Tag Archives: Arminianism

A Twitter Discussion with a Calvinist

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I had a Twitter discussion over the past few days with a Calvinistic Christian named Michael Morth. He has a blog titled Biblical Orthodoxy. Michael responded to Former Christian Atheist’s guest post My Life. The Vyckie in the discussion is my friend Vyckie Garrison (she has a large Twitter following)  who tweets all of my posts. Vyckie blogs at No Longer Qivering.

Michael: 1. There are no former Christians Jn 6:37-40, 1 Jn 2:19 2. Christianity is not assent, but repentance and faith!

Bruce: Nice try Michael. Keep telling yourself this as the number of former Christians who repented and had faith grows.

Bruce: Do you really think Vyckie or I spent our whole adults lives “assenting” and not faithfully living?

Michael: Well, I don’t know either of you, but I do believe God’s word. I think some people are false converts and fall away because they didn’t trust wholeheartedly. Trust and faith requires abiding and staying; many threats.

Bruce: So you believe what a book says rather than what you can see and what a person knows about themselves?

Michael: Faith is a gift of God and a drawing to Christ. The gifts and callings of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29)

Michael: I don’t believe that the elect, after being born-again from above , will be able to turn away; God preserves.

Bruce: I don’t care what you believe. How we lived our lives tell the story. If we weren’t Christians no one is.

Bruce: Besides, millions of Arminian Christians disagree with your Calvinism. How do you know you are right?

Michael: I’ve been on both sides of the fence, but ultimately was convinced by the overwhelming testimony of Scripture.

Bruce: This is what they all say. Arminianism, Calvinism. Amyraldianism. All taught in the Bible. All with overwhelming evidence.

Michael: The Word of God is a better judge of humanity than our own finite understanding and experiences. We change often

Michael: then, what made you stop trusting? I’m a believer because God caused me to be born-again; didn’t start with me.

Bruce: who knows better what happened in my life? You or the person who lived it? I know I was a Christian and now I am not.

Bruce: Again, you can’t know for sure. Unless you persevere to the end you weren’t saved. You might yet fall away.

Bruce: and if you fall away how do you think you would respond to people who said you were never really saved?

Michael: The scriptures say that God “gave” people to Christ and Christ won’t/cant lose any. Also see Romans 8:28-30

Bruce: I am well aware of what you think the Bible says. Been there done that. I know Calvinism inside and out.

Michael: Again, I must ask what caused you to disbelieve? Cleverly crafted arguments? Scientific theory? Sinful desire?

Bruce: if Calvinism is correct, it was God who was the agent of my unbelief. God is in control of everything, yes?

Bruce: I stopped believing because I came to see that the Bible wasn’t truth, it wasn’t inerrant, inspired,infallible.

Michael: What led to those conclusions? Cleverly devised arguments?

Bruce: You really want to frame my answer according to your own conclusions with your use of the word clever.

Bruce: Facts and evidence born out of Intellectual pursuit led to my conclusions about the bible and its central message and teachings

Michael: What fact and evidence?

Bruce: Read Bart Ehrman. His books succinctly address the text issues and many Internal contradictions. Inerrancy can not be sustained

Michael: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit… of the world, and not according to Christ. Col 2:8

Bruce: Whatever

Michael: Did you read anything by biblical scholars that hold to inerrancy/infallibility?

Bruce: You might what to check out who you are talking with? I pastored Evangelical churches for 25 years. So yes, I have read the books.

Michael: Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.

Bruce: No offense. However, quoting Bible verses that I already know and used to expositionally preach from has no effect.

Michael: So, no belief in God at all? Did you check out any other religious traditions?

Bruce: I am an atheist, so no God at all. Yes, I have checked out all the “other” gods and none of them ring true.

Michael: Do you think that you were living in a protracted delusion all those years? How long since you left?

Bruce: No, I was a Christian, plain and is simple. 8 years since I pastored, 4 years since attending church.

Can Anyone Really Know They Are Saved?

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Yes.

No.

Maybe.

