New Calvinist Hoplessness
When the doctor comes to us and says, “I’m sorry, there is nothing we can do,” that is interpreted as hopelessness with a capital “H.” But somehow, among Christians, the idea that we can’t do anything supposedly gives hope. No wonder that the world will not come to us for answers to life’s deepest problems. Somehow, we think the world will believe that God can save a soul when He can’t even teach His children to save a marriage. In fact, the church is indifferent to solutions because after all, “God has preordained it.” No wonder churches are dying. True, there are confused ones that believe God hasn’t preordained hopelessness, but still say there is nothing we can do. That is where New Calvinists offer a more doctrinally sound hopelessness.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Reblogged this on Clearcreek Chapel Watch .
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You seem to be equating New Calvinism with fatalism. Does it really give no reality to human free will? I agree with you that there are serious things wrong with it, but I don’t think it goes this far.
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JeffB, I really think it is fatalistic. And there is NO free wil, no ability to obey Christ, no Holy Spirit guiding you….. but only doublespeak on the free will question when it concerns sin or that would make God the author of evil. So lots of mental gymnastics. I have been spending time reading of the 1st and 2nd century followers of Christ. Yes, there is not much there but you can even find some descriptors of them from secular resources such as the letter to Diogenes (sp?)
Do you know what their “doctrine” was? The very basics but mostly HOW THEY LIVED as Christ. They were more concerned with living out the Beatitudes than whether man had free will or not. Remember, Christianity was mainly comprised of the uneducated for quite a while. It was all about HOW they LIVED NOW.
Now, we are just the opposite. It is about what theologian says about what text. And since sinners just sin sin sin and being Born Again cannot change that we have tons of interpretations to deal with excusing the notion we CAN obey Christ and become more and more Holy as grow in maturity.
If you notice in New Calvinism you cannot really live as Christ. You cannot live out the beatitudes. You are totally depraved and Christ imputed his righteousness (obeys for you) because you cannot obey His commands.
The only conclusion I can come to is to keep your hand on your wallet when hanging out with New Calvinists.
One of the most shocking things I read what George Marsden’s bio of Jonathan Edwards. He describes some very gruesome suicides of people during his Awakening that had been counseling with Edwards about salvation and were considered new believers. He goes more in depth but it was chilling. Yes, it is fatalistic.
But more than that, we are to ignore the glaring problems with their hero’s fruit of salvation. We are to ignore Calvin’s tyrannical behavior, Martin Luther’s despicable writings, Puritans witch hunting, banishments and wiping out Native Americans in the Name of God. These are their hero’s. There is a cognative dissonance in Calvinism I will never understand.
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Thank you for your comment.
It’s clear that the more influential NC have swung the pendulum too far in the direction of total depravity, and, as a consequence, have diminished free will. I think they practice it more than they teach it, but, of course, that’s not excusable. And they practice it, I think, because it goes hand-in hand-with authoritarianism, which is becoming more visible in the church. I’m speaking mainly now of Driscoll and Mahaney as far as practicing it, but the others seem to be aiding and abetting it at least.
I have to correct you concerning imputation. The Calvinist and NC belief is that God justifies someone when, because of that person’s faith, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to the person. Imputed means “reckon,” not actual infusion, the Catholic belief. Jesus’s righteousness does not in any way “enter” the person, just as our sin does not actually enter Jesus; our sin is imputed to Jesus. Justification means that God, in effect, says “Not guilty” to the new believer, but only because his faith has caused His Son’s righteousness to be imputed to her. Immediately, however, she is given the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the process of sanctification begins, the actual conforming of the person to the way of Christ. This is the classic Calvinist belief, and, as far as I know, the belief of all the New Calvinists, though at least some of them downgrade the work of the Spirit.
Sorry if I’m repeating what you already know. I only wrote it because you wrote that imputation leads to God obeying for you. Paul, in this blog, believes, if I’m not mistaken, that the NC confuse justification with sanctification, and maybe that’s what you’re referring to. I can only say that they don’t specifically teach it, but they may teach and practice things that give the impression that they DO teach it. Not letting them off the hook; if you don’t practice what you preach, and/or preach contradictions, it leads to confusion and worse. If this is true, they are either fools or knaves, and neither is desirable.
