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Published Saturday, February 11, 2012 in Religion

Guest Column: Calvinism - the truth

By JOHN W. SUTTLES

cpbfellowswhip.com

I confess that I have never before heard a more perfect description of the system of doctrine commonly called "Calvinism" than the one recently referred to by a local pastor as being a system that is "all about God."

Surely, nothing greater could be said of any theology than that it is "ALL ABOUT GOD"!

This is, in fact, the predominate theology of our American Baptist forefathers, especially our Southern Baptist ancestors. Our first (and strongest) declaration of faith -- the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 -- remains to this day the definitive statement of Baptist and Christian doctrine, and it is decidedly "Calvinistic."

It was officially adopted in full here in America in 1742 by the Philadelphia Association and then adopted by the Charleston Association -- the first Baptist association in the South -- in 1767 and remained the exclusive confession of the majority of Baptist churches until 1925. Many of us still embrace it today.

And if anyone doubts the firm commitment, historically, of the Southern Baptist Convention to key portions of the system called "Calvinism", they need only read the clear and unflinching writings of her founders and early members.

Basil Manly, Sr., the president of the Domestic Mission Board (1844) said that "men have no right to grace; no claim on God for it." He viewed "altar calls as entirely inappropriate and inconsistent with the nature of the Gospel." James P. Boyce (1856) produced, arguably, one of the greatest SBC theology texts written, "Abstracts of Theology." Upon Boyce's death, the Baptist Reflector spoke of his influence in the seminary, saying, "though the young men were generally Arminians when they came to the seminary, few went through ... under him without being converted to strong Calvinistic views."

The late John A. Broadus, a greatly distinguished Southern Baptist preacher and author, wrote a letter home from Geneva, dated Sept. 2, 1891, in which he said: "The people who sneer at what is called Calvinism might as well sneer at Mount Blanc. We are not ... bound to defend all of Calvin's opinions or actions, but I do not see how anyone who understands the Greek of Paul ... or the Latin of Calvin ... can fail to see that the latter did but interpret ... substantially what the former teaches."

We might go on indefinitely recounting our entire "Calvinist" heritage and its warriors, but let me conclude with the words of the immortal C.H. Spurgeon. He was surely no "closet Calvinist" when he said: "It is no wonder, then, that I am not preaching a new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines, that are called by the nickname Calvinism, but which are surely the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus. By this truth I make a pilgrimage into the past, and as I go, I see Church Father after Church Father, confessor after confessor, martyr after martyr, standing up to shake hands with me. If I was a Pelagian, or a believer in the doctrine of man's freewill, I would have to walk for centuries all alone. Here and there I would find a heretic ... who might rise up and call me brother. But taking these things to the standard of my faith, I see the land of the ancients populated with my brethren. I see multitudes who confess the same as I do, and acknowledge that THIS is the religion of God's own church."

If this is "trendy theology", it's at least a 300 year trend. Indeed, if Broadus' assessment is correct, it is a 2000 year old trend.

Next, we'll look more closely at those blessed old doctrines in the acrostic, T.U.L.I.P.

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