Well aware of the fact that I said just yesterday I would not be posting again until after Easter, I could not pass up sharing this with all of you. Steve Bishop posted the following on his blog yesterday, a summary of the contours of the Neocalvinist tradition drawn up by Mike Goheen and Craig Bartholomew. Clarifying what Neocalvinism is all about is especially important because there are many misleading caricatures of Neocalvinism by its opponents, particularly those who hold to something known as two-kingdom theology, and because of the constant misapplication of the term "Neocalvinist" to the New Calvinists (men like John Piper, Kevin DeYoung, Mark Driscoll), thanks to a careless terminological error in Time magazine last year.

Neocalvinism finds its roots largely in the thought of Abraham Kuyper, who has famously said, "In the total expanse of human life there is not a square inch of which Christ, who alone is sovereign, does not declare, 'That is mine!'" With that as its overarching perspective, Neocalvinism, according to Goheen and Bartholomew, can be further summarised further as follows:

1. Neocalvinism begins with Christ and this focus opens up into a full Trinitarian faith.
2. Christ is rendered to us truly in Scripture, which is fully trustworthy as God’s Word.
3. Christ stands at the centre of the biblical story and the good news he proclaimed is about the kingdom as the goal of history—God restoring his rule over the whole of human life and creation.
4. Since Christ has revealed and accomplished the end of history the Scriptures have a storied shape, and as such tell the true story of the whole world.
5. A central theme in the biblical story is God’s election of a people to embody the kingdom, to be a preview of the goal of history, and thus to bear witness to Christ’s rule over all of life – this constitutes mission.
6. The comprehensive gospel of the kingdom has been narrowed and consigned to a very minor place within the dominant Western humanist worldview, and this calls for a conscious articulation of a biblical worldview in relation to the cultural worldview to enable the church to recover the all-embracing scope of the good news.
7. The good news reveals the restoration of the creation from sin, and thus a neocalvinist worldview insists on a comprehensive and integrated understanding of creation, fall and restoration.
8. The fundamental backdrop of God’s drama of restoration is creation and thus neocalvinism articulates a rich doctrine of creation including its good and dynamic creation order and humanity’s place within it.
9. History is part of God’s order for creation and thus neocalvinism affirms the historical development or differentiation of creation.
10. The implication of the fall is that the power of sin and evil now radically twists every part of creation, and while the structures of creation remain good the distorting power of sin means they have been radically misdirected.
11. The Bible tells the story of restoration centred in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which is the recovery of God’s originally good purposes for the whole of his creation and all of human life.
12. Since God’s restorative power is at work in the creation by the Spirit, and the forces of evil remains at work in the creation, neocalvinism recognizes an ultimate religious conflict in the whole of human life.
13. God is at work leading his creation to its destiny of a new heavens and a new earth, and only then will the kingdom finally come. Until then the church is called to participate in God’s redemptive mission—the missio Dei—as witnesses to his victory, but since we await the final victory there is no room for triumphalism in neocalvinism.

While there is much more that can be said about this, Goheen and Bartholomew have here given a very helpful summary of the Neocalvinist tradition. There are many other resources available for exploring Neocalvinism further. To begin with, Bob Robinson has written a few blog posts highlighting the differences between Neocalvinism and the New Calvinism (see also here). Steve Bishop has also worked tirelessly to compile a wealth of resources from different leaders and thinkers within the Neocalvinist tradition at his site, All of Life Redeemed.

There are many resources you can avail yourself of for understanding the Neocalvinist tradition. For helpful introductions to Neocalvinism in book form, be sure to read the transcriptions of Kuyper's Stone Lectures, delievered at Princeton Seminary in 1898, compiled in Lectures on Calvinism, and Al Wolters' excellent book, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview. Goheen and Bartholomew have two books  which are worth your time; The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story, and Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview. The former is an overview of the biblical story, while the latter helps the reader develop an understanding of a biblical worldview as it relates to contemporary culture.

I know this is only a very short introduction to Neocalvinism, but hopefully it piques your interest to explore the tradition further. And now the next time someone tells you that Piper is a Neocalvinist, you can lovingly correct the person, give them a copy of Creation Regained, and let them see for themselves what Neocalvinism is really about.