Memories of Calvinism

A couple of days ago I was at my frend Jamie's house. He is an older man now, but I first me him when I was 4 and he was in his twenties. He is one of the best men I have ever known and though he has worked as an accountant his whole adult life he is also one of the pastors at a Mega-Church here in Silicon Valley. He asked me why I was no longer a Calvinist. What I told him, and I don't know if I've ever put it on this blog before, is that..."When I was a Calvinist the amount of the Bible I could read kept getting smaller and smaller; Much of the New Testament disagreed with the 5 Points. That and I was leading a horrible life; excused by predestination. What did it matter how I lived if I was one of the elect? Noting I did or did not do could have any effect on what God had determined."

Of course, Calvin didn't make up the Five Points of Calvinism. They were named after him by a goup of French and Belgian theologians who followed him. And, shockingly, the roots of Calvinism are found in the error of an Orthodox Saint, Blessed Augustine of Hippo. (Actually, he made three serious errors, well maybe only two - it depends on what he thought the Pope was supreme over -, but we consider him a Saint primarily for the depth of his spiritual life, not for his intellectualizing. As is often said, 100% of the saints are only Orthodox 90% of the time.)

In the end, I had to abandon Calvinism for the love of Jesus. I had to recognize that God's love is greater than and completly overpowers logical systems that give rise to things such as the ideas I formerly held. And now what is amazing to me is that I ever belived it was true.


Here is what John Wessly said about the Calvinist doctrine of predestination:

"Such blasphemy this, as one would think might make the ears of a Christian to tingle! But there is yet more behind; for just as it honours the Son, so doth this doctrine honour the Father. It destroys all his attributes at once: It overturns both his justice, mercy, and truth; yea, it represents the most holy God as worse than the devil, as both more false, more cruel, and more unjust. More false; because the devil, liar as he is, hath never said, “He willeth all men to be saved:” More unjust; because the devil cannot, if he would, be guilty of such injustice as you ascribe to God, when you say that God condemned millions of souls to everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, for continuing in sin, which, for want of that grace he will not give them, they cannot avoid: And more cruel; because that unhappy spirit “seeketh rest and findeth none;” so that his own restless misery is a kind of temptation to him to tempt others. But God resteth in his high and holy place; so that to suppose him, of his own mere motion, of his pure will and pleasure, happy as he is, to doom his creatures, whether they will or no, to endless misery, is to impute such cruelty to him as we cannot impute even to the great enemy of God and man. It is to represent the high God (he that hath ears to hear let him hear!) as more cruel, false, and unjust than the devil!"