nuance

One letter, lots of meaning
Here’s what you might be thinking: Sure, it’s a one-letter variant in a simplified acronym, but that one letter stands for a lot of meaning. And you might be right to a degree. While I might have simplified the debate between Calvinists and non-Calvinists, I haven’t solved it by any stretch.

An objector would point out that if a Calvinist believes in regeneration before faith, then he believes that people cannot choose to believe in God of their own free will. He believes that God just arbitrarily chooses to regenerate or save certain people over other people. Etcetera.

And the debate rages on.

But what I mean to show by simplifying this issue is that there is a way to get beyond the debate altogether. The way to do that is to simply be OK with this one-letter difference among Christians who all love Jesus and believe the Bible. And perhaps the way to do that is to recognize the phenomenal commonality between both perspectives.

For example, consider the work of the Holy Spirit. Good Christians have always agreed that believing in Jesus is quite frankly a miracle - a fantastic change of heart from rebellion to love. Paul talked about how we were all “children of wrath” at one point in time - acting so badly that God was justifiably mad at us. But while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us, unleashing a chain of events that would result in the outpouring of the Spirit in such a way that thousands - and now bazillions - of sinners would find themselves forsaking lives of selfishness in order to glorify God.

No one - no Calvinist, no Arminian - denies the necessity of the Spirit’s powerful re-birthing work in the salvation of the human soul. So careful were the Wesleyan Arminians that they came up with acute categories like “prevenient grace” to safeguard conversion from any hint of human work. They said that all people are moved upon by the Spirit’s convicting power; and unless you stubbornly harden your heart and reject Him, His work will prevail, and you will be born again. In other words, Arminians taught that the Spirit enables us to believe! Maybe he does not override our will - we choose to receive his work - but his work is an active force in our believing and following and obeying Jesus.

So both systems teach grace; both teach us that in our own strength, we cannot step out of a life of rebellion and into a life of service to God. The Spirit has to change us. Sure, the particulars are different - RPF vs. RFF remains - but generally speaking, there is great similarity. All of us believe that God drew us to believing in Jesus by the work of His Spirit, and that His Spirit changed - and continues to change - our lives.

The emPHASis
The reason that I am post-Reformed is because I think that what we hold in common as Christians (according to clear biblical teaching) ought to always receive greatest emphasis. Jesus and the biblical story must be our passion - not systematic theology.

Systematically-inclined people on both sides (and especially the Reformed side) are often so immersed in their system that they cannot get their head above water to see another perspective. In their minds, the system is the Bible and the Bible is the system. And since systems tend to have focal points or emphases, systematic people tend to overemphasize these points. They do so even more vigorously to oppose “false doctrine” and actually end up getting less biblical in the process!

For instance, if the Calvinist pastor is so utterly dedicated to the importance of a changed heart before faith, to the extent that he sees the alternative - a changed heart after faith - as a dangerous easy gospel, then his preaching may result in an unbiblical imbalance. Instead of the simple, biblical call to repent and believe in Jesus for salvation (which all Christians can agree on), this pastor harshly requires authentic signs of regeneration before faith can be professed. That means if there is any “troublesome” sin in your life, you are required to “beat it” and “get rid of it” before you can call yourself a Christian. This leads to dangerous self-doubt, intimidation, hesitation, and discouragement in the congregation, and an overall unwillingness to convert.

It also puts up a huge wall between this Reformed church and every other non-Reformed church - because their teaching may be a false gospel.

A middle-way mentality would look at the Scriptural emphasis which falls far more in the realm of simple repentance and faith. It gives us a God of love and a Jesus who saves, if only we will come to him. It gives us a pattern for discipleship once a person commits to following Jesus, and this is a progressive and imperfect process that lasts a lifetime. And a middle-way mentality would find itself able to unite in spirit with all Christians who believe in Jesus and the biblical story.

Now, can the emphasis problem happen in Arminian or non-Calvinist churches? Sure, just in other ways. For instance, a non-Calvinist pastor can be so hyped up on the idea of free will that he distorts the biblical picture of a sovereign God who “does what he pleases in heaven and on earth.” If there is any hint of God overriding someone’s will in Scripture, then the pastor will just ignore it or explain it away, because the alternative would make us all a bunch of Calvinistic robots. In fact, he might so glorify human free will that people in the church begin to fear that their decision to witness to a coworker is THE deciding factor in their salvation - and they may be guilt-ridden every time they forget to talk about Jesus or use the wrong words or can’t answer a question. There is no comfort that God is in control, providentially drawing people to himself by the Spirit.

An extreme example is the Word of Faith/Prosperity teaching which presents us with a God who is powerless to act in the world unless we have enough faith to provoke him. This system errs in making God passive and almost entirely subject to the activity and power of human will and persuasion.

Further, ferocious anti-Calvinist sentiment abounds on that side of the fence, and Christian unity is destroyed because of it.

The way forward is the middle way - the way back to the biblical story and the person of Jesus. I think it is possible for Calvinists and non-Calvinists to retain their difference - RPF and RFF - and yet pursue a style of theology and teaching that focuses on the middle way. In the very least, it is possible for them to acknowledge the frailty of theological systems and act with charity towards one another.

But I am aiming for something more.