BAPTISTS IN CONFLICT
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/southern-baptists-agree-to-disagree-over-calvinism_n_3424192.html?1370990511&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008
It’s no surprise to me that the Baptists are having very serious rows. Bless me, Republicans and Democrats have them about serious but temporary social, economic and political issues. Why wouldn’t serious Baptists argue fiercely over matters they see as having eternal consequences?
But can you imagine people like Calvinist Frank Page calling others to, “Let’s respect one another. We’ve been called by God to Christian civility”?
Page preaches a God who purposed eternally to create and then damn the vast majority of the human family he created to eternal conscious torture that he inflicts on them as “punishment”! He’s the one who calls people to “Christian civility”?
If Page could have total agreement with his views by all Baptists he’d be happy to go on believing and preaching/teaching this stuff about such a God! Is that not astonishing?
Here’s where people like the hardliner John Piper does the true God a service. For the most part [though he ducks and dives about babies dying and burning in eternal torment, for even he can’t stomach his own full-bodied Calvinism which consigns such infants to such a God-ordained punishment]—for the most part Piper holds to consistent Calvinism but it’s so ugly that he would make even members of his own fellowship stand up in the name of God and say they won’t have it! Good for them!
Page and his colleagues are mainly concerned with the “vitriolic” ant-Calvinism they hear. He called it “nasty”.
Hitler's holocaust is an unthinking misdemeanor compaed with the eternal purpose Page's God came up with and will execute. At least Hitler meant to put an end to his victims. Page's God keeps them alive so he can ceaselessly torment them forever. He calls that God "loving" and his opponents "nasty". Good grief!
Say this gently, “God eternally purposed to create multiplied millions for no other reason than to show his glory by eternally, consciously, ceaselessly torturing them in hell and he has done it according to the good pleasure of his will.”
Does that make it sound any better?
I don’t care how gently you say that—it’s beyond “nasty”. It isn’t only false; it’s an offense to a Scripture-shaped heart.
To say it without cringing, to say it without near-panic that it might even be true is one of the wonders of historical theology. Even Calvin murmured that it was a “horrible decree”.
If it is that if you believe it’s true—what is it if you believe it is false?
Do Calvinists expect their members to be calm about it? Didn’t William Lloyd Garrison say this about the foul treatment of Afro-Americans:
“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.”
Then Frank Page and his colleagues and people like the hard-bitten and harsh-speaking John Piper call their protesting members to “Christian civility”! Is that not hard to fathom? It’s as if they said, “All right, but if you can’t believe what we preach and teach about the damnation of dying infants, of God’s sovereign decision to create and eternally and ceaselessly torture billions of his created children—people he purposed would never have a choice—if you can’t believe that, offer your protest civilly and calmly. We’ll just go on teaching and preaching that this is the God who is worthy of our adoration and obedience.”
And these Baptist members who can’t stomach such doctrine are supposed to respond calmly? There’s something degenerate about calmly saying this Calvinistic stuff about God! No wonder the protesters seem “vitriolic”.
Several years back one silly young man with his Calvinistic views spoke to me of his getting together for coffee for some people and having friendly arguments and laughing together while they debated the issues. Sigh.
Page and his colleagues would like to think they take the high ground here. “Let’s all respect each other. Let’s all be ‘Christianly civil’. Let’s not be ‘nasty’. Let’s all be like us, the calm ones.”
One man’s “nastiness” is an others anguished protest!
And finally there’s this remark from a Mark Dever, an outspoken supporter of Calvinism: “The things that we have in common really are more important than the disagreements that we have.”
Can you fathom that?
So the upshot of the meeting is what? In effect, Frank Page and his companions say to the protesting Baptists, "Okay, so you won't accept our view. Then don't, but keep a civil tongue in your head and don't be nasty."
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.