I’ve always wondered why I quite liked Betjeman and loathed Lewis.
Now I realise that Betjeman despite his “flippancy”& lack of reverence for the whole Oxbridge scene actually could think beyond it. Lewis comes across as a dreary prig. I might add that he loathed Nuffield, an uneducated benefactor of Oxford.
The last thing Lewis came acrossas , with people who knew him, was a 'dreary prig'. He was a lot of fun. But of course serious with it. Why do you loathe him? His theology, books, lecturing manner? Lewis, like JB, isn't to everyone's taste, that's for sure
“A lot of fun”?? In the eye of the beholder, probably. Bear in mind that Lewis was a product of his time, from his Belfast upbringing to the crashing snobbery (social and intellectual) of Oxford to his eventual conversion experience.
I know nothing of his lecturing style however nearly 50 years ago was given “Surprised by Joy” tp read by an uber-evangelical acquaintance ( a Baptist ordinand training at Moore College); I suspect in the hope of converting me from my irreverent Catholicism. I managed half a chapter then gave up. Just not interested.
I might add that for me that dislike/ disapproval of “flippancy” is quite a red flag for priggishness even if disguised: one can after all be a closet prig.
I have no idea why anyone would expect reading Lewis to move someone away from Catholicism. He was converted by a Catholic himself and invariably shows that he has great respect for Catholicism and regards it as a fully valid expression of Christianity.
I'd be interested to hear how Wesley was the 'inverse' of Lutheranism. I wasn't expecting him to have a particularly high profile there, to be honest, even though Moravian pietism fed into Wesley's spiritual make-up.
As I often say on these boards, I don’t know much about Lutheranism beyond what I've picked up here. The only Lutherans I've met have been German, Scandinavian or Americans with German or Scandinavian heritage.
Oh, and Malagasy converts from animism.
Wesley's legacy extends into the Wesleyan, Holiness and Pentecostal side of things. Broadly speaking I'd suggest that much of UK evangelicalism, whilst 'warmed' by Wesley, drew from the more Calvinist side of the spectrum.
The Orthodox are interested in him because of his emphasis on 'entire sanctification" which has echoes with theosis to some extent. Then there was that odd incident with the 'Bishop of Arcadia'.
I've come across some odd populist sentiments among some Orthodox converts. 'John Wesley was Orthodox!'
Well, hardly ... but he was steeped in Patristics like most clergy of his day. It's also the case that the Orthodox see the Wesleyan strand as a lot warmer and more conducive than the Calvinist one - although I don't say that to disrespect the Reformed tradition but simply as 'reportage'.
The point I was making about Wesley was that most Christian traditions, in the Anglophone world and those influenced by that, can find something to relate to there. I've come across very High Church Anglicans with a soft spot for Wesley as well as evangelicals and Pentecostals.
I've got a soft spot for him although he certainly had his faults, like all of us.
I would be interested to hear what it is about Wesley that doesn't chime with Lutheranism.
Well, in my experience he tends to be admired more about High Church and broad church people than among evangelicals, who wouldn't find his particular 'churchmanship' to their taste.
Whereas Wesley and Lewis appear to appeal across the spectrum.
Although not the former within Lutheranism it seems.
There were tensions between the early Wesleyan 'societies' and Moravian groups that had settled in England - or groups influenced by them like the 'Inghamites'.
'Boars out of the German wood,' as Wesley's Yorkshire adjutant John Nelson called them.
To be brief, Wesley's emphasis on attaining holiness via human effort is utterly foreign to original historical Lutheranism, though it did flow out of pietism--which was itself a problematic development that has my own church body freaked out even today. You're aware of the number one Lutheran distinctive, salvation as a pure gift of God on account of Christ's work, by grace through faith and not at all of human works--no synergism, it's monergism all the way. We believe this of sanctification as well--and the strong allergic reaction to Wesley comes of his belief that people could--well, work hard and perfect themselves in holiness. Experience shows us how easily that bleeds into trying to justify oneself by works--it shouldn't, but very often it does. And for quite a few people it did, and still does today.
