Calvinists Anonymous

First, a note about the audience for this book. Is this a book for you?

Quick Test: If TULIP makes you think about a 17^th century financial crisis, your garden, or an Easter bouquet, then you are going to find this book terribly bewildering. It isn’t until over 30 pages into this (short) book that the typical reader is going to discover that the “5 points” mentioned in the subtitle and the acronym TULIP which Medders keep mentioning are simply shorthand for the thing called Calvinism mentioned in the title.  This is unfortunate, because much of what Medders has to say would be interesting for a great many people who know not TULIP.

So, who is the audience? Well, TULIP lovers.

Lest we replicate Medders’ Audience Limitation, what is this TULIP? Therein lies a tale.

First off: neither the acronym nor the five points originated with John Calvin, the 16^th century Reformer. It is possible that the five points have their origins in early 17^th century theological battles, but that origin story is not as crisp as many Calvinists would like it to be. It really isn’t until the mid-20^th century that the “Five Points” are established and the mnemonic TULIP is crafted and popularized. (And, in a little observed point, the acronym only works in English.)

What is the acronym?
Total Depravity
Unconditional Grace
Limited Atonement
Irresistible Call
Perseverance of the Saints

So, first note: if that is the first time you have seen that set of phrases, well, you are undoubtedly wondering what all the fuss is about because you didn’t get too excited about the list. Calvinists, on the other hand, often get ridiculously excited about that list.

What does it all mean?  A curiosity of the five points is that it is really only one, fairly simple, point. But, it sure sounds better to talk about five points and have a cool acronym, doesn’t it?

Here is the little secret of the five points and TULIP and Calvinism: saying you accept TULIP and saying you believe in Predestination are for all practical purposes the same statement. (Calvinists: commence your quibbling.)

The argument: Humans created in the image of God rebelled against God and are thus not worthy of standing in the presence of God (that is the T). God, who is Love, decides to save humans from the effect of their own rebellion (U) through the death of Christ (L). The Holy Spirit draws those whom God has called to Himself (I) and those whom are called will spend eternity with God (P).

The only part of that which is even debated in Christian circles is whether God decided before the foundation of the world whom He would call or whether God simply puts out an offer to everyone and lets them decide whether to accept it. In other words, the only matter of dispute is the role of human agency. Once you settle that question, everything else follows.

Medders is surely right when he notes that the biggest problem with Calvinists is not their theology, but their arrogance. Calvinists often talk like they are the Spiritual Elite who know all things, unlike the rest of humanity (including even all the non-Calvinists who call themselves Christians) which is a bunch of foolish reprobates.

So, why do Calvinists get so worked up about TULIP? I suspect it is not really Calvinism that is the exciting thing. I suspect TULIP is just a proxy for what really excites Calvinists. Imagine growing up in church and hearing bland expressions of Christianity aimed at the intellect of a 10 year old. Then suddenly, one day, you hear about this exciting new thing called Calvinism. Your heartbeat leaps suddenly; for the first time in your life, you realize that this Christian thing may actually be an adult belief system.

In other words, I suspect what is really exciting to most Calvinists is theology, not Calvinism per se. If the Five Points is the first time in your life you have ever seen a theological system, it would be hard not to get excited and think you have discovered some great secret. Everyone else will suddenly seem ignorant and uniformed. Knowing the Secret of the Temple, it would be hard not to become arrogant.

Medders’ entire book is an argument to Calvinists that they need to lose this arrogance, tone down the rhetoric a bit, and, you know, love everyone, including Christians who are not convinced that Grace is completely unconditional. He is not the first to make an argument like that. C.S. Lewis was incredibly harsh when it came to thinking about Calvinists.

Modern parallels are always to some extent misleading. Yet, for a moment only, and to guard against worse misconceptions, it may be useful to compare the influence of Calvin on that age with the influence of Marx on our own…This will at least serve to eliminate the absurd idea that the Elizabethan Calvinists were somehow grotesque, elderly people, standing outside the main forward current of life. In their own day they were, of course, the very latest thing. Unless we can imagine the freshness, the audacity, and (soon) the fashionableness of Calvinism, we shall get our whole picture wrong. It was the creed of progressives, even of revolutionaries. It appealed strongly to those tempers that would have been Marxist in the nineteen-thirties. The fierce young don, the learned lady, the courtier with intellectual leanings, were likely to be Calvinists…As we recognize the type we begin, perhaps, to wonder less that such a work as the Institutio should have been so eagerly welcomed. In it Calvin goes on from the original Protestant experience to build a system, to extrapolate, to raise all the dark questions and give without flinching the dark answers. It is, however, a masterpiece of literary form, and we may suspect that those who read it with most approval were troubled by the fate of predestined vessels of wrath just about as much as young Marxists in our own age are troubled by the approaching liquidation of the bourgeoisie. Had the word ‘sentimentality’ been known to them, Elizabethan Calvinists would certainly have used it of any who attacked the Institutio as morally repulsive. 

Ouch.

But, Medders was induced to write his book because the New Calvinists often do sound exactly the same as the way Lewis describes the O.C. (Original Calvinists). On this level, Medders is performing an admirable task. If you know any insufferable Calvinists (or, even more so, if you are one), then send them (or yourself) a copy of this book right away. Medders speaks the language perfectly and his message is accurate.

But, for the rest of us, Medders slips into what I am pretty certain is an inadvertent mistake. Consider the following pair of claims from the last chapter of the book:

Real Calvinism is a humble, God-enjoying, and loving-thy-neighbor Calvinism. Arrogance, lack of gentleness, impatience, and thinking we have the spiritual gift of street-fighting doesn’t reveal a problem with the doctrines of grace but with our hearts.

Calvinism is a pile of coal, mined from the depths of doctrine, that sets a fire blazing in our hearts that drives us down the track toward godliness. True Calvinism helps us love God with all our minds and hearts, and love our neighbors as ourselves. If your Calvinism doesn’t do that, then check the coal; you might have a bad batch. 

Now both of those sentences are entirely correct in the advice they give. But, what is the word “Calvinism” doing in those sentences? The word should have been “Christianity.” “Calvinism” does not help us love God and our neighbors; Christ does.

This points to the real reason Humble Calvinism would have been stronger if Medders had expanded the scope of his implied audience. Another description of “Humble Calvinist” is “More Christ-like Christian.” While Medders’ argument in the book is that Calvinists need to stop confusing the subset (Calvinist) with the whole (Christian), because he thinks of himself as only talking with his theological tribe, he all too often rhetorically slips into the same error. I don’t know Medders, but based on the tone of his book, I think he would agree with that assessment.