What amazed me most was to read about the core theology taught at Southern Seminary a hundred years ago. It was not only Calvinist doctrine, it was what authors Norm Geisler and Dave Hunt, not to mention certain FReepers, derisively call "hyper-Calvinism" today!
| In 1899, Southern Seminary professor E. C. Dargan could still write, in a small book published by the Sunday School Board and designed to teach basic doctrine to Baptist young people, that election was God’s choosing those who will be saved, that God made his choice before the foundation of the world, and that God’s choice in election is not on the basis of foreseen faith or repentance, but God’s sovereign, free, untrammeled, gracious acting on his own initiative. |
I see much of this going on in our Southern Baptist church. The traditional services has now been moved to 8:00 and is called the "Classic Worship Service". I told my wife that must make the other two Worship-Lite. Taste great but less filling.
What struck me about this article is how close the SBC was originally to historical Calvinism. It's no wonder the doctrine is very close but with theological errors no one wants to address.
Hyper-Calvinism is not a new phenomenon. I suspect even Spurgeon would consider such a statement to be hyper-Calvinist.