
They acknowledge a number of weaknesses, including the fact that some leaders rose to prominence too quickly, or were accepted on the basis that they seemed to be on the right trajectory – although they also point out that the key leaders (eg Piper & Keller) were in their 50s before they came to greater prominence.
They make several astute observations, including identifying YRR as a Gen-X movement, that reacted against the Boomer-led ‘Seeker Sensitive’ movement. Some of the fragmentation has occurred as new generations (Millennials, Gen-Z) have emerged.
They also note the key role played by digital technology. YRR gained momentum because the internet has enabled sermons and resources to be widely shared, but before social media had taken centre stage. They rightly chart the subsequent difficulty of leadership in a social media age and the way in which any leader or movement that gains success is likely to be attacked and critiqued by its detractors. This has led to a growing reluctance of the younger generation to become leaders because they fear the toxic environment they will inhabit.
The YRR movement fostered a wide unity amongst reformed evangelicals from numerous streams and managed at points to maintain a broad tent, stretching from a John Macarthur to a Mark Driscoll. The unity was rooted in a Calvinistic soteriology and a commitment to complementarianism, which were perhaps key issues in the evangelical sub-culture at the time. The movement also addressed the reality of suffering, for example, in the way that it responded to Matt Chandler’s cancer diagnosis. People joined together on platforms at T4G and TGC.
There is no doubt that there has been significant fragmentation, and this is in part because of the difficulties the YRR movement has faced in dealing with new cultural and political challenges. They date the fragmentation as starting from 2015, and key issues that have caused it are the rise of Trump, race issues, Wokeism, COVID, the hyper-speed social change on eg LBGT issues and evangelical leadership scandals and implosions.
Kevin DeYoung makes the interesting observation that there was a presumption within the YRR that they were not just conservative in theology but also politically conservative and that this presumption has been shown to be false as the political divides in the US have become more sharply polarised. He refers to the way that black leaders were drawn into the YRR movement and its institutions, but did not fit because they had different political views on, for example, race. I found that incredibly sad, as it amounts to saying that the gospel unity was only superficial and that what really brought people together was an assumed political congruence. The lack of unity on culture and politics has been exposed by events.
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Majoring in the Minors: Haggai
Even after the rebuilding of the temple commences, a second threat to its progress arises. The new temple built in their impoverished condition is not nearly as impressive as Solomon’s original structure. Haggai asks a progressive series of rhetorical questions, “Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?” (2:3) When we look at the state of our churches, we may be tempted to engage in cynicism and golden-age fetishizing, or withdraw for more promising prospects. But Haggai does not end with negative rebukes. He concludes with strong promises of God’s faithfulness to his purposes.
Some people build bookshelves, cabinets, or houses. Some build investment portfolios. Some amass niche collections of books, art, or memorabilia. Some build new businesses or non-profit organizations. Some focus on building their careers or their families. Many Christians in our day are engaged in the work of church planting and many others are in revitalization scenarios. Every building project has its ebb and flow, its setbacks and stages, and any project of significant scale takes patience, persistence, passion, and focus. You build what you care about. God himself is a builder. Hence, two of the twelve minor prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, are behind a massive building project. A re-building project, to be precise: the rebuilding of a temple for God’s worship and reputation.
The great fact at the foundation of the Old Covenant was the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. The great the foundation for the New Covenant, from the vantage point of the prophets, is the return from exile. (Jer. 16:14-15) Along with this return comes the rebuilding of the temple destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. Having transgressed the terms of the first covenant, the people of God have suffered the curses outlined by Moses. The result of their sin has been a 70-year exile into Babylon. But, “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.” (Rom. 11:29) God has a plan to rebuild. And, since “the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets,” (Amos 3:7) we have two prophetic books dealing with rebuilding.
The great scribe of the long awaited return from exile sets the scene for the work of these two prophets in Ezra 5:1-2. This passage mentions two other key leaders these prophets inspired to take up the work: a local Jewish magistrate, Zerubbabel, and the high priest Joshua.
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Empowered Witness Foreword
Through most of Reformed history, the spirituality of the church has not entailed a silence on all political matters but rather a commitment to the uniqueness of the church’s mission and a principled conviction that the eternal concerns of the church should not be swallowed up by the temporal concerns of the state. For all these reasons—and many others you will read about in the pages ahead—I am thankful for this book. Alan Strange has marshaled his considerable expertise in this area to write an accessible introduction to the spirituality of the church.
