“Calvin’s Institutes are very complicated and were written in Latin - Surgeon’s crib notes are shorter, easier to read, more reductive and are the usual primer for Anglophone Calvinists.”
My experience is that Calvinists, like most Protestants, are not, in practice
sola scriptura
as much as they are
selected scriptura
they do tend to be
sola Calvin
and
sola Spurgeon though
I’m a United Methodist (a large percentage of this forum will now discount anything I have to say)
As such, I inherit in our traditons and teachings, Wesleyan thoughts and principles.
But unlike what I experience with Calvinists, I disagree with portions of Wesley’s teachings because we don’t believe his teachings were so perfect as to render disagreement with them to be heresy (see the original article)
We believe people can have positions of conscience that vary because of their history, their tradition, their personality and their spiritual maturity that while sometimes incorrect, do not constitute heresy.
Further we believe that having those voices at the table, has the benefit of forcing us to constantly re-examine, not the foundational truths of Christianity, but the assumptions of what living those truths looks like
There are problems with this. Sometimes we embrace error, or compromise in a well meaning but flawed effort at ecumenism.
But there are strengths in it as well.
Sometimes we are forced to re-examine why we do things only to realize it’s because we’ve always done things that way. And as scripture (and perhaps even Spurgeon) says, ‘the traditions of men can make even the word of God of no effect.”
I discount every theological framework that hides behind allegations of heresy when competing or contradictory ideas are presented. If reading the new testament teaches us anything, it is that unless the 1st century church committed error, we would have significantly less scripture to point to when we dismiss another’s views as heretical.
I do not desire to be a man after the nature of John Calvin.
His life was defined by his theology, and I find his life wanting (as I’m certain he would find mine).
Does that mean he is wrong about everything? No.
But I will more willingly entertain the theology of a man who bears fruit that I find consistent with Christ’s teachings and lifestyle.
I find his understanding of the nature of God wanting and inconsistent with scripture taken in the whole.
I find his balance between grace and judgment to be heavily tilted to one side.
I find the fruit of Calvinism to be harsh and not reflective of Christ.
For these and many other reasons- among them the imbalanced teachings on the elect, I reject Calvinism.
I prefer the example of Wesley; yet I don’t follow him either.
I follow Christ, because the one truth I’ve learned over the years is this: All theology is flawed because God is bigger than theology.
Will Wallace
I’m a United Methodist (a large percentage of this forum will now discount anything I have to say)
I do.
placemarker
>> “All theology is flawed because God is bigger than theology” <<
.
Close!
But all theology is flawed because theology is a creation of men; an attempt to mold God’s word to the ‘sensibilities’ of man.