Last night I was listening to a Youtube recorded presentation done by an old friend of mine, a professor and apologist Rod Rosenbladt who is now with the Lord, who grew up in Norwegian pietism -- and lost his Christian faith on account of just this problem. He came back to the faith later, but with a lifelong allergy to this kind of thing--and found a home in my church body despite cultural clashes, simply because we share this major concern. Wesley takes it to an extreme--and I too share this allergy, though in me it stems from OCD and the incredible burden that notions of human perfectibility lay on people like me. As I see it, either God does it (salvation and sanctification) or it isn't happening. I know far too well my own inability to change my own heart. I tried for years. Now I leave it all in Christ's lap to deal with, and I've given up worrying myself about it. That route leads to deep depression and risk of suicide for me.
Apparently I lied when I said I'd be brief--but anyone interested in the difficulty might listen to (or read) Rosenbladt's "The Gospel for People Broken by the Church." Google it. It's well worth the time, especially for anyone in despair over personal sin.
Ok. Thanks for unpacking that, @Lamb Chopped and I now understand the Lutheran aversion to Wesley's emphasis on 'entire sanctification' - and it also explains some of the tensions between Wesley's 'societies' and the Moravians.
The Wesleys were Arminian of course and there were bitter controversies between the Arminian and Calvinistic wings within the Church of England at that time.
Wesley's theology wasn't particularly systematic and is inconsistent throughout his Journals. In fairness to him, though, he certainly didn't believe that we acquire holiness through human effort - although he did of course put a lot of emphasis on 'working out our salvation' - and that could indeed lead to an unattractive scrupulousness and judgementalism that we see within various forms of pietism.
Heck, I know all about that and it's taking me a long, long, lo-ooo-oo-ng time to get out of that, which you may find odd as I'm now in a Christian Big T Tradition that emphasises syngergism.
It's still work in progress.
I think the appeal of Wesley lies in the warmth of scope of his various emphases - 'the world is my parish,' 'do all the good you can by whatever means you can' etc etc.
His rather erratic and eccentric views on sanctification have largely faded into the background except perhaps in various 'Holiness' groups that emerged from the Wesleyan tradition.
His more Calvinist contemporaries accused him of preaching salvation by works and much else besides. By the same token, some of his followers/disciples accused others of laxity and carelessness. There's a quaint bit in John Nelson's journal (which is very polemical and supports a very Wesleyan position) in which he rails about one of the 'Inghamites' being 'so drunk he could not keep the cart road.'
These 18th century controversies haven't entirely died down.
From an Orthodox perspective whilst Wesley's views on sanctification are seen as somewhat eccentric, there's a cautious welcome insofar that at least he drew attention to the issue. It's not that we don't understand Protestant controversies over these issues but we neatly side-step all the Arminian/Calvinist kerfuffles and think that monergism elides the both/and elements we believe are clearly there in scripture.
That said, I certainly accept the points you are making about people getting hung-up to the point of despair over issues of personal sin. One of the things priests are trained to do when hearing confession is to handle that sensitively.
I s'pose we'd say that one of the consequences of the Reformation - a side-effect if you like, of a perfectly understandable reaction against late medieval Catholicism - is that it inevitably sent people to extremes.
In this case, either extreme monergism and - in some instances, a form of fatalism - on the one hand and on the other a mixed-up and overly scrupulous form of pietism.
That's simplifying things I know and it doesn't let the Orthodox off the hook for our besetting sins of phyletism, Pharisaisism and superstition.
But we're getting a long way from Betjeman - or perhaps not. He certainly repudiated the pietistic influences of evangelicalism. I think he said of St Endellion's church in north Cornwall that a visit there cured him of evangelical piety. Betjemaniacs will be able to correct me if I've got the reference wrong.
Apparently I lied when I said I'd be brief--but anyone interested in the difficulty might listen to (or read) Rosenbladt's "The Gospel for People Broken by the Church." Google it. It's well worth the time, especially for anyone in despair over personal sin.
There's a really short written version of it here:
My son has been assigned to read that (Giertz) his first semester in seminary.
As for the Rosenbladt piece, the one thing I regret that didn't make it into this shorter version is the sentence, "We need to tell people there's room at the cross for Christians, too."
It occurs to me that despite C S Lewis's image as primarily intellectual, A Grief Observed seems widely considered one of the classic accounts of emotional experience.
I'm reminded of this by reading Joan Didion's equally esteemed memoir after the death of her husband The Year of Magical Thinking, in which she quotes Lewis as 'this is how it is'.
He did publish it under a pseudonym at first. I'm not entirely sure why--perhaps simply because he thought it didn't fit well with the more intellectual books?
He did publish it under a pseudonym at first. I'm not entirely sure why--perhaps simply because he thought it didn't fit well with the more intellectual books?
