A Word to Worried Calvinists

I added these few notes to my post "Is Calvinism's TULIP Biblical?" (which I have updated this week), but I wanted to put it front and center too.  Just because.

1.  About who my fight is with:

Calvinist preachers often use deception and manipulation to spread their theology.  (And once you see it, you can't unsee it.  Maybe it's my training as a counselor that helped me see it when others didn't.)  They deceive by using the same words, concepts, and verses that all Christians use, but they have very different meanings which they keep hidden for as long as possible so that they can reel you slowly and stealthily into Calvinism.  And they manipulate by making those who agree with them feel smarter, more humble, and more godly, and by shaming those who would disagree with them.  (I watched it happen firsthand.)   

[Many pew-sitting Calvinists do not think of themselves as being deceptive though and are not necessarily trying to be deceptive; they’ve just been taught the Calvinist answers so thoroughly – and embraced them as Biblical Truth – that they themselves can’t even see the errors, contradictions, or deceptions in it anymore.  They're repeating what they've been taught, confident that the Calvinist teachers have taught them correctly.  It’s sad.  

While I will call Calvinism heretical, I do not like to call Calvinists themselves "heretics" because that's getting too personal.  Many of them are good, godly, fellow-believers who are just as saved as I am, and they are doing their best to try to live the faith as they've been taught.  They just don't realize they've been taught things that contradict the plain truth of Scripture.  They truly think it's just a "deeper" understanding of Scripture.  It's sad.  And I think these people need to be helped, not condemned as heretics.

But the teachers of Calvinism, the leaders, well, that's a different story.  They are the ones pushing these heretical views on the trusting masses.  And so my fight is not with the average pew-sitting Calvinist whom I believe has been manipulated and trapped into Calvinism, but it's with the Calvinist preachers and teachers who are doing the trapping and manipulating, the ones who should know best what the Bible really teaches because they've spent years in school studying it.  They will be held doubly-accountable for leading others astray.]

2. About Calvinist preaching: 

I'm not saying you can't get a lot of good teaching from a Calvinist preacher.  95% of what they teach could sound great, setting off no alarm bells.  And I think there's enough truth in there that unaware people could find the Lord through it.  God can use anything, good or bad.  

But when you know what the last 5% is - the bottom-line of Calvinism, the hidden layers they cover up with the 95% good stuff - it all becomes tainted, and you can't listen to even their good points anymore because you know what they really believe, how deceptively they present it, and how very wrong their fundamental beliefs are.  

And in fact, that 5% is the most important stuff, the issues that matter most: their views of the gospel, sin, salvation, forgiveness, Jesus's death, faith, God's true character, etc.  That 5% is so huge and critical that it overshadows and defines the 95%.  And so since they get that 5% wrong, it doesn't really matter what lesser issues they get right.  They got the most important, fundamental truths wrong, and it taints everything else.  (Kinda like if a witness to a murder got 95 details right, such as the color of the clothes the people wore, the time of day, the weather conditions, the weapon used, etc., but they got 5 critical details wrong: the city it happened in, the year it happened, the gender of the victim, and the gender and name of the murderer.  These 5 details are so critical that they would obliterate their testimony, far overshadowing the 95 details they got right.)  

Listening to Calvinists is like drinking a glass of 95% clean water and 5% poison.  It might not get you at first, but the longer you drink it, the more likely it is to hurt you, to destroy your faith and your trust in God.

3. About the Calvinists who are starting to realize they've been led astray:

If you're a Calvinist who's getting worried right now because you're thinking "Oh no!  I've been believing a lie all this time!  What do I do?  What should I think?", let me just say this: Don't worry, because the true biblical truth is even more beautiful than what you've been told by Calvinists.  What God did for you, He can do for anyone.  

God loves all people and wants all people to be saved (not just the elect).  Jesus died for all people, paying for all men's sins on the cross (not just the elect).  And He offers the gift of eternal life to all people, for anyone to accept.  No one is beyond God's reach, beyond His love, grace, forgiveness, healing, salvation, etc.  It's for all people, not just the elect.  And so no one is hopeless.  No one is predestined to hell, unable to be saved.  God loves all, Jesus died for all, and God offers salvation to all (but He leaves it up to us to accept it or reject it).  

But in Calvinism, God truly loves only the elect, Jesus died for only the elect, and God offers salvation only to the elect and so only the elect can/will be saved, and so the non-elect have no hope at all, no chance to be saved.  

The truth biblical truth of the gospel is so much more wonderful, hope-filled, gracious, loving, etc., than what Calvinism teaches, because in the Bible, no one is beyond hope.  Anyone can be saved.  

(Not to mention that in the Bible, God is not the cause of sin and unbelief, but He gives us the ability to choose our own decisions/actions and then He responds accordingly.  But in Calvinism, He is the ultimate cause of all sin and unbelief but then He holds us responsible for it, for what He predestined and caused.  Can you see the damage this does to God's character and to people's faith in Him and trust of Him?)  

The truth of the Bible is so much more beautiful and hope-filled and life-giving and "for all people" than Calvinism ever could be.  And so don't worry.  When you give up Calvinism for the plain teachings of the Bible, you get something so much better!