Leaving Calvinism: Comments from Ex-Calvinists #5

Here is the next batch of ex-Calvinist testimonies (and those who never were Calvinists but who came face to face with it) from this post: X-Calvinist Corner.  (It's an Arminian website, but I am not Arminian.)  I am going to highlight some of the comments that stood out to me the most.  If I add any comments of my own, it will be [blue and in brackets].  I made minor corrections for better grammar and punctuation.  If you want to read everything that everyone said, click on the link above:

Steve:

.... the damage done by so-called Calvinists around the area where I live cannot be glorifying to the Name of the Lord Jesus.... These people sort to divide the body and were vindictive to the point of declaring those who would not agree with them ‘unsaved’.  The whole thing was an absolute mess.... All objective discussion disappeared and it became simply a personal vendetta based on the principle that ‘we are right and you are wrong’.... We had one guy come down to a men's group meeting and try to tell us that ‘God was behind the controls of the planes that flew into the towers on 9/11’.  That's a quote, by the way.  I challenged these people on this and finally asked them the question ‘is God a rapist?’  This was in response to a discussion where they claimed that God does everything and we do nothing (in fact God authors sin).  Their answer was ‘yes’.  Because I guess it had to be if you follow [Calvinist] logic to its conclusion.

Jonathan:

[On his journey out of Calvinism:] ... The first year out of college, and the first year in seminary, I had my existential crisis.  My grandfather, who had rejected Christ on numerous occasions, committed suicide.  He had been depressed for many years and finally decided he had enough.  I intellectually adhered to reprobation though never considered it for longer than 10 seconds and certainly always in the abstract.  The reality that [if Calvinism was true] my grandfather was predetermined to reject Christ, be depressed, blow his brains out, and spend an eternity separated from God… as a result of some arbitrary decision that, in some way, brought God glory, became utterly repugnant to me.  I didn’t even have to think about it, it just was.  I was no longer a Calvinist because I could not stomach the idea any longer.  The implications had been brought to my front door in a very unattractive light....

What sealed the deal was when I listened to Sam Storm’s reasoning regarding God’s two wills.  How can God desire all people to be saved but yet only elect some?  He replied, “Sometimes it pleases God to eternally decree his own displeasure for the sake of the greater good, namely, his glory.”  I thought this to be the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard and finally declared my break with Calvinistic thinking.

JML Cassian:

I was looking for a church that did expository preaching of the scriptures, instead of the pop psychology, feel-good, 15 minute sermonette.  

That church was a 5-Point Calvinist church that also held theology classes once a week for 3 hours.  

I loved it—until I started having serious doubts about the twisting of some of the scriptures I was being taught.

When, in class, I started expressing the way those scriptures were being interpreted, I was basically told to shut up and that eventually I would “get it.”  

I despise condescending attitudes, especially when I am as well read as any Pastor.  

I think one of the last straws was John 1:29. “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Not complicated at all.  I was asked [by the Calvinists] “what do YOU think that verse is saying?”  

I said, without hesitation, “I think it means Behold! the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

The response, after all the condescending sneers?  Guess?  “But he did not take away the sin of the world.”

I replied, "OK, then why does it say that?  Why are you completely contradicting scripture?”

It was that way on almost all of the universal passages we are all familiar with.

I’ve read all the Puritans, Calvinist theologians, A.W. Pink and debated the issues.

However, something funny happened to me in the process.  I had to be honest with myself and admit that some of the [Calvinist] explanations I was putting on the problem verses were nothing short of absurd.

My story is not unusual, I suspect, but it was a huge decision for me to abandon Calvinism.  But I have, and I feel like the weight of the world (not all kinds of worlds) has been lifted off my shoulders.  You know, kind of like Atlas Shrugged.

The scriptures have been opened to me like never before.  What a concept: read the scripture and understand what it means by what it plainly says.

Back to John 1:29 for example.  The Lamb of God who takes way the sin of the world—are you ready for this—takes away the sin of the world.

Instead of having to read a 200-page doctoral dissertation explaining that the sin of the world means he didn’t take away the sin of the world, and that world doesn’t mean world, and suffer the idiotic [Calvinist] charge that “[if Jesus really did die for all] then all must be saved,” I can just use the analogy of scripture and let the scripture interpret the scripture, instead of someone else’s interpretation of scripture interpreting scripture.

"Yes, but…but...but….but, THAT verse CAN’T mean that, because….blah, blah, blah," [says the Calvinist], ad nauseam.

I am now being shunned by my church and most “friends.”  So be it.  My mommy told me there would be days like this!!

Truth cannot be defeated and the Scriptures are God’s REVEALED message to man.  A message in plain, understandable language that any 5th grader can understand.

It’s the REVEALED WORD, not some mystical, coded, esoteric message ... 

And the bottom line for me [after getting out of Calvinism] is the pure pleasure it has become to read the Word and understand it for what it actually says, instead of having to indulge in all these floating abstractions masquerading as concepts, as “explanations” for what the passage “really” says.

I also have noticed now that I’m on the opposite of the Calvinists, that they don’t like to respond directly to questions or comments on some of these verses or doctrines.  For example, I have repeatedly asked them to show me a verse that says God “decreed” that Eve should fall.... Or for them to give me just one scripture, get this, only ONE scripture that implicitly states that God died ONLY for a particular group and said "to hell with all the rest."  Just one.  Needless to say, I haven’t received that verse yet.  Wonder of wonders, don’t you think!!!