I'd always thought that he didn't want his raw feelings to be understood as a permanent, fixed opinion from C S Lewis The Apologist.
Could be--but wouldn't most people understand that grief changes over time? And that first grief in particular is something you can't hold people responsible for (every word they say, I mean)?
Given that emotional illiteracy is something of a badge of honour among many English types to this day, I think any such understanding is unlikely. And admitting to it in public just about unforeseeable.
True, but he was at Oxford, which is about as English as it gets - and I would suggest that that particular sort of Englishness, in that context, is contagious. I have some inkling whereof I speak.
He did publish it under a pseudonym at first. I'm not entirely sure why--perhaps simply because he thought it didn't fit well with the more intellectual books?
I'd always thought that he didn't want his raw feelings to be understood as a permanent, fixed opinion from C S Lewis The Apologist.
I think also he believed they would have more value and find an audience who would benefit more if viewed as descriptions of grieving than as biographical documents about the author of Narnia / Mere Christianity.
Back in my evangelical days I found it odd how evangelicals tended to co-opt Lewis even though he wasn't an evangelical.
The Orthodox have a soft spot fir him too.
I suspect that's his 'Mere Christianity' coming through.
We see a similar thing with John Wesley. Everyone seems to want to co-opt him to their particular cause.
Not the Lutherans, I fear!
Nor the Reformed in my experience.
Although some have tried.
Back in my full-on evangelical days I can remember reading neo-Calvinist articles that tried to make out that Wesley wasn't as Arminian as he's been portrayed.
And yes, I know that the Reformed tradition is wider than its neo-Calvinist form.
I think there's a Pond difference to some extent here in that whilst Wesley's influence was certainly big in the US - with the various Holiness movements and so on - it perhaps took a different form here.
At the time most people would have considered George Whitefield as the key figure in the Great Awakening.
By and large I've found most Calvinistic evangelicals here to have something of a soft spot for Wesley despite his Arminianism and views on 'entire sanctification.'
For some reason they give him a free pass.
There might be scope for another thread to explore similarities and differences between the Reformed and Lutheran traditions.
And yes, I know that the Reformed tradition is wider than its neo-Calvinist form.
Sorry to circle back to this, but I think maybe some care needs to be taken. It may not be what’s happening here, but I sometimes think “Neo-Calvinism” is being used in ways that aren’t strictly accurate and may lead to some confusion.
“Neo-Calvinism” is a movement that started in the Netherlands in the late 19th C., and spread elsewhere under the leadership of people like former Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, Geerhardus Vos, Cornelius Van Til, Klaas Schilder and others. In a nutshell, Neo-Calvinism is about holding to and applying Reformed orthodoxy in the context of contemporary society. It is primarily a movement within the Reformed tradition, though it is a minority movement, found mainly in very conservative Reformed and Presbyterian denominations. Theologians and churches that hold to Neo-Calvinism are also likely to hold pretty strictly to historic Reformed confessions and formularies, such as the Three Forms of Unity or the Westminster standards.
Neo-Calvinism shouldn’t be confused with “New Calvinism,” a movement that arose in American Evangelicalism in the mid- to late-20th C. New Calvinism takes certain aspects of Calvinist/Reformed thought and applies them in ecclesial contexts that are generally outside the Reformed tradition. While a particular take on Calvinist/Reformed soteriology, particularly “five-point Calvinism,” is adhered to, the larger contexts in which that soteriological understanding fits—Reformed understandings of covenant, ecclesiology and the sacraments, for example—often are not. New Calvinism exists primarily in churches that aren’t part of the Reformed tradition.
Obviously, I don’t know which of these two movements you encountered in your “full-on evangelical days,” or whether you encountered something else. Admittedly, discussion in an evangelical context of Wesley not really being Arminian pings New Calvinist bells for me, but I readily admit that may be a false alarm.
He had, however, been educated in England with the express purpose of becoming an English gentleman, and experienced all the cruelties of an all-male English public school education of the period.
For all he might have waxed lyrical about his Celtic emotionality he carried a lot of conventional English reserve too.
Thanks @Nick Tamen for the clarification. Thinking about it, the bloke who was pontificating about Wesley could have 'made a good Calvinist' despite himself as it were, would certainly have fitted into the 'New Calvinism' category rather than the 'Neo-Calvinist' one.
