Leaving Calvinism: Comments from Ex-Calvinists #9
Here is the next couple 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:
Douglas Barroso
I am a Brazilian pastor and a former theology teacher. I grew up in a Baptist church, but I was member of other churches like Presbyterian and Charismatic churches.
I discovered Calvinism during my Presbyterian time ... Since that time, I became a strong Calvinist....
I discovered Calvinism during my Presbyterian time ... Since that time, I became a strong Calvinist....
Some years ago I started to feel very uncomfortable with Particular Redemption and see its inconsistency and very weak Scriptural arguments. No one told me that, I just saw it is not the Biblical teaching just reading them. Since that time, it happened with Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace. The core of Calvinism began to fall down in front of my eyes just reading the Bible. How could I believe it? How could I teach and preach it? I thank God that no one convinced me, His precious Word alone did that!
Art Haglund
Why did you begin to question your Calvinistic convictions?
A man in my congregation called me a heretic for holding to my [Calvinist] thoughts. I started rereading the ‘scripture’ support of Calvinism, only to find they were misused and out of context.
What kind of support or opposition did you encounter while questioning your Calvinistic beliefs?
Mostly the same as I see today, just more and more repetition of out of context things, with people who will not listen nor consider they might be wrong and who refuse to read the context.
What primarily led to you abandoning Calvinism?
Reading the Bible without verses and chapter separations allowed the natural original reading to come through, and Calvinism melted away. Lately, having studied the people who did most of the Bible translation work, even until today, I find many translational errors, seemingly done to support Calvinistic doctrine, rather than accurate translation.
A man in my congregation called me a heretic for holding to my [Calvinist] thoughts. I started rereading the ‘scripture’ support of Calvinism, only to find they were misused and out of context.
What kind of support or opposition did you encounter while questioning your Calvinistic beliefs?
Mostly the same as I see today, just more and more repetition of out of context things, with people who will not listen nor consider they might be wrong and who refuse to read the context.
What primarily led to you abandoning Calvinism?
Reading the Bible without verses and chapter separations allowed the natural original reading to come through, and Calvinism melted away. Lately, having studied the people who did most of the Bible translation work, even until today, I find many translational errors, seemingly done to support Calvinistic doctrine, rather than accurate translation.
Ashwin S.
What primarily led to you abandoning Calvinism?
The Bible. There is no way we can believe in Calvinism if we read the Bible in context without presuppositions. I was also appalled when I read the Westminster Confession and how a deterministic doctrine made God the source of every evil ever committed. That is not how the Bible describes God.
The Bible. There is no way we can believe in Calvinism if we read the Bible in context without presuppositions. I was also appalled when I read the Westminster Confession and how a deterministic doctrine made God the source of every evil ever committed. That is not how the Bible describes God.
Christian says:
This is a rocky journey.... In early ’16, I discovered Calvinism ... and within a few weeks I was sold. Those weeks were full of despair and shock as to seeing, at that time, that God was the authoritarian dictator that I feared He was. [Christian was raised in a mildly authoritarian home, eventually finding out his father was having affairs.]
The whole doctrinal framework, on the surface, made complete sense. It fit together like a coherent puzzle and it was seemingly logical. Being of the logical mindset, I clung onto it like a thirsty clings to water.
Yet I realize it poisoned my faith in God over the next 18 months or so.
I became haughty and prideful in the feeling that I had all the divine truth of the Scriptures and even had the audacity to brutalize my mother’s faith in front of her face in the name of ‘hating heresy.’
I became a ‘no-prayer’ warrior and thought that prayers were meaningless in that everything was pre-determined and therefore praying was futile because of that.
I became extremely paranoid about any teacher who didn’t express at least Amyraldist faith, which is a slightly more biblical stance on Calvinism in my opinion today. I would only listen to Calvinists.
I became extremely self-righteous ... I became very surface-level overall.... I became very shallow in my Bible reading.... I basically used the Bible to verify Calvinist authors’ assumptions on matters of doctrine. The authors became my scripture and the Bible the proof-text for their works. (I realize how twisted that is.)
