I really like Al Mohler's stuff.
Posted on 07/21/2006 3:57:55 AM PDT by Gamecock
One of the most promising signs of renewal in Southern Baptist life is the emergence of genuine theological discussion and historical interest. After decades marked by the absence of significant interest in many doctrines, Southern Baptists are awakening to historic doctrinal debates in a new key.
As if awakened from doctrinal amnesia, the denomination faces the promise of both renewal and reformation. In this process, we may recover our theological heritage even as we address our modern context of ministry.
Dr. William R. Estep, one of Southern Baptists' most distinguished historians, has recently directed attention to a resurgent Calvinism in Southern Baptist life. The "Calvinizing" of the Southern Baptist Convention, he fears, is a dangerous development.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to Dr. Estep and to present a very different understanding of what is at stake. Though vitriolic and harsh in tone, his article deserves a respectful and thoughtful response.
First, let me state at the onset that if Calvinism is accurately represented by Dr. Estep's treatment, I will have nothing to do with it. Nevertheless, few of Calvin's friends or enemies will recognize Calvinism as presented in Estep's article.
Calvinism clearly draws its name from John Calvin, the sixteenth-century reformer whose towering intellect and biblical preaching gave birth to the "Reformed" tradition as one of the central streams of the Reformation. Calvin's mission was to establish the Church on the basis of Scripture, with its doctrine and practice drawn from Scripture itself.
His Institutes of the Christian Religion, first published in 1536, was his effort to set forth the doctrines revealed in the Bible. Few works have come close to the Institutes in terms of influence in the Church. Elsewhere, Dr. Estep has described the Institutes as "one of Protestantism's greatest attempts at erecting a systematic theology." Calvinism is simply the Reformation tradition which is associated most closely with Calvin.
Dr. Estep presents a very severe portrait of Calvin the reformer, and those looking for severity in Calvin need not look far. He was a sixteenth-century man who bore many of the prejudices and political dispositions common to his day. He would not understand the notion of religious liberty, and he was ready to use the arm of the law to enforce correct doctrine.
No Calvinist I know would advocate Calvin's position on these issues, any more than modern Lutherans would endorse Martin Luther's anti-Semitism. Baptists who quickly reject Calvin's theology because of his shortcomings on other issues must, if honest, reject virtually any influence from previous centuries. This holds true for Dr. Estep's treasured Anabaptists as well.
Calvin is not fairly depicted in Dr. Estep's article, but that is not the real issue. The issue is not Calvin, but the truth or falsehood of the doctrines he taught, and the doctrines now associated with his name.
The central tenet of Calvinism is the sovereignty of God. This is the starting point and the highest principle of Reformed theology. Calvinism is God-centered and draws its understanding of God directly from his self-revelation in Scripture. The God revealed in the Bible is the sovereign Creator, Ruler and Redeemer. His omnipotence, omniscience and governance over all things set this God of the Bible apart from all false gods.
The God of the Bible is the holy, ruling, limitless, acting, all-powerful God who makes nations to rise and to fall, who accomplishes his purposes and who redeems his people. Arminianism--the theological system opposed to Calvinism--necessarily holds to a very different understanding of God, his power and his government over all things.
Calvinism is most closely and accurately associated with the so-called "doctrines of grace," which summarize the teaching of Scripture concerning the gospel. The Bible teaches us that we are born sinners and are thus spiritually dead. Dead in our sins, we cannot on our own even respond to God's grace. Thus, as Jesus told his disciples, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to me, unless it has been granted him from the Father" (John 6:65).
Further, the Bible makes clear that God has chosen a people "chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (1 Peter 1:2). Paul, in writing to the Ephesian church, states that the Father has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, and "predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 1:3-5). The New Testament resounds with words including "chosen," "election" and "predestination." The issue is not whether these are taught by Calvin, but whether they are taught in Scripture.
