Concerned Christian at The Comment Corral

Here's a comment from a reader called Concerned Christian (see this post on my comment blog):

Hello. I am new to this site and hope I follow the comment rules appropriately.  I was saved (believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and the Blood atonement for my sins) a few years ago.  Finally got the courage to attend a Baptist church and even did my research to make sure it was not a reformed or calvinist church.  Nothing on the website points to calvinism.  After a year of attending this church I can not deny my convictions.  The pastor is constantly giving quotes from popular calvinist preachers of today and names former calvinist theologians without ever using the term "calvinist".  The pastor preaches from the KJV but a very telling sign for me is that every single piece of literature, (tracts, pamphlets) on display are from Crossway publishing and provides a website to the ESV site and is authored by known Calvinist preachers.  Everyone at the church seems to be highly educated and I never hear anything about struggles with the old man or the flesh or backsliding or if one does backslide they were probably never saved to begin with.  I get this "holier than though" feeling every week, and I knew something wasn't right.  I do believe I need to find another church to attend and thankfully I never became a member.  This should make it easier to just stop attending.

Thanks for your site and the info provided. God Bless.


My reply (with some additions):

Hello, Concerned Christian!  Thank you for visiting and commenting!  (My rules are mostly there to weed out spam and people who want to be rude or push their views on others, especially views I don't agree with.  So you did just fine.  Thank you!)

I'm sorry that you got roped into a Calvinist church despite the fact that you tried to make sure it wasn't one.  When I look back on the statement of faith of the church we left, there is no indication that it's now a fully reformed church.  So I'm sure there are plenty of people who think it's merely a "biblical" church that preaches the gospel strongly.  Those who don't know what to listen for may not recognize the Calvinism or even know that they should be listening for something "off."

You were wise to pay attention to who the pastor quotes and which books they push.  Calvinists tend to promote each other, especially since they think they have "the truth."

Unfortunately - and I think this is one of the things that attracts unwary Christians - Calvinism is full of highly-educated people.  I think it takes a lot of education to talk themselves into such a complex, convoluted, "mysterious" theology as Calvinism, to cut-and-paste and reinterpret the Bible in a way that supports their views, and to find ways to excuse/rationalize/deny/tolerate the contradictions and errors they create.  

I mean, think about it: When we read the Bible in a plain, commonsense way, most people come to the conclusion that Jesus really did die for everyone and that God really does want everyone to believe in Him and be saved, and so He gave everyone the true offer of salvation, the chance/ability to believe in Him, and the free-will to make our choice.  We believe that when He commands us to seek Him and repent and believe, it's because He gave us all the ability to do those things, the choice.  And so when we choose to reject Him or disobey Him, it was truly our choice - we didn't have to do those things - and so we deserve the punishment.  (We recognize that it wouldn't make sense if He commanded all people to seek Him, repent, believe in Him, and obey Him while creating most people to be unable to do those things, "decreeing" that they do the exact opposite of what He commanded, and yet He then punishes them for not doing it, as if they really had a choice.  We know this would destroy His character: His goodness, righteous, justice, trustworthiness, etc.)  

This is the plain, commonsense understanding of what's taught in the New Testament.  And most of us would start with this plain commonsense understanding and then use it as a basis to help us make sense of the more confusing teachings we might find in the Bible, using the clear teachings to help us understand the less-clear ones.

But we have to be taught to take these plain commonsense teachings and to flip them on their heads, to reinterpret them until they teach something completely different.  We have to be taught to interpret all the verses about "Jesus died for all people/God loves all people/God wants everyone to be saved/God commands everyone to repent and believe" as meaning "No, Jesus only really died for some people and God only really loves some people in a saving way, pre-choosing only them to be saved while creating everyone else for hell, creating them unable to obey His commands to repent and believe in Him.  But it's okay for Him to predestine people to hell - to decree their sins and unbelief but to punish them for it - because He is sovereign and it's all for His glory.  But, hey, at least He showers the non-Calv-elect with some non-saving grace and love while they're alive, giving them food, water, and sunshine before He punishes them eternally in hell for being the unbelievers He created them to be.  Isn't He wonderful!?!  Isn't He so gracious and loving to us all, Calv-elect and non-Calv-elect!?!"

(Hogwash.)

We have to be taught - through months of study with Calvinist teachers/pastors/theology books - to believe that the Bible doesn't really teach what it seems to commonsensely teach, to replace the commonsense meaning with a deeper "mysterious" Calvinist interpretation, and to shut off our alarm bells and learn to live with the cognitive dissonance Calvinism creates and demands.  

And then after embracing this mysterious, convoluted, contradictory Calvi-theology as our basis, our foundation, (convinced that we're so much more wise and educated now and so very humble and God-elevating for accepting something so mysterious, confusing, and repulsive), we use it to help us understand the rest of the Bible, to reinterpret all the other plain commonsense verses until we've slowly modified the Bible and God's character to all fit Calvinism.  Using the confusing, less-clear things to reinterpret the commonsense, clear things.  Slowly flipping the Bible and God's character upside down, so slowly that we don't even know it's happening.  

(And then when our Calvinist theology and contradictions back us into a corner, we don't even have to figure out good, solid, reasonable biblical answers for it, but we can simply resort to "It's a 'mystery'.  God's thinking is higher than ours.  God is sovereign and can do whatever He wants for His glory.  Who are you, O man, to talk back to God?  Humble Christians don't question God.  Etc.")  

But because of the many months of study Calvinists do to become Calvinists - and because their theology books are so complex and convoluted and lofty-sounding (it takes a lot of time and effort to try to make sense out of nonsense and to get people to buy into it) - Calvinists feel so educated and biblically-intelligent that they feel there's no way they can be wrong.  Anyone who's put that much time and effort into learning the "deeper" truths must be right, right?  

And so the rest of us in church trust them and their education, allowing them to spoon-feed us their great biblical wisdom and knowledge... and more and more of us get brainwashed into Calvinism as we too learn to slowly modify the Bible and flip it upside down.

Personally, I think that the Calvinists of today are like the Pharisees and teachers of the Law in Jesus's day: highly-educated, proud, sure of themselves, overly confident that they have the truth, demanding that others come to them to learn it, leading good-intentioned people away from the truth, etc.... and yet it was their confidence in themselves and their education that made them miss Jesus and the true gospel, even when it was right in front of them.  Blinded by their own prideful education and lofty, spiritual, holier-than-thou status!

[I've only found one verse in the whole Bible that truly fits Calvinism (😉): 

"[The Pharisees] replied, 'You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!"  And they threw him out." (John 9:34)  

That is Calvinism in one verse: "You're all wicked, depraved sinners from birth.  Don't you dare question what we teach you.  And get out of the Church if you disagree with us!"  

(I guess we can find Calvinism in the Bible after all!)]

Incidentally, I hear from those in my ex-church that it's become very clique-ish and is full of negativity that makes people feel bad about themselves - which I can hear in the sermons - and fruit-inspecting (constantly evaluating the characteristics of who's saved and who's not).  I had a big problem with it because there was no encouragement or support for hurting Christians, just lots of academic, theological information from a proud, condescending pastor.

I'm glad you never became a member either, because membership sometimes complicates it when you want to leave, especially 9Marks churches.  I'm not sure if I'll ever become a member at another church again.  But I hope you find one you like soon that preaches God's Word and truth as it was written.  God-bless, and thank you for sharing your story! :)







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