GRPL Ping
Seems even more true today.
Posted on 07/04/2013 6:28:51 AM PDT by Gamecock
GRPL Ping
Seems even more true today.
Having researched this in the past — and I am not a Calvinist — the Calvinists were far and away the largest group of founding fathers. Anglicans of the day were also largely out of the cromwell Calvinist influence, iirc.
I’m a Methodist Only one or two of the founders were Methodist. Mitigating that, of course, is that Methodism was brand new in America at that time.
Such a Marxist presupposition inevitably leads to Statism because if Man is inherently good, then there is no need for governmental checks and balances that prevent Man from governing pursuant to his "goodness". Marx recognized this and tried to belittle Christian presuppositions by smearing religion as "the opiate of the masses". Of course, what Marx did not disclose is that his own presupposition is no less religious because it is rooted in the religion of Secular Humanism.
It is ironic when people offer a caricature of conservative Christians as those who would impose a top-down tyranny that forces each and every subject to believe in every jot and tittle of their theology. In reality, it is the other way around: it is the Secular Humanist who lusts for the reins of state power in order to shape society according to his own Christless vision. It is the Statist who is the tyrant, not the conservative Christian who holds to the presuppositions upon which the Constitution is based.
Happy Presbyterian Rebellion Day, Gamecock!
And of course the very first Methodist, the one who coined the term "Methodist", George Whitefield, was a Calvinist.
Hoss
Mitigating that, of course, is that Methodism was brand new in America at that time.”
And (as you know) its day would come soon enough. It would explode across the fruited plan after about 1800, like a prairie fire!
I’m a Calvinist...But I must say, I am very fond of this man:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Asbury
A few years ago, I inserted the significance of the Reformation, and Calvin, and Geneva into a conversation here about the Founding and received a bunch of snide comments like, “where did you learn history?”. I posted links to books and articles and so on, but to no avail.
In any event. The influence on Calvin and his progeny on the founding, while true, and obvious to us, is still way under appreciated in these strangely secular times.
Yes, Whitfield was the billy graham of America in that era. He was a favorite, iirc, of Ben Franklin He was decidedly Calvinist (which verifies Anglican Calvinism, btw) yet understood the reality of Romans 10...it had to b e teaching universal OUTREACH!
The fallen nature of man is Catholic orthodoxy.
Calvin’s novel doctrine or heresy wasn’t about man’s fallen nature - it was the concept of ‘Total Depravity’. This is the idea that man cannot do anything towards his salvation.
Which is simply not true. We have free will. We can choose God. That power of choice is ours alone - it is God’s gift to us. We had it before The Fall, and we retain it still.
Take away that concept - as Calvin sought to - and you get insane and inhuman concepts such as predestination and the denial of free will.
The concept of a universe full of aimless automata plunging towards a fate that they can neither choose nor reject may be a good fit for Modern America (under the increasingly tyrannical rule of the left). However it’s nothing but an insult to free men and to the Founding Fathers of America.
Total depravity of man and predestination posits that all men are evil and God chose the elect and the reprobates before the earth was created i.e. who is going to heavan and who is going to hell before He created the earth. If you follow the logic Calvinists believe Good happens to Good people i.e. the elect and bad happens to bad people i.e. the reprobates. So if you ever wonder why some quote unquote Conservatives don’t want to address structural problems - they don’t have to worry about them - because God has already decided - the reprobates (they can be recognized by the fact that they have nothing or little) are going to hell anyways - why worry about them here on earth.
Excellent article. I believe one of the great failings of the church today is the fear to preach about the evil nature of man. We don’t like to see ourselves this way. And many in the church are convinced that it is just so negative that no one will listen.
Re: “By default, if one rejects Calvin’s presupposition (of the fall of man) then you are a Marxist”
This is absurd - Calvin was not the first to teach the idea of the fall of man - from Moses to the Jewish Rabbis to the NT Apostles to the early church fathers to Catholic teachings to Baptist to Lutheran to , yes, John Calvin, all believed and taught the doctrine of the fall of man.
I would agree that Calvin has taken that doctrine to an extreme view that man so totally depraved that he CANNOT respond to God’s offer of salvation unless he is predestined to do so, but he is not the first to teach that man has a fallen, sinful nature.
Yep. The natural depravity of man is all around us and pointed out clearly in Romans if one cares to read it. The founders understood it. Great article.
Your straw man is coined Hyper-Calvinism.
Calvinism which is also Luther's understanding (read bondage of the will) Augustine's and apostolic see below:
It is perplexing that physicists acknowledge light to act as both a particle stream and a wave. The mystery they, without hubris of conceit, observe. Yet pelagians cannot be as humble to look at special revelation and subject their understanding to it alone. Calvinism gives the glory of election to God alone.
Re: “If you follow the logic Calvinists believe Good happens to Good people - the Elect and bad happens to bad people”
What about the Book of Job? I think that was one of the key messages of that book - that good people often do suffer and endure evil/bad events in their lives - that experiencing suffering is not always the result of sin in one’s life - right?
Also, speaking of Job, Calvinists believe that faith to believe comes from God because man is so totally depraved that he cannot respond to God’s salvation. If that is true, then why does God point out Job to Satan as being a flawless example of a righteous man of faith?
Satan accuses God of protecting Job and blessing Job materially and that that is why Job is so faithful to God. What’s curious to me is that Satan never accuses God of “causing” Job’s faith. Why didn’t Satan say, “We’ll of course Job is faithful to You because how could he do anything else? You cause him to be faithful - You are the one giving Job his own faith!”
If Job’s faith comes from God alone, because remember, man is so totally depraved he cannot exercise faith in God without that faith coming from God first- right? Then what is the point of testing Job’s faith? If it all comes from God then Job’s great faith is just God’s working - not Job’s.
What you are missing is that that faith, that pouring of the Spirit, that calling to salvation is available to all.
Yes, Jesus said that no man comes to the Father unless the Spirit draws him - and Jesus made clear that that “drawing to the Father” is there for everyone to respond to. “Come unto Me all that are weary and heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest.”
Yes we cannot save ourselves - that is only accomplished through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ - but we have to respond. Jesus’s sacrifice is sufficient for the salvation of all mankind. “For God so loved the world” means just that - the whole of humanity.
The Bible is filled with the command “choose this day Whom you will serve”, “follow Me”, “resist the devil”, “come unto Me”. None of these commands make sense if we do not have the ability to respond ourselves to God’s grace.
God giving us the freedom to grasp onto to His lifeline of salvation in no way takes away from His glory or sovereignty. He sovereignly chose to give us the ability and freedom of our wills to accept or reject Him.
If we don’t have that freedom, then how is it loving Him if we choose Him since we were pre-programmed to do so? That makes no sense to me.
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