The Calvinist Gospel Project? (their podcast/the gospel)
[After this, I'll be publishing the more significant posts every other week, in general, with some small or fun ones thrown in between.]
Since I added this update late to the end of my post "The Gospel Project: Calvinist or not?", I figured I'd repost it here too (with some additional information), in case you missed it:
Update: Here's something from Lifeway about (from?) The Gospel Project, answering the question "How do human actions and God's plans work together?":
"... God is in complete control over all things. This is what Christians mean when they call God 'sovereign.'... the Lord’s plans go forward through the choices of human beings as moral agents, including our freely chosen sinful actions! Everything we do is what we want to do, while also being a part of God’s plan. They are what we want and what God wants."
To me, this is Calvinism. It's a little veiled, but it's Calvinism. It's saying that all our actions - even our "freely chosen" sins - were wanted, preplanned, caused, controlled by God.
You see, in Calvinism, "freely chosen" doesn't mean that we have the ability to choose what we want to do among various real options that are truly available to us, or that we can change our minds. It simply means that God has built into our natures the desires He wants us to have that will cause us to "freely choose" to do what He predestined us to do, even sin and evil.
We are predestined to follow the sinful desires He built into our natures/wills. And in fact, we must act according to those desires because we can have no other desires than what He gave us. (This is what's behind Calvinists always qualifying "choice" with something like "according to our natures/desires/wills.") And so God doesn't have to physically "force" us to do it. We "freely choose" to sin because we "want" to sin, according to the desires He determined for us. We cannot pick our desires, change our desires, or resist our desires, and so we will definitely do the things God predestined us to do because that's the only things we have the ability to "want" to do.
It's like me giving you a magic potion that gives you the irresistible desire to kick every puppy you see. Because of that potion, you "want" to kick all those puppies... and you must follow the desire to kick all those puppies (it's the only desire you have, and you can't change it or resist it)... and so you will "freely choose" to kick all those puppies (I don't have to physically pick up your foot or hold a gun to your head to "force" you to do it)... and so you are responsible for all those kicked puppies (you kicked them; I didn't)... which means that you can be held accountable for it, because you did what you "wanted" to do (even though it's exactly what I predetermined to happen, and I gave you the desire to do it, and you had no ability to choose or desire anything else).
Only a Calvinist would call this "freely choosing"! In Calvinism, we "freely choose" to do what our God-determined desires tell us to do, and we couldn't do anything else. But because we "wanted" to do it, God didn't have to physically "force" us to do it, and so we are "responsible" for doing it and deserve to be punished for it. [It's hogwash!]
And to further prove that The Gospel Project is Calvinist, here's the Lifeway/Gospel Project post called "What is the mystery of election?", which is completely Calvinist. (Defining election as related to personal, individual salvation - instead of God choosing how to use people in His plans - is totally Calvinist.)
And it ends by sharing the goal of evangelism: "we are called to share the gospel with everyone, calling them to believe in Jesus, doing so confidently because some of them will believe."
Translation: "Evangelism/the gospel is not to save everyone, but it's only to save some people, the prechosen 'elect.'"
[*And likewise, here's a podcast from them about "Salvation and God's ability to make choices." Totally Calvinist!]
And here's one on "Regeneration" that, once again, says that regeneration/being born again by the Spirit comes before faith: "[Regeneration is] a heart change to which we respond in repentance and faith."
These are just a few things I found related specifically to The Gospel Project, which I think shows the Calvinism that underlies it all.
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*Podcast:
And here's additional information about the "Salvation and God's ability to make choices" podcast, to explain why I say it's totally Calvinist:
For starters, they begin the podcast by saying that the question of "Who is in control of people's salvation?" is a hotly-debated topic full of emotions and that we should acknowledge the "tension." That right there - the way the question is worded and the reference to "tension" - is a major indication of their Calvinism.
They say that the debate about election is over who God chooses to save and how, and that there's two basic sides. And they assure us that even though they have their own private opinions about which is right, they're "not pointing to which one we believe is right or wrong... We're not picking a side in the debate." (So they first presume a Calvinist definition of election, but then they claim they're "not picking a side." Funny.) They claim they want to find common ground, bring both sides together, and get everyone into a group hug.
At this point, my Spidey-sense immediately started tingling because it sounds like smooth-talk to manipulate us into trusting them and letting our guards down, trying to make us more receptive to what they're saying and more blind to the fact that they're gonna say one thing but do another. (Which is exactly what happens.)
They go on to define election as being about the salvation of individual people, and they say that it's God's choice whom to save: "Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man and comprehends all the means in connection with the end. It is the glorious display of God's sovereign goodness and is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. [He emphasizes "glorious," as if to convince us that Calvinism's horrifying doctrine of election (which sends more people to hell for God's glory than to heaven) really is glorious, when it's really just disturbing hogwash!] It excludes boasting and promotes humility... Election is about God's grace in saving people.... Does God have a choice [in who is saved]? Well, yes, He does."
This is Calvinism. (Sounds good, doesn't it? Positive, hopeful, God-honoring? Lipstick on a pig! But if they can find this definition of election clearly written out in the Bible, then I'll start to believe them a little more.)
This is saying that election is God choosing which sinners to regenerate/save (and, therefore, He chooses the rest for hell) and controlling all the means to get to that end. And they say that it's supposedly consistent with the "free agency of man," by which they mean that people "freely choose" to do what they "want" to do, according to their God-determined nature/desires (as seen above in the "kicking puppies" illustration, which no one but Calvinists would call truly "free" nor "choice"). This is pure Calvinism.
And then to "prove" their view of election, they present out-of-context or misinterpreted verses that have nothing to do with biblical election, and then they say "Election should be accepted by everybody."
Yes, election is biblical, just not Calvinism's definition of it. But if you let Calvinist convince you that election (and predestination, sovereignty, grace, etc.) is about God choosing who gets saved, you will become a Calvinist and will begin reading Calvinism into the Bible more and more until you can no longer see or understand the simple, beautiful, commonsense truths of Scripture anymore.
But if you heed the alarm bells going off in your spirit and spend some time researching the disturbing things Calvinists say and the verses they use to support it, you'll find flaws in their interpretations and see how much they take verses out-of-context and how wrongly they define words/concepts - and you'll find other, better, non-Calvinist ways to read the verses, ways which don't destroy God's good, trustworthy character.
[For my look into one of the verses the podcast misinterpreted, see Acts 13:48: Not As "Predestination" As It Sounds. And for a post from Soteriology 101, see Acts 13:48 Is About a Personal Response to Jesus – SOTERIOLOGY 101.]
Two sides of the debate
They go on to say that the two major sides of the "election" debate (which they're "not taking sides on") are:
1. "Some would say God has elected only some for receiving salvation, which means others are not. That makes a lot of people uncomfortable." And then he says "Notice in our essential doctrine that it does not discount free-will." So although they claimed they're "not taking sides," they totally tipped their hands here and admit that this is the side they're on. [Remember: "Free-will" in Calvinism is not really "free" at all, but you're only "free" to do what God predestined you to do, to follow the irresistible desires God gave you, and only those desires.]