I’ve read little about the early believers, but we can’t deny that Scripture is full of doctrine (teaching), and its importance is emphasized as much as obedience is.
Concerning Luther, Calvin, etc.: As a Jew, I fully realize the awfulness of what Luther wrote about them, and there are things about Calvin, and, maybe, Edwards that shock us today. Without letting them off the hook, it’s true that certain sins, like the execution of heretics (whether they were or not), are particularly heinous to us today. The same is true of slavery, which was practiced by some of our founding fathers, none of whom seemed to be Calvinists. In the future, we may all seem like barbarians because we put up with legal abortions. All I’m saying is that that there are plenty of “extreme” sins that cannot be laid solely at the feet of Calvinists.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think that classic Calvinism inevitably leads to spiritual abuse, but I have little doubt that some powerful so-called “Calvinists” today are abusing the doctrines, or ignoring them, in order to abuse people. I’ll keep an open mind and continue to look into it.
I wrote much more than I expected to. To anyone who reads it, thanks for your patience.
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“could be wrong, but I don’t think that classic Calvinism inevitably leads to spiritual abuse, but I have little doubt that some powerful so-called “Calvinists” today are abusing the doctrines, or ignoring them, in order to abuse people. I’ll keep an open mind and continue to look into it.”
If you read history, the reformed churches usually died out or became liberal. Think Lutheran in Germany, Protestant in Geneva, The Puritans, The Presbyterians and even Princeton.
What we are seeing today is a revival of the Reformation but as usual picking and choosing the parts that fit.
And I don’t have time to find the sources for you but I can assure some celeb Calvinists out there are teaching that “Jesus obeys for us” as in defining imputed righteousness.
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Woe!!!! What a great comment to use as an outline to review the TANC conference.
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“And I don’t have time to find the sources for you but I can assure some celeb Calvinists out there are teaching that “Jesus obeys for us” as in defining imputed righteousness.”
In the matter of ‘imputed righteousness’, that is exactly true, and without Christ’s imputed righteousness we are all lost. Imputed righteousness is the ground of our justification, for God demands perfection. Sadly, there are those who would accuse the ‘celeb Calvinists’ of denying the progressive, continuous process of sanctification in the life of the believer, which would be something from the ‘accuser of the brethren’, using men to do his ditry work.
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Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Thaaaaaank you soooo much Lin for flushing out this comment by Born4Battle. It is an open admission of the progressive justification that is Calvinist heresy. Note how it teaches that Christians must be fit for a future judgement according to the law–making it necessary for Jesus to obey the law perfectly for us in sanctification. Also notice how he deceptively says that justification is progressive in the first part of his statement, and then calls it “progressive SANCTIFICATION” in the second part of his statement.
Good job lin!!!!!
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pauldohse –
Sorry, but you seem to be misinterpreting Born4 Battle’s comment, though I admit there’s some ambiguity.
“Note how it teaches that Christians must be fit for a future judgement according to the law–making it necessary for Jesus to obey the law perfectly for us in sanctification.”
I don’t think Born teaches this. He (I’ll assume for the moment it’s a he) is responding to Lin’s comment: “And I don’t have time to find the sources for you but I can assure some celeb Calvinists out there are teaching that ‘Jesus obeys for us’ as in defining imputed righteousness.”
If you take that one sentence of Lin’s comment alone, it can be interpreted two different ways. 1) “Jesus obeys for us” meaning that Jesus’s perfect obedience of God’s Law, His righteousness, is imputed to us when we believe, and this results in our justification. 2) “Jesus obeys for us” meaning that, as you wrote, “Jesus [obeys] the law perfectly for us in sanctification.”
The first interpretation is, imo, what Scripture teaches, and I believe is the one Born affirms, when he writes: “In the matter of ‘imputed righteousness’, that is exactly true, and without Christ’s imputed righteousness we are all lost. Imputed righteousness is the ground of our justification, for God demands perfection.” He is only talking about justification here.