What do I mean by the word saved? Delivered. Redeemed. Set free. Bought by the blood. Justified.(looked at by God just as if I never sinned)

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.(Romans 10:9, 10)

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8.9)

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:3,4)

Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Timothy 1:9)

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. Mark 16:16

oops. Scratch that last one. Don’t want to start a war between the Baptists and the Campbellites. (Church of Christ)

Let me set aside, for a moment, the fact that these verses teach several different salvations. Most Christians interpret these verses, and others, in a very basic, generic way.

I am a sinner. Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. Three days later he resurrected from  the dead. Believing this message I admit I am a sinner, I repent of my sins and by faith I trust Jesus to forgive me of my sins and save me. I am trusting Jesus to save me and keep me until I die. By putting my faith and trust in Jesus I know I will go to heaven when I die. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

There are three basic schools of thought when it comes to salvation. (and yes I know there are shades of all of these. Please, spare me the emails and comments that I didn’t properly describe YOUR tribe)

There is the “once saved, always saved” school. According to this school of thought once a person is saved they can never be un-saved. No matter what the person does, no matter how the person lives, they are saved forever. A person can stop attending Church, stop doing ANYTHING that remotely suggests that they are saved, yet “once saved, always saved.” One noted writer even said that a person could go to the altar and be saved and then leave the Church, curse God, and live like a heathen the remainder of their life…it matters not, “once saved, always saved.”

This is the belief of most Baptists and many Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. Salvation becomes a form of “fire insurance.” People don’t want to go to hell, so they get saved. Whew, that’s over. Next!

Coupled with this belief is the notion that the believer will be rewarded some day for doing the right things in this life. 2 Corinthians 5:10 says For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. So, a person might be “once saved always saved” but if they don’t live right they will lose their rewards in heaven. What this loss of rewards is is never clearly defined. Maybe their mansion won’t have indoor plumbing? (John 14:1-6)

Some “once saved always saved” believers realize that their version of salvation really looks bad. They know their brand of salvation looks like it is preaching a “live like hell, still go to heaven” message.

To counter this they teach that Christians who live carnally will be chastised (corrected) by God in this life. If a carnal Christian is not chastised it is proof that they were never “really” saved. After all the Bible says in Hebrews 12:8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

Arminian groups  hold to a conditional salvation. They believe a person is saved by grace but kept by works. (works they do by the power of God so it is really all of grace) In this school of thought a person can only know they are saved in the present moment. Their future salvation is conditioned on them doing the right things. This is the belief of groups like the Free-Will Baptists, Methodists, Wesleyans, etc.(groups who trace back their heritage to John and Charles Wesley and Jacobus Arminius)

A believer can do certain things that will result in the loss of salvation. Some Arminian groups believe you can only lose your salvation one time. In other word, “once saved, one lost, always lost.” The Bible says in Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

Other Arminian groups believe a person can repeatedly saved, lost, saved, lost, saved. They often talk about a line that is crossed, when a person goes from a state of grace to being lost again. I have asked repeatedly over the years exactly where that line is and no one can tell me. I have been told by more than one Arminian preacher, “You just KNOW when you have crossed the line.”

The final school of thought is the Calvinistic school. Calvinist groups, like the Presbyterians, some Baptists, Episcopalians,etc adhere to what is commonly called the five points of Calvinism. (which were actually articulated as a reply to the Arminians) Point number five is the Perseverance of the saints or the Preservation of the saints.

Perseverance of the saints is  “once saved, always saved” with a twist.  Calvinists believe that salvation is a work done totally by God. From start to finish it is God who does it all. A person can not believe, exercise faith, or anything apart from God giving them the power to do so. Those whom God saves, God keeps. Now, God only saves a certain number of people. God knows exactly how many he will save. They are the elect. They have been predestined to salvation.

The God who saves is the God who causes the believer to persevere to the end. If a person doesn’t persevere to the end then that is proof that they were never saved to start with. For this reason the Calvinistic commenters on this blog consider me unsaved, never having been saved. I didn’t persevere. I have received common grace but not God’s special, saving grace. In other words, God toyed with me and then said fuck you.