FWIW, I think I've encountered both categories from time to time but generally speaking, certainly in UK evangelical circles - in which I predominantly moved - I think we're talking about about 'Calvinist-flavoured' forms of evangelicalism that, as you say, didn't necessarily hold with wider Reformed emphases such as those you listed - covenant theology, ecclesiology and the sacraments.
The emphasis was more on soteriology and TULIP and assessing how 'sound' or otherwise everyone else was.
I occasionally bought a particular publication which made me chuckle as each issue had an overview of a particular region or country in which the author and his sidekicks visited churches of various types - Brethren assemblies, independent evangelical groups etc and assessed how 'sound' they were. The articles always ended with the author and his pals getting up and expounding 'the doctrines of grace.'
So all was well that ended well.
There was a strong Calvinist element in the CofE back in the day, although with its episcopal structure and other features I know it wouldn't be considered Reformed by Big R Reformed people.
At the risk of oversimplification I'd suggest that UK evangelicalism is an amalgam of some Calvinist emphases (outwith the Big R Reformed tradition) and Wesleyan warmth/pietism on the indigenous side as it were, with US revivalist influences thrown into the mix.
It's very much linked to its US cousin but with some distinctive features of its own.
Lewis and Betjeman would have been aware of it but not particularly influenced by it. Lewis will have encountered Ulster Presbyterianism of course, which I'd suggest is a different beast again.
Just as there might be a Calvinistic flavour to elements of UK evangelicalism, but without necessarily imbibing Reformed ecclesiology and sacramental approaches, I'd suggest there's a Wesleyan flavour in there too without necessarily imbibing the 'holiness' elements and Wesley's views on sanctification.
Which may explain why Wesley isn't as off-putting a figure within UK evangelical circles as he might be to Big R Reformed people and Lutherans.
Wesley seems popular with Anglo-Catholics too, as a 'High Churchman' although he wouldn't have been a 'ritualist' in the late 19th/early 20th century sense.
So when I observed that 'everyone' seems to want to co-opt Wesley I was thinking purely in UK (and more specifically English) terms rather than the Big R Reformed scene (which isn't very big in England but stronger in Scotland and Northern Ireland) or the Lutheran scene which is miniscule here.
Wesley wasn't that influential in Wales, although he preached there, which developed its own brand of Calvinistic Methodism, which was essentially Presbyterianism with a bit of hwyl. 😉
I'll probably be taken to task for that observation ...
There was a strong Calvinist element in the CofE back in the day, although with its episcopal structure and other features I know it wouldn't be considered Reformed by Big R Reformed people.
FWIW, the Reformed Church in Hungary, which is unquestionably “considered Reformed by Big R Reformed people,” has an episcopal, or quasi-episcopal structure. So do some union churches with Reformed antecedents, like the Church of North India and the Church of South India, which are both members of the Anglican Communion and the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
While it’s not the norm among Reformed churches, episcopacy isn’t per se incompatible with the Reformed tradition. Calvin was willing to accept episcopacy such as that found in the Church of England in his time.
Ok. Yes, thinking about it, I knew that in connection with the Church of South India. I didn't know there was a Church of North India.
I remember @Jengie Jon and others contributing to a thread years ago as to why the Anglicans couldn't properly be considered Reformed.
Back in my pietistic yoof, the term Reformed was applied rather loosely to anyone who was TULIP-ly inclined and that's about as far as it went.
But I might be doing them a disservice.
The evangelical book chain, Wesley Owen was named that as its owners wanted to convey the impression that it drew from both the Wesleyan and the Puritan traditions (as in John Owen).
Again, that represents a pretty Anglo-centric perspective.
Presbyterianism fizzled out in England and most UK evangelicals considered the URC too liberal to bother with - hence jokes about 'neither United nor Reformed' and 'the marriage of two coffins' and so on.
Both the URC and the Methodists are struggling here these days.
But we're getting further away from Betjeman and Lewis.
Comments
We'll draw a veil over that and his rumoured early proclivity for much older women.
A much older woman, anyway. Mrs Moore is a bit more than a rumour, in any case. Whatever happened earlier he looked after her for decades.
“A lot of fun”?? In the eye of the beholder, probably. Bear in mind that Lewis was a product of his time, from his Belfast upbringing to the crashing snobbery (social and intellectual) of Oxford to his eventual conversion experience.
