There are constraints on what counts as "Reformed." It's more than a name or a label. It's about belonging to a particular theological stream or tradition, which is shaped in important respects by particular thinkers and their work, particular arguments and ideas, a particular community (especially, particular church communities, denominations, and so on), particular liturgies or ways of worshipping and living out the Christian life, and particular confessions that inform the practices of these communities.
Oliver D. CrispChrist's work is a kind of deterrent to us, and a way of upholding the justice of God's divine government of the world.
Oliver D. CrispI think everyone who has an interest in Reformed theology, or just in Christian theology more generally, should read John Calvin Institutes.
Oliver D. Crisp[John Calvin's] Humanist training makes him an excellent writer. What is more, he is as relevant today as he was 500 years ago.
Oliver D. Crisp[John] Calvin's Institutes is often called a summary of Christian piety. You can't say that about many modern works of theology. You can say it of Calvin.
Oliver D. CrispIt is often reported that the Five Points of Calvinism are the conceptual hard-core of Reformed thought. That is very misleading. The Five Points supposedly originate with the Synod of Dort in the early seventeenth century. Yet we find important Reformed leaders who were signatories to that documentation who don't think that limited atonement is the right way to think about the scope of Christ's saving work. How can this be? The answer that recent historical theology has thrown up is that the canons of the Synod don't require adherence to the doctrine of limited atonement.
Oliver D. CrispIn many ways the book [Saving Calvinism] is trying to argue for a more popular audience things I've said in some more scholarly works, namely, that the Reformed tradition is broader and more variegated than is often reported today, and that we need to recapture something of this in order that we don't end up unnecessarily narrow in our doctrine and in order to keep some perspective.
Oliver D. Crisp