We would like to think that we are smart enough, spiritually sensitive enough and responsive enough to choose to confess Christ without the prior work of God in our hearts. Unfortunately for our pride, this is not at all what the Bible reveals. God chooses us before we choose him. As Southern Seminary President E. Y. Mullins stated, "God's choice of a person is prior to that person's choice of God, since God is infinite in wisdom and knowledge and will not make the success of the divine kingdom dependent on the contingent choices of people."
Calvinism is nothing more and nothing less than the simple assertion that salvation is all of grace, from the beginning to the end. God saves sinners. Jesus Christ died for sinners. As Scripture promises, all those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
The God of the Bible saves sinners and holds those he has redeemed to the end. The vast majority of Southern Baptists hold to the doctrine known as the "perseverance of the saints," but that precious promise makes sense only in terms of the "doctrines of grace." Our choice of Christ is indeed necessary, but he has first chosen us--and he will keep us to the end.
Many Southern Baptists find predestination and other doctrines difficult to understand and even offensive to our pride. But we cannot read the New Testament without coming again and again to these doctrines.
Dr. Estep charges that a revival of Calvinism will lead to a lessening of evangelistic commitment and missionary vision. This is a common charge, but it is reckless and without foundation. Indeed, many of the most significant missionary and evangelistic movements in the history of the Church have been led by those who held to the very doctrines Dr. Estep laments.
These have included Charles Spurgeon, the greatest Baptist preacher of the last century, whose ministry at London's Metropolitan Tabernacle was among the most evangelistic in the history of Christianity. Spurgeon openly and consistently advocated all the distinctive doctrines of Calvinism and publicly identified himself as a Calvinist. In a day of doctrinal decline, Spurgeon sounded the alarm for a recovery of biblical truth and the "doctrines of grace." When asked how he reconciled his Calvinism and fervent evangelism, he responded, "I do not try to reconcile friends."
Dr. Estep claims Andrew Fuller as an opponent of Calvinism, yet Fuller also held to the "doctrines of grace." He clearly advocated the doctrine of election. In The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, cited by Dr. Estep, Fuller affirms that "none ever did or will believe in Christ but those who are chosen of God from eternity."
William Carey, the father of modern missions, was himself a Calvinist, as were leaders such as Jonathan Edwards and the great George Whitefield. The Evangelism Explosion program used by so many Southern Baptist churches was developed by a Calvinist.
If Calvinism is an enemy to missions and evangelism, it is an enemy to the gospel itself. The Great Commission and the task of evangelism are assigned to every congregation and every believer. The charge that Calvinism is opposed to evangelism simply will not stick--it is a false argument. The "doctrines of grace" are nothing less than a statement of the gospel itself. Through the substitutionary work of Christ, God saves sinners. The great promise is that whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Even the opponents of Calvinism must admit, if historically informed, that Calvinism is the theological tradition into which the Baptist movement was born. The same is true of the Southern Baptist Convention. The most influential Baptist churches, leaders, confessions of faith, and theologians of the founding era were Calvinistic.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was born of this Calvinistic tradition, as reflected in its Abstract of Principles. James P. Boyce, in calling for the seminary's founding, charged it to oppose all heresies, including Arminianism.
It was not until well into the twentieth century that any knowledgeable person could claim that Southern Baptists were anything but Calvinists. In referring to early Southern Baptists (especially James P. Boyce), Dr. Estep charges that they misunderstood Calvinism. This is a strange and innovative charge, considering that Boyce, for example, had been trained at Princeton Theological Seminary--the fountainhead of Calvinism in nineteenth-century America.
Boyce's colleague John A. Broadus--the greatest Baptist preacher of his day--was so certain that Calvinism was revealed in the Bible that he challenged those who sneer at Calvinism to "sneer at Mount Blanc." Broadus was certain that the doctrines known as Calvinism were those preached by Paul and the other apostles, and were revealed in Holy Scripture.
Other Southern Baptist leaders were also well-identified Calvinists. These included J. B. Gambrell and B. H. Carroll, the founder of Southwestern Seminary.