2. "And some would say God has elected all and given them the possibility of salvation, that He has enabled it that anybody trusting in Christ could be saved."
He says that's the debate about the "who," but there's also debate about the "how":
1. "Some would say that God's election is based on His choice alone. Period!"
2. "Others would say God looks ahead and knows who would respond [in faith to His call], and He elected them."
[While I believe that God foreknows who will believe in Jesus (foreknows according to our perspective, our experience of time, not His), it has nothing to do with "election" - because, once again, biblical election is about how God chooses to bless/use people in His plans, not about Him choosing who gets saved. So this whole debate - the two sides - are built on a wrong understanding of election from the beginning. And FYI, Calvinists mis-define "foreknowledge" as "planning/decreeing beforehand," when it should just be "knowing beforehand." They think God "foreknows" our sins and decisions because He first preplanned them, and then He orchestrates them. But this is not an accurate understanding of "foreknowledge" at all, but it has been redefined to support Calvinism's doctrines.]
He says that these two sides lead to conflict because "Some make it seem like salvation is limited to only certain people and that makes us uncomfortable.... But the others make it sound like God didn't really do anything, that election in Scripture is just a fancy word that really means nothing if everybody can still be saved. If it's really by our choice, then where is God's choice in it?"
So after claiming that they're "not picking a side" and that they just want to "bring both sides together in a big group hug," not only did they pick a side earlier when they tied "our essential doctrine" to "God has elected only some for receiving salvation"... but now they go even further by slamming the other side (while sounding very nice and smiley about it, claiming tolerance, love, and unity), essentially saying that the other side is unbiblical, ignoring Scripture, and cutting out God.
His false dichotomy of "either God does everything to save some people, or God does nothing to save anyone" clearly shows which side he's taking. (Do they think we're stupid!?!) And it says (between the lines) that he thinks every good, Bible-believing, God-honoring Christian must take that side, too - because he makes his side sound like the most reasonable and God-honoring side, while making the other side sound totally ludicrous and anti-God for believing in true free-will, as if they're claiming they saved themselves while God did nothing.
This is a very Calvinist way of operating, to force/manipulate/shame people to get on their side. And anyone who's really listening can clearly hear the side-taking, the manipulation, and the denigration of the other side.
So much for a "group hug!" But a Calvinist "group hug" isn't about being friendly anyway, or about drawing people near in brotherly love, tolerance, and unity. A Calvinist "group hug" is about pulling us onto their side and keeping us near while they manipulate us into letting our guard down so that they can strategically indoctrinate us with Calvinism on the sly, using our niceness and tolerance against us.
[I'm not saying they necessarily intend to be manipulative and deceiving and unbiblical. Most Calvinists have good intentions and good hearts and a strong desire to honor God and uphold the Bible. And I can appreciate and admire that.
But that doesn't change the fact that they operate with deception and manipulation and that their theology contradicts a plain understanding of Scripture.
But the sad thing is: It's not that they're setting out to trick and trap people into some sort of unbiblical cult; it's that they themselves are trapped in it, truly believing that Calvinism is the be-all and end-all of biblical truth and that it's their God-given job to spread it and to convert people to it. And they think it's best to do it in the most-effective, least-alarming ways possible, which requires stealth, deception, and manipulation, even if they don't call it that.
(It's ironic that they think God predestines/controls/orchestrates all things, but then they also think they have to be strategic and careful how they spread their Calvinism, as if their efforts can really change or affect what Calvi-god predestined😕).]
Tension, Mystery, and "Who are you...?"
Then they go on in the podcast to say that no matter which view you take, you'll have "tension" with your views, and that this is common ground between both sides, and that we all need to learn to live with the tension.
To me, this is not to comfort both sides that it's okay that there are true biblical mysteries and things we can't understand - but it's to manipulate the non-Calvinists into thinking that it's okay, normal, and even healthy that Calvinism has such massive, disturbing contradictions that can't adequately be answered or meshed with Scripture.
After all, it's their side that they repeatedly said people are "uncomfortable" with. And so they know they need to do something to alleviate that discomfort.
And what Calvinists do is try to convince us that the "tension" is normal (the discomfort, confusion, disturbed feelings, alarm, unresolvable contradictions, etc.), that it's good and healthy and common to all sides, and that it even "proves" more that Calvinism is true. (It's not really that they're trying to gaslight us for the sake of gaslighting us, but it's that they themselves truly believe Calvinism is true and have taught themselves to ignore the alarm bells.)
And if they can convince us that it's supposed to be this way - that we're not supposed to be able to make sense of it or find adequate biblical answers to it anyway, no matter how hard we try, and that both sides are really in the same boat - then we'll believe that there's really no good reason to oppose or resist joining their side.
To Calvinists, their terrible-sounding teachings and unresolvable contradictions are merely "mysteries that we can't understand anyway, because God is so far above us tiny humans who are too limited, stupid, prideful, and depraved to understand how it all makes sense. And so if we want to be humble, God-honoring, Bible-affirming Christians, we have to simply trust what Calvinists say for now and learn to live with the tension, trusting that it will all make sense in eternity." (My words, not from the podcast.)
How convenient!
"Trust us Calvinists for now, even though it's super-disturbing, confusing, contradictory, and makes God seem like an unjust, untrustworthy monster... and wait until you're dead for it all to make sense."
Does it get much more cult-like than that?
And examples of their insults, gaslighting, shaming, manipulation, deflection, and strong-arming are abundant, such as these (and there's a few more at the end of this post):
Wayne Grudem (Systematic Theology): "Sometimes people regard the doctrine of election as unfair since it teaches that God chooses some to be saved and passes over others, deciding not to save them. How can this be fair?... 'But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?...'"
John MacArthur ("Is the Doctrine of Election Biblical?"): "Admittedly the two concepts [God's election and human responsibility] don't seem to go together. However, both are true separately, and we must accept them both by faith. You may not understand it, but rest assured—it's fully reconciled in the mind of God... Some are shocked to find that God didn't choose everyone to salvation... [They ask] 'So why does God still find fault in unrepentant sinners when He didn't choose them? Doesn't it deny human responsibility? Is it fair for God to still hold them accountable?' Paul answers all such questions with a rebuke—'who are you, O man, who answers back to God?...'"
John MacArthur (Election and Predestination: The Sovereignty of God in Salvation): "God elects those that are saved; those that perish do so without any help from God... It is also true that God does love humanity... Now, having said that you believe all of that, you now have a problem. And that is that your brain can't handle all of that information and bring complete resolution. But that's okay; because if you could, you wouldn't be human. There are things that only God can understand. One of the bench marks of divine inspiration is the fact that you're dealing with transcendence. And an element of transcendence is the inability to grasp fully everything." [Translation: "The fact that you can't understand or reconcile it is a good thing, because it shows that this is truth from God. If we could understand it fully, it wouldn't be from God." Gaaassslighting!]
My ex-pastor, August 16, 2015, about the “mystery” of God saying He wants all people to be saved while simultaneously predestining people to hell: "God is infinitely complex, and if God doesn’t give you a headache at times, you’re worshipping the wrong God. If you think you’ve got Him all figured out, you’re worshipping a God of your own imagination."
