I have never said that Calvin never taught that evangelism was useless. The illustration of Harold Camping is yet another perversion and twisting around of Calvin. Camping is a heretic. Calvin is not. Hyper-Calvinism is indeed a complete misrepresentation, and I have not backed off from that at all. Even Pensacola Christian College, whom I don’t exactly agree with their interpretation of Fundamentalism, has described hyper-Calvinism as being in error. People have read into Calvin stuff that he never wrote, and Camping is one of them. Camping has even gone as far as telling Christians they should not bother praying for someone’s salvation, because God already knows whether or not the person is going to be saved. This was in the early 1980’s. I have examined the Calvinism vs Arminianism debate, and see it as a debate of salvation by grace versus salvation by works. It is indeed salvation by grace, since any effort by works is an exercise in futility, which St Paul eloquently describes in one of his letters, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance of course. Thus my description of Phelps claiming an extreme “off the rails” version of Calvinism which is dead wrong.
Now, is Phelps deliberately misrepresenting not only Calvinism , but Christianity as a whole? To this I would dare say yes, especially after witnessing children associated with the cult spewing such garbage at the RNC Convention. There is nothing in their activities having to do with spreading the Good News. Phelps serves a dividing spirit.
That is my closing argument, and I have no more to say on the subject.
How about "Camping-ism" or "hyper-Camping-ism" or even "hyper-Phelpsism" since neither Calvin nor proper application of what are the tenets of Calvinism resemble anything those clowns are up to?
Why drag Calvin's name down into any of that behavior?