Reformed Resurgence: A Field-Theoretic Analysis of Religious Strength (and Weakness) in Advanced Modernity

Calvinism has long been of interest to social scientists as a strict, early modern theological system that eventually led to the rise of modern capitalism, radical politics, and state power. This project turns the lens on Calvinism more directly, investigating and explaining the increasing prominence of Calvinism in American Evangelicalism today, especially among Millennials. This “New Calvinist” or “neo-Reformed” movement has garnered nationwide attention in recent years as a significant and influential Christian trend that runs counter to advanced-modern sensibilities of self-determination, relativistic tolerance, and egalitarianism. This work explains how pastors, seminary professors, and other Calvinistic leaders use and engage with elements of today’s culture to position themselves strategically in relation to the rest of American Evangelicalism, and how this serves to advance their distinctive early modern ideology and power over the field.

Working at the intersection of the sociology of culture, religion, organizations, and movements—and highlighting issues related to power, conflict, ideologies, strategy, gender, and more—this project develops a new, field-theoretic model of institutional religious strength. The findings indicate that religious vitality in the West today is less at the mercy of cultural happenstance, numerical growth, or the external forces of modernity than it is an outworking of religious leaders’ strategic and conflictual efforts. But with strength comes weakness. Ironically, as conservative Calvinistic thought experiences increased prominence and power in its field, American Evangelicalism has now turned in on itself such that the strength of one Evangelical pocket ultimately comes at the cost of the increasing weakness, fragmentation, and incoherence of the Evangelical field as a whole. This field-theoretic model of religious strength thus also implies a new vision of secularization as cultural entropy, in which religious meanings and coherence fall apart.

Data are from participant observation at three leading Calvinist mega-churches across the United States; interviews with 75 pastors, seminary professors, and other Evangelical leaders; and content analysis of Evangelical books, sermons, and websites.