From The Gospel Project post I mentioned earlier called "What is the mystery of election?": "The mystery surrounding election reminds us of our limitations, both spiritually and intellectually. It is a pride killer, a profound truth that is simply too big for us."
John MacArthur (Doctrine of Election, part 1): "If you believe the Bible, you believe in God choosing who would be saved... Don’t you dare question God. God’s the potter, you’re the clay. The clay is so far beneath the potter. It is inanimate dirt. It has no right to even entertain the idea of speaking to the potter."
John MacArthur (God's Absolute Sovereignty): "No doctrine is more despised by the natural mind than the truth that God is absolutely sovereign. Human pride loathes the suggestion that God orders everything, controls everything, rules over everything. The carnal mind, burning with enmity against God, abhors the biblical teaching that nothing comes to pass except according to His eternal decrees. Most of all, the flesh hates the notion that salvation is entirely God’s work." [Wow, we who believe in free-will are wretched, terrible people, aren't we!?!]
And finally, Steve Lawson and R.C. Sproul were asked this question in an interview: "Why are so many Christians against, and actively against, these [Calvinist/Reformed] concepts?"
Lawson answers: "They don't know the Bible. [The audience laughs and claps.] It's not that they know too much of the Bible... It's because they know too little of the Bible that they have come to this conclusion, and it's really their lack of knowledge of the full counsel of God as taught in the Scripture. It allows them to continue to rebel against the truth that is presented in the Doctrines of Grace. There are no truths that glorify God more than what we succinctly stated in the Doctrines of Grace. It's not a secondary issue. It's not a minor point in the Bible. It's literally in the heart of God... Why do so many resist [Calvinism]? It's a lack of knowledge of Scripture, and it's also pride and arrogance. And these truths are the great pride-crushers that leave us all on our knees before the throne of grace and saying 'Why me, Lord!?!" [Lots of clapping from the audience. And, hmm, I wonder: If the Calvinist elect are gonna cry "Why me, Lord? Why was I saved?", then how much more will the Calvinist non-elect cry "Why me, Lord? Why was I chosen to be damned, predestined to reject the gospel but then punished for it!?! Why was I chosen to be one of those whom Jesus didn't die for!?!"]
Sproul adds: "I agree with everything Steve just said. It is a lack of understanding of the Bible... [and] there are two fundamental things that people find it very hard to leave Semi-Pelagianism and read and embrace Augustinianism. The first is that they sense in the Doctrine of Grace that that theology of Calvinism teaches a corrupt view of God [and rightly so!], a God who is not good, a God who may be sovereign but He's not fair - because the idea people have is that He arbitrarily chooses to save some but not others. And that puts a shadow on the integrity of God, and people really struggle with that. [Once again, rightly so!] And it takes a board over the head, and the Bible, to get you to see that your view of God is not high enough. You haven't really really understood how righteous He is, how holy He is..."
And the second fundamental problem non-Calvinists have, according to Sproul, is a bad view of free-will, a "pagan/humanistic" view of free-will that's "not in the Bible." And instead, according to Sproul, we need to have a Calvinist/Reformed view of free-will which says that we are only "free" to choose sin. (But I say: That's not being "free" at all.)
Can you hear the manipulation, gaslighting, shaming, deflection, and insults? Does this sound like Spirit-led, truth-filled teaching or ways of operating? Does God promote confusion like this or use manipulative, deceptive, shaming methods like this?
Calvinists are convinced that if we can't accept their teachings, the problem is us, not them. We're prideful, hate God, want to be in control, can't understand the Bible, can't accept that there are biblical "mysteries," are judging God with human logic, don't believe God is sovereign, are taking credit for saving ourselves, want to steal God's glory for ourselves, are reacting emotionally to things we don't like hearing, letting our emotions determine our beliefs, etc.
It couldn't possibly simply be that their theology is wrong!
Yes, there are biblical mysteries that we cannot fully understand because God didn't fully reveal everything about them, and we need to accept them even though we can't fully understand them (such as mysteries about prophecy, end times, angels, what heaven and hell is like, why God answers some prayers but not others, etc.).
But Calvinist "mysteries" are not true biblical mysteries at all, things God didn't clearly reveal. Calvinist "mysteries" happen because they incorrectly interpret God's Word and things He did clearly reveal. But then they can't make their bad interpretations fit properly with Scripture and so they have to appeal to "mystery," convincing people that the "tension" is normal and good, that it proves God is God, and that good, humble, God-honoring Christians just live with the tension and don't push back or dig deeper to try to figure out why it all sounds so wrong.
This is cult-like Calvinist manipulation at its finest, using our desire to be humble and God-honoring against us and using God's Word against God Himself - to spread unbiblical ideas and shame us into accepting terrible-sounding things without pushback, things that destroy God's character and trustworthiness, limit Jesus's sacrifice, slam the door of heaven on most people, and contradict a plain, commonsense understanding of God's Word.
Brilliant. Satanic.
But once you hear and understand Calvinism's manipulative tactics, you can't unhear them. And you'll notice them more and more. And hopefully, you won't fall victim to them ever again.
Sidenote: I don't blame the garden-variety Calvinist who's trapped in Calvinism themselves, who's just doing their best to honor God and uphold Scripture as they've been taught by Calvinist leaders. (Although they are responsible for not being good Bereans, for allowing themselves to be swayed by bad theology.)
But I blame Satan. And to a lesser degree, I blame the Calvinist leaders/pastors/theologians/teachers who - of all people - should know better because of how educated they are, those who've educated themselves into bad theology and who then go and stealthily educate others into it too, tricking and trapping Christians who naively trust them and look to them for answers. Modern-day Pharisees.
The Gospel and Evangelism
The guy on the podcast goes on to say that even with the "tension," both sides should still be confident when evangelizing because it's not an "if-maybe" [it's not that if we share the gospel then maybe some will be saved], but it's that "some are going to believe; people will be saved."
Saying "it's not if-maybe" is a swipe at those who believe in real free-will (which is different from the fake Calvinist kind), who believe that all people have the ability to choose to believe in Jesus and be saved through the gospel. And saying "some will come; people will be saved" is a Calvinist way of saying that the Calvinist elect are guaranteed to be saved.
Okay now, since we're talking about the gospel and evangelism, let me interrupt this to say that I believe that Calvinism and non-Calvinism have different gospels and different reasons for evangelizing.
In non-Calvinism, the gospel is "good news" for all people. It's the message that God loves all people, that Jesus died for all sins of all people, that God truly offers salvation to all people, and that anyone can be saved by believing in Jesus. (But it's our choice to accept it or reject it. And anyone can accept it).
Luke 2:10: "But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people."
1 Cor. 15:3-4: "For what I received I passed onto you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures,".
Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 3:23-24: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ."
Romans 11:32: "For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all."
Romans 10:9,13: "That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved... Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
This is the gospel according to the Bible!
But not in Calvinism. In Calvinism, "Calvinism is the gospel," particularly the Calvinist doctrine of election/predestination.
Charles Spurgeon: "It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else."