I know nothing of his lecturing style however nearly 50 years ago was given “Surprised by Joy” tp read by an uber-evangelical acquaintance ( a Baptist ordinand training at Moore College); I suspect in the hope of converting me from my irreverent Catholicism. I managed half a chapter then gave up. Just not interested.
Themselves most likely. I personally have never been hurt by a prig: irritated, yes.
The Orthodox have a soft spot fir him too.
I suspect that's his 'Mere Christianity' coming through.
We see a similar thing with John Wesley. Everyone seems to want to co-opt him to their particular cause.
Not the Lutherans, I fear! But that's because we are in important ways his inverse.
Now I'm really intrigued
Wesley's or Lewis's?
(Edited to add final S to Lewis's. It just read wrong even if it wasn't)
I'd be interested to hear how Wesley was the 'inverse' of Lutheranism. I wasn't expecting him to have a particularly high profile there, to be honest, even though Moravian pietism fed into Wesley's spiritual make-up.
As I often say on these boards, I don’t know much about Lutheranism beyond what I've picked up here. The only Lutherans I've met have been German, Scandinavian or Americans with German or Scandinavian heritage.
Oh, and Malagasy converts from animism.
Wesley's legacy extends into the Wesleyan, Holiness and Pentecostal side of things. Broadly speaking I'd suggest that much of UK evangelicalism, whilst 'warmed' by Wesley, drew from the more Calvinist side of the spectrum.
The Orthodox are interested in him because of his emphasis on 'entire sanctification" which has echoes with theosis to some extent. Then there was that odd incident with the 'Bishop of Arcadia'.
I've come across some odd populist sentiments among some Orthodox converts. 'John Wesley was Orthodox!'
Well, hardly ... but he was steeped in Patristics like most clergy of his day. It's also the case that the Orthodox see the Wesleyan strand as a lot warmer and more conducive than the Calvinist one - although I don't say that to disrespect the Reformed tradition but simply as 'reportage'.
The point I was making about Wesley was that most Christian traditions, in the Anglophone world and those influenced by that, can find something to relate to there. I've come across very High Church Anglicans with a soft spot for Wesley as well as evangelicals and Pentecostals.
I've got a soft spot for him although he certainly had his faults, like all of us.
I would be interested to hear what it is about Wesley that doesn't chime with Lutheranism.
@Sojourner - what about Betjeman?
Well, in my experience he tends to be admired more about High Church and broad church people than among evangelicals, who wouldn't find his particular 'churchmanship' to their taste.
Whereas Wesley and Lewis appear to appeal across the spectrum.
Although not the former within Lutheranism it seems.
There were tensions between the early Wesleyan 'societies' and Moravian groups that had settled in England - or groups influenced by them like the 'Inghamites'.
'Boars out of the German wood,' as Wesley's Yorkshire adjutant John Nelson called them.
Last night I was listening to a Youtube recorded presentation done by an old friend of mine, a professor and apologist Rod Rosenbladt who is now with the Lord, who grew up in Norwegian pietism -- and lost his Christian faith on account of just this problem. He came back to the faith later, but with a lifelong allergy to this kind of thing--and found a home in my church body despite cultural clashes, simply because we share this major concern. Wesley takes it to an extreme--and I too share this allergy, though in me it stems from OCD and the incredible burden that notions of human perfectibility lay on people like me. As I see it, either God does it (salvation and sanctification) or it isn't happening. I know far too well my own inability to change my own heart. I tried for years. Now I leave it all in Christ's lap to deal with, and I've given up worrying myself about it. That route leads to deep depression and risk of suicide for me.
Apparently I lied when I said I'd be brief--but anyone interested in the difficulty might listen to (or read) Rosenbladt's "The Gospel for People Broken by the Church." Google it. It's well worth the time, especially for anyone in despair over personal sin.
The Wesleys were Arminian of course and there were bitter controversies between the Arminian and Calvinistic wings within the Church of England at that time.
Wesley's theology wasn't particularly systematic and is inconsistent throughout his Journals. In fairness to him, though, he certainly didn't believe that we acquire holiness through human effort - although he did of course put a lot of emphasis on 'working out our salvation' - and that could indeed lead to an unattractive scrupulousness and judgementalism that we see within various forms of pietism.
Heck, I know all about that and it's taking me a long, long, lo-ooo-oo-ng time to get out of that, which you may find odd as I'm now in a Christian Big T Tradition that emphasises syngergism.
It's still work in progress.
