Calvinists fight back

America’s literary and cinematic depiction of Calvinists—from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter to Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller, a 1971 film set in the fictional Pacific northwest town of Presbyterian Church—has commonly been negative. But here comes a poem, “The Calvinist,” which John Piper recently wrote to “capture a glimpse of God’s sovereign intersection with the life of a sinful man.” The Desiring God ministry created a beautifully done, four-minute video designed to accompany the poem (see below).

It’s worth watching. “The Calvinist,” fighting centuries of criticism, could give Calvinists overly high self-esteem, for when else have “the frozen chosen” been thawed out and revealed as heroes and lovers, the resolute romantics all of us want to be? Piper’s words—with voicing from R.C. Sproul, Alistair Begg, Sinclair Ferguson, and others)—and the images (from Sulva Productions) combine into what’s likely to open meetings of young Calvinists for the next 10 years.