My ex-pastor, September 2023: "It means if someone is saved, it is wholly God's doing. It is not a matter of God saving you partly and you partly saving yourself. No! God saves us. We do not and cannot save ourselves. That is the gospel.' And that is the message of Jonah: Only God elects. Only God sovereignly draws. Only God sovereignly convicts us of sin. Only God sovereignly opens blinded eyes."
My ex-pastor, February 2015: "The Bible's teaching on our human condition especially outside of Christ [is that we are] hopelessly blinded and in slavery to sin unless God graciously opens human sinful eyes and summons them to Himself as Lord... That's the gospel: That there is a God who seeks hardened sinners, pursues them, turns them around, drags them to Himself, blesses them, pardons them, and justifies them."
My ex-pastor, July 2018: "The gospel is very clear: It is the announcement that God is reconciling sinners to Himself through the life, death, and resurrection of His uniquely begotten Son, Jesus of Nazareth."
Calvinism's gospel (and Calvinism's use of John 3:16) is not an offer of salvation for all people or instructions on how anyone can be saved. It's merely an announcement that God prepicked some people to save - that He loves only those people, that Jesus died for only those people, and that God will definitely save only those people by causing them to believe because He wants only those people in heaven with Him.
But everyone else is predestined to hell, unable to be saved because God never loved them, Jesus never died for them, and the gospel was never meant for them.
"How beautiful are the feet of him who brings good news to the few lucky people who were prechosen for salvation, those who don't have to do anything but wait for God to inject them with faith and to wake them up to the fact that they were always saved from the beginning of time! My sympathies to everyone else." 1 Hessitations 1:1-3
Note: Both Calvinists and non-Calvinists say that faith in Jesus is necessary to be saved, which tricks people into thinking they're spreading the same gospel. But "faith" is very different in each one.
In Calvinism, faith is something God injects into a prechosen person to make them believe in Calvi-Jesus who died only for the elect (and so only the prechosen people can and will believe). They are first elected for salvation in eternity past, and it eventually leads to God regenerating them, making them born-again, and injecting them with faith, which then leads to them believing in Jesus. And so technically, they are saved by election, not by faith. And technically, they are saved/born again/regenerated before belief in Jesus, which means they are saved/born again/regenerated apart from, without, belief in Jesus.😕😲
In Calvinism, belief/faith in Jesus does not save, but it's the result of already being saved.
Loraine Boettner in The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination: "A man is not saved because he believes in Christ; he believes in Christ because he is saved."
But in non-Calvinism, faith is our belief in Jesus - a decision we make. And anyone can believe in Jesus and be saved because Jesus died for all, God loves all and wants all saved, and God truly offers salvation to all. And when we believe in Jesus - when we put our faith in Him as Lord and Savior - we are saved/born again/regenerated.
A very different view of faith, of what Jesus did on the cross, of who can be saved, and of how we are saved. Calvinism preaches a different gospel.
And if someone can't get the simple gospel correct, then they have no business being a pastor. And I don't care whatever else they do get right. If they get the gospel (and God's character) wrong - the most important part of Christianity - then it doesn't really matter that they get some minor, secondary things right. Like Paul said, "of first importance." If Calvinists cannot understand the "first important" message, then they should be disqualified from teaching God's Word.
And now this brings us to the goal of evangelism in Calvinism. Not only do Calvinists spread a different gospel which limits Jesus's death to just a few people and which alters the way to salvation, but they also have different reasons for evangelizing.
Non-Calvinists evangelize to spread the truth of Jesus to save anyone and everyone because they believe that anyone can be saved, that God offers salvation to all people, but we decide for ourselves whether to accept it or reject it.
[Warning: Calvinists will also deceptively say "anyone can be saved," but they mean that "anyone could be one of the elect because we don't know who's elect and who's not - only God knows. But only the elect can be saved, while the non-elect can't." But when non-Calvinists say "anyone can be saved," we mean that everyone is save-able, that everyone has the ability/option to choose to believe in Jesus and be saved.]
But in Calvinism, evangelism is not to share the gospel with anyone and everyone to try to save them all, but it's merely about saving the elect.
[Methinks someone thinks too highly of his own opinions!]
Steven Lawson ("Salvation is of the Lord"): "As a sin-bearing sacrifice, Jesus died a substitutionary death in the place of God’s elect. On the cross, He propitiated the righteous anger of God toward the elect.... Jesus’ death did not merely make all mankind potentially savable. Nor did His death simply achieve a hypothetical benefit that may or may not be accepted. Neither did His death merely make all mankind redeemable. Instead, Jesus actually redeemed a specific people through His death, securing and guaranteeing their salvation. Not a drop of Jesus’ blood was shed in vain. ["He didn't waste His blood on the non-elect. He didn't die for them."] He truly saved all for whom He died... With oneness of purpose, the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit into the world to apply this salvation to those chosen and redeemed." ["Jesus and the gospel are only for the elect."]
A.W. Pink (Doctrine of Election): "It is to call the elect that the Scriptures are given, that ministers are sent, that the gospel is preached, and the Holy Spirit is here... the preaching of the gospel is the appointed instrument in the hands of the Holy Spirit whereby the elect are brought to Christ... The gospel, then, is God's great winnowing fan, separating the wheat from the chaff. ["The gospel is only for the elect."]... it is unmistakably evident that the 'all men' God wills to be saved and for whom Christ died are all men without regard to national distinctions." ["Jesus died only for the elect from all nations."]
Jarvis Williams (Desiring God, "For Whom Did Christ Die?"): "I believe the Scripture teaches that Jesus died for all people in the world without distinction — meaning, Jesus died for all kinds of people from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation ["but not all individual people"]... The verbal proclamation of the gospel makes known to the elect the salvation accomplished by Christ for them ["The gospel, Jesus's death, and salvation are only for the elect!"]..."
The goal of Calvinist evangelism is not to save anyone and everyone, but to save only the elect.
[Do you realize that Calvinist evangelism and the Calvinist gospel has no effect on anyone's destiny, that it rescues no one from hell? The Calvinist-elect were never ever on their way to hell at any point in time and the Calvinist-non-elect can never ever be saved from hell. All Calvinism does is convince the Calvinist elect they were always elect/always saved, while informing the non-elect that they can never be saved. That's sick!]
But even more than that, even worse than that: Calvinists have a second purpose for evangelism that they don't often speak about: To bring condemnation on the non-elect when they reject the gospel as Calvi-god predestined.
