The time has come for us to acknowledge that the Doctrines of Grace have been co-opted by Woke Religionists who, are as Spurgeon would say, are no more Reformed “than chalk is cheese.”
Satan’s false teachers “creep in” (Jude 4) and “spy out” the church (Galatians 2:4) seek to lead it captive with “vain philosophy and empty deceit (Colossians 2:8). This is precisely what Social Justice agitators have done to what is left of the surge of Calvinism that was, for a short time, a good thing in evangelicalism. However, fake Christians and real Marxists like Tim Keller and his harem of lesbian preachers at The Gospel Coalition saw the Reformed Resurgence at the turn of the century as an opportunity to ride a bandwagon straight into the heart of American evangelicalism.
There remain Reformed Christians in American evangelicalism who don’t see Calvinism as a vehicle for social engineering, a fad to be harnessed for political correctness, or a bandwagon to be steered. For us, Calvinism is nothing but an adequate articulation of God’s plan of salvation for sinners.
However, an entire generation of poorly-catechized millennials who adopted Calvinism like they took on tattoos and hipster clothing choices – as immature style preferences to annoy their parents – are walking around acting like they’re in league with the Reformers. They post “Reformed” memes, subscribe to “Reformed” sub-Reddits, and share material from The Gospel Coalition, blissfully unaware that it’s ideological vomit.
And those fad-Calvinists who have appropriated the soteriology of Calvin (along with the economics of Karl Marx and the worldview of Gustavo Guttierez and Kimberle’ Crenshaw) hate discernment. They hate anyone who would speak negatively of the fake Calvinist leaders who sound more like Saul Alinsky than Jesus Christ.
There are only two sites blacklisted from the r/Reformed sub-Reddit by their moderators. Pulpit & Pen was banned years ago, and they banned Reformation Charlotte earlier today.
Reformation Charlotte, by the way, is run by a man who is five-point Calvinist, an open-air minister, an active abolitionist, and a member in good standing in a Biblical church (which is more than can be said for most who consider themselves “Reformed” in 2020).
It reminds us of the queer priest who is a favorite of the Evangelical Intelligentsia social engineers, Sam Allberry, who said he would rather people watch pornography than read Pulpit & Pen.
Of course, what Reformation Charlotte’s “lies” are, the admins of r/Reformed could not begin to say. They are post-millennial man-children who perceive truth to be that whichever they prefer and a lie to be whatever opinion or fact they do not like. They consider “slander” as something to be defined as “something they don’t want to hear.” The reason why so many Christians trust polemics news sites like P&P and Reformation Charlotte is that our facts are unassailable, and we’ll report the truth when other websites do not.
Our dear Spurgeon – a five-point Calvinist – went to the grave heartbroken that he was spurned by the evangelical community for pointing out how bad things were in the Baptist Union. In his pivotal Downgrade series printed in the Sword and the Trowell, Spurgeon detailed the doctrinal decline in evangelicalism.
The response to Spurgeon on behalf of the large bulk of evangelicals was to claim he was a slanderer, a gossip, and a rabble-rouser. Refusing to believe that there was a doctrinal problem among Baptists, he was blackballed, blacklisted, anathematized, and removed from fellowship.
These fake r/Reformed Calvinists would have been the very ones calling for Spurgeon’s ouster from the Baptist Union.
Our solemn conviction is that things are much worse in many churches than they seem to be, and are rapidly tending downward. Read those newspapers which represent the Broad School of Dissent, and ask yourself, How much farther could they go? What doctrine remains to be abandoned? What other truth to be the object of contempt? A new religion has been initiated, which is no more Christianity than chalk is cheese; and this religion, being destitute of moral honesty, palms itself off as the old faith with slight improvements, and on this plea usurps pulpits which were erected for gospel preaching. – Spurgeon, the Downgrade Controversy