I think the appeal of Wesley lies in the warmth of scope of his various emphases - 'the world is my parish,' 'do all the good you can by whatever means you can' etc etc.
His rather erratic and eccentric views on sanctification have largely faded into the background except perhaps in various 'Holiness' groups that emerged from the Wesleyan tradition.
His more Calvinist contemporaries accused him of preaching salvation by works and much else besides. By the same token, some of his followers/disciples accused others of laxity and carelessness. There's a quaint bit in John Nelson's journal (which is very polemical and supports a very Wesleyan position) in which he rails about one of the 'Inghamites' being 'so drunk he could not keep the cart road.'
These 18th century controversies haven't entirely died down.
From an Orthodox perspective whilst Wesley's views on sanctification are seen as somewhat eccentric, there's a cautious welcome insofar that at least he drew attention to the issue. It's not that we don't understand Protestant controversies over these issues but we neatly side-step all the Arminian/Calvinist kerfuffles and think that monergism elides the both/and elements we believe are clearly there in scripture.
That said, I certainly accept the points you are making about people getting hung-up to the point of despair over issues of personal sin. One of the things priests are trained to do when hearing confession is to handle that sensitively.
I s'pose we'd say that one of the consequences of the Reformation - a side-effect if you like, of a perfectly understandable reaction against late medieval Catholicism - is that it inevitably sent people to extremes.
In this case, either extreme monergism and - in some instances, a form of fatalism - on the one hand and on the other a mixed-up and overly scrupulous form of pietism.
That's simplifying things I know and it doesn't let the Orthodox off the hook for our besetting sins of phyletism, Pharisaisism and superstition.
But we're getting a long way from Betjeman - or perhaps not. He certainly repudiated the pietistic influences of evangelicalism. I think he said of St Endellion's church in north Cornwall that a visit there cured him of evangelical piety. Betjemaniacs will be able to correct me if I've got the reference wrong.
There's a really short written version of it here:
https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/gospel-broken
And of course, there's a good rendering of pietism vs traditional Lutheran doctrine in fictional form in Bo Giertz's novel "The Hammer of God"
As for the Rosenbladt piece, the one thing I regret that didn't make it into this shorter version is the sentence, "We need to tell people there's room at the cross for Christians, too."
I'm reminded of this by reading Joan Didion's equally esteemed memoir after the death of her husband The Year of Magical Thinking, in which she quotes Lewis as 'this is how it is'.
I'd always thought that he didn't want his raw feelings to be understood as a permanent, fixed opinion from C S Lewis The Apologist.
Maybe I'm just naive.
Although some have tried.
Back in my full-on evangelical days I can remember reading neo-Calvinist articles that tried to make out that Wesley wasn't as Arminian as he's been portrayed.
And yes, I know that the Reformed tradition is wider than its neo-Calvinist form.
I think there's a Pond difference to some extent here in that whilst Wesley's influence was certainly big in the US - with the various Holiness movements and so on - it perhaps took a different form here.
At the time most people would have considered George Whitefield as the key figure in the Great Awakening.
By and large I've found most Calvinistic evangelicals here to have something of a soft spot for Wesley despite his Arminianism and views on 'entire sanctification.'
For some reason they give him a free pass.
There might be scope for another thread to explore similarities and differences between the Reformed and Lutheran traditions.
Apparently among his last words were, 'I wish I'd had more sex.'
I rather like the flippant audacity of that even at such an extremity.
I trust that the good Lord has a sense of humour.
“Neo-Calvinism” is a movement that started in the Netherlands in the late 19th C., and spread elsewhere under the leadership of people like former Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, Geerhardus Vos, Cornelius Van Til, Klaas Schilder and others. In a nutshell, Neo-Calvinism is about holding to and applying Reformed orthodoxy in the context of contemporary society. It is primarily a movement within the Reformed tradition, though it is a minority movement, found mainly in very conservative Reformed and Presbyterian denominations. Theologians and churches that hold to Neo-Calvinism are also likely to hold pretty strictly to historic Reformed confessions and formularies, such as the Three Forms of Unity or the Westminster standards.
Neo-Calvinism shouldn’t be confused with “New Calvinism,” a movement that arose in American Evangelicalism in the mid- to late-20th C. New Calvinism takes certain aspects of Calvinist/Reformed thought and applies them in ecclesial contexts that are generally outside the Reformed tradition. While a particular take on Calvinist/Reformed soteriology, particularly “five-point Calvinism,” is adhered to, the larger contexts in which that soteriological understanding fits—Reformed understandings of covenant, ecclesiology and the sacraments, for example—often are not. New Calvinism exists primarily in churches that aren’t part of the Reformed tradition.
