Why Calvinists and Arminians (and Those in Between) Can Unite for Religious Liberty

Next week my denomination will receive the report from a special committee tasked with seeking unity between Calvinists and non-Calvinists in the Southern Baptist Convention. The report concludes what I’ve long suspected: we have much more uniting us across these questions than dividing us, and most of us are ready to love one another and work together.

 

I think it’s important, though, to consider how both the Calvinist and Arminian streams in Christian life bring important emphases together when it comes to one of the most important questions of our time: religious liberty.

James Leland was a Baptist evangelist in the revolutionary era, who agitated Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to include constitutional guarantees of religious liberty. He railed against the Anglican state churches, with their restrictions on gospel preaching. He did so for theological reasons. At one time, he defined his theology as one that preaches “the doctrines of sovereign grace with a little of what is called Arminianism.”

I think both traditions, and the in-between place, have some things to contribute to our defense of a free church in a free state.

Many of our early Baptist forebears were thoroughgoing Arminians, defining the freedom of the human will in libertarian terms. These include such heroes as Thomas Helwys, who fought against the government’s mistaken belief that it could overrule the conscience.    Continue at Russell D. Moore

See also:  

 Maintaining Unity: What Calvinists MUST Do!

 Why John Calvin is shaking things up for Southern Baptists

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/06/06/2805570/why-john-calvin-is-shaking-things.html#storylink=cpy

Who Limits the Atonement: Calvinists or Arminians?

“Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” — Matthew 20:28

[Calvinists] are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ, because we say that Christ has not made a satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved. Now, our reply to this is, that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it: we do not. The Arminians say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men? They say, “No, certainly not.” We ask them the next question—Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They answer “No.” They are obliged to admit this, if they are consistent. They say, “No; Christ has died that any man may be saved if”—and then follow certain conditions of salvation. We say, then, we will go back to the old statement—Christ did not die so as beyond a doubt to secure the salvation of anybody, did He? You must say “No;” you are obliged to say so, for you believe that even after a man has been pardoned, he may yet fall from grace, and perish. Now, who is it that limits the death of Christ? Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as to infallibly secure the salvation of anybody. We beg your pardon, when you say we limit Christ’s death; we say, “No, my dear sir, it is you that do it.” We say Christ so died that He infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ’s death not only may be saved but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You are welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it.   Continue at Eric T. Young