No Calvinist can know for sure they are saved. They can HOPE they are. They can constantly examine their lives to see if they are availing themselves to the means of grace, but until they die they can not know for sure they are saved. They MUST persevere to the end to be sure. They are hoping God comes through for them but they won’t know for sure until the end. After all they TOO could be deluded. They TOO could be following a false Christ.

Imagine a person going Church to Church trying to find out the true Christian message of salvation.  You would think Christians could agree on the most basic of truths…salvation.

But they don’t.

I am convinced that Christians better hope that God is a universalist. If not…hell is going to be filled with Christians.

Do Christians REALLY Know Who God is?

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I know this seems like a silly question to a Christian but I hope this post will help them to see that this is not a silly question at all. The Christian believes that it is self-evident that the Christian God is God. (singular, the one and only) I hope to show in this post that their belief about God is not self-evident at all.

Most Christians believe that God reveals himself to human beings three ways:

  • The light of nature
  • The light of conscience
  • The light of divine revelation (the Bible)

Let’s take a look at these three statements.

The Light of Nature

Christians believe their God created the universe. Regardless of what view they take on the Genesis account, every Christian believes their God created everything.

The Bible says in Romans 1:17-20

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

Based on this passage of Scripture, the Christian comes to the conclusion that through nature the Christian God reveals himself to every human being. However,this belief presupposes that the person who is looking at the natural world has read the Bible. What if they have not read the Bible?

Imagine that you have never read the Bible and that you knew absolutely nothing about the Christian religion. When you looked at the natural world would you come to the conclusion that the Christian God created the universe? Of course not, and it would be silly to suggest otherwise.

Now a person uninitiated in the Christian religion might look at the natural world and conclude that a being, perhaps a deity bigger than themselves, created everything but they might also not come to that conclusion.

The history of the human race is littered with creation stories and stories about the many, and various gods. While many human beings have concluded a god created the universe, I know of no people group or individual that believed the Christian God created the universe, without FIRSTbeing indoctrinated in the Christian religion.

Christians forget that to make the jump from A GOD created the universe to THE CHRISTIAN GODcreated the universe requires the Bible. No Bible, No Christian God.

The Light of Conscience

Christians believe that God has given every human being a conscience and that through their Christian God-given conscience they have a basic understanding of right and wrong. Christians believe the conscience has been marred by our sin nature but, at some level, basic right and wrong makes itself known.

Romans 2:14-16 says:

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

The passage above speaks of a law written on our hearts, our conscience. Our conscience is our accuser, and at times our excuser. (this contradictory nature, accusing and then excusing is why we need salvation. Conscience alone is not enough)

According to the Bible, the Christian God writes his law on every human being’s conscience. There is much debate over what is meant here by the word law. Many Christians believe the law spoken of here is the Ten Commandments. For the sake of not having a long, drawn out theological discussion, I will use the Law=Ten’s Commandants definition.

What are the Ten Commandments? Think you know them? Are you sure? Did you know there are two different sets of Ten Commandments? Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. There are differences between the Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 passages. Minor differences, to be sure, but one would think that on a matter so basic and important, that each passage would say exactly the same thing. Surely, God would not want any misunderstandings about his Law?

Let’s examine the premise that every human being has a conscience given to them by the Christian God. If this is true we would expect to see a universal adherence to a basic moral code in every people group in the world. Is this the case? How many native tribes do we see. “remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy?”

The fact is, every people group, every culture has its own moral code. Where do these moral codes come from? A God? Social contracts? Evolutionary development? I am not sure we really know. We do know this…moral beliefs vary widely from one culture to another. Even in countries heavily influenced by Christianity we find wide divergence in what is moral and what is not. If the Christian God is responsible for giving every human being a conscience that is imprinted with his Law he has done a poor job. The wide diversity of moral belief points us away from the Christian God and to some other explanation.

The Christian, once again, presupposes, based on their reading of the Bible, that the conscience God gives to every human being is imprinted with the Christian God’s Law. Their proof? The Bible. The United States, by and large, is a Christian nation. We are heavily influenced by Christianity and the Bible. So, it should come as no shock that our collective moral beliefs reflect the teachings of the Bible. However, if God gives every human being a conscience imprinted with his Law shouldn’t we see a universal moral code in every culture and people group? Why all the diversity in moral beliefs?

