Do I have to believe in Calvin to be a Christian?

I'm not sure what to do with Calvin and his teachings, as having been taught. Coming from a strong reformed theology, I don't quite know what to do, since I cannot separate Calvin from what the Bible says. They are the same for me, so I am unable to want to be a Christian since Calvinism is Christianity. It would be like pretending to stick my head in the sand and ignore everything I've learned.

That quote from Driscoll shows exactly why Calvinism is not another name for Christianity: where is "God loved the world", "God is not willing for any to perish", "God does not delight in the death of the wicked", "While we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly", or Jesus weeping over Jerusalem? They call Calvinism "the doctrines of grace" but there is no grace in such teachings. There is no love or mercy or compassion but only raw power and cold law.

Calvinism is not Christianity.

Christianity is a reconciliation between God and human beings, an adoption into God's family as beloved children and heirs. It is the lifting of burdens and freeing of prisoners. The God who notices when a sparrow falls to the ground cares for even those "of little faith" as Jesus said. To be a Christian is to be united with God in love and peace, to love other people enough to tell them how they too can be adopted as his children.

I see a wide gulf between the hateful picture of God painted by Calvinism and the God who is love as portrayed in scripture. I've gone over the details in my blog and books and just wanted here to give the "birds-eye view", the big picture. To be fair, many non-Calvinists fail to grasp the most basic of precepts about what Jesus came to do as well. But whatever we believe we must be consistent with the example of love for enemies God showed in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

seekingagnostic32 said:

I'm not sure what to do with Calvin and his teachings, as having been taught. Coming from a strong reformed theology, I don't quite know what to do, since I cannot separate Calvin from what the Bible says. They are the same for me, so I am unable to want to be a Christian since Calvinism is Christianity. It would be like pretending to stick my head in the sand and ignore everything I've learned.

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Calvinism is not the whole of Christendom. That much should be plain and simple.

A lot of Calvin's teachings are Biblically sound such as original sin, predestination, and so on, but what Calvin specifically says about those doctrines may not be so sound.

I participated in a thread on the Orthodox sub-forum, where a Calvinist came in and spoke up.

All the Orthodox could do was recoil in horror. Literally!

I suggest finding out what they have to say about things. What you're talking about is a process called "renewing the mind." It takes time, but intensity is a more significant variable. And some of the Orthodox are intense!

Anyway, thank you for your honesty. Your position is reasonable, and a lot of people here can have compassion for it

elopez said:

Calvinism is not the whole of Christendom. That much should be plain and simple.

A lot of Calvin's teachings are Biblically sound such as original sin, predestination, and so on, but what Calvin specifically says about those doctrines may not be so sound.

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I'm less concerned with defining what the whole of "Christendom" is than with being a Christian. I'm less concerned with being religious than with actually following God. Calvinism makes up a large portion of Protestantism, so it's a real question I have. But since Calvin got much of his ideas from Augustine, maybe I should have worded the question differently? The Catholic Church loves Augustine and his writings, which all promote the same beliefs as Calvin. The difference is, though, that Calvin is at least honest enough to admit if god chooses some, by default, he damns others. There is no middle ground on that topic. If one is true, then the other must also be true.

seekingagnostic32 said:

I'm not sure what to do with Calvin and his teachings, as having been taught.

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Thess 5:21 Question all things and hold on to what is good. (discard the rest.) Do this and God will be faithful to your efforts. I had to do this some time ago. It has some what alienated me from the congregation I worshiped at for most of my walk, but in the end this is about me and God. not Me some church leader and his theology and God. Calvin's efforts no matter how good or detrimental will Not buy you a place in Heaven.

Coming from a strong reformed theology, I don't quite know what to do, since I cannot separate Calvin from what the Bible says.

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What I did was prayed heavily, and reread the bible with new eyes, and took notes according to what I thought the passages said, then changed them accordingly when they conflicted with other passages. (It will be an on going process)

They are the same for me, so I am unable to want to be a Christian since Calvinism is Christianity.

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Then your goal should not be to become a "christian." It should be to have a relationship with God no matter what that looks like. If you can not give up your religion for God then know you worship your religion rather than God. The Pharisees and the Sadducee's did the same. If you see the need to change and do not, you will be held accountable to your actions. Not all see this need, but it has been brought to your attention.