In the summer of 2023, at the General Assembly in Memphis, Tennessee, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. As a part of the commemoration, commissioners were given a professionally produced replica of a document titled A Message to All Churches of Jesus Christ throughout the World from the General Assembly of the National Presbyterian Church. The document dates from 1973 and was issued at the founding of the PCA (then called the National Presbyterian Church). The Message to All Churches was named and written as a conscious echo of a previous document. In 1861, James Henley Thornwell issued his Address to All Churches of Christ at the founding of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America (PCCSA). In fact, the PCA deliberately began as a denomination (in Birmingham, Alabama) on December 4, 1973, because the PCCSA had its beginning (in Augusta, Georgia) on December 4, 1861.
These origins continue to be a source of celebration for some and a source of embarrassment for others. The fact is that the PCA saw itself at its founding—and still sees itself today, in some respects—as a continuing church, as the faithful and orthodox branch of the Southern Presbyterian denomination. And make no mistake, the legacy of Southern Presbyterianism is complex. Take Thornwell, for example. Should he be remembered as a gifted educator, preacher, and writer, as the most influential theologian and churchman of his era? Or should he be remembered as a man who defended slavery and helped give birth to the Confederacy? Undoubtedly, he was all the above.
Because of Thornwell’s complicated personal history, Christians in recent decades have been largely dismissive of one of his most strongly held convictions. The first point in Thornwell’s inaugural address from 1861 was to explain and defend the spirituality of the church. For most hearers today—including Bible-believing Presbyterians and other conservative Christians—the spirituality of the church means one thing: a wrongheaded and shameful defense of slavery. And it’s true, Thornwell and other Presbyterians used the doctrine to support the “peculiar institution” in the South.
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Bearing Life
Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “It is a disease of the mind, which does not wholly rise to the heights where it is lifted by the truth, because it is weighed down by habit.” In other words, it doesn’t matter how much we believe the truth if we don’t get the truth into our bodies through our daily habits. We shouldn’t be surprised we feel crazy when we simply allow ourselves to go along with the current of the crazy world we live in. We don’t have to resign or rage; we can resist.
As you begin to bear more responsibility in life, you realize how deficient human nature is to thrive in our cultural machine of hustle, distraction, isolation, and self-defined identities. Before I had kids, I didn’t see anything wrong with how my life was structured and the digital age that shapes our day-to-day lives. I wasn’t conscious of my daily habits and how they were forming me because they didn’t seem consequential.
Staying on my phone in bed instead of sleeping?Waking up minutes before the start of my soonest responsibility?Watching more Netflix than reading?Scrolling social media with no prayer life?Posting every highlight of every day on Instagram?
None of this seemed like it had any material impact on my life because, by and large, I had very little weight to carry. And having no weight to carry required little in terms of character. Every day was relatively low stakes compared to the life, health, and future of another human resting almost entirely on who I am as a person. Small responsibilities led to a small vision of life, which led to little attention to who I was becoming day by day through the little things I did.
But once there was real weight to carry—once every move I made was monitored by another person who would see me as his example of what it means to exist in our world as a healthy adult—everything that was previously invisible to me became as glaringly bright as the noon sun on a Texas summer day. It was like being in middle school all over again when you suddenly become self-aware of all of the things that make you different from everyone else and how everyone perceives you. It felt like a magnifying glass was placed over all of my faults and flaws and the ways that my son would see me be distracted or angry, impatient or selfish, aloof or insecure. These flaws couldn’t simply be written off as aberrations of my “true self” who obviously isn’t any of those things. Our character is the sum total of our actions over time, not who we imagine ourselves to be in our finest moments. If I never faced my flaws—my sin—and dealt honestly with them before God, then I would be the kind of father, the kind of person, who is those things.
In hindsight, it’s obvious that contrary to what my former deconstructed self would have admitted, “The World” is conspiring against us.
What else do you call it when the dominant narrative of the good life is to leave behind your obligations and constraints so you can define yourself however you like while advising us that we should cut off anyone who doesn’t make us feel good about ourselves, distracting us with the most insane and outrageous takes on an infinitely scrolling feed that we carry in our pockets and sleep with by our beds, and promising us that working harder is the key to unlock all of our dreams and if we don’t have what we want, it’s because we’re not hustling as hard as we should?
The world has lost its mind, and it’s all too easy to lose yours with it.
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