[I'm often called a Deviant Calvinist] but that only goes to underline the point I'm trying to make about the need to broaden our account of the tradition!

[John Calvin's] treatment of the person and work of Christ, of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, of prayer and liturgy, of the sacraments, and of the way in which we have an in-built sense of the divine that we suppress to our great sorrow - these are all immense contributions to Christian thought. The same could be said of his commentaries, which are still regularly consulted by biblical critics today.

We may think that our tradition is exactly the same as it has always been, but that is an illusion.

One of the things we in the Reformed tradition are very good at is writing doctrinal theology!

[ Jonathan] Edwards is the person who really made theological determinism a serious option for Reformed thinkers, and the influence his views had in nineteenth century Reformed thought, in the USA and the UK in particular, is enormous.

No confession is inerrant; Reformed Christians are supposed to be those who seek to be constantly reformed according to the Word of God - and that includes our confessions as well.

The alternative of hypothetical universalism, according to which Christ's work is sufficient for all but efficient only for the elect, was alive and well in early Reformed thought. Moreover - and importantly for our purposes - this view was not regarded as an aberration but as a legitimate position that could be taken within the confessional bounds of Reformed thought. But that means that the Five Points aren't the non-negotiable conceptual core of Calvinism after all.