Calvinism was the mainstream tradition in the Southern Baptist Convention until the turn of the century. The rise of modern notions of individual liberty and the general spirit of the age have led to an accommodation of historic doctrines in some circles.
Dr. Estep is correct in noting the modifications to Calvinism which have occurred among Southern Baptists. Most Baptists hold to at least part of Calvinism, while generally unaware of the whole.
As Southern Baptists seek to recover our theological inheritance and the essence of biblical Christianity, I believe we will see a return to a more Calvinistic understanding of the gospel and a recognition of the absolute sovereignty of God.
Nevertheless, my main concern is not that Southern Baptists return to Calvinism--or to any human theological system. Our main concern must be to see Southern Baptists return to theological health and biblical fidelity. This theological and biblical reformation will, I am certain, also lead to a blazing recovery of missionary zeal and evangelistic fervor--and to the renewal of our churches and denomination. Southern Baptists will truly be headed for a well-deserved dunghill only when we retreat from biblical truth and withdraw from evangelism and missions.
We stand at an historic threshold. Now is the time for Southern Baptists to stand together on the great truths of God's Word and on the front lines of God's redemptive purpose. As Charles Spurgeon reminds us, we should rejoice whenever the Gospel is preached and shared--whether by a Calvinist or non-Calvinist.
My personal agenda is not driven by Calvinism, but by the hope that Southern Baptists will embrace, confess, preach, and teach the truths of God's Word--and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with every man, woman, and child on the earth. In this hope and vision we should all stand together.
As a dear friend has well stated, the real issue is not whether John Calvin is your personal theologian, but whether Jesus Christ is your personal Savior. By God's grace, may we see genuine reformation and renewal in our churches--and a Great Commission vision in our hearts.
I really like Al Mohler's stuff.
Hmm, I wonder what Dr. Estep's FR handle is? ;^P
Amen.
BAPTIST PING!
Thanks for the ping. I'm going to save this one.
A big but....
Hmmm, and people say that if you preach doctrine you aren't seeker sensitive.
And Billy Sunday, the greatest PRESBYTERIAN evangelist of the last century was among the most fervent preachers to call for the individual to make a personal decision to accept Christ as Savior. The idea that receiving and believing are works is a doctrine of man. I challenge anyone to identify a verse of scripture that says believing or receiving is a work.
Billy Sunday was a heritic.
What are you smoking?
Roger Nicole at Founders.org exposing Estep's shoddy scholarship: An Open Letter to Dr. William Estep. Since both Estep and Mohler are on the short list of contributors at Founders, this is pretty serious criticism.Does anyone have a link to Estep's article? I'd like to read it.
A great page of links to audio and text presentations by Johnson, Piper, Packer, Sproul, Calvin, Resinger, Boettner, Spurgeon, Warfield, Whitefield, Custance, etc.
Monergism.com: Calvinism
Ask and you shall recieve:
Doctrines Lead to `Dunghill' Prof Warns
William R. Estep
[Dr. William R. Estep is professor of church history, emeritus, at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth. His article is reprinted with permission from the Texas Baptist Standard, 26 March 1997. Dr. Estep kindly sent the Founders Journal a slightly revised version of this article in which he added "a few bibliographical references and corrected a couple of dates." It should be noted that he originally entitled the article, "Calvinizing Southern Baptists." The editors of the Baptist Standard are responsible for the title which appeared in that publication. Because it is the one which has been widely distributed, the original version of his article which appeared in the Standard is the one which follows. Due to his heavy writing schedule, Dr. Estep is unable to enter into correspondence with readers about his article.]
Only the most out-of-touch Southern Baptist could be unaware of the attempt on the part of some within our ranks to promote a 19th century version of Calvinism among Southern Baptists as a return to the original theology of the first English Baptists.