This is why Calvinists evangelize: To make the elect realize they're elect and to seal the fate of the non-elect. And they claim they have a 100% success rate in evangelism because their efforts will produce exactly what God predestined: the elect will hear the gospel and believe, but the non-elect will reject it like God predestined and be punished for it. This is "success" in Calvinist evangelism. (Disgusting!)
a. From a Calvinist article called "If God predestines people, why evangelize?": "If God is Sovereign, Our Evangelism Has a 100% Success Rate: In a culture where evangelism may lead people to walk away and even scoff at our words, we can have confidence in our preaching efforts. Because God is the Author of salvation (and not our evangelistic proficiency or presentation), our faithful proclamation of the Gospel will yield the exact result the Lord has willed."
c. An atheist (Godless Granny) asks a Calvinist named Joe this question [Watch the video of this conversation at Soteriology 101's "Warning: This may be the CRINGIEST video you watch about Calvinism"]: "What is the purpose of telling people about God if the only way they can come to believe is if God chooses to come and move them?" Joe answers "Because any kind of evangelistic efforts, I have a 100% success rate for the kingdom of God. So either it is going to add to the condemnation of vessels prepared for wrath, for destruction, that God will use to glorify Himself - so it will be adding to the condemnation of unbelievers where God will be just in destroying them for eternity - or He will use the preaching of the gospel...[to] draw the elect to Himself. So I have a 100% success rate with whatever I'm doing because I'm accomplishing God's purpose either way."
Godless Granny then asks, "If you found out that God chose not to save one or more of your children, how would you feel about that?" And Joe answers "It means He's God. You see, God is a bigger being than I am. He's higher than I am. And I sure hope that God has chosen my children...but if God chooses not to save my children, that is His prerogative because He is God and I am not God. He decides who's in His heaven. He decides who's in His hell."
Godless Granny then points out that the odds are that at least one of Joe's children is predestined to eternal torment in hell, and she asks "And you don't have a problem with that?" And Joe responds "Okay, we've got two ways to look at this. This is a glass half-full or half-empty. Either I can rejoice that God chose a wretched sinner for salvation, which is me, or I can worry about God's choices with other wretched sinners. [So "Don't worry about the damnation of others. Be concerned only for yourself, and no one else." Does this sound to you like God's truth, like God's heart?] When I realize that the human nature and the human position against God is that I've sinned against an almighty God and that everyone deserves His judgment, I should be mystified, shocked, and stunned whenever He chooses anyone, not surprised when someone doesn't get chosen." [This is the glorious end of Calvinism, where it leads to! Oh, how this must hurt his children's hearts! How it must crush their hearts, their hope, and their faith to believe that mere humans might love them more than God does, and there's nothing they can do about it! And not to mention, but what kind of a God would He be if we should be shocked that He loves and wants to save even one person!?! We'd be shocked to find out that a loner, cannibalistic, serial killer who kidnaps, tortures, kills, and eats a victim every day of his life would genuinely love even one other person, but why should we be surprised that our God - who is love, who is amazing, gigantic, generous, gracious, merciful, self-sacrificial love - loves people and wants to save people, even "depraved" sinners like us? A Calvinist's shock at God's love - their reduction of it to a very sparse, minimalistic, stingy love - says worse things about their theology and the kind of God they think He is than it does about the "depraved" people He loves. As Leighton Flowers said about the "cringiest" video linked to above: Given how compassionate and loving and self-sacrificial Jesus is, we should be shocked to find that God wouldn't be gracious and loving and merciful to even one person, not shocked that He would. (The whole, longer video can be seen here: Calvinism and Apologetics DON'T MIX.)]
It is inaccurate to say that we 'offer' salvation to all men. The preaching of the gospel is not an offer, but a 'command' to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. The non-elect person will never have ears to hear this and obey. Yet, the call of the gospel must be sincerely given, allowing God to gather his people by the power of His Holy Spirit. ["The gospel is only for the elect."]
... While the messenger of Christ may never say to all men indiscriminately, 'Smile, God loves you' or 'Christ died for you,' yet he must say that Christ died for the sins of His people and all men are commanded to repent and believe in Jesus Christ... It is precisely through this preaching of the gospel that God has determined to save His elect for whom Christ died.... God will also use the preaching of the gospel to condemn those who reject it and continue in their unbelief [by Calvi-god's decree].
The success of preaching is guaranteed, for none of the sheep will be lost... Others do not hear the voice of Jesus and will not believe, because they are not His sheep whom He died for.
... Success is not determined by how many become Christians, but it is a matter of faithfulness in bringing the true gospel of salvation to the ends of the earth.
... Unfortunately, in a mistaken attempt to bring all men into the Church, men have forsaken true doctrine in order to give greater appeal to the sound of the gospel. It may sound like a nice way to approach all men and say 'Christ died for you, now you must choose Him,' but it is not true, and does grave injustice to the intent of Christ on the cross.
... When we say that we 'freely proclaim' the gospel we must not think that all men are equally capable of receiving it in faith. The unregenerate man is not 'free' to believe – not until and unless the Holy Spirit has brought new life and freedom into his heart. No man can do this himself. Only the sheep will listen, and that will be only because the Holy Spirit works faith in their hearts.
So Calvinists celebrate that God supposedly causes people to reject the gospel so that they can burn eternally in hell for His glory, calling it "successful evangelism"!?!
Does anyone else's heart hurt right now?
And I'm just wondering, but if the damnation of the non-elect is equally desirable, successful, and God-glorifying as the salvation of the elect, then why does Paul, in Romans 9, anguish over lost Jews and plead with/for them, even wishing that he could trade places with them so that they might be saved?
It doesn't sound to me like Paul shared the same kind of laissez-faire "praise God for the damnation of the reprobates because it's just what He wanted for His glory"-attitude that Calvinists have about lost people and evangelism.
In fact, while Calvinist might rejoice in their "success" of getting the non-elect into hell, God says:
"... 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live...'" (Ezekiel 33:11)
"... He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)
How can Calvinists reconcile their beliefs with God's character, with God's heart?
It makes you wonder who's behind Calvinism.
Because it sure doesn't sound like the God of the Bible.
The reason I'm getting a little off-track by expounding on the gospel and evangelism in a post about The Gospel Project is because The Gospel Project is about spreading the gospel. And so if the Gospel Project is truly, deeply Calvinist (even though it might be veiled enough that people can still get some good out if it), it's incredibly important to know what the Calvinist gospel is (compared to the Bible's gospel) and to know why Calvinists spread it.
You can't have a post about The Gospel Project without clarifying what the gospel is... and what it isn't. And in my estimation, Calvinism and non-Calvinism have totally different gospels. Totally different purposes for sharing the gospel. Totally different ways to be saved. Totally different Gods.
But Calvinists don't realize it. They're truly convinced that Calvinism is biblical Christianity and that it's their job to spread it, for God's glory and the good of the Church. And that's what makes it so effective at hijacking people and churches.
If Calvinists knew they were believing and spreading errors, it would be easier for us to know it, too. But they truly think it's biblical truth and they present it as biblical truth (using the Bible's words and concepts while hiding Calvinist language and their disturbing doctrines as much as possible) - and this makes it much easier to smooth talk others into thinking it's the truth, too.
The way I see it, Calvinism is not an attack from the outside by an enemy who clearly looks like an enemy, which would make it so much easier to recognize it as a threat and to fight it. But Calvinism is an attack from the inside by people who talk and look just like typical Christians (people who, most likely, truly are Christians) and who think they're truly affirming what Scripture really teaches and that they're being humble and God-honoring to believe what they do - and that's what makes it so effective, so insidious.
Destroying the Church from the inside out through the efforts of Christians is a much better satanic tactic than trying to destroy it from the outside through the efforts of obvious enemies.