The Light of Divine Revelation

For the Christian to believe that God reveals himself through nature and through our conscience it requires them to accept what the Bible says on these two things. As I have shown, without being initiated into the Christian religion and being exposed to the teachings of the Bible, it is highly unlikely that a human being would naturally come to the conclusion that the Christian God created the universe and that the Christian God imprinted every human being’s conscience with his Law.

Believing that the Christian God reveals himself to human beings requires that a person accept the Bible teaching on these things. Every Christian, at some level or another is a presuppositionalist. They presuppose certain beliefs and thencome to this or that conclusion.

What does the Bible say about God? Are Christians in agreement about who God is? Are they in agreement about how God is involved in the universe and how he interacts with human beings?

Any cursory reading of the history of the Christian religion will clearly reveal that there have been huge divisions over these questions about God. One would think that on such a foundational issue, God, that all Christians everywhere would believe the same things.

Most Christians are totally ignorant of the history of the Christian religion.Most Christians assume that what they now believe or what their church/pastor now says is the truth is what Christians have always believed.

If I asked 100 Christians, “did the early church believe that Jesus Christ was God”, almost all of them would shout out a resounding YES! Little do they know that 300 years after the death of Jesus the Christian church was STILL debating, arguing, and killing each other over whether of not Jesus was God. Large numbers of Christians (Arians) said he was not.

I also doubt that 1 in 100 Christians could tell me about the influence Gnosticismhad on the early Christian church. What if the wrong group won the doctrinal battle centuries ago? What if the Gnostics were the ones with God’s truth and not those who we now claim had the orthodox Christian beliefs?

Even today, Christians are divided on who God is and how God is involved in the universe and how he interacts with human beings.

Debates over Calvinism and Arminianism are really battles over God and his nature. A newcomer in the debate, open theism, the belief that God chooses NOT to know some things, makes things even more confusing and complicated. (and let’s not forget the age old belief called Pelagianism)

While Trinitarian Christianity, God is three yet one, dominates the Christian scene, there are sects who are modalists (sabellianism), sects who deny that God is a triune being.

One would think, on this basic issue, that every Christian, regardless of their denominational affiliation, would believe the exact same thing about God. Surely, the Holy Spirit that lives inside of them and teaches them truth would be very clear about the God question, yes? Evidently not.

Conclusion

The common thread that runs through the three ways that God reveals himself to human being is the Bible. Since Christianity is a text based religion, its religious text, the Bible, is the foundation of every belief.

And herein lies the problem. The Bible says many things about God and it can be quite contradictory. For example, I can make a compelling case for there being a plurality of Gods in the book of Genesis, and that the Bible shows a progression from polytheism to monotheism. For me to make this case I have to dispense with my Christian presuppositions and read the text as it stands. There is no possible way to find monotheism or trinitarianism in the book of Genesis.

Let’s look at one verse, Genesis 1:26

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

18th century Presbyterian commentator Albert Barnes writes:

The plural form of the sentence raises the question, With whom took he counsel on this occasion? Was it with himself, and does he here simply use the plural of majesty?…

…We have no ground, therefore, for transferring it to the style of the heavenly King. Was it with certain other intelligent beings in existence before man that he took counsel? This supposition cannot be admitted; because the expression “let us make” is an invitation to create, which is an incommunicable attribute of the Eternal One, and because the phrases, “our image, our likeness,” when transferred into the third person of narrative, become “his image, the image of God,” and thus limit the pronouns to God himself. Does the plurality, then, point to a plurality of attributes in the divine nature? This cannot be, because a plurality of qualities exists in everything, without at all leading to the application of the plural number to the individual, and because such a plurality does not warrant the expression, “let us make.” Only a plurality of persons can justify the phrase. Hence, we are forced to conclude that the plural pronoun indicates a plurality of persons or hypostases in the Divine Being.