This newfound fascination with Calvin and the system of theology that bears his name is both intriguing and puzzling, since most of the ardent advocates of this movement have only a slight knowledge of Calvin or his system as set forth in the Institutes of the Christian Religion. They simply borrow that which they assume to be both biblical and baptistic without adequate research. This is essentially what James P. Boyce did, as reflected in his Abstract of Systematic Theology.
Charles Hodge, the most influential of the Princetonian theologians of the 19th century, was Boyce's mentor at Princeton.
Thoroughly enamored with Hodge and his three-volume Systematic Theology, Boyce taught Hodge's version of Calvinism at Southern Seminary, which Basil Manly Jr. also incorporated in the seminary's founding document, the Abstract of Principles (1858).
These works provide the pretense upon which Ernest C. Reisinger has attempted to call Southern Baptists back to what he conceives to have been their Calvinistic roots. This assumption must be challenged on the basis of the original Baptist vision and its theological insights.
John Calvin (1509-1554)
Calvin is best known for his Institutes, which first appeared in 1536. After several revisions, the definitive edition was published in 1559 in four volumes, He also was the reformer of Geneva.
Trained in law, Calvin attempted to form a church-state for which he drew up laws and set up a "consistory," not unlike courts of the inquisition in the medieval Catholic Church. This church court condemned many for "heresy"--spiritual crimes--some of whom were executed by the civil authorities and others were exiled.
Among, those condemned, Michael Servetus was burned at the stake for disagreeing with Calvin on the nature of the Trinity and "anabaptism." Jerome Bolsec was exiled for disagreeing with Calvin on the doctrine of predestination.
Admittedly, this was the 16th century and the pressures on Calvin were enormous, but when all of these factors--political, sociological and religious--are considered, Calvin cannot be exonerated.
He was no advocate of religious freedom, but an autocrat who often mistook his own will for the will of God.
Calvin never was able to free himself from his Roman Catholic heritage. The tenacity with which he held to infant baptism, a church-state in which a sin against the church became a crime against the state, and the use of the civil Government to enforce conformity to the Genevan theocracy reflect his adherence to the Codex Justinian.
His Old Testament hermeneutics and his uncontrollable temper acerbated his intolerance of those who disagreed with him. A case in point was his quarrel with Jerome Bolsec over predestination.
Predestination Controversy
While it is difficult to state briefly Calvin's view of predestination, perhaps the best summary is that given by Calvin himself:
"By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation, and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death" (Institutes, 3.21.5).
Bolsec could not accept Calvin's position, which seemed to erect a whole system of theology on "eternal decrees" without any reference to Christ or the love that caused God to offer His Son as a sacrifice for sinful humanity.
Bolsec did not deny man's sinful nature or the need of salvation, but his view of election focused on Christ and the grace made available to believers through faith in Him.
He also recognized the individual's ability to respond in faith or to reject God's gift of salvation. In doing so, there was no room in Geneva for Jerome Bolsec. He was expelled from the city.
Baptists and Calvinism
Baptists arose out of the English Puritan-Separatist movement, which was Calvinistic, but they modified their Calvinistic heritage to a considerable degree.
The first English Baptists of record (1608), came to be known as "General Baptists," since they believed in "general atonement"--that Christ died for all and not just for the elect. Their Calvinism almost completely vanished under Anabaptist-Mennonite influence.
The "Particular Baptists" (1641) were so designated because they held with the English Puritans' belief in "particular atonement"--that Christ died only for the elect.
But they also modified their Calvinism, as Glen Stassen has shown, under the influence of Menno Simons' Foundation Book, which they quoted in the First London Confession of 1644. Its revision in 1646 reveals a further departure from Calvinism in their rejection of the fourfold ministry of Calvin's invention and by greatly enlarging his article on religious freedom and the separation of church and state.
While Baptists never have been doctrinaire Calvinists, as a careful study of the sources reveals, there have been some Baptists from time to time who have advocated such a position.
When John Ryland Sr. called William Carey "a miserable enthusiast" and told him, to sit down that God "would save the heathen without your help or mine," he reflected the hyper-Calvinism of John Gill, who set forth his position in numerous works and prided himself on never extending an invitation for a sinner to trust Christ during his entire London pastorate of more than 50 years.