But I'm gonna echo Calvinist Charles Spurgeon here (a quote I can get behind), using his own advice against his own Calvinism: "Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is knowing the difference between right and almost right."
[For more along these lines, see Calvinism: False Gospel or True (but warped) Gospel?) and "But predestination!" (#17: double-speak and the gospel).]
Responsible doesn't mean able
Okay, now, back to the information specifically related to The Gospel Project podcast:
The guy on the podcast then goes on to say that "The doctrine of election doesn't negate anyone's responsibility for trusting in the gospel... These two things are not in conflict with one another because we are all called to believe..."
Be aware that, in Calvinism, this is not saying that anyone can believe, that all people are able to believe. All it means is that everyone is required to believe - even the non-elect who were predestined to hell and who have no ability to believe - and so because the non-elect don't do what's required (even though Calvi-god made sure they never could), they will be punished for it.
Vincent Cheung (The Problem of Evil): "…man is morally responsible even if he lacks moral ability; that is, man must obey God even if he cannot obey God. It is sinful for a person to disobey God whether or not he has the ability to do otherwise. Thus moral responsibility is not grounded on moral ability or on free will; rather, moral responsibility is grounded on God's sovereignty – man must obey God's commands because God says that man must obey, and whether or not he has the ability to obey is irrelevant."
See! Calvinists have been brainwashed into thinking that people don't have to have the ability to make real choices among real options in order to be held truly accountable for their "choices." They think it's okay for God to preplan, orchestrate, cause, control all sin, evil, and unbelief - giving people no ability to choose anything else - and then hold them responsible for it and punish them for it, as if it's true justice when it's totally not! It's a sinister level of error and deception considering the damage it does to God's character, His justice, His righteousness, and His trustworthiness.
But to answer the dilemma of how Calvi-god can predestined people to be unbelievers but hold them responsible for it, the guy on the podcast simply resorts to "humility" and "mystery": "Humility! We have to remember that God has this figured out. He's the orchestrator of it. There's no tension here. It's a baffling mystery to us because we don't have the mind of God. So we can either stay in our tension of not understanding and get angry, or we can say 'We humbly trust in God, and He's got it figured out, and these are not in opposition. I can't figure it out.'... I cannot figure out how God's role in election and man's freedom coexist in perfect harmony. I don't understand but I know it's true, and I've got to trust in that and, in humility, just give it to God." [He cannot figure it out because his theology is wrong - because Calvinism has disastrously incorrect views of election, predestination, sovereignty, faith, regeneration, Jesus's death, etc.]
And while I can appreciate his heart here - the desire to trust in God and His character even when there's things we can't understand - this is still bad theology. And it's still manipulation. It's trying to get people to accept bad theology and unresolvable contradictions that damage God's character and Word. It's to convince people to ignore their alarm bells and to not look into it too closely, to fall in line and not push back against it, making it seem like it's the humble, God-honoring thing to do.
[And I find it odd that Calvinists convince themselves that they can trust God's character in the face of theological dilemmas... when their very theology destroys God's character and makes Him untrustworthy. Because, in Calvinism, God says one thing but means another. He means other things but doesn't reveal them, deceiving us about them. He offers things He made impossible for certain people to accept. He decrees things, but then He also decrees that people break His decrees. He wills one thing but causes the opposite. He commands people to do things that He prevents them from doing (repenting/believing). And He causes others to do things He commanded them not to do (sin/evil), but then He punishes them for it, as if they really had a choice about it. And not to mention John Calvin's idea of "evanescent grace," that God sometimes gives non-elect people a temporary faith that makes them feel like they are truly elect, truly saved, but later He takes it away to lead to greater blindness and condemnation in hell for them, but they themselves can't sense any difference between them and the real elect people, not until it's too late. If Calvinists think they can trust a god like this in the face of theological dilemmas, then I feel sorry for them. They're just fooling themselves, clinging to a wisp of a daydream. And they have nothing solid and trustworthy to plant their feet on, their faith in. Not with a god like that!]
And finally, he ends with the idea that we should all be comforted because "God has chosen some. Some will be saved. For us who are saved, it is a source of comfort and confidence that God is in control."
Sure, it's easy to be comforted when you ignore what happens to those not chosen, those predestined to hell. It's easy to trust His alleged control over who gets saved when you think you're one of the ones He chose to save.
(But remember... evanescent grace!)
Conclusion
For anyone who knows the language Calvinists speak, this whole thing is clearly Calvinism. Deep, dark Calvinism. It's a little veiled, trying to appear tolerant of the other side, but it's full-on Calvinism, and it actually denigrates the other side.
One last thing they said in this podcast is this: "The debate, the discussion, should not be 'Is election biblical?' The discussion should be 'How does it work?' The who and how of election is where we need to start recognizing 'yeah, that's not as clear.'... So election is clear, the idea that it is biblical that God has chosen. But then who has he chosen and on what basis he's chosen, this is where the tension rests."
But I say that, no, the debate is not over who and how God elects people to be saved - because that assumes a Calvinist view of election from the beginning. And since election is not about the salvation of individuals, their foundational premise is faulty, which means the whole debate is faulty.
So don't debate with Calvinists about "Who does God elect to be saved, and how?" This will only trap you in their Calvinist definitions, their Calvinist mindset. (And the longer you stay in their world, the more likely you are to slide into Calvinism.)
But you should start with "Is your interpretation of election (and sovereignty, predestination, faith, Romans 9, etc. - all terms, concepts, and verses they use) even biblical to begin with? Or are you presuming that Calvinism is true and then misinterpreting the Bible, reading it through a Calvinist lens, taking verses out of context, and redefining and twisting everything to force it to fit Calvinism?"
That's the debate to have, the real debate about Calvinism.
Don't get sucked into debating a Calvinist on their terms, according to their definitions of words and their interpretation of verses. Don't fall for their manipulation, gaslighting, and shaming tactics. Learn about - and expose - their Calvinist bias, tactics, and errors right from the very beginning, or else you'll be on the completely wrong track, climbing the wrong wall. And as Harry Bright said in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again: "There's no use in climbing the ladder if you're on completely the wrong wall."
[See "Don't answer Calvinist questions. Dismantle them."]
Calvinism has become such a strong, growing force, gobbling up many people, churches, and Christian institutions in its path.
And so we need as many Christians as possible to become good Bereans who deeply study the Word for themselves and become educated in the dangers, errors, and ways of Calvinism, so that they can doublecheck their pastors, take a stand for the truth, and protect God's Word, God's character, and the gospel.
And since many pastors, theologians, churches, and organizations have succumbed to the sly, hypnotic, manipulative pull of Reformed Theology (Calvinism), a revival of restored theology (going back to a proper interpretation of the Word/biblical theology) is going to have to start with us little people. A grassroots movement. David vs. Goliath. ("Restored Theology" has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?)
It's going to take each and every one of us small, scared, "I feel too inadequate" Christians to do whatever little bit we can do to educate ourselves, to learn the Bible well, to warn/educate others, and to stand up in the face of the juggernaut of Calvinism, resist the "group hug," and firmly but lovingly say "Hands off! Keep your grimy little tentacles off our minds, our faith, and our churches!"