What Barnes does here is connect the dots using the Bible. That’s all well and good thousands of years after the fact, but would a person alive at the time of the writing of Genesis conclude that “let us make man in our image” referred to the triune God of the Christian New Testament? Of course not. He would have, based on the polytheistic culture of the day, concluded there were multiple Gods involved in the creation of man. (and the same argument can me made for Genesis 3:22)

The Bible is the glue that holds the Christian church together. However, if we can not trust it to get the God question right can we really trust anything else it says? If we can not trust its teaching on the light of creation or the light of conscience should we really believe that the Bible is God’s (whoever he is) divine revelation to humanity?

The Logical Consequences of You Never Were a Christian

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Baptists, Calvinists, and anyone who believes a Christian can not fall from grace are forced to say someone like me was never a Christian. Arminians have less of a problem with me because they believe a person can fall from grace. Most Arminians readily admit that I was once a Christian and now I am not. I appreciate Arminians who respect the work I did as a Christian and a pastor. 

People who believe a Christian can not fall from grace are forced to dismiss me as a life-long deceptive, servant of Satan. Basically, for 36 years I deceived every Christian, every church member,  every pastor, every Evangelist, every Christian college professor I came in contact with, and most of all I deceived my entire Christian family.

No one, over a span of 36 years, ever said “Bruce Gerencser is not a Christian.”  Think about this for a moment. Think of the deception necessary to pull this off.

  • I preached thousands of sermons…all preached in the power of the flesh.
  • I  prayed thousands of prayers, none of which were ever heard by God.
  • Hundreds of people who made professions of faith did so after hearing the preaching of a deceiver, a worker for Satan.
  • Hundreds of people who were baptized by me were baptized by a charlatan, a deceiver, a man who rejected the Baptismal vows confessed during a baptism.
  • I counseled hundreds of people over the years. Every person I counseled received counsel from a false prophet.
  • Every moment spent in private prayer, every moment spent in devoted study of the Word of God…….all the time spent in devotion to the living Christ was spent as a person no better than Judas.

See how silly this is?

It is time for the “once saved always saved” crowd, the “perseverance/preservation of the saints” crowd to change their thinking about apostates like me.

I was a Christian and now I am not…….Theology be damned.

Think of the verse in the graphic at the top of the page. Ye shall know them by their fruits……

What did my fruit  give testimony of?

It seems a lot of my critics are determined to look at an apple tree loaded with apples and say……I see no fruit.

A Few Thoughts on Calvinism

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I was a Calvinist for a number of years. I found Calvinism to be intellectually stimulating and I thought that the well-known Calvinistic pastors generally took the Bible seriously and tried to be faithful to what they believed the text said. In short, Calvinism made sense to me.

Calvinism is a precise systematic theology. Calvinism is generally described by the acronym TULIP.

Total Depravity

Unconditional Election

Limited Atonement

Irresistible Grace

Perseverance of the Saints

According to Calvinism every person is born  a sinner. Every person is dead in trespasses and sins and separated from God. God, before the world began, purposed to save SOME people from their sins.Those chosen by God for salvation will, in time, be saved. The people God did not purpose to save are left in their sins.They will die with no hope of salvation. Jesus Christ came into the world to die for the sins of the people chosen by God for salvation. Jesus died only for them. The blood of Christ provides no salvation for those not chosen (elected) by God.God has ordered everything necessary to effectually, without a chance of failure, call and save every person that Jesus died for. The people God chose, the people that Jesus died for, the people that God effectually called and saved, will persevere in Christ until the end of their lives. A person’s perseverance is  proof of their election and calling by God.

This is Calvinism in a nutshell, however Calvinism is much more than the five points mentioned above. Spend enough time in Calvinistic circles and you will find yourself having discussions about the various lapsarian views, double predestination, the means of grace,etc. Calvinists, when not skewering Arminians,  endlessly bicker with one another about these and other doctrines.

I am sure some smarter than Calvin Calvinist will leave a comment about what I have written above, letting me know that it is evident I really don’t understand Calvinism. This is a common way Calvinists deal with anyone who writes something negative about Calvinism. Just discredit the messenger.