Andrew Fuller wrote The Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation against Gill's Calvinism, concluding: "Had matters gone on but a few years, the Baptists would have become a perfect dunghill in society."
Fuller's modification of Calvinism among the Baptists made possible the foreign mission movement of which Carey became the catalyst.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon often has been cited by Baptists as a staunch Calvinist. At times, the young Spurgeon claimed to be exactly that, but at other times it is clear he was neither a hyper-Calvinist nor even a consistent Calvinist.
A. C. Underwood, in A History of English Baptists, writes that Spurgeon's "rejection of a limited atonement would have horrified John Calvin."
According to Underwood, Spurgeon often prayed, "Hasten to bring in all Thine elect, and then elect some more." The mature Spurgeon confided in Archbishop Benson, "I'm a very bad Calvinist, quite a Calvinist--I look on to the time when the elect will be all the world.
Problems with Calvinism
Apparently Baptists always have had problems with an unmodified Calvinism. Only a few can be mentioned here.
First, it is a system of theology without biblical support.
It assumes to know more about God and the eternal decrees upon which it is based than God has chosen to reveal in scripture or in Christ. To say God created some people for damnation and others for salvation is to deny that all have been created in the image of God.
It also reflects upon both God's holiness and His justice, as portrayed in the Bible.
Further, Calvinism appears to deny John 3:16, John 1:12, Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10, Ephesians 2:8-10, and numerous other passages of scripture that indicate, as Baptists confessions have consistently stated, that salvation comes to those who respond to God's grace in faith.
Second, Calvinism's God resembles Allah, the god of Islam, more than the God of grace and redeeming love revealed in Jesus Christ.
Third, Calvinism robs the individual of responsibility for his/her own conduct, making a person into a puppet on a string or a robot programmed from birth to death with no will of his/her own.
Fourth, historically, Calvinism his been marked by intolerance and a haughty spirit. Calvin's Geneva, the Synod of Dort (1618-619) and the Regular Baptists (Hardshells, Primitives and Two Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists) are only some of numerous examples of this Calvinistic blight.
Fifth, logically, Calvinism is anti-missionary. The Great Commission is meaningless if every person is programmed for salvation or damnation, for [then] evangelism and missionary effort are exercises in futility.
Apparently, Calvinism is an excursion into speculative theology with predictable results, which we as Southern Baptists can ill afford.
It also introduces another divisive element in a badly divided denomination.
If the Calvinizing of Southern Baptists continues unabated, we are in danger of becoming "a perfect dunghill" in American society, to borrow a phrase from Andrew Fuller.
There is no learned man but will confess that he hat much profited by reading controversies -- his senses awakened, his judgment sharpened, and the truth which he holds more firmly established. All controversy being permitted, falsehood will appear more false, and truth the more true.
--John Milton, as quoted in The Golden Treasury of Puritan Quotations, compiled by I. D. E. Thomas (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1989), 62-63.
You are right. I miss spelled heretic.
You've got me flustered. I misspelled misspelled.
Rom 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:Being a Calvinist, I don't have any scriptural reason to hope for much from these 'seekers'. Unless it is the Father drawing them to seek the Son, it can be of no use.
Rom 3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
Your vehemence is blinding your thinking. Paul referred to the cross. Hundreds of songs have been written to praise the cross. The cross has been preached by RC Sproul.
The references to the cross is not to put idyllic worship on the wood, any more than David looked to the altar for salvation. Reference to the cross is to point to the sacrifice on the cross by Jesus Christ.
I believe Sunday's message was to refuse Christ is similar to the Jewish leaders' refusal, "We have no king but caesar." But, this I cannot say with certainty as I have not read that sermon.
I do not adhere to Roman Catholic teachings, and reject any that are not scriptural. I do not appreciate your journey into hatred.
As to your spelling, I do not criticize it as I make enough errors of my own.
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