Thursday, June 9, 2011

If Calvinism Is True... #35

This morning I received the news that one of the students who graduated with my daughter last week was killed when her car struck a pole. The student just turned 18, and her whole life was ahead of her. The girl's parents are devastated...their daughter was not saved. If Calvinism is true, it means that God caused the accident to happen, and purposely withheld His grace from this young lady to glorify Himself.  If Calvinism is true, it means that God took pleasure in all of this.

Listed below are some excerpts from a blog written by Rachel Held Evans. To read the blog in its entirety click Why Calvinism Makes Me Cry

"If Calvinism is true, it means that God creates disposable people, people without any hope. It means that God not only allows, but sovereignly ordains, every war and every abortion and every rape of a child. If Calvinism is true, it means that God does not love the world, but hates it."

"If Calvinism is true, it means that if the dying little girl that you held in your arms in India was not among the elect, then God did not love her. He never had any intention of loving her. She was nothing to Him. In fact, He would delight and find glory in her eternal torture in hell.”

“And whenever I raise these points with Calvinists, all they can say is that I should be more grateful for my own salvation! It’s like, ‘as long as my eternal destiny is secure, as long as my life is all planned out and taken care of by God, who gives a damn about anyone else!’ How can you be okay with that? How can anyone be okay with that? Why do I feel like I’m the only one who finds this morally offensive?”

"For the past four or five years, I’ve believed that such a response reflected little more than righteous indignation. I figured I was so angry because these Calvinists were just so wrong. But as I’ve prayed and studied Jesus and talked with Dan and spent some time alone, I’ve realized that I cry, not out of conviction that the Calvinists are wrong, but out of the deep, paralyzing fear that they might be right".

"The God that loves everyone (and not just a select group of people) has always been the most important theological constant in my life…and I feel like Calvinism, were it true, would take that away from me. Replacing “for God so loved the world” with “for God so hated the world” (which I believe Calvinism requires). This  is so disorienting to me, so dark and frightening and hopeless, that I fear it would lead me to despair."


Rachel is not the only one who finds this morally offensive. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.