In 2007  I was still hoping to pastor a church somewhere. My views of Christianity had radically changed and, for a time, I was enamored with the Emerging/Emergent church. I engaged in a discussion  on the Pyromaniacs blog about the Emerging church. It is quite interesting to go back and read what I wrote in 2007 and see how radically my thinking has changed. The purveyors of the Pyromaniac site would likely say that my atheism was the logical outcome of my relativistic, Emerging church thinking.

Phil Johnson, an elder at John MacArthur’s church, and MacArthur’s book editor decided to let everyone know who the real Bruce Gerencser was. Johnson and I once were friends back when I sponsored the CHARIS discussion list. (a Calvinist leaning theology discussion list)  While I am going to post everything Johnson wrote I want you to pay particular attention to what Johnson wrote about my Calvinistic beliefs:

Bruce Gerencser was at one time a fundamentalist Baptist pastor of the “Sword of the Lord” variety. In the 1990s, he abandoned that and experimented briefly with Calvinism. I knew him in those days through a couple of on-line forums. He was a tenderhearted and passionate man who had been shredded by independent Baptist fundamentalists. He had a young daughter with Down syndrome (who is a teenager now). From the time I first met Bruce, I liked him a great deal. I had had some firsthand experience with the same branch of fundamentalism that had savaged him, so I had lots of empathy for him.

My advice to Bruce straightaway was that he should leave Internet forums where theology was treated primarily as fodder for debate and spend some time reading, studying, feeding his soul, and building his faith on a stable foundation of firm convictions.

Sadly, Bruce did not take that advice, nor did he remain Calvinistic long. It seemed to me that the excessive zeal with which some Calvinists like to pursue arguments about theological fine points was reminiscent (for Bruce) of the mindlessly militant fundamentalism he had recently left, and he soon responded by turning against Calvinism, too—and ultimately by rejecting militancy of every kind.

Bruce’s own spiritual journey illustrates why such a position is untenable.

Read his blog these days and you might get the impression the only people with whom Bruce now has any theological quarrel are those who are still more conservative than he. And (predictably but ironically) that group gets larger as Bruce’s views radicalize—so in the end, he probably spends as much time engaging in polemical wars over theology as he always did. He is apparently out of the ministry today and says he has “little hope [he] will ever pastor in an Evangelical Church again.” He now supports the legalization of recreational drugs; he recently voted against a bill to regulate adult entertainment in Ohio (“We are TIRED of the morality police in Ohio.”); and he has declared himself a “Red Letter Christian,” meaning he no longer believes all Scripture is equally inspired and authoritative.

Bruce is one of a handful of people I know who have undergone repeated overhauls of their fundamental belief systems over several years’ time, never really adopting any settled worldview for much more than 18 months in a stretch. I’ve mentioned before that I think that kind of serial paradigm-shifting is seriously dangerous, and eventually I intend to write a post (or a series) about it. In the meantime, I thought it would be helpful to give Pyro readers who don’t know Bruce some insight into who he is, where he has come from, and why his views are so radical.

Let Bruce be a reminder to all of us that while we’re debating these issues, we need to handle the truth prayerfully and carefully and not engage in debates over trivia just for sport. The tone of this blog is often polemic, and that’s deliberate. But we do try to deal with large and important issues, not trivial and tertiary ones. Moreover, despite our frequent injections of humor into our writing, we are not arguing theology just for fun. No one should ever be tempted to regard theological debate as a mere recreational exercise.

It was important for Johnson then, and it is important for my critics now to marginalize my criticism and negate my influence on others. Johnson tries to do this several different ways in his comment but I want to focus on what he wrote about my Calvinistic beliefs because I think it accurately shows how Calvinists will attempt to marginalize those who disagree with them.

