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Ezra -> RE: Baptist (8/4/2008 3:20:22 AM)
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quote:
was this a serious statement or some type of attempt a humor?
Deadly serious, Man-of-Sola. See the quote below from Christian Ethics Today: Journal of Christian Ethics, and my emphasis below also.
quote:
Book Review by J. Terry Young, Professor Emeritus, New Orleans Baptist Seminary
God So Loved The World:
Traditional Baptists and Calvinism
By Fisher Humphreys and Paul Robertson, New Orleans: Insight Press, 2001
Two Baptist professors of theology have done Southern Baptists a favor by authoring this small (102 pages) but very helpful book. There has been a rising tide of interest in Calvinism among Southern Baptists in the last thirty years. I saw evidences of it many times during twenty-seven years of teaching theology. I frequently found that students who thought that they were Calvinists quickly said, "That's not what I believe," when presented with a clearer picture of Calvinism.
The Calvinism most often encountered among Southern Baptists today is hyper-Calvinism, the more rigid form that is based upon the Canons of the Synod of Dort, named for the Netherlands city where the Dutch Church council met (1618-1619), backed by the power and authority of the government.
There are five major theological premises enunciated in the Canons of the Synod of Dort. These five statements are the foundation of most of the calls to Baptists to adopt Calvinism as their own expression of the Christian faith. Presently, some of the most noted (and quoted) figures in the new leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) are outspoken proponents of Calvinism. Some of them would like nothing better than to lead all Southern Baptists back to Dort. Indeed, debate over Calvinism may be the next major theological controversy for Southern Baptists, who have devoted much energy to doctrinal debate (often splitting theological hairs) during the last twenty-five years.
Humphreys and Robertson want to introduce the uninitiated to this hyper-Calvinism. They try to do it in a very gentle and loving way, writing with a remarkable irenic spirit. Fisher Humphreys is professor of theology at the Beeson Divinity School of Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama. He formerly taught at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where Paul E. Robertson is professor of theology and Director of Research Doctoral Programs.
Humphreys and Robertson believe that traditional Southern Baptists and Calvinist Southern Baptists can function together graciously and lovingly. But that is a very optimistic hope, given the militant, strident tone of some of the Calvinists whom I have encountered, and given the apparent inability of many who attend the annual meetings of the SBC to carry on any doctrinal discussions in a civil manner.
"Our purpose is to help traditional Baptists understand Calvinism, not to debate Calvinists about Calvinism," say the authors. Theirs is a book about theology, "written out of pastoral concerns." They declare, "We are convinced that the Christian way of relating to anything must involve both truth and love; we hope that our book will be an example of speaking the truth in love."
According to the seminary professors, traditional Baptists agree with much of what Calvin says in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, but disagree at significant points. However, the discussion today is not about the entire system of teaching put forth by Calvin. The focus of discussion today is primarily about the sovereignty of God and how God has sovereignly determined before creation who can (will) be saved and who will not (cannot) be saved.
The typical presentation of Calvinism by many today is an explanation of TULIP (from the Netherlands tulips, of course) Calvinism, an acrostic formed from the pronouncements of the Canons of the Synod of Dort.
T is for Total Depravity
U is for Unconditional Election
L is for Limited Atonement
I is for Irresistible Grace
P is for the Perseverance of Believers.
This may be a helpful aid to the memory, but it distorts the Calvinist position. The order of the points in the findings of the Synod of Dort are really, ULTIP. The key to the whole of Calvin's theology is the sovereignty of God, expressed here as unconditional election. Most often today unconditional election is called unconditional predestination. This is the point at which most traditional Baptists have great difficulty.
According to the Calvinist view of predestination, God in his sovereignty determined from the beginning who will be saved and who will be damned. God's sovereign choice of who would and who would not be saved was not based upon his foreknowledge of how these persons would respond to the offer of salvation through Christ, but simply upon God's foreknowledge that these persons would in the future come into existence. These same people then become believers or unbelievers because God determined beforehand that this was to be their lot.
Traditional Baptists believe that God genuinely desires that all people be saved and has made a bona fide offer of salvation to any and all who will accept his offer of salvation....
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