The second interpretation is what you and Lin say that the NC are teaching. Born writes: “Sadly, there are those who would accuse the ‘celeb Calvinists’ of denying the progressive, continuous process of sanctification in the life of the believer, which would be something from the ‘accuser of the brethren’, using men to do his ditry work.” In the first half of the sentence, is he not merely repeating what you and others are saying about the NC, “celeb” and otherwise? He could have been more clear if he wrote that they are accused of denying sanctification by mixing it up with justification, but he himself is keeping them distinct, and implies that they are also.
So what it comes to is that he believes that you are incorrect in your assessment of the NC, not that “Christians must be fit for a future judgement according to the law–making it necessary for Jesus to obey the law perfectly for us in sanctification.” If so, he would be agreeing with what you say the NC believe, but I see no indication of that.
Of course, I can’t read Born’s mind, but, according to what he writes, I think this is what he means.
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Jeff, To the contrary–B4B connects “progressive sanctification” with “imputed righteousness” and the fact that the law has to be kept perfectly. I’m busy right now, but I am am going to diagram this and show that it is the only conclusion that can be drawn grammatically. Frankly, his deceptive statement is right from the New Calvinist play book which uses sanc. and just. interchangeably in a deliberate smoke and mirrors way of communicating. If you speak of sanc. and just. as the same subject enough, the idea is finally assimilated into the minds of people. And it’s deliberate deception.
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Hi Paul,
Been reading here for sometime…I’m a hop-over from John’s great site at Spiritual Tyranny. Next to John, your work has opened my eyes more than any other contemporary Christian. For that I am so truly grateful.
I’m reading a book called Classics of Protestantism. Currently looking at Luther’s Treatise on Christian Liberty. In it he states the following:
“Here we must point out that all the Scriptures of God are divided into two parts-commands and promises. The commands indeed teach things that are good, but the things taught are not done as soon as taught; for the commands show us what we ought to do, but do not give us the power to do it; they are intended to teach a man to know himself, that through them he may recognize his inability to do good and to despair of his power. ”
Then, a bit further down, he ends this brief section with this:
“Thus the promises of God give what the commands of God ask, and fulfill what the law prescribes, that all things may be of God alone, both the commands AND the fulfilling of the commands [caps mine]. He alone commands, He also alone fulfills. Therefore the promises of God belong to the New Testament, nay, they are the New Testament.”
So it seems to me, reading this, that Luther considers there to be NO law (that is, no “commands”) in the New Testament. And therefore, all of the so-called commands of Christ and the Apostles to the church are merely as the old Law, to drive men to despair, that they may believe in Christ and have all the commands done for them through faith. This sounds very much like progressive justification to me, as you have defined it.
My point in writing this is to argue that this kind of thinking, that is, the thinking of the New Calvinists, is NOT some current trend or mere spin on old medieval Lutheranism or Calvinism. It is the active implementation of the true doctrines of these men upon the American church in a significant and influential way for I think the first time in history. And its effects are what they have always been: destructive to the lives and faith of the flock the guardians are supposed to be caring for. This is nothing new; this is ALWAYS the outcome of this kind of thinking. Whenever Calvinism is truly implemented, the bodies line the roads. So, anyone who argues that today’s spiritual despots are merely charlatans who aren’t getting true Calvinism/Lutheranism/Protestantism right need to go and contend with the original theologies of the the “founding fathers” of the current New Calvinist movement, as explained in their own words. Their words explain just what they think, and just what the outcomes will look like. You don’t need to have some charlatan getting the faith wrong…getting it right is what they are doing, and they are doing it well, as the abused can fully attest to.
In addition, look a the history of protestantism after Luther. The Pope was no longer the head of the Church. But who was? The masses? Not at all. This fell to the King, the “Defender of the Faith” (official title). So, I agree with John Immel’s assessment that the protestant church, for all of its anti-Catholic standing-on-ceremony, remained metaphysically Catholic. That is, the masses were still blind, stupid barbarians who needed to be compelled into heaven by hook or by crook (LITERALLY!), it just wasn’t any longer the Catholic pope doing it, but the government! Even worse, I might argue. Which is exactly why you have modern historical snake oil salesmen like David Barton preaching that really, ruling officials should be Christians…so that they may compel good Christian behavior, that is, fulfilling of the law, by force, because Christians are still too depraved and stupid to do it for themselves.
