Calvinism and Arminianism - Part 2

The Dangers of Dry-bones Calvinism

Yesterday I made enemies of the Arminians. Today it is the turn of the Calvinists. Calvinism itself has its traps.

Wesleyan Methodism, a major spawning ground of the Arminian heresy in Anglo/American religion, was itself a reaction to the dry, dead theological orthodoxy of Anglicanism. Barely 100 years after the Reformation had transformed Christianity and rejuvenated the true faith, the churches were full of cardboard believers going through the motions, and legalistic pedants making Christianity into a set of constrictive rules. Ministers who were unregenerate and who were in the ministry solely in order to make a living or as a career move were all too common. All of this happened under a Calvinistic system.

I have personally experienced the frustration of trying to gain acceptance in a closed-ranks, keep-the-strangers-out, gotta-grow-up-in-our-church-community sort of Calvinistic congregation. It was a place where all the right theology was taught from the pulpit; and it was dutifully “believed” by the non-arm-raising, non-Amen-speaking, Sunday-best-suited, pew-reserved-with-brass-name-plate people that faithfully showed up each Lord’s day. It was an isolationist and spiritually proud community – just like Israel had been throughout its history. The dutifully “warm” welcome given by deacons was accompanied by either wide-eyed panic or slit-eyed suspicion whenever someone new somehow managed to find their meeting place and worked up the gumption walk through the doors.

I can remember one time when I found out that a certain old man was suffering from a terminal case of lung cancer. Not knowing any better, I picked up something (chocolates, I think) and went and knocked on his door. On reflection, I can see that my own actions were a bit on the precipitate side – presumptuous even – but it was out of a genuine sense of compassion. Of course, what I did was a cardinal sin, causing consternation in the old couple and more looks of suspicion from the congregation as word got around. Anyway, I endured the whole scenario for 6 months before realizing that this was not at all what the Lord had in mind for a fellowship.

I may have used some selective memory and a dash of dramatic licence in this story, but the overall flavour is true. I was a person in great need of fellowship, discipling, loving acceptance and encouragement. You’d think you would find that at a Biblically sound church. I also craved sound Biblical expository preaching and teaching. This I did find – at least as far as accuracy was concerned. But the Spirit was thoroughly quenched.

So I can understand some of the criticisms from Arminians (especially those with Pentecostal/Charismatic leanings) when they slam the door shut at the very sound of the dread name “Calvinism”. I can see how some people have a deadly fear of dry, doctrinal doldrums – with dismal dirges dropped onto demure but deadened descendants of the Dordtrechters. I get it.

I get it, but I can’t stop there. Just as one swallow does not make a summer, so one closed and chilly Christian congregation doesn’t put the lie to the Biblical truths for which the Reformers languished in prison, or shed their blood. Neither would two such congregations. Nor three, nor ten, nor yet a hundred. Truth is truth. It stands or falls on its own. If a thing is true and all the adherents of it hold that truth falsely, then that does not make the original thing untrue. And that body of truth which was taught by Jesus Christ the Lord Himself, carried on by the Apostles, and laid down in the New Testament scriptures is timeless truth. We have come to label it “Calvinism”, but it is nothing other than the gospel.

Finding a local church that strikes a balance between the need for accurate exposition of the scriptures from balanced hermeneutical principles, with a sound exegesis of the texts - and the practice of a living faith that metabolizes scripture into daily life with grateful enthusiasm, a warm heart and a sincere love is not easy. I bounced from the Reformed Church to a hopelessly Charismatic, Biblically challenged, directionally remedial congregation in which I was befriended immediately by a caring man who walked beside me for months and months, and who is still, to this day, a dear friend. I received in the midst of a scripturally weak church the personal application of scripture that I could not buy for love nor money at a church steeped in sound doctrine and historical accuracy.

But I need both things. I need sound, meaty Biblical teaching, and preaching that reminds me of what I am apart from God’s grace, along with warnings for me not to stray. And I also need to be in a community of believers that actually practices the faith. This was a dilemma for me until I read a piece by Martyn Lloyd-Jones entitled "William Williams and Welsh Calvinistic Methodism". It was the first time I had any inkling that Calvinism and experiential religion could co-exist.

This fascinating piece by Lloyd-Jones was ostensibly about great hymns written in the Welsh language. But it captured for me the essence of the times, and of the dynamic that revitalized the church in England through the direct experience of God in the desire for "heart and holiness" in religion. Methodism was originally a movement within the Church of England. It was characterized by a genuine desire for a direct experiential knowledge of God, with emphasis on the second birth. Indeed people often had blissful experiences which were sometimes called a “second blessing”.

They were no different in this respect from myself in the examples given. The dry and dead religion of the day, which had often ossified into officious observance under weak or legalistic leadership was a far cry from New Testament religion. People, moved by the Spirit of God, cried out for genuineness of teaching and experience. They wanted the doctrine to match the life – or was it the life to match the doctrine? Whichever it was, this was a time heralding the first Great Awakening that came eventually to America, and when multitudes were turned from sin to the Saviour by a great outpouring of the Spirit of God. Men like Whitefield and Wesley (both Methodists) were in the thick of it all.

But it is a just this point that Wesley departed from some of the sound doctrines of the Westminster Confession, and impressed by the piety and faith of the Moravians (Arminian believers, who had been instrumental in the deepening of Wesley’s own faith) embraced the heresy of Arminianism himself, thus sowing the seeds of a new imbalance of increasingly experiential and decreasingly doctrinal practice for those who were to follow.