Posted on 07/09/2013 11:49:42 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Over at Kevin DeYoung’s blog, Jason Helopoulos asks “Does Calvinism Kill Missions?” and answers with a resounding historical ‘no.’ I agree, and want to put a little finer point on it: from the perspective of Baptist history, Calvinists birthed the missions movement.
I’ve recently been reading Jason Duesing’s fascinating volume Adoniram Judson: A Bicentennial Appreciation of the Pioneer American Missionary, which has a great deal of fresh information on the celebrated Baptist missionary Judson and his context. I was particularly intrigued by Robert Caldwell’s essay on the “New Divinity” theology and Judson’s preparation as a missionary. The New Divinity theologians, heirs of Jonathan Edwards such as Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins, argued that a right understanding of Calvinism would prompt activism for the gospel. The New Divinity helped to birth important reform movements such as antislavery advocacy and the American missions movement. (English Calvinist Baptists such as William Carey also spearheaded the British missionary initiative.)
Although Baptists in America were overwhelmingly Calvinist in the early national period, it is still surprising to note how much the Congregationalist-dominated New Divinity influenced key Baptist missions organizers, including Judson, his first wife Ann Hasseltine, and Mary Webb, the founder of Boston’s Female Society for Missionary Purposes (1800), America’s first women’s missionary organization. Judson, Hasseltine, and Webb all grew up in Congregationalist families but eventually converted to Baptist principles. (The Judsons’ journey to Baptist convictions is described powerfully in Gregory Wills’s essay in Duesing’s Adoniram Judson.)
Judson, his father, Hasseltine, and Webb were especially influenced by Nathanael Emmons, perhaps the most popular New Divinity preacher of the early national period, who is largely forgotten today. Theologians regard Emmons’ Calvinism as somewhat eccentric, combining features that seemed at times hyper-Calvinist, at other times quasi-Arminian. But there was no doubt for Emmons that salvation depended on God’s eternal decree, not human decision. Emmons was also one of the era’ s greatest promoters of missions. Webb resolved to start her society after hearing Emmons preach on 2 Chronicles 15:7, “Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.”
Many Arminians have also served courageously as missionaries, and still do today – that is beyond question. But history belies some Arminians’ (including a number of Southern Baptist Arminians’) contention that, when followed logically, Calvinism undercuts missions and evangelism. If God has decreed who will be saved, they say, and that decree is irresistible, then why bother to obey Christ’s Great Commission and bring the gospel to all the world? This critique may make logical sense, from an Arminian perspective. But from a historical perspective, it is simply false.
.... The New Divinity theologians, heirs of Jonathan Edwards such as Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins, argued that a right understanding of Calvinism would prompt activism for the gospel. The New Divinity helped to birth important reform movements such as antislavery advocacy and the American missions movement.... Although Baptists in America were overwhelmingly Calvinist in the early national period, it is still surprising to note how much the Congregationalist-dominated New Divinity influenced key Baptist missions organizers, including Judson, his first wife Ann Hasseltine, and Mary Webb, the founder of Boston’s Female Society for Missionary Purposes (1800), America’s first women’s missionary organization....
....Many Arminians have also served courageously as missionaries, and still do today – that is beyond question. But history belies some Arminians’ (including a number of Southern Baptist Arminians’) contention that, when followed logically, Calvinism undercuts missions and evangelism. If God has decreed who will be saved, they say, and that decree is irresistible, then why bother to obey Christ’s Great Commission and bring the gospel to all the world? This critique may make logical sense, from an Arminian perspective. But from a historical perspective, it is simply false.
This definitely doesn't make logical sense. It's like saying that because I have chosen in my heart to marry Suzy, there is no reason for me to court and then propose to her. God's election of the saved is made effectual by means of the proclamation of the Gospel. He is sovereign over who does the proclaiming, when they do the proclaiming, where they do the proclaiming, to whom they do the proclaiming, and who receives and believes in the Gospel when it is proclaimed.
That God has chosen to use evangelizing to effectuate his will could very well be because evangelizing does as much to sanctify the evangelizer as to regenerate the elect.
God will always command his children to spread the Gospel in various ways, shapes or forms. Sure, there will be those who are disobedient but many, many WANT to be a good child and obey.
Thus, the Gospel gets spread!
Praise God for his salvation!
He courts and proposes because he knows she has the choice to say no.
Just like the lost can say no to God's proposal.
Just like the lost can say no to God's proposal..
You're stretching the metaphor beyond its intent. Does God ever go on a rescue mission that fails? To propose that anyone can resist salvation from God is to say that God can fail to save someone.
I stopped reading right here at this totally, horrendously, blindly, non-Scriptural statement.
Then I realized that this is about calvinism, after all, so I should have expected it.
God wants all men to be saved. (1Tim 2:4; 2Pet 3:9)
These passages are rendered meaningless if man cannot say no to God:
"But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John." - Luke 7:30
"You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!" - Acts 7:51
"But concerning Israel he says, 'All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.'" - Romans 10:21
What you call God's "failure" I call God's sovereign choice to save how he wants.
At first inclined to dispute this claim, then checking back through available web sites and Kenneth Latourette's "A History of Christianity," a strong correlation of the movement to efforts of Puritans and Presbyterians (not neglecting Anglicans) was found -- in the Protestant stream, that is.
However, a greatly effective main change in Reformed doctrine, introduced by innovators in missions, operative in the First Great Awakening in America, and voiced by Latourette was as follows:
"Part of the appeal was due to an alteration in traditional Calvinism which prevailed in New England as an early importation from England. Calvin had held that the evidences that an individual was among the elect were adherence to correct doctrine, a worthy life, and faithful attendance on the sacraments. In New England it was maintained that the evidences were adherence to correct doctrine, a worthy life, and an experience of salvation" (1st edition, p. 958).
But it must be admitted, that the early fathers of the missionary movement among the Calvinists were those whose affection for broadcasting salvation ran counter to and cross-grained against the leanings of their seminaries. And in fact, these innovators were shunned, and nearly blocked from ordination by those interested in the unity of opinion within the clergical class regarding outreach.
Thus it was the newly recognized reappearance of immersionists, and their order of precedence (salvation, followed by maturation in correct doctrine, coordinated with growth in godliness of life, and rejecting the formation of a clergy) became an enterprise more supportive in funds, and profitable in converts among "the heathen."
While certain individuals raised in the Reformed tradition were exemplars in the budding of foreign missions, by and large their denominational bases were not, and so should not claim to be the creators of it.
LOL! What a silly title. Calvin started miossionary work. LOL~
I thought that's what Jesus and the Apostles did.
It seems that every time I turn around, calvinism is trying to take credit for something they had nothing to do with.
LOL!
Yep. Calvinism is a fine intellectual construct that violates logic and experience.
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