The Liberalism Straw Man of Young, Restless Reformers

As Arminians, we often have to deal with a number of scurrilous charges and various innuendoes inflicted upon our faith by an assortment of polemicists, predominantly at the hand of the young, restless Reformed variety and their elder teachers. Whether it is a straw man of “free willism”, salvation by works  or open theism and a host of other unsupportable accusations, each is brought to nothing by the revelation of plain, simple truth. Truth will always bring to naught any straw man fabricated for divisive purposes. I came across another bale of straw dressed up as knowledge today. The following quote was offered to buttress another’s doctrine of mush and as always, truth will grind it to chaff.

"We are living in a day in which practically all of the historic
churches are being attacked from within by unbelief. Many
of them have already succumbed. And most invariably the
line of descent has been from Calvinism to Arminianism,
from Arminianism to Liberalism, and then to Unitarianism.
And the history of Liberalism and Unitarianism shows that
they deteriorate into a social gospel that is too weak to
sustain itself. We are convinced that the future of Christianity
is bound up with that system of theology historically called
"Calvinism." Where the God-centered principles of
Calvinism have been abandoned, there has been a strong
tendency downward into the depths of man-centered
naturalism or secularism. Some have declared -- rightly,
we believe -- that there is no consistent stopping place
between Calvinism and Atheism."

[Calvinism, hyper-Calvinism and Armimianism, pages 3-4,
by Kenneth G. Talbot & W. Gary Crampton; Still Waters
Revival books]

This is sheer ignorance. The "granddaddy of theological liberalism" was Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher who came out of the German Reformed theological stream and not Arminianism. The "daddy" of American Unitarianism is nothing but Calvinistic Puritanism. The United Church of Christ, the result of a merging of various Congregational Churches (previously Puritan), is one of the most liberal churches in the country. The Presbyterian Church - USA, straight out of the Calvinist Reformed tradition, rivals the UCC for promoting homosexuality in the pulpit and rejecting the infallibility of scripture among other liberal disasters.

Calvinists are quick to repeat the lie contained in this quote but as the above comments note, the greatest growth of theological liberalism in the church has come directly from Calvinistic Reformed sources without ever touching Arminianism. If we add other aberrant teachings to the mix we would also have to include the origins of the various Church of Christ sects that arose out of Calvinistic Presbyterians and Baptists (the Restoration movements of Campbell and Stone). If you are going to try to beat somebody with a propaganda lie, you better be prepared for the truth to knock some sense into you.

Calvinist Trees Blocking the Christian Forest

Once in a while an argument is encountered or a speaker is engaged in a long monologue that you wish the presenter could have stepped back and taken a more sound approach with his argument. Instead we are left with a spurious design and empty, fallacious rhetoric. This is often the case with Calvinist apologetics and with a recent post by R.C. Sproul, the tradition continues.  More than a few Calvinists have recommended Sproul's seminal book Chosen By God as a representative tome of modern Calvinist thought. I read it quite some time ago and found it to be a continuation of the expected arguments I've encountered far too many times from Calvinists of all stripes. A straw man is constructed, an argument devised to tear it down and the ensuing victory party all proceed from the same tainted arguments over and over again. The same is true with the brief extract from "Chosen" that Sproul has posted on his website.

Sproul has built an argument using John 3:16 to oppose a position that is rarely made i.e. that non-Reformed (non-Calvinists) stake a position on this passage to argue that man has some innate ability to freely choose to come to the LORD. He states "... What does this famous verse teach about fallen man's ability to choose Christ? The answer, simply, is nothing. The argument used by non-Reformed people is that the text teaches that everybody in the world has it in their power to accept or reject Christ ...". Unfortunately for Sproul, he has dedicated considerable capital to dispelling this straw man without addressing the more appropriate argument that Arminians such as myself make with John 3:16. No classical or Reformed Arminian I know of argues for the Pelagian position of innate goodness and ability on the part of fallen man to do anything whatsoever with regard to a first step or a last or any step in between. Instead, this universal passage and the most often quoted verse in scripture is a clear denunciation of the spurious Calvinist doctrine of Limited Atonement. It tears down the idea that God reprobated a large percentage of mankind for his glory and showed some sense of partiality for an "elect" independent of foreknowing their faith. Even John Calvin in his commentaries regarding this chapter of John acknowledges the universal application of Christ's atonement without exception.

R.C. Sproul, instead of taking another victory lap around the ashes of your little bonfire from several years ago, perhaps you could address the true importance of the passage and attempt to address actual Arminian doctrine instead of the fabrications of your rather ill-informed polemic.