It would be like pretending to stick my head in the sand and ignore everything I've learned.

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Was this not what Christ asked the Pharisees and Sadducee's to do? Why would He not require the same from you? Why would your fate be any different than theirs if you refused?

seekingagnostic32 said:

The difference is, though, that Calvin is at least honest enough to admit if god chooses some, by default, he damns others. There is no middle ground on that topic. If one is true, then the other must also be true.

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I agree. But Calvinists are divided on that point: some accept double predestination and others vehemently renounce it, though it seems inconsistent and illogical to do so.

seekingagnostic32 said:

I'm less concerned with defining what the whole of "Christendom" is than with being a Christian. I'm less concerned with being religious than with actually following God. Calvinism makes up a large portion of Protestantism, so it's a real question I have. But since Calvin got much of his ideas from Augustine, maybe I should have worded the question differently? The Catholic Church loves Augustine and his writings, which all promote the same beliefs as Calvin. The difference is, though, that Calvin is at least honest enough to admit if god chooses some, by default, he damns others. There is no middle ground on that topic. If one is true, then the other must also be true.

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This is theology, so i'm on rather shaky ground. But I thought the Church followed the Thomist position? God chooses everyone, but we can still reject him?

2thePoint said:

That quote from Driscoll shows exactly why Calvinism is not another name for Christianity: where is "God loved the world", "God is not willing for any to perish", "God does not delight in the death of the wicked", "While we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly", or Jesus weeping over Jerusalem? They call Calvinism "the doctrines of grace" but there is no grace in such teachings. There is no love or mercy or compassion but only raw power and cold law.

Calvinism is not Christianity.

Christianity is a reconciliation between God and human beings, an adoption into God's family as beloved children and heirs. It is the lifting of burdens and freeing of prisoners. The God who notices when a sparrow falls to the ground cares for even those "of little faith" as Jesus said. To be a Christian is to be united with God in love and peace, to love other people enough to tell them how they too can be adopted as his children.

I see a wide gulf between the hateful picture of God painted by Calvinism and the God who is love as portrayed in scripture. I've gone over the details in my blog and books and just wanted here to give the "birds-eye view", the big picture. To be fair, many non-Calvinists fail to grasp the most basic of precepts about what Jesus came to do as well. But whatever we believe we must be consistent with the example of love for enemies God showed in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

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Are you saying Calvinists are not really true Christians then?

The Calvinist view is that god causes the sparrows to drop out of the sky. I used to always take that verse to mean God cares about even little birds, but the Calvin view is that god is the one picking off the innocent birds like a divine marksman. He must be rather bored in eternity so we are his entertainment.

god, the divine puppeteer and man, his playthings.

seekingagnostic32 said:

Are you saying Calvinists are not really true Christians then?

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Of course I'm not saying that, though they've accused me of being a heretic for not being one. The OP was treating Calvinism as synonymous with Christianity and I simply expressed my disagreement. To take that as "2tP said Calvinists are not Christians" would be a wild leap.

The Calvinist view is that god causes the sparrows to drop out of the sky. I used to always take that verse to mean God cares about even little birds, but the Calvin view is that god is the one picking off the innocent birds like a divine marksman. He must be rather bored in eternity so we are his entertainment.

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I take it as you do, and as the context supports, which was Jesus' teaching on not worrying because God cares for us. The Calvinist interpretation seems more like the idea of Zeus with his thunderbolts waiting for any excuse to zap somebody.

god, the divine puppeteer and man, his playthings.

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Exactly. That is the logical conclusion Calvinism leads to. If God can only foreknow what he causes, and he foreknows all, then he causes all. That has to include evil. But any time I say that life becomes a puppet show or we're all programmed robots if Calvinism is true, they report me and express much outrage.

Wow, just read your tag line. Goes hand in hand with Calvin's teaching?

Here's my question: are you trying to purge yourself of the false notion of G-d = hate, or are you trying to immerse yourself in it?

I will help you do one, but not the other.

In any event, G-d Judges sin, yes. He hates sin. He specifies a total of 7 things in the Bible that He hates.

People are not among them.

razeontherock said:

Wow, just read your tag line. Goes hand in hand with Calvin's teaching?

