The Ruins of New Calvinism

How a Theological Movement Lost Its Center

Bob the Baptist put out a video recently that is making the private message rounds in my circles. Essentially, his thesis is that baked into the young, restless, and reformed movement, otherwise known as the New Calvinism, was a particular weakness that made it susceptible to the manosphere and the Pagan Right. It is a thoughtful and well documented take, and worth your time if you are interested in understanding how many people who bought into The Gospel Coalition or Acts 29 started prioritizing things like race essentialism, overturning women’s suffrage, and questioning the validity of the Holocaust narrative.

One thing I appreciate about Bob’s take is that it does not attempt to locate the cause of this development in Reformed theology itself. In other words, belief in predestination, or even Covenant Theology, did not lead to blaming Jews or Israel for just about every social problem. I had a friendly disagreement with Will Spencer a few months ago along these lines. Calvinism itself did not open people up to wokeness or what I call the Dark Right. New Left ideas emerged across denominational lines. This becomes more obvious when one takes the long view of history and finds Anabaptists, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and others all adopting social justice ideology at various points.

It is natural for us to interpret new battle lines through older ones with which we are more familiar. There was a strong controversy for years over the doctrines of grace. This came to define the New Calvinism, and partnerships were developed along a shared commitment to one side or the other in the battle over free will versus election. At this point, that conflict is secondary to developing conflicts over natural law, institutional standards, and political ideology. But behind all of these conflicts is something else that I think Bob the Baptist rightly identifies.

Father Hunger and Big God Theology

As someone who had a front row seat to the New Calvinism, but was also somewhat of an outsider, I think I can validate and build upon what Bob argues. I have had conversations about this dynamic in private since around 2011, but it is not easy for me to admit publicly, mostly because I am talking about personal friends. Like Bob, I noticed very early on that Bible teachers like Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, and Tim Keller attracted a disproportionate number of men with father hunger. Then again, perhaps this was simply the condition of society then and now. Most men in my peer group who could not get enough of Paul Washer’s “Shocking Youth Message” came from dysfunctional backgrounds on some level. Bob is correct that they saw figures like John Piper as father figures who told hard truths while also expressing a gentle and affirming side. That is what naturally happens when one preaches both the wrath and grace of God. One moment you are overwhelmed by the reality of your own evil and the justice of divine punishment, and the next you are overwhelmed by the fact that God withholds that punishment because He loves and accepts you on the basis of Christ’s merits.

Before further surveying my own observations on how this dynamic propelled some toward a more black pilled revolutionary outlook, whether left or right, I want to say clearly that I believe it is undeniable that God’s Spirit worked through the mainstreaming of what was often called Big God theology. Many grew in their walk and received solid Bible teaching. Many, including those from dysfunctional backgrounds, took doctrine and masculine responsibility seriously. There was good fruit that came from this movement. But, like most things, there were also excesses and unmet expectations. After scandals, failures, and rejections from perceived father figures within the movement, some sought masculine affirmation elsewhere.

This, in part, helps explain some of the severe reactions to Doug Wilson when he says things like heritage montage videos can be done without Nazis in them. It is one thing to disagree, but there is often a sense of betrayal that cuts much deeper. I have witnessed the pattern of following a celebrity pastor too closely, building him up as though he holds the formula for life, and then passionately rejecting him when he disappoints or is exposed as something he never actually claimed to be. Some people recognize that it was unwise to place so much trust in men they did not know personally, men who never had the capacity to function as real fathers. Others go searching for new fathers, or older brothers, often ones who are just as jaded as they are. This cycle of elevation and rejection produces enemies lists that function as an unhealthy glue binding people together.

The Good Fruit

This same dynamic was at work during the peak of the woke years, as leader after leader turned on whites, males, and heterosexuals. A segment of their audience, realizing they were the targets, rejected leaders they probably should not have followed so closely in the first place. My own experience here is not as severe as some, but I do relate. There are very few leaders in my life whom I was able to respect in the long term to the degree I once hoped. I hesitate to get overly personal, but I know what rejection from a mentor figure feels like. There have been very few virtuous men for me to look up to across the settings I have been part of. I once wrote a former youth group leader simply to thank him for being a man and living an honest, upstanding life. Without a stable father and grandfather, I might have struggled with jadedness far more myself.

That said, I never invested heavily in national figures. Of all the Reformed movement pastors, John MacArthur was the one I had the most respect for, but my view of him was grounded in reality. I understood who he was through people close to him, including awareness of his weaknesses. My parents met at his church and were involved in ministry there, so he was never merely a celebrity pastor to me, even though he was to others. I enjoyed Al Mohler’s commentary up until around 2014, when I noticed that he treated police shootings of minorities in ways I thought were unfair. I stopped listening to The Briefing not because I rejected him, but because I could not trust the analysis. I still respected him and hoped he would course correct. He never fully did, even though there were adjustments. I was not jaded because I never placed him on a pedestal. The same was true with John Piper. I consumed much of his teaching, but when I came to see weaknesses in Christian hedonism, my life did not lose meaning, direction, or coherence.