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Footnote: Here are a bunch more examples of their insults, gaslighting, shaming, manipulation, deflection, and strong-arming, which is just a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of examples out there (I've shared these in other posts, so no need to read them if you don't want to):
1. The Calvinist article "Straight Talk About Predestination": "Does the Bible really teach predestination?... God has the right to do as he wills. One of you will say to me: 'Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?' But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?"
2. My ex-pastor, from his August 16, 2015 sermon on predestination: “So why does God still blame us if He elects some and not others? The answer from Paul is ‘Who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?’"
3. My ex-pastor, June 26, 2016: "And accepting [the Calvinist doctrine of election/predestination] doesn’t mean full comprehension... It’s about surrender and affirming any tough teaching in the Bible, even if I don’t [like] it or understand it, accepting it because I believe God has spoken clearly. He didn’t stutter in the Bible. And yes, there are things that are going to drive me nuts and irritate me and give me a headache… but the question is 'Do you believe the Bible is the Word of God?'”
4. R.C. Sproul, in "God's Sovereignty", accused the seminary students in his class who didn't accept the Calvinist definition of God's sovereignty of being "atheists."
5. PJ Tibayan (in his 9Marks article) says that Calvinist pastors are "burdened by [the] biblical and theological illiteracy" of those who don't believe in Calvinism. (Poor babies!)
6. This Calvinist article calls non-Calvinists "unsuspecting and uneducated" and says that we are the kind of people who "rely on the supermarket tabloids as your reliable source of news"
7. This 9Marks article says that anti-Calvinists are anti-Calvinists only because when we researched Calvinism online, we put our trust in ourselves and in strangers online ["internet hotheads"].
8. Al Mohler (Christianity Today, "The Reformer") says that non-Calvinists "are not aware of the basic structures of thought, rightly described as Reformed, that are necessary to protect the very gospel they insist is to be eagerly shared."
9. A.W. Pink (in Doctrine of Election) calls those who disagree with Calvinism "merit-mongers [who] will not allow the supremacy of the divine will" because "the heart is loath to receive such an humbling and flesh-withering truth [the Calvinist doctrine of election]. How earnestly we need to pray for God to subdue our enmity against Him and our prejudice against His truth."
And he says that "those who continue to cavil against [Calvinism] [who make petty or unnecessary objections against it] and steadfastly refuse any part of the truth, are not entitled to be regarded as Christians." [Well, then, it's a good thing our objections aren't petty or unnecessary!]
10. My ex-pastor, from his July 2018 sermon on the doctrine of sovereign election: "The Bible teaches that God sovereignly chooses some and not others... This is the doctrine of predestination, what the Bible calls the doctrine of election. [No, it doesn't. There is no phrase "doctrine of election" in the Bible.]
... The first question when it comes to Bible study is not 'Do I like this?'... The first question is 'WHAT DOES THE TEXT SAY?' If this is not your first question, your first burden, there is concern if you really know Christ as Lord and if you honor Him. If all you accept is the stuff you like and what is convenient for you and emotionally comfortable for you, then there is a real question whether you know Christ, if His Spirit lives in you. [Can you hear what he's insinuating? That if you reject his view of predestination, you're basing truth on your feelings, dishonoring Christ, and probably not even a Christian. Who's gonna disagree with him when this is how he repeatedly paints those who disagree with him!?!]
... In verses 14-21 (of Romans 9), Paul deals with the accusation that predestination makes God unjust [no, he doesn't - because Romans 9 is not about predestination of individuals to salvation!], that it makes Him guilty of bias, prejudice, discrimination, favoritism, not being a nice guy... This doctrine is especially difficult for American culture...because our baseline cultural narrative is freedom. It is our top value in Western culture: freedom, choice... It is the cultural air we breathe. It's the cultural glasses we look through and bring into the text, and we're not even aware of it. [Ironic for a Calvinist to say this, isn't it, when they read the Bible through a Calvinist lens, through their presupposed Calvinist philosophy!] And then we read a passage about hell or judgment or election or predestination or whatever, and immediately we recoil because our whole edifice, our whole presuppositional system, rules it out...like 'the text can't mean that!'
... 'Is God unjust' [for electing some for heaven but not others] is an accusation that God is not good. It is an accusation disguised as a question... The accusation is that 'God is unjust, unfair, not nice, this is wrong, He can't elect somebody over somebody else or harden one but soften another, what's going on, this isn't American!'... That's the accusation.
... [After going on and on here about how wicked, depraved, and rebellious humans are, the pastor says:] Once you grasp the...wickedness, evil, corruption, rebellion on the human heart, the real question is not 'Why didn't God elect everybody?' The real question is 'Why does He elect anybody?' [Not only is this deflection, but these are also bad questions because of their Calvinist-bias, presupposing Calvinist election. And so if you get trapped into answering these questions the way they're worded, you'll either end up fruitlessly going round and round in a circle debating them or you're on your way to Calvinism yourself. Don't answer questions like these. Expose the errors and Calvinist-bias right away. See "Don't answer Calvinist questions. Dismantle them."]
... The creation has no right to question the Creator's ways... You have no right - I have no right - to call God unjust. How dare I! How dare you!... [God says] 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy; I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' By the way, that's God's prerogative... God hardens whom He wants to harden and has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy... Who are you, adult [here we go again!]... who are you, teenager... who are you, kid... who are you, a mere human being, to talk back to God?
... Don't ever accuse God of being unjust or of not being good. It's a serious sin. You may not understand His ways. His ways may hurt you. They may confuse you. You may find yourself right this moment going through a dark thing and you don't understand what in the world God is doing, but don't say that He's unjust or ungood. Just because you don't understand a doctrine is no excuse to speak ill of God or to take a clear teaching in the Bible and mangle it to say something I'm emotionally comfortable with. [Translation: "If you have a problem with what I'm teaching, the problem is you, not my theology."]
[Having relistened to about 60 of his sermons recently, I wonder if the people in that church ever notice that the majority of each sermon on predestination, election, or God's sovereignty is really just gaslighting, deflection, manipulation, shaming, false dichotomies, out-of-context verses, Calvinist quotes, etc. The bulk of each sermon is really just "Shut up and accept what I tell you because you can't figure it out anyway. And shame on those who doubt me."]
11. My ex-pastor's August 2015 sermon about God "ordaining" suffering: "[Some people] say that evil and suffering are the result of [free-will choices]... [But] God is in full control of every detail of the universe, including the suffering, evil, and tragedy in our lives... [We] rush to get God off the hook for human suffering [by saying things like] 'Well, this is not what He really intended; this is not really Plan A.'... And every time we do that, God puts Himself back on the hook and says, 'I am in charge, thank you, and I will run the universe as I see fit, and I don't owe you an explanation.'
... Are you trusting God in the midst of your past, present, and future in whatever He has ordained and appointed for you as far as suffering, tragedy, abuse, or trials or difficulties or illness or disease or betrayal?... Or are you murmuring against Him?... You may get an answer someday about why you were abused or why you lost a child or why a spouse walked away. ["You may get answer why" is another way of saying "God might tell you why He deliberately did it to you."]
