Why this emphasis on Calvinism?

The apostle Matthew's teachings on the doctrines of grace
The apostle Mark's teachings on the doctrines of grace
The apostle Luke's teachings on the doctrines of grace
The apostle John's teachings on the doctrines of grace
The apostle Paul's teachings on the doctrines of grace
Jesus' teachings on the doctrines of grace

Why this emphasis on Calvinism?
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Today's False Gospel

Sadly, this is not the church's finest hour. We live in an age of weak theology and casual Christian conduct. Our knowledge is insufficient, our worship is irreverent, and our lives are immoral. even the evangelical church has succumbed to the spirit of this age. Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? argued that the evangelical movement has lost its grip on the gospel.

Perhaps the simplest way to say this is that evangelicalism has become worldly. This can be demonstrated by comparing it with yesterday's liberalism. What was once said of liberal churches must now be said of evanglical churches: they seek the world's wisdom, believe the world's theology, follow the world's agenda, and adopt the world's methogds. According to the standards of worldly wisdom, the Bible is unable to meet the demands of life in these postmodern times. By itself, God's Word is insufficient to win people to Christ, promote spiritual growth, provide practical guidance, or transform society. So churches supplement the plain teaching of Scripture with entertainment, group therapy, political activism, signs and wonders—anything that prmises to appeal to religious consumers. According to the world's theology, sin is merely a dysfunction and salvation means having better self-esteem. When this theology comes to church, it replaces difficult but essential doctrines like the propitiation of God's wrath with practical techniques for self-improvement. The world's agenda is personal happiness, so the gospel is presented as a plan for individual fulfillment rather than as a pathway of costly discripleship. The world's methods for accompalishing this self-centered agenda are necessarily gragmatic, so evanglical churches are willing to try whatever seems like it might work. This worldliness has produced the "new pragmatism" of evangelicalism.

Another way to explain what is wrong with the evangelical church is to identify major ideas in contemporary thought, and then see whether they have made any inroads into the church. Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? identified six major cultural trends:

secularism, humanism, relativism, materialism,
pragmatism, and antiintellectualism or "mindlessness."

Secularism is the view that the universe is all there is; God and eternity are excluded.

Humanism is the belief that—in the words of the ancient pagan philosophers—"Man is the measure of all things." This inevitably leads to the worship of self.

Relativism teaches that because there is no God, there are no absolutes; truth is relative.

Materialism is closely related to secularism. If nothing exists except the here-and-now, then the meaning of life can be found only in personal possessions.

Pragmatism measures truth by its practical utility. What is right and true is whatever works.

Mindlessness is the overall "dumbing down" of popular culture, the shrinking of the American mind, which television has done a great deal to accelerate. Most people have short attention spans, especially when it comes to discussing anything wirthwhile or important. In the lyrics of one popular entertainer, "I'm not aware of too many things."

These are some of the prevailing trends in American culture at the dawn of the new millennium. If the church has become worldly, then we would expect to find these same attitudes in evangelical churches. And of course that is exactly what we do find. As surprising as it may sound, evangelicalism has become increasingly secular. In an effort to make newcomers feel comfortable, pastors teach as little theology as possible. Worship has become a form of popular entertainment rather than transcendent praise." New church buildings are designed to look more like office parks than houses of worship. All of these trends contribute to the secularization of what once was sacred.

At the same time, evangelical churches have become much more humanistic. This is inevitable: the less we talk about God, the more we talk about ourselves. Sermon content is determined more by the intended audience than by the sacred Scripture. This quickly leads to relativism in thought and conduct. Moral convictions are no longer determined by careful argument on the basis of biblical absolutes; they are uninformed choices based on personal feelings. The church is also materialistic. The evangelical attitutde toward money is captured in the title of a book recently edited by Larry Escridge and Mark Noll: More Money, More Ministry. When financial prosperity becomes a significant priority, churches find themselves forced to figure out what works. This quest both derives from and results in the new pragmatism mentioned earlier. Most pastors want their churches to be bigger and better, but even if they are not better, it would be better if they were bigger! Not surprisingly, their parishioners want to be healthier and wealthier too. Behind all these worldly attitudes there lurks a pervasisve mindlessness, an unwillingness to think very seriously about anything, but expecially Christian doctrine. Evangelicalism has become a religion of feeling rather than of thinking.

So when we ask the question, "Whatever happened to the gospel of grace?" the answer turns out to be that many evangelical churches have exchanged godliness for worldliness. This happens in too many ways to count, but The Cambridge Declaration includes a helpful summary:

As evanglical faith has become secularized, its interests have been blurred with those of the culture. The result is a loss of absolute values, permissive individualism, and a substitution of wholeness for holiness, recovery for repentance, intuition for truth, feeling for belief, chance for providence, and immediate gratification for enduring hope. Christ and his cross have moved from the center of our vision.

What happened to the grace of the gospel? It was lost in the church study, when the minister decided to give his people what they wanted rather than what they needed. It was lost in the Christian bookstore, somewhere between the self-help section and the aisle full of Jesus merchandise. And it was lost in our minds and hearts when we decided to accept the world's theology of human achievement, saving room for our own personal contribution to salvation.

What has replaced the gospel of grace is a message that is partially biblical but ultimately self-centered. Like everything else in creation, the human soul abhors a vacuum. When something essential disappears from our theology and our spirituality, something else rushes in to replace it. When God himself disappears, what replaces him is the sell. To quote again from The Cambridge Declaration, "Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of the fallen human nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world—from the self-esteem gospel to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply because it works."

One place to observe this misplaced confidence in human ability is in the area of Christian witness, where a self-centered gospel has produced a self-absorbed evangelism. When evangelicals think of evangelism, rather than thinking first of the gospel message they are prone to think of a particular response to that message. This perhaps explains why testimonies of saving faith tend to emphasize personal experience rather than the person and work of Jesus Christ. However, as J.I. Packer warned in his book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, there is an inherent danger in defining evangelism

in terms of an effect achieved in the lives of others: which amounts to saying that the essence of evangelizing is producing converts.

Such an approach inevitably turns evangelism into another form of pragmatism. However, the essence of evangelism does not lie in the results; it rests in the message itself—the good news of salvation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is not to say that the gospel message does not demand a response. Of course it does. But that response is not the work of the evangelist; it is the work of God, and this is most clearly understood when the presentation of the gospel is grounded in the doctrines of grace.

It is sometimes thought the the Five Points of Calvinism tend to dull one's passion for sharing the gospel. This view is mistaken, both in its understanding of Calvinism and in its understanding of evangelism. The truth is exactly the opposite, namely, that the doctrines of grace establish the most solid foundation and provide the most enduring motivation for the most effective proclamation of the gospel. As we shall see, only thoroughly biblical convictions about divine election, particular redemption, and irresistible grace give confidence that the gospel has the power actually to accomplish God's saving purpose. One of the brightest examples of better evangelism through Calvinism was the nineteenth-centery preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Spurgeon was one of the greatest evangelists England has ever seen, as well as one of the country's staunchest defenders of the doctrines of grace. He wrote:

I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified unless we preach what is nowadays called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the Gospel and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the Gospel . . . unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the Gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of his elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend the Gospel which allows saints to fall away after they are called.

If Spurgeon was right, then Warfield was right too: evangelicalism stands or falls with Calvinism. Or to restate our thesis, the doctrines of grace preserve the gospel of grace.

Occoquan Bible Church

Why this emphasis on Calvinism?Page 2

Today's False Gospel

Why this emphasis on Calvinism?
Page 2