As Cool As the Other Side of a Calvinist

If you know Calvinists, you probably know some bad ones. The stereotypes aren’t fair, but they don’t come out of nowhere. Calvinists are “cold,” “heady,” and “condescending.” They think they have it all figured out and everyone else is blind, slow, or stubborn. They’re so lost in their books, they’re not interested in the needs around them. And they’ve somehow misplaced Christ, but are quite content to follow John Calvin. Unfair, but not uncommon enough either.

But what if there’s another side to Calvinism — a real side, with flesh and love and humility and a living, breathing passion for Jesus? We’re not doubting you’ve had bad experiences with so-called Calvinists, but whether the experiences you’ve had are really examples of true Calvinism. If all your encounters have been bad, or others’ stories so off-putting they’ve kept you away entirely, we ask you to give us just four minutes with this video above. It’s the poet himself reading, with subtitles so you can follow the words carefully. (There is also a version with multiple readers which we released last week.)

The poem is an opportunity to hear from a man, who has lived these truths, and lived by them, for more than forty years. But more importantly it’s an invitation to meet his big, sovereign, gracious God — a God big enough for the hard things you face in this life, big enough to make sense of a long, old, complex book like the Bible, and big enough for everyday life in a broken world.    Continue at Marshall Segal