I began to see God as a very impersonal God. My belief in God started to parallel a lot of Muslims’ relationship with Allah. I would live life, especially near the end of my Calvinist beliefs, with the sarcastic ‘Inshallah’ mindset basically saying ‘whatever God wills, will happen. Not my responsibility’ which was a very fallacious mindset.
As a result, my entire belief in the Christian God began to dwindle by early/mid ’17. Slowly but surely, I found the entire Calvinist framework to be crock, personally. And, foolishly, I left Christianity altogether and openly called myself agnostic.
In the transition phase, I started ... rejecting every sense of morality that I cast upon myself being in the Reformed fold .... I fell far, very far, into the pit of lascivious sins and became the worst I have been - ever. For at least a few months, I was actively contrarian to God’s statutes... I became everything God wanted me not to be....
The whole doctrinal framework, on the surface, made complete sense. It fit together like a coherent puzzle and it was seemingly logical. Being of the logical mindset, I clung onto it like a thirsty clings to water.
Yet I realize it poisoned my faith in God over the next 18 months or so.
I became haughty and prideful in the feeling that I had all the divine truth of the Scriptures and even had the audacity to brutalize my mother’s faith in front of her face in the name of ‘hating heresy.’
I became a ‘no-prayer’ warrior and thought that prayers were meaningless in that everything was pre-determined and therefore praying was futile because of that.
I became extremely paranoid about any teacher who didn’t express at least Amyraldist faith, which is a slightly more biblical stance on Calvinism in my opinion today. I would only listen to Calvinists.
I became extremely self-righteous ... I became very surface-level overall.... I became very shallow in my Bible reading.... I basically used the Bible to verify Calvinist authors’ assumptions on matters of doctrine. The authors became my scripture and the Bible the proof-text for their works. (I realize how twisted that is.)
I began to see God as a very impersonal God. My belief in God started to parallel a lot of Muslims’ relationship with Allah. I would live life, especially near the end of my Calvinist beliefs, with the sarcastic ‘Inshallah’ mindset basically saying ‘whatever God wills, will happen. Not my responsibility’ which was a very fallacious mindset.
As a result, my entire belief in the Christian God began to dwindle by early/mid ’17. Slowly but surely, I found the entire Calvinist framework to be crock, personally. And, foolishly, I left Christianity altogether and openly called myself agnostic.
In the transition phase, I started ... rejecting every sense of morality that I cast upon myself being in the Reformed fold .... I fell far, very far, into the pit of lascivious sins and became the worst I have been - ever. For at least a few months, I was actively contrarian to God’s statutes... I became everything God wanted me not to be....
... [Eventually], I was confronted with my egregious sins and ultimately everything I claimed to be. I was a farce in the hands of a loving God finally being reshaped, slowly but surely, into a man of God....
This was Jesus Christ opening my eyes ... and, man, was it something… seeing my filth from the outside and going ‘I really am just a poor sinner in need of a Savior.’
Within a few days of that, I realized something I’ll never let go of. I am no Calvinist. I am a Bible-reading Christian and thank God for delivering me from Calvinism and ultimately Godlessness itself.
... And then I realized something more. Jesus loves me. Even when I went as far from God as I could possibly could go, Jesus still pursued me and caught me with that life-changer.
Rethinking all my theological convictions, I now see that the God I know and the God that Calvinism heralds are most definitely different. I know a God of Mercy and Love, while I never had that with Calvinism.
Within a few days of that, I realized something I’ll never let go of. I am no Calvinist. I am a Bible-reading Christian and thank God for delivering me from Calvinism and ultimately Godlessness itself.
... And then I realized something more. Jesus loves me. Even when I went as far from God as I could possibly could go, Jesus still pursued me and caught me with that life-changer.
Rethinking all my theological convictions, I now see that the God I know and the God that Calvinism heralds are most definitely different. I know a God of Mercy and Love, while I never had that with Calvinism.
