SOL Editor declares "Calvinism leaves a dearth"

Who are the 5 point Calvinist "TODAY" know for Evangelism?

 

Carey's book is available online, I read it last night, but didn't keep the link. In it, he lists all the people he knew of who had done missions since the Apostles. Carey's strong point was his research that he included in the book. He listed a rather small handfull of individuals who had done foreign evangelism prior to his day, only a few scattered over a millineum or so. Then he was specific in that the only ones doing missions during his day were the Roman Catholics and the Moravian Brethren.

 

==You are talking about "foreign evangelism" I am talking about evangelism in general. Many calvinists have been evangelistic. I would be interested to see the support for your claim about central America.

 

See "Christianity Through the Centuries" by Earl Cairns, p. 346. Cairns book is the standard, comprehensive work on church history. I'm sure there are others. But also as evidence, just visit the region......the catholic missions from 200+ years ago are still around, and there are no comparative protestant missions there today, because there were none then. You can't miss them....they're all tourist traps today.

Cairns shows that the Catholics, via the Dominicans and Franciscans, were heavily missions oriented by the 1500's, while the protestants didn't do any to speak of until the 1800's, after William Carey's efforts.

Also Carey's book, already cited, lists every effort he could find in his day. He lists a smattering of individuals prior to the 1700's, but specifically says that the only ones working to convert the lost were the Catholics and the Moravian Brethren. His whole point, and the reason he is remembered, is that no one was sending evangelists to the lost, and he sent a call to the churches to start sending them.

But please consider this: in history, we can't make a distinction between evangelism and missions based on a modern view. Don't forget that in the 1700's, "denominations" were nationalistic; many times people didn't have a choice of churches, since in any given location there weren't the choices of today. There was extremely little "evangelization" like we think of it today, since typically the entire populace were church members. Everyone in a city was born and christened in the church.....in any given area, it was largely one single church. Prior to people like Wesley (again, see Carey's and Cairns books), there were almost no "evangelists" like we think of them today. As evidence, Carey's book went to great lengths to list the "lost" as entire populations of countries; he listed no lost in his own country. To them, the Christians were here, the lost were in another country somewhere. You can find a few exceptions, but by a wide margin, this is true.

So with all of that, the Catholics were sending people to evangelize the lost as early as the 1500's. With a very few exceptions, such as Wesley, the protestants didn't really do much until the 1800's, after Carey.

So again, almost everyone today has a much more correct view, so it's not fair today to stereotype Calvinists as non-evangelical. But in history you can, since it took Carey in 1792 to convince the reformed protestants that they should send missions evangelists to the lost.

(note to GordonSlocum: D. James Kennedy, in his Evangelism Explosion)

 

Just to add a thought. The Reformation itself was evangelistic perhaps in a different sense. How many in the corrupt churches of the day were actually saved. The reformers were pulling many from these churches. Did they merely change denominations, or were many actually saved. The fact that they were training and teaching people in "christian" countries does not mean they were not trying to reach the lost.

 

Well, of course, you are correct, and I agree that the reformation was bringing people to Christ, and it was obviously very needed. It was a return to the bible for untold numbers, so in that sense it was indeed evangelistic.

But other than Rome, the reformed church could only "pull from" a rather small number of protestant denominations, most of which were national churches....one per country, typically, except in England.

 

I agree. I find it a bit ironic that this is true. It seems the followers of many teachers take their teachings to more of an extreme than the teacher did. Calvin was a good, careful theologian, that came along at a time when the church needed a good careful theologian. I don't agree with everything he said or did, but he was a good teacher and an overall positive influence on the church. I find it a shame that the man wrote a huge number of volumes in his life's work, and today he's mostly just remembered for this one five-point system that bears his name today.

 

Gordon Slocum asked:
Who are the 5 point Calvinist "TODAY" known for Evangelism?

Probably the best known is D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Laudedale Florida.
R. C. Sproul, Presbyterian writer, teacher, theologian

Others include such Baptists as
Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC
Tom Ascol, Baptist pastor of Coral Gables Florida
Tom Nettles, Professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Albert Mohler, President of SBTS
Phil Newton, pastor of Southwoods Baptist Church, Memphis.
Roy Hargraves, Florida pastor

How about:
James White, teacher, theologian, heads Alpha Omega Ministries
John McArthur, pastor, teacher, author.

In fact, I know quite a number of 5-point Calvinists, and every single one of them is passionate about evangelism and missions. Further, I don't know of a single 5-pointer who is not.

 

J.D., Jim,

I'm not Calvinist. I think maybe I can handle this one. God has a will for everyone's life -- that they be saved. Then He has another will -- that you be "Conformed to the image of His dear Son." Rom 8:29. That, obviously, can take place in a myriad of ways. Some of those ways will be "the school of hard knocks" for instance. It is not that God wills you not to go that way. Nor is it that He wants you to go that way. In Christ, we have freedom, right?

He has another will -- that we abstain from sin. This might be where "permissive will" comes in. But you can't say that He permits it if we are indeed, chastised for it, can you?? In fact, you will pay for ALL your bad decisions. So, no, there is no "permissive will of God except in the mind of men who imagine it.

Moving to Detroit is not a sin -- it likely offers the same ability to grow in grace as Africa, just in different ways. You may imagine that God wants you in Africa -- but you don't know. You may not arrive at the same destination spiritually during this life as you would have on another path but that doesn't hurt God Whose primary aim is to be with you in eternity so that He may -- immediately after the rapture -- "change [your] vile body, that it might be fashioned like unto His glorious body according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." Phil 3:21.

So do the best you can -- "ALL is vanity," as Solomon said, when compared with eternity.

skypair

 

reformbeliever,

God knows everything now. But suppose God set about to create something. The first thing He "learns," then defines, is what purpose it will serve, right? The issue being that He is creating another dimension, a spiritual dimenion called "time."

So the account of creation from God's view would be that He decided to create heavens and earth, right? Everything that He would put into it would have a purpose consistent with His purpose -- oxegen to breathe, plants to make oxigen, ... At some point God had to "learn" how to make all things sustain themselves for 7000 years. Of course, it wasn't "trial and error," but a "mind of God" thing of "learning" and then planning --- just like creating you was a "mind of God" thing of learning that you would believe and then planning how to use you in His kingdom.

There is a way to imagine that God llived in eternity past. There is NOT a way to imagine that "intelligent creation" was never the application of "learning" or "knowledge"/foreknowledge by God. From the point that He created the dimension of time, there had to be a sequence of events. So we have a choice -- either God created and caused sin or He He left sin beyond His personal, direct control and dealt through believing man (much in the way that we see the "restrainer" doing in 2Thes 2) in order to deal with sin.

skypair