According to Johnson I was just a Calvinist for a short time. Since I was just a Calvinist for a short time I certainly had not studied the Calvinistic system well and I most certainly had not understood what Calvinism taught. In other words, Bruce Gerencser was ignorant and poorly taught when it came to the teaching of Calvinism. (among other things)

The truth is that I was a Calvinist for a number of years. The truth is, I was, for a time, associated with the Reformed Baptists and I pastored a Sovereign Grace Baptist church in San Antonio, Texas. I seriously doubt that I would have been able to have the associations I did if I was not a vetted five point Calvinist. (Calvinist treat doctrinal purity like Jews do circumcision)

The reason I am dredging up this ancient event is because Fallen From Grace is attracting more and more Calvinistic commenters. If you are not well-schooled in Calvinism you might not spot them right away, but for us who are schooled in all things Calvin they are easy to spot. They have a lingo all their own, and even when they try and hide it, it still comes out.  One of the bitterest of discussions on this blog was on my post Is God to Blame for Weather that Kills People? The Calvinist commenters are easy to spot.  Just today a Calvinist left a comment on a recent post titled God Shows His Love By Killing Almost Everyone in the World . He wrote  “shall the pot say to the potter, why have you made me”, a quote from Romans 9.  Romans 9 and the book of Ephesians are the favorite proof texts for Calvinists to use when defending the Calvinistic concept of God and salvation.

Calvinists can be quite argumentative. Many Calvinists, especially of the Baptist variety, come from Fundamentalist backgrounds and they retain the argumentative spirit and attitude from their past. Most of the Calvinists I know are just Fundamentalist Baptists who embrace five point Calvinism. The legalism takes on different names but it is legalism nonetheless.

It was not until after my last pastorate that I finally, and completely, abandoned Calvinism.Does the Bible teach Calvinism? Sure. It also teaches Arminianism, Pelagianism, Deism, Monotheism and Polytheism.  The Bible is a make it say whatever you want it to say book.  Calvinism is nothing more than a system of thought that arranges Bible verses in a certain way so they will give the desired conclusion. (as are all systematic theologies)

Many of you were Calvinists in your Christian days. Perhaps you can share some of your experiences with the rest of us. Comment away.

If God is In Control of Everything

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Calvinism teaches that God is sovereign, that God is in complete, absolute control of everything.  Nothing happens by chance. Nothing happens that God does not actively  or passively allow. God decrees…stuff happens.

Consistent Calvinists believe in double predestination (God predestines people to heaven and to hell) and consistent Calvinists even go so far as to say God created sin. Some Consistent Calvinists even believe some infants go to hell.

Inconsistent Calvinists spend most of their time trying to explain away the Consistent Calvinists. They invent all kinds of theories to explain things. It is all quite humorous these days. I am an infra, I am a supra, I am a sub. I am post. (various lapsarian views)

Last night I wanted to check on who won the hockey game between the U.S. and Canada.

I typed in espn.com…

or so I thought.

I actually typed epsn.com

and that got me a long list of porn sites.

So I wondered…

If God is completely sovereign…if He is in complete, absolute control of everything…

I typed the wrong address because God ordered it.

My internet service provider routed my request to the wrong address because God ordered it.

My browser loaded the wrong address because God ordered it.

I clicked on one of the links to “check it out”  (that’s what every guy says) because Go…”WAIT, STOP THE PRESSES…God didn’t have anything to do with that,” the inconsistent Calvinist says.

The Consistent Calvinist says, “Yes, God decreed that  Bruce go to a porn site.” (Bruce breaks out singing “What a Mighty God we Serve”)

Finally,an Arminian, who rarely can get a word in edge-wise with the Calvinists suggests that “yes God permitted all of this to happen but it was all a test and Bruce failed the test when he clicked on the link!”

I would like to suggest another scenario:

What kind of billion dollar corporation doesn’t buy up the misspelled domain names? Business rule 101. Spend the 10.00 to buy up the epsn.com domain. (or buy out the domain sitter that has it.)

But ESPN didn’t and now there is a porn site at epsn.com.

epsn.com is counting on fat fingered guys like me who can’t type. (thank the gods for spell check)

I made a typing mistake.

My typing mistake set in motion of chain of events that culminated in me clicking a porn link.

And as Walter Cronkite would say…

That’s the way it is…

Fate. Chance. Luck. Life just happens.

Now what I want to know…

did ya?

Really?

You know what I mean bro.

You really didn’t click that link I gave did ya?

You can blame it on me.

After all I have a movie named after me, Bruce Almighty.  :)