Semper Fi (from an active duty Army soldier, no less)-
I appreciate what you are saying. Totally agree with the lack of appreciation or commitment to history, let alone confessions, in our contemporary setting. What I find hard to believe is the notion that reformation is ever over. Perhaps someone could comment on this aspect of Reformed theology, that we are not simply satisfied with the complete New Testament and yet we arbitrarily land (in my case) at 1689.
Do you think there is ever a warrant at any level to contextualize the Reformed faith in a given cultural setting? We always got missionary prayer cards at Reformed Baptist church and they would wear dress shirt and tie in Majority World settings, as opposed to other missionaries who dress like the natives. Is contextualization automatically confessional compromise? That is very difficult for me to understand, but I am open to your comments.
The Dutch church in Indonesia made new Javanese believers take on a "Christian name" and cut their hair and wear dutch clothes to church, where they entered in and sang translated songs from the dutch to the tune of the pipe organ instead of local instrumentation. I.e., they became dutch to become Christian.
While some New Calvies over-contextualize, the tendency among the "Truly Reformed" has been to Under-contextualize the Gospel and to transplant Western culture and think it is all Gospel.
I think being fed up with the Churchianity and the 1950's cultural forms of church are one reason people are flocking to New Calvinism