The irony is that these people swear that our Constitution is really the last book of the Bible; inspired by God, to create a ruling system primarily for the promulgation of government-forced Christian morals, when in reality, our form of government as implemented by our American Founding Father’s is the pinnacle of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, and a practical application of this philosophy upon an entire nation in a complete and utterly unadulterated form. The Enlightenment, of course, was primarily a secular movement. And really, thank goodness, because with Christian leaders like Luther and Calvin, we’d all still be ruled by Kings standing in the stead.
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Argo, I think you would have enjoyed the conference this weekend. We are working on the DVD now. I will get you a copy. John was awesome. paul
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Argo –
Thank you for citing from Luther’s Treatise, which I haven’t read. What you quote from him is confusing at best, and very troubling at worst. I need to read the entire work.
Elsewhere at this site, I quoted from Calvin’s “Institutes”:
“In the following, from 3.11.6, Calvin criticizes a theologian, Andreas Osiander, for doing just this: Confusing justification and sanctification, saying they are the same.
‘To prove the first point—viz. that God justifies not only by pardoning but by regenerating, he asks, whether he leaves those whom he justifies as they were by nature, making no change upon their vices? The answer is very easy: as Christ cannot be divided into parts, so the two things, justification and sanctification, which we perceive to be united together in him, are inseparable. Whomsoever, therefore, God receives into his favor, he presents with the Spirit of adoption, whose agency forms them anew into his image. But if the brightness of the sun cannot be separated from its heat, are we therefore to say, that the earth is warmed by light and illumined by heat? Nothing can be more apposite to the matter in hand than this simile. The sun by its heat quickens and fertilizes the earth; by its rays enlightens and illumines it. Here is a mutual and undivided connection, and yet REASON ITSELF PROHIBITS US FROM TRANSFERRING THE PECULIAR PROPERTIES OF THE ONE TO THE OTHER. In the confusion of a twofold grace, which Osiander obtrudes upon us, there is a similar absurdity. Because those whom God freely regards as righteous, he in fact renews to the cultivation of righteousness, Osiander confounds that free acceptance with this gift of regeneration, and contends that they are one and the same. But Scriptures while combining both, CLASSES THEM SEPARATELY, that it may the better display the manifold grace of God. Nor is Paul’s statement superfluous, that Christ is made unto us “righteousness and sanctification,” (1 Cor. 1:30). And whenever he argues from the salvation procured for us, from the paternal love of God and the grace of Christ, that we are called to purity and holiness, HE PLAINLY INTIMATES, THAT TO BE JUSTIFIED IS SOMETHING ELSE THAN TO BE MADE NEW CREATURES.’
3.16 touches on this when he takes on his critics, who say that the doctrine of justification does away with good works. In answering in the negative, he distinguishes between justification and sanctification. For example, in 3.16.1: ‘This alone is of importance: having admitted that faith and good works must cleave together, WE STILL LODGE JUSTIFICATION IN FAITH, NOT IN WORKS.’ Also, in the same section: ‘Thus it is clear how true it is that we are justified not without works yet not through works, since in our sharing in Christ, which justifies us, sanctification is just as much included as righteousness.’ So, though we’re given both at the same time, they are not the same.” [My caps]
I don’t see how Calvin could be much clearer in separating justification and sanctification. Elsewhere in the “Institutes,” he says that, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, we can do works which, though flawed, are pleasing to God. He doesn’t say that the Son or the Father do them through us while we remain passive and try to exercise as much faith as we can.
If anyone can show that somewhere else Calvin contradicts himself, I would be happy to see it.
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Jeff, Osiander’s fundamental problem with Calvin was what Calvin said Osiander was guilty of. This is typical of Calvin’s habitual deceptive communication.
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Paul, I would have loved to be there. I’m so glad it went well; and I had no concern that John would be anything other than excellent!
Count me in on next conference. Thanks!
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