TooManySystematics
Puritan Board Freshman
When I became a Christian I was lucky enough to have been brought into the faith through a well read Presbyterian (He quickly put R.L. Dabney into my hands if that tells you anything!) so I was blessed to have been able to skip the awkward and somewhat cringey "YRR" stage a lot of people went through.
That being said, I can't say that it hasn't affected me or my church either. All of the young people know who John Piper, John MacArthur, and R.C Sproul are (I know he was a Presbyterian, but he was still an influencer in the movement). Many of them might even consider them to be authorities on what it means to be "Reformed". I expect that the movement (or the aftershocks of it) it will continue to affect us for some time. I suspect that mine is not the only church in NAPARC to be like this.
I think one major positive to have come out of the movement was that it made more confessional people and churches aware of each other. Podcasting and blogging was a big thing that spread the YRR, and I think that those tools are likewise helping the confessional community to find each other. I as a member of the URC currently attend a CanRC listen to a podcast from an OPC pastor and read a blog from a PCA minister. It might be an indirect positive, but its a positive nevertheless.
A massive negative however has been a general loosening of the term Reformed. Although some people are struggling to keep a tight leash on the term, I think that the battle has already been lost. When I hear a friend of mine referring to himself as a "Reformed Pentecostal", or when I see articles entitled: "Meet a Reformed Arminian" (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/meet-a-reformed-arminian/), I think the term has become so wide, so metamorphic, so general, that it no longer serves to define anything. That's tragic, because no we can't identify each other through that term anymore.
Just my
That being said, I can't say that it hasn't affected me or my church either. All of the young people know who John Piper, John MacArthur, and R.C Sproul are (I know he was a Presbyterian, but he was still an influencer in the movement). Many of them might even consider them to be authorities on what it means to be "Reformed". I expect that the movement (or the aftershocks of it) it will continue to affect us for some time. I suspect that mine is not the only church in NAPARC to be like this.
I think one major positive to have come out of the movement was that it made more confessional people and churches aware of each other. Podcasting and blogging was a big thing that spread the YRR, and I think that those tools are likewise helping the confessional community to find each other. I as a member of the URC currently attend a CanRC listen to a podcast from an OPC pastor and read a blog from a PCA minister. It might be an indirect positive, but its a positive nevertheless.
A massive negative however has been a general loosening of the term Reformed. Although some people are struggling to keep a tight leash on the term, I think that the battle has already been lost. When I hear a friend of mine referring to himself as a "Reformed Pentecostal", or when I see articles entitled: "Meet a Reformed Arminian" (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/meet-a-reformed-arminian/), I think the term has become so wide, so metamorphic, so general, that it no longer serves to define anything. That's tragic, because no we can't identify each other through that term anymore.
Just my