... Do you perhaps need to repent of your murmuring and the chip on your shoulder against God, and surrender today and say 'Lord, I don't understand the way You run the universe, and I don't necessarily like it, but You're God and You're good.'... Find refuge and hope in a good and holy God who says 'I have all things under My control. Everything that's going on in your life, or has gone on in your life, or will, I know about and have ordained for you. And you can find comfort and hope and trust Me.'"
Brilliant manipulative-shaming! So first he misrepresents God's character by telling people that God preplanned and caused them to be abused or cheated on (which would not make Him a "good" God) - that all tragedies and evils are God's "plan A" for our lives, specifically appointed for us by Him - and then he shames us for being upset about it, accusing us of sinning against God.
12. John Piper ("Pastoral Thoughts on the Doctrine of Election"): "... [the doctrine of election] is one of the best ways to test whether we have reversed roles with God. [The doctrine of election] is a timeless problem, but especially in the modern world that assumes human autonomy and questions all authority and takes the judgment seat to decide if God even exists. Paul addressed this issue most forcefully in Romans 9:6-23. As he did, he heard the ancient and modern objection, 'Why does [God] still find fault? For who can resist his will?' his answer to that was, 'But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?...'... The doctrine of election is one very effective test of whether you are being delivered from the indigenous ocean of arrogance in the modern world, or are still drenched to the bone."
Manipulative-shaming, painting those who disagree with Calvinism as arrogant people who challenge God's authority and usurp His position. This is the kind of stuff Calvinists do all the time to get people to shut up and fall in line. And it works - because what good Christian wants to be seen this way. It's really a win-win for Calvinists: Either people will shut up and fall in line... or if we don't (if we speak up and disagree), other people in the church will be convinced that we're arrogant, God-fighting people, and this will discredit any disagreement we have with Calvinism. No wonder it's so hard for us to wake up the Church to the dangers and errors of Calvinism, because we're either shutting up and falling in line or else we're outing ourselves as "bad Christians" who shouldn't be listened to.
13. From the "Paradox Files, Vol. 18": "To the Calvinist, man is fully responsible for his choice, yet God's election is unconditional. This creates a problem. It creates great tension. For the Calvinist, this tension cannot, and should not, be solved. So how does the Calvinist live with this?... We have no answer. We get off our stool and punt to apophatic theology. The tension is left intact. We place our hand over our mouth here and say, 'Though we have no answers to why God did not choose people he truly loves, we will trust him without judgment.'... There is no need to solve all tensions... [There are things] beyond our ability to comprehend... The issue of human freedom and unconditional election is in [this category]... There are many things God reveals that confuse us and baffle our thinking. They seem irrational. Yet we find God saying 'Chill. Just trust me. I've got this under control. While I have revealed a lot and I know you have a lot of questions, this is a test of trust. I love everyone but I did not elect everyone. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Will you trust me or will you redefine things?'"
14. My ex-pastor, December 8, 2024: "[Early church believers] knew [God] was in control of even over the choices of evil leaders. He was guiding them to do His Will... [But] you might wonder 'How can these people be guilty when it says right here that all the evil things they did, it was God's plan.' [Martin] Luther says 'God is good and cannot do evil, but He uses evil men who cannot escape the impulse and movement of His power. And yet when they do the very evil they're planning after being moved by God, it's their fault, not His.' [Cannot escape??? Moved by God??? And yet Calvinists cry "We don't say people are robots controlled by God!" Hogwash! But biblically, God didn't plan to make them be evil or do evil. He just foreknew they would be evil people who wanted to do evil things, and so He planned to put it to good use, incorporating their self-chosen evil into His plans. Sidenote: In the service I didn't quote from - probably the second service - he added that Luther is "the great German reformer. Luther is always such a very perceptive biblical commentator. He and other reformers were glued to the text, and they taught the Scriptures, and they preached the Scriptures." My ex-pastor quotes from this theological hero of his - the "great" Martin Luther - all the time, as all Calvinist pastors do, to promote their Calvinist views and agenda. Yet it's funny that in all those quotes, I've never heard him quote from Luther's highly antisemitic book The Jews and Their Lies. Hmm? Interesting. And ironically enough, do you know who else quoted Luther, using Luther's teachings to promote his views and agenda too? Hitler. Watch this video from Andy Woods to learn more: Neo-Calvinism vs. The Bible #4.]
And then the pastor makes a "mind blown/totally baffled" gesture here. And says "But that's what the text says. I don't determine what the text says by 'I don't like that. That doesn't make sense. I don't know what to do with that.' I have to go 'That's clearly what the text says.' [But what the text doesn't clearly say is the Calvinist reinterpretation of everything!] And it reminds me that God is much more complex than I am. And I hope He is, 'cuz I'm a simple man. I hope God's a lot more complex than I am. I hope He gives me a headache sometimes when it comes to my theology. I hope there are times when I get indigestion. There should be! [Gaslighting. Making a bad thing sound good. Making you distrust your own judgment and the alarm bells going off in your spirit about what he's preaching. And it's funny - and telling - that the only times Calvinists talk about "headache theology," about not being able to understand God and His ways, is when they're teaching that God predestines all sin and evil and unbelief but that He holds people accountable for it. Isn't it kinda strange that the only doctrines we have no ability to understand - and so we must simply trust the Calvinist teachers and accept what they say - is their worst, most God-damaging doctrines!?! 😕]
Because if He's the living God, there's a lot of things that are taking place that we will never understand, and it is far more complex than we are. [Translation: "So don't bother trying to think too much about what I'm teaching you. Just accept it, even if you can't understand it and it bothers you immensely!" The same old manipulation he's been doing since the very beginning, the first things to alert me that something must be very wrong with his theology.]
16. J.I. Packer ("Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility"): "The root cause [of why some Christians reject the Calvinist "doctrine of sovereignty"] is the same as in most cases of error in the Church⎯ the intruding of rationalistic speculations, the passion for systematic consistency, a reluctance to recognize the existence of mystery and to let God be wiser than men, and a consequent subjecting of Scripture to the supposed demands of human logic. People see that the Bible teaches man’s responsibility for his actions; they do not see (man, indeed, cannot see) how this is consistent with the sovereign Lordship of God over those actions. [No, it's not God's sovereignty we have a problem with; it's the Calvinist's unbiblical view of sovereignty we have a problem with.] They are not content to let the two truths live side by side.
... The desire to over-simplify the Bible by cutting out the mysteries is natural to our perverse minds, and it is not surprising that even good men should fall victim to it. Hence this persistent and troublesome dispute... What should one do, then, with an antinomy?... Accept it for what it is, and learn to live with it. Refuse to regard the apparent inconsistency as real [a perfect example of clear, textbook gaslighting!]; put down the semblance of contradiction to the deficiency of your own understanding; think of the two principles as, not rival alternatives, but, in some way that at present you do not grasp, complementary to each other.
... To our finite minds, of course, the thing is inexplicable. It sounds like a contradiction, and our first reaction is to complain that it is absurd... [But] observe how Paul replies... he rebukes the spirit of the question. “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?’... Creatures are not entitled to register complaints about their Creator."
