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Commentary
WESLEYAN WISDOM: Facing a Calvinist resurgence Donald W. Haynes, Jul 9, 2009
Donald Haynes
By Donald W. Haynes UMR Columnist
The big surprise of 21st-century Christian theology in the U.S. is the surprising resurgence of Calvinism, a doctrine from a 16th-century French attorney who concluded, “Some are fore-ordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation.”
When spiritual seekers with no theological foundations bring their broken lives to this theological oracle, they can easily be blocked from the shining sun of God’s abiding love. With Christian mentors teaching that God has predetermined their life journey and eternal destiny, they can easily see their daily decisions controlled by some hidden hand.
The upside of Calvinism seems to be the assurance that God has a plan and purpose for our lives. We Wesleyans agree with that! The good news indeed is that Almighty God knows my name and has a plan for my life.
The difference is that we anchor God’s plan in God’s love for all God’s children, not in a capricious sovereignty that leaves some behind. We affirm the option that Jesus gave the thief on the cross, the woman at the well and Nicodemus the jurist. Each of them had the opportunity to say “yes” or “no” to God’s love.
We agree with Calvin that all salvation is grounded in God’s grace. We disagree with Calvin’s insistence that this grace is “irresistible” and that Jesus’ atonement is limited to “the elect.”
The revival of Calvinism might be connected to other cultural factors. We have seen the fruit of more than a century of sociologists and psychologists blaming our parents and our circumstances for our misconduct.
The theological shift of sin from the individual to systemic evil was a needed corrective, but a negative side effect was developing a victim complex. Circumstance, not choice, became the determining factor in our lives. If the blame for human ills and global evils can be shifted to others, we are off the hook. From that, one can easily make God totally responsible for our good fortune, misfortunes and spiritual destiny.
Let us be clear. Whereas Calvinism begins with God’s power, Arminianism begins with God’s character: God loves each of us—equally and without regard for our behavior. It was no accident that Jesus told the parable of the Prodigal Son!
What’s more, love, by its very nature, is vulnerable. We can resist or accept God’s love, just as we can the love of parents, spouses, friends or children. Wesley insisted that for behavior to be moral, it must be volitional. Otherwise we are but hapless terrestrial marionettes on capricious celestial string.
I was reared in a community dominated by a rigid Calvinism that beat into my head “Many are called, but few are chosen” and “All who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
But my dear old Methodist mama taught me well. She told me that God loved me even though I had no athletic prowess and lacked the brute strength of my peers. She taught me that we were Arminians and that others “walk in the light that they have.” She insisted that I should never argue with adults, yet reminded me that we were Methodists!
And when, as a teenager, the Holiness Movement pressured me to leave “modernist Methodism,” Mama said quietly, “Son, as far back as we know, our people have been Methodists.”
Wesley taught us to look at Scripture from a macro, rather than micro view. We shape our theology not by isolated proof texts, but by the whole panorama of biblical teachings. And human freedom is seen throughout the biblical narratives; the Bible tells the salvation story in the context of human responsibility. God’s sovereignty must never be seen apart from God’s love, mercy and grace.
William Abraham, the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at Perkins School of Theology, says it well: “Predestination, unless properly understood, is blasphemy because it casts a terrible shadow over the love of God for the whole world.” Our doctrine must not impugn the character of God.
Sadly, we children of Wesley are reaping what we sowed. Throughout the 20th century, many of our best minds abandoned the doctrine of original sin. Our Sunday school literature painted a rose-colored glass view of human nature, society and sin. Our children in Sunday school were not taught the evil of racism for over 200 years. Nor were they taught the pervasive influence of evil in our daily lives.
We cannot wimp out. We must assert our position at the table of theological discussion. We must recover the Arminian and Wesleyan understanding of the Scriptures in their entirety.
The Wesley Study Bible was a good beginning, but so many key verses are left without commentary! With Sunday school attendance declining, we surely need new doctrinal materials for children.
We need Wesleyan literature formatted in workbook style so that we can “fill in the blanks” with verses other than apocalyptic violence and pre-programmed life journeys. Small-group leaders, like the old “exhorters,” must know their Bible from Wesley’s sermons and Adam Clarke’s commentaries.
I do not want to be doctrinally divisive. But three of my seven grandchildren are in college, attending campus groups where Calvinism and rapture theology are being taught as the only Scriptural understanding of history, destiny and the plan of God.
I respect the concern of Reformed Theology, that we Arminians bought into Enlightenment philosophy and shifted faith from God’s grace over to human free will. I regret our long journey into a naïve and blasé concept of evil. We “sowed the wind and have reaped the whirlwind.”
But this is no time for sackcloth and ashes; it is a time to brace up our minds. Our willful decisions have monumental influence.
We teach Arminian doctrine when we sing: “Rise up ye saints of God, the kingdom tarries long/Bring in the day of brotherhood and end the night of wrong.”
If we taught Calvinism, we would be singing these words instead: “Sit down ye saints of God, there’s nothing you can do,/For God has brought the kingdom in; he has no need of you.”
Now is the time for all good Wesleyans to come to the aid of their doctrine! We must teach as mantras the words of Charles Wesley: “ . . . let every soul be Jesus’ guest. You need not one be left behind, for God had bid all humankind.”
Dr. Haynes is an instructor in United Methodist studies at Hood Theological Seminary. e-mail: dhaynes11@triad.rr.com.
Donald Haynes
