Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Calvinists "Worse than Muslims"?

Many of you may be aware of the consistent anti-Calvinist teaching of Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Theological Seminary at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. But are you aware of just how strident and unjust his characterizations of Calvinists sometimes are? Here is an example of one such unwarranted attack from his QUESTIONS ON NEO-CALVINISM, PART 1 post at ErgunCaner.com:
Q: DIDN’T YOU SAY THAT CALVINISTS ARE WORSE THAN MUSLIMS?
A: Yes, absolutely. For a small portion of these people, just daring to question the Bezian movement is heresy. They will blog and e-mail incessantly. I call it a “Calvinist Jihad,” because just like Muslims, they believe they are defending the honor of their view. They can discuss nothing else. I have even had a few call for my head! Dr. Falwell and I have laughed about it, because they are so insistent, and they miss the point completely. There are plenty of schools to which the neo-Calvinists can go, but Liberty will be a lighthouse for missions and evangelism to the “whosoever wills.” Period.
The difference is, Muslims know when to quit - for these guys, it is the only topic about which they can talk.
Without getting into details about what Caner might mean by the term "neo-Calvinist" -- a term he has invented to describe a group of Calvinists I am not sure even exists (i.e. a straw man), but that he seems to think includes just about anybody who would call himself a Calvinist in any sense -- I would simply point out that, even if there are some who would call themselves Calvinists and who have "called for" Caner's head, he should know better than to paint all professed Calvinists with the same brush. And he should know better than to try to paint us all as though we are worse than Islamic extremists, which is what naturally comes to the mind of most people when language such as his is used these days.

I praise the Lord, however, that I am a Calvinist (in the true sense of the word), holding steadfastly to the Biblical doctrines of grace, and that I thus know God has some sovereign purpose in all this and will turn even the childish rantings of Caner to our good!

1 comment:

  1. fkThe question that I would ask Dr Caner how many Calvinist does he know that fly airplanes into the sides of buildings.

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