Thursday, February 25, 2010

On why I am not a Calvinist (Part 1?)

So, I was chatting with my cousins (technically my cousin and her husband but I digress) after community group about Calvinism and why I am not a fan (it was a lengthy conversation and I'm not sure how we got on to it; no seriously, I know I dog Calvinism a lot but I don't know how this particular conversation started). My cousins are going to this new, Acts 29 church and Acts 29, as an organization, is very heavily Calvinistic. I don't think my cousins had been Calvinist before this church but they would have been listening to Chandler and Driscoll for at least a year so who knows. In any event, I disagree and we hashed it out with no decisions made and that is perfectly okay for an opening salvo. But I wanted to put out what I think is the strongest philosophical argument against Calvinism. Actually, that's not true. I was thinking about the discussion as I was walking back to my car and this argument nailed me with all the force of why I don't think I ever could believe in Calvinism.

When I first started listening to Chandler and Driscoll, I found them to make a whole lot of sense. They are both clearly gifted preachers who love God, Scripture, the Church global, and their local congregations. I was being moved spiritually; I was experiencing depths of grace that I had only heard of before; and was generally improving and maturing in all areas of my life. And as they preach, Calvinism is trickling through their preaching. Now, I don't mean to say that Calvinism is evil or insidious. But I do believe that it is wrong and that the natural outworking of the Calvinist worldview is Hyper-Calvinism. I don't think I will ever forget Driscoll's narrative about Calvinism, which in brief is as follow: his daughter, in disobedience to his will, was running toward the street where she would have been run over; election is like when Driscoll reached out his hand to pull his disobedient daughter back from death. It is a good illustration and he tells it well. Here is my counter.

I have an adopted sister. She is by blood my cousin, the daughter of my father's sister. She was horribly abused as a child and as such, even though she was raised by my parents from about five till adulthood, she was always at odds with them. She was disobedient and manipulative every day of her time at my parents' home. But they didn't kick her out or disown her, even when keeping her has meant pain for them as well as embarrassment. And when I first started to give Calvinism thought, my sister not being in the elect was the perfect explanation. But here is what that would practically mean. The love my parents have shown to my sister is wonderful because despite her responses, they loved her. But if my parents had in their possession a pill that would cause my sister to reciprocate, to be able to build healthy relationships and mature; if my parents had had that pill the entire time she was with them and withheld it, purposefully, all the love they had showered on her would not be wonderful or glorious but exceedingly cruel. And it would be even worse if she would one day receive that pill but only after it was too late to have any kind of relationship with them. This is the other side of Calvinism, the daughter who is equally in sin and equally in need of saving but is not. It does not matter what the reason for not saving is and you cannot argue that God so loved the world if Calvinism is true. Period.