James K A Smith

For what it's worth, I have found this "three streams" snapshot increasingly problematic--or at least the way it is deployed can be problematic.  It tends to foster a certain kind of pigeon-holing--and is also slightly biased in its preference for one of the streams, usually the Kuyperian.

Indeed, one could ask: into which of these "streams" would Abraham Kuyper fit?  The answer, I think, is: "All of them."  And if that's true, then the taxonomy is not very helpful.  

I was directed here by my colleague, Kathy Smith.  I'm glad to learn of another member of the "Reformed charismatic" tribe!  I would describe myself the same way.  Indeed, I sometimes tell friends that, in some sense, the CRC has been at least "officially" charismatic since the 1970s when Synod resisted cessationism and affirmed that all the gifts remain operative.  

I think one can imagine something like a "charismatic worldview" or a "pentecostal worldview" (small-p) which is not only entirely consistent with Reformed theology, but in fact an expression of fundamentally Reformed convictions.  This was something I tried to argue in a Christianity Today article a few years back, "Teaching a Calvinist to Dance."

I have also tried to articulate the resonance between Reformed and charismatic worldviews in my book, Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy (Eerdmans, 2010)--sort of Alvin Plantinga meets Gordon Fee.  There I try to unpack what I think are some of the basic, ecumenical elements of a charismatic worldview, along the lines that Sam has suggested here.  It's not just about tongues or healing or miracles--there's much more to it than that.

I think it is especially important for us to be having this conversation precisely because the explosion of Christianity in the majority world is charismatic Christianity.  Indeed, many of our global brothers and sisters in the Reformed churches would look quite "pentecostal" to those of us in staid, buttoned-down North America!.

May the tribe increase!