More predestined misconceptions: Reformeds vs. 'Free-Willies'

Collin Hansen of Christianity Today wrote:

Baptism and membership figures, [seminary Provost Steve Lemke] said, show that the Calvinist churches of the SBC's Founders Ministries lack commitment to evangelism. According to Lemke, the problem only makes sense, given their emphasis on God's sovereign election.

Note their criteria: “baptism and membership figures.” Foundational to this is one very interesting assumption: that “baptism and membership figures” denote true Christ-followers. In fact many indications show that thousands of church members — yes, even Baptist! and yes, even those baptized! — are not true believers!

In fact, many churches, which believe in Free Will, have tailored their services so exclusively to The Unsaved (leaving those already redeemed a little “lost” themselves) that it's somewhat more easy to join such a place — and even get baptized without knowing just exactly what you're doing.

I've been in at least one Rhode Island-sized church that conducted serial baptisms, three and four deep, and statistically it would be impossible for every single one of those “converts” to stick with the church without causing it to collapse, black-hole-style, under its own gravity.

Thus, to accuse Reformed churches of being anti-evangelism just because they haven't baptized a dozen people one Sunday or amped up membership roles ... that bears reflection on what exactly qualifies a convert, not an evangelist or even a church.

Moving on ...

[NarniaWebber] FencerforJesus wrote:

The Calvinists teach that there are a select elite who God chose to take with him to heaven.

The term “elite” here is misleading, for this results from an assumption of free-will-ism that assumes people do something to “merit” God's Grace, as if such an oxymoron were even possible.

Biblically speaking, those who are redeemed do absolutely nothing to merit the Creator's favor, by definition. Reformed doctrine just takes that idea a step further than informed Armenians: the former hold that people would somehow merit God's favor by choosing Him of their own volition, without Him dragging them toward Him from the brink of Hell first. This, to the informed Reformed, seems to violate Scripture's clear portrayal of an absolutely sovereign Lord.

However, clearly some Calvinists — and here I do use the harsher-sounding term pejoratively — take this to such an indeed “elitist” extreme that one would think they do somewhat believe they've merited God's favor. And perhaps they actually do think so, if only subconsciously.

Again, be careful not to assume all Reformed people believe or act like this — any more than all Arminians believe the comical “open theist” idea which pretty much holds that people can actually surprise a non-omniscient God.