Here's my question: are you trying to purge yourself of the false notion of G-d = hate, or are you trying to immerse yourself in it?

I will help you do one, but not the other.

In any event, G-d Judges sin, yes. He hates sin. He specifies a total of 7 things in the Bible that He hates.

People are not among them.

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According to Calvinism, god does hate the wicked people themselves. Haven't you read Edwards famous sermon about Sinners in the Hands of an Angry god? It's remarkably clear god hates people and only loves a minor group of people he forced to love him back by making them believe in him. Logical? No, but what religion is?

I am only looking for the truth, whatever it may be. Whether it is, there is no god at all, there is a god, God or gods and he, she or they hate us, or he, she or they love us, or h, she or they do not care about us at all. If Calvinism is the truest form of Christianity and the truth itself, as it teaches, then I want nothing to do with it, its vile god or any of its followers. But I cannot decide until I know what is true first.

I'm a Calvinist, mostly. But I would certainly never equate Calvinism with Christianity.

Calvin was an excellent Biblical scholar, one of the finest ever. His vision of Christianity actually did not concentrate on what is today called Calvinism. The heart of his theology was our union with Christ. His concept of justification and the atonement were based on that.

His major work on theology is the Institutes of the Christian Religion. The specific Calvinist themes such as predestination are introduced late in the book. Calvin acknowledged the danger of talking about them, but felt that he had to in order to be true to the Bible.

There are various interpretations of Calvin. One of the most interesting comes from John Leith. He believes that there are differing ways of speaking about predestination. It is often dealt with as "speculative." That is, people are curious about why some people are saved and others are not. In that context it comes across as cold and uncaring. However Leith believes that if you read beyond the Institutes to Calvin's commentaries and other works, you'll find that his primary concern is pastoral. He wants us to be able to confident that everything we experience comes from God, and is meant for our benefit, and that our salvation comes from God, and we can trust it because we trust God. I think in this form all Christians can agree.

Indeed I claim that in the end every Christian has to face the issues of Calvinism. Whether we are Calvinists or Arminians, if we think God is ultimately in control, we have to ask why God would create a world in which so many people suffer and end up in hell. Even Arminians can't really say it's because God couldn't do any better. If he is all powerful, he had a choice. God had to decide whether it was better to have nothing beyond himself, a perfect world where everyone does just what they are told, or the more complex world that we actually have. While Calvinists speak about God as having control over everything, including our decisions, we've never thought that eliminated human choice or responsibility. The primary argument between Calvinists and others is over "compatibilism," the idea that it is possible both for God to include all actions in his plan, but also to have many of them carried out by human choice, for which we are responsible. But the point is that Calvinists agree that people do make responsible choices.

While Calvinists all think that God's plan includes everyone's salvation and damnation, it is not necessary to say, as Calvin might have said once (depending upon your interpretation of his words), that God specifically sets out to damn anyone. Yes, it's in his plan, but there's no negative of the Holy Spirit inspiring people to do bad things, nor in my view does God set out specifically to damn certain people.

But Calvin wouldn't say that you have to be a Calvinist to be Christian, and few Calvinists that I know would say that. I think you do need to understand the importance of God's grace to our salvation. I think Calvinism is the only completely logical way to account for that. But others find other approaches.

seekingagnostic32 said:

It's like Friedrich Nietzsche said, "Whenever I come in contact with a religious man, I feel I must wash my hands."

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Sadly true. Which is why I keep trying to tell people that Jesus didn't come to set up Judaism Lite or Religion Reloaded, but something Paul would later call "a new creation". As Jesus told the Samaritan woman, the time had come to worship God "in spirit and truth" rather than "on this mountain or in Jerusalem". The NT in many places teaches that rather than having sacred buildings of stone and sacred furniture of gold, we ourselves are the Temple and Jesus Himself is the sacrifice. You might enjoy something I blogged recently called Altared States. Nowhere in the pages of the NT are instructions on when, where, or how to worship God beyond avoiding noisy free-for-alls; rather, our worship is to "be transformed by the renewing of your mind", to "look after orphans and widows in their distress", to become more like Jesus as we grow spiritually. But as I wrote in another article,

Whether it’s this or something else, the words of Jeremiah 5:31 still ring true: “The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?” People love religion, whatever the form, and never want it to end. Jesus led us all out of “Egypt” but they, like the ancient Israelites, prefer familiar slavery to unfamiliar freedom. They go on as if the Cross never happened.

