#21 – Military Metaphors

Never to shy away from a full frontal assault, the young and the reformed folk love to wage war. Bootcamps teach cohesive air-war/ground war campaigns. You will enter bootcamp with flabby doctrine and emerge a lean and mean reformed mortar launching machine. Many young soldiers will undergo this process multiple times per year to further hone their battlefield prowess.

There are plenty of enemies always trying to infiltrate the camp: prosperity gospelers, social gospelers, Robb Bell and Arminians to name a few.

So lock and load soldiers as we are at war.

My only advice on survival: lob “theology mortars” into the enemy camp and remain hidden at all times!

#20 – Making Up Words

Nothing brings more joy to a young reformer’s heart than being able to take a simple concept and make it seem infinitely more complicated. And part of the fun of this process comes from making up words. We don’t say that we are missionaries. We are missional. We don’t have a skill set. We’re triperspectival. We don’t do purposeful coaching. We do transformissional coaching.

As God’s chosen people, it is important to have a language that differentiates us. These words do well in a pinch. Wondering whether a “Christian” you just met at a conference has good theology? Bring up triperspectivalism and if he or she squirms, you know they’re probably some theology-lite evangelical teetering on the edge of heresy and damnation.

These types of words are also important because they help us get books that nobody will read published by scholarly type imprints nobody knows exist.

So keep up the good work (done through you by Christ), you worthy word-warrior!

#19 – Putting the “X” Back in Christmas

Never ones to admit that perception is reality, the young reformers will doggedly defend centuries-old traditions in Christianity (as long as they are post-Luther and reformed, with the exception of Augustine). Thus, during the Christmas season, we see fit to correct those simpletons and stupid people who don’t know Greek who erroneously think using the term “Xmas” is removing the reason for the season from our holiday cheer. This year’s batch of corrective polemics was wide and diverse. Here is a good example from the grandfather of young reformers, R.C. Sproul.

So, from Stuff Reformers Like, we wish you a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!