Why I’m a Calvinist

Scot McKnight and James Hamilton are both blogging on Calvinism at the moment. Both feeds are worth checking out and they come from contrasting perspectives. This had led me to some reflections on the topic:

I am a Calvinist because:

(1) I find it validated in Scripture. To be honest, I just don’t know how one can read texts like Ephesians 1 and Acts 13.48 and not be. (Though I fully concede that texts like Hebrews 6 may not necessarily comport with some Reformed expressions of perseverance, so I would want to carefully nuance what is meant by “perseverance of the saints”).

(2) I find the only explanation for my conversion from darkness to light to be the unmerited and efficacious power of God’s grace working in me. I did not grow up in a Christian home. My upbringing was somewhere between areligious and irreligious. Everything I knew of Christianity I learned from Ned Flanders. I was brain washed by the media in thinking that all Christians were hypocrites and child molesters. As a teenager I was an atheist and/or pantheist (depending on what I had had for breakfast). I teased Christians at school and called them “God-botherers”. In order to get where I am now took some work and it was not mine. I did not wake up one day and decide to let Jesus into my heart. It was not a case of Jesus knocking on my door and I finally answered. I was dead in my sins (and they were many) and dead people do not move (apparently a major symptom of death). To paraphrase Paul’s testimony in 1 Cor. 15.8 – God ripped me out of the womb like a dead foetus and breathed life into me? [Note to self: check out which of Scot Mcknight’s conversion models suits my story the best!] To put it briefly, something really freaky and wonderful happened on the road to Damascus in August 1994.

Let me close with a few further reflections. I like to think of myself as a “nice” Calvinist, that is, I am an evangelical first and Reformed second. I also hold many Arminian friends, pastors, and scholars in high esteem and affection. For instance, I. Howard Marshall, Scot McKnight and Ben Witherington are writers I love to read and I find their studies inspiring, exhilarating and provocative – even challenging to my own Calvinistic viewpoint. In fact, Witherington’s Romans commentary and McKnight’s Jesus Creed are coming on the plane with me to Scotland. So in other words, I’m NOT a “six point Calvinist”, i.e. someone who believes in consigning non-Calvinists to theological exile.

Lastly, when I went through Bible College I flew the Calvinist flag pretty high; mainly because I was often baited to the topic by peers and lecturers. As such I became known for my firm Calvinistic convictions. In fact, the day I graduated, the student association gave me for a going away present a copy of a 1920s tract called “Why I Disagree with All Five Points of Calvinism”. Everyone, including myself, found it most amusing. In hindsight now, although I’m glad I stood up for myself when baited during tutorials, I really wish I would have been more well known for my love for Jesus than for my love for Reformed theology. I guess that’s called “sanctification” – a lesson I may have been predestined to learn!