I fear that for some people, many of whom I knew personally and sat beside in seminary classrooms at The Master’s Seminary and later at Southeastern, doctrinal shifts and personal scandals among leaders sparked a crisis of meaning. Some worked through it and became stronger. Most of those individuals are now resistant to the next big thing or shiny object. They focused instead on content relevant to the real lives they were living, things like what was happening in Washington, D.C., or how to be better husbands and fathers. If they listen to my podcast at all, it is usually episode by episode based on usefulness, and they certainly do not relate to me as fanboys. Their identities are rooted in tangible, local realities. This is healthy. Others never recovered from the rejection and continue drifting between new formulas and personality driven tribes, still searching for belonging.

Brands and Belonging

This is where transgressive approaches enter the picture. The first generation of the New Reformed movement, figures like Piper, MacArthur, and Sproul, taught predestination because they believed it was plainly taught in Scripture. When they began, there was no movement to manage. The second generation, figures like Driscoll, Chandler, and Baucham, were more self conscious about the movement itself and pushed predestination more aggressively despite how offensive the doctrine was perceived to be. This opened the door to increasingly aggressive postures involving patriarchy, postmillennialism, and, for some, the deconstruction of conservative assumptions about the American Dream and race. Everything had to be extreme, radical, gospel centered, and anything but ordinary. It was not enough to be an upstanding Christian. One had to rediscover lost truths that American Christianity had supposedly buried. Bob the Baptist does a good job explaining how these impulses paralleled developments within the manosphere.

Through a series of personal scandals and the broader collapse of credibility surrounding social justice and Covid narratives, the second generation lost much of its authority. I do not want to overstate this. The Gospel Coalition still hosts a well attended biannual conference. But the momentum has shifted. The third generation of the Young, Restless, and Reformed effectively marks the end of the movement as a movement. There were no clear international leaders ready to take the reins, and those who built platforms have generally expanded into territory that was peripheral to or outside the original project. Doug Wilson’s brand has grown into an institution of its own, complete with a church, an online academy, a college, a publishing arm, and more. Once known for transgressing liberal taboos, he is now mainstream enough to have critics claiming he is too liberal. Joel Webbon, previously connected to Acts 29 and later influenced by Wilson’s orbit, is now networking with non-Protestant figures like Nick Fuentes and Elijah Schaeffer. Mark Driscoll has largely reinvented himself as a right wing, working class political voice layered onto his longstanding emphasis on masculinity. As a friend of Stephen Wolfe’s, I know he advocated similar ideas long before the rise of The Case for Christian Nationalism, though only recently have those ideas gained broader traction online. One could list many examples. Perhaps the most instructive is Josh Howerton, a megachurch pastor who once hosted Beth Moore and embraced Black Lives Matter narratives, now presenting himself as a flannel shirt wearing, trucker hat sporting conservative Christian pastor.

We are now assessing New Calvinism from its ruins, not because of a doctrinal flaw that doomed it or pushed adherents toward various right wing positions, including darker and edgier ones, but because of the psychological and social role it occupied for many followers. It met a desire for hard truth telling, even when offensive, while also providing belonging for sons looking for fathers. What stands out now is that many of those traveling this arc are no longer looking for fathers at all. There is a deep bitterness rooted in the sense that fathers, particularly boomers, have rejected them, and that all that remains is brotherhood. Unfortunately, these new brotherhoods, which largely exist in online spaces, are internally schismatic. There is an expectation that betrayal is inevitable. Combined with algorithms that reward provocation, this drives communities into increasingly narrow purity spirals. If you believe it is in the United States’ interest to support Israel, everything else you say can be dismissed. I have lost and gained followers simply for stating what I believe should be obvious about Candace Owens’ assassination theories. The battle lines shift weekly because allegiance is driven more by perceived group advantage than by objective truth.

The fractures within New Calvinism mirror fractures across society more broadly. The erosion of institutional trust, the desire to uncover forbidden knowledge, and cultural instability rooted in betrayal and dysfunction all contribute to our present condition.

The End of the Tunnel

Here is the black pill. We have a long way to go before virtue, maturity, and competence are fashionable again. Here is the white pill. Based on historical patterns and human nature, broken cisterns do not satisfy in the long run. People will gradually filter out, as many of my friends did during the second generation of New Calvinism, and refocus on real world responsibilities. The power of manufactured online images will cheapen over time. Opportunities for genuine courage will return, even if they come through electoral outcomes I will actively oppose. In periods of real economic crisis and social collapse, an opportunity exists to sort out the posers. The future belongs to those who can maintain stability, keep a clear head, and know who they are beyond a passing political fad.

I am convinced that now is not primarily the time for formulas, new alliances, or slogans. Those will follow. Christ is king, cultural Christianity is superior to cultural paganism, and a Christian nation is to be desired. But now is the time to look to Christ himself directly, as the second person of the Trinity, the one in whom our hopes rest and the only one who can actually restore our country to its former glory. Crying out for King Sauls because of their chad jawlines is not going to save us. But if we cry out to Christ, perhaps He will hear, make us into the leaders we should be, and restore our land.

“Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.” Is 40:31

Postscript: This is the first blog in a three part series. Here is the next installment.