Calvinism Intro: The Great Disconnect

Calvinism has for a long time been broken down into the acronym TULIP, which together make up the 5 points of Calvinism, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Perseverance of the Saints. Allot of people reject these tenets because they don’t like having the label of a man. I actually prefer to call it the Doctrine of Grace, which is what it was historically called. John Calvin at no point penned some doctrine that he thought would be cool to name after himself; Calvin was only echoing the teachings of Augustine from 1000 years previously. The term Calvinism is did not come about until the Arminian (after Jacob Arminius) controversy in the church, which led to the Council Dort. The Arminian's were a bit irked to call the opposing side the Doctrines of Grace, and so the term Calvinism came to be.

I personally for much of my Christian life considered myself a Calvinist; if the topic came up I would defend it.  A few years ago I started studying Calvinism at greater depth and I found as I did so that as much as I said I was a Calvinist on paper in practice I was very much an Arminian. I think this is a big problem  in the Church among those who claim to adhere to the doctrines of grace, a great disconnect from knowledge and practice. I believe that there is no theology that does not affect us in a practical way, it’s for this reason I think all believers need to know what they believe and why, you are either ruled by your bad theology or your good theology. I said I believed in Calvinism but spoke like a Arminian, I evangelized like an Arminian. If you say you are a Calvinist yet support altar calls, the idea of “everyone close your eyes and raise your hands if you want to accept Jesus.”, then you are not a Calvinist. So many of the token cliché evangelistic sayings have to be thrown out like: “God loves you, and has a plan for your life”, “Jesus died for you.”, “accept Jesus into your heart and make him your Lord and Savior.”

If you say you’re a Calvinist then it need be more than just a distant theological concept it should be effecting all aspects of your Christian life, as the famous Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon once said “ It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else” At the core of both Calvinism and Arminian Theology is the question “What did Christ’s death do?” The Arminian would say that Christ death made salvation a possibility, he made a way for us to be to be saved. Calvinism says that in Christ’s death he saved those whom the father had given him.

One last myth of Calvinism needs to be addressed, many people would sum up Calvinism as the idea that God chooses who goes to heaven. In reality it’s not quite this it actually that God chooses who has faith and who does not.