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seekingagnostic32 said:

According to Calvinism, god does hate the wicked people themselves.

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Ok, well according to the Bible, G-d does not. Guess which one I hold to be true? Now, if you need help seeing that for yourself, that would be understandable. And there may be details like this that I'm unaware of, where it's ok to state what Calvinism teaches, or what you learned of it anyway. I just hope you're not wanting to dig your heels in, asserting the horrors you reject?

seekingagnostic32 said:

Haven't you read Edwards famous sermon about Sinners in the Hands of an Angry god?

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Irrelevant to the topic, but we could go a bit on this aside.

seekingagnostic32 said:

It's remarkably clear god hates people and only loves a minor group of people he forced to love him back by making them believe in him.

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Correction: you don't really see things that way. Right now, you may only be aware of "a Christianity" that teaches this. It's repugnant, and slanderous of G-d's character.

I don't mean to make light of the effort it will take to sort out these issues. Quite the opposite! It's important, too.

seekingagnostic32 said:

Logical? No, but what religion is?

I am only looking for the truth

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Good I really hate to have my Faith referred to as a "religion," but whatever you want to call it, it's logical, and has proven to be True to me and many others. "By their fruit you shall know them."

seekingagnostic32 said:

If Calvinism is the truest form of Christianity and the truth itself, as it teaches, then I want nothing to do with it, its vile god or any of its followers.

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Tell ya what, from now on let's not even use the word "Calvin," ok? Let's just refer to vile god, or G-d. 2 distinct concepts. (An Episcopal poster, Catherineanne, uses the term "psycho god.") Mine is at least partially unknown, as indicated by the dash.

A compare and contrast will do you good! This will not be quick and easy ...

I don't think Driscoll is representative of the broad Reformed tradition or Calvinism in particular. Driscoll simply represents his own brand of Fundamentalism and nothing more.

The Reformed tradition has produced many good theologians, Karl Barth for example.

There is also a tremendous chasm between standard Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism. Neither should it be confused with Neo-Calvinism and the Christian Reconstructionism that has followed it helping to produce Dominionism.

-CryptoLutheran

Heh, good analogy. I was thinking of laying the two lines side by side, which would both start from scratch and de-tangle the one that exists already. If the OP is willing to just look at the new, that would be easier ...

ViaCrucis said:

I don't think Driscoll is representative of the broad Reformed tradition or Calvinism in particular. Driscoll simply represents his own brand of Fundamentalism and nothing more.

The Reformed tradition has produced many good theologians, Karl Barth for example.

There is also a tremendous chasm between standard Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism. Neither should it be confused with Neo-Calvinism and the Christian Reconstructionism that has followed it helping to produce Dominionism.

-CryptoLutheran

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From reading Calvin or Augustine, I feel like I want to vomit. A good theologian doesn't mean anything special to me. It is no different than a professor who studies Greek mythology or classic literature. I don't make my living off of God, gods or theologies, so why should they?

As for the Reconstructionists, that is the darkest side of Calvinism outside of Westboro, so I'd prefer not even to go there, for it will only add to my hate of Christianity.

2thePoint said:

Neo, Crypto, Hyper... sounds like the cast of The Matrix.

But seriously, Calvinism as a system is very complex and has a penchant for big words like "supralapsarianism". I think it's best to just study the scriptures and keep it as clear as the Holy Spirit does.

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I have come to accept the fact that all "ISMs" are false. Any time you add an "ISM" onto something, you have boxed in truth to your perceptions. With that kind of narrow-mindedness, you'll never find anything except that which fits your views already.

seekingagnostic32 said:

From reading Calvin or Augustine, I feel like I want to vomit. A good theologian doesn't mean anything special to me. It is no different than a professor who studies Greek mythology or classic literature. I don't make my living off of God, gods or theologies, so why should they?

As for the Reconstructionists, that is the darkest side of Calvinism outside of Westboro, so I'd prefer not even to go there, for it will only add to my hate of Christianity.

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Well then, there's always the Eastern Fathers. I'm a bit of an Eastward-leaning Lutheran with Post-Liberal proclivities anyway (i.e. I'm weird).

-CryptoLutheran