Obviously, I don’t know which of these two movements you encountered in your “full-on evangelical days,” or whether you encountered something else. Admittedly, discussion in an evangelical context of Wesley not really being Arminian pings New Calvinist bells for me, but I readily admit that may be a false alarm.
He had, however, been educated in England with the express purpose of becoming an English gentleman, and experienced all the cruelties of an all-male English public school education of the period.
For all he might have waxed lyrical about his Celtic emotionality he carried a lot of conventional English reserve too.
FWIW, I think I've encountered both categories from time to time but generally speaking, certainly in UK evangelical circles - in which I predominantly moved - I think we're talking about about 'Calvinist-flavoured' forms of evangelicalism that, as you say, didn't necessarily hold with wider Reformed emphases such as those you listed - covenant theology, ecclesiology and the sacraments.
The emphasis was more on soteriology and TULIP and assessing how 'sound' or otherwise everyone else was.
I occasionally bought a particular publication which made me chuckle as each issue had an overview of a particular region or country in which the author and his sidekicks visited churches of various types - Brethren assemblies, independent evangelical groups etc and assessed how 'sound' they were. The articles always ended with the author and his pals getting up and expounding 'the doctrines of grace.'
So all was well that ended well.
There was a strong Calvinist element in the CofE back in the day, although with its episcopal structure and other features I know it wouldn't be considered Reformed by Big R Reformed people.
At the risk of oversimplification I'd suggest that UK evangelicalism is an amalgam of some Calvinist emphases (outwith the Big R Reformed tradition) and Wesleyan warmth/pietism on the indigenous side as it were, with US revivalist influences thrown into the mix.
It's very much linked to its US cousin but with some distinctive features of its own.
Lewis and Betjeman would have been aware of it but not particularly influenced by it. Lewis will have encountered Ulster Presbyterianism of course, which I'd suggest is a different beast again.
Just as there might be a Calvinistic flavour to elements of UK evangelicalism, but without necessarily imbibing Reformed ecclesiology and sacramental approaches, I'd suggest there's a Wesleyan flavour in there too without necessarily imbibing the 'holiness' elements and Wesley's views on sanctification.
Which may explain why Wesley isn't as off-putting a figure within UK evangelical circles as he might be to Big R Reformed people and Lutherans.
Wesley seems popular with Anglo-Catholics too, as a 'High Churchman' although he wouldn't have been a 'ritualist' in the late 19th/early 20th century sense.
So when I observed that 'everyone' seems to want to co-opt Wesley I was thinking purely in UK (and more specifically English) terms rather than the Big R Reformed scene (which isn't very big in England but stronger in Scotland and Northern Ireland) or the Lutheran scene which is miniscule here.
Wesley wasn't that influential in Wales, although he preached there, which developed its own brand of Calvinistic Methodism, which was essentially Presbyterianism with a bit of hwyl. 😉
I'll probably be taken to task for that observation ...
FWIW, the Reformed Church in Hungary, which is unquestionably “considered Reformed by Big R Reformed people,” has an episcopal, or quasi-episcopal structure. So do some union churches with Reformed antecedents, like the Church of North India and the Church of South India, which are both members of the Anglican Communion and the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
While it’s not the norm among Reformed churches, episcopacy isn’t per se incompatible with the Reformed tradition. Calvin was willing to accept episcopacy such as that found in the Church of England in his time.
I remember @Jengie Jon and others contributing to a thread years ago as to why the Anglicans couldn't properly be considered Reformed.
Back in my pietistic yoof, the term Reformed was applied rather loosely to anyone who was TULIP-ly inclined and that's about as far as it went.
But I might be doing them a disservice.
The evangelical book chain, Wesley Owen was named that as its owners wanted to convey the impression that it drew from both the Wesleyan and the Puritan traditions (as in John Owen).
Again, that represents a pretty Anglo-centric perspective.
Presbyterianism fizzled out in England and most UK evangelicals considered the URC too liberal to bother with - hence jokes about 'neither United nor Reformed' and 'the marriage of two coffins' and so on.
Both the URC and the Methodists are struggling here these days.
But we're getting further away from Betjeman and Lewis.