THE POSITION OF THE REFORMER JOHN CALVIN AND THE BAPTI5TIC DISTINCTIVE5
One of the most puzzling developments today is the crusading program of some Baptists to make John Calvin acceptable to Bible-believing Baptist. It comes as a shock for right-thinking believers when they realize that he rejected every single historic distinctive without exception. For example:
1. The liberty of the soul and freedom of religion he opposed with all the vigor of his soul, regarding all Baptists of his time as heretics.
2. The regenerate church membership concept was anathema under his Presbyterian doctrine of the church.
3. The autonomy of the local church was ruled as false doctrine in his ecclesiastical system.
4. The principle of separation of church and state was repudiated with all the power of his predestinated being, believing as he did that the magistrates sword must enforce his Reformed faith.
5. The baptism only of believers by immersion in water stirred the fires of indignation in his heart.
6. The sole authority of the Bible as the Word of God was obviously no more than a hollow profession at best, since his system was loaded with so many unscriptural doctrines which cannot be found in the Word of God.
And all this is in addition to his espousal of amillennialist interpretation of Scripture, covenant theology, infant baptism, limited atonement, unacceptable views of the Lord's Table, political alliances, religious compromises, limited reformation and bloody persecution. Fundamental Baptists who reject Arminianism need to be warned against the crusading Calvinists' strategy of branding everyone who does not accept their four or five point hardline position as being Arminian in their theology, and of equating their Calvinism as synonymous with the Christian Faith. It is infuriating to old-fashioned Baptists who are committed to the historic Baptistic distinctives and who know something of the history of Baptists and their New Testament heritage, to have historic Baptist doctrine and Calvin's Reformed faith considered as one and the same. In the light of the total and complete Baptist rejection of Reformation theology and the vehement hostility of John Calvin toward the Baptists, it is an eye-opening experience to realize that some crusading Calvinists consider a Baptist and a Calvinist as one and the same. Calvinism is one label which is expendable in Baptist circles. Someone recently observed that this brilliant Reformer could never qualify on the faculty of any Baptist Seminary, nor would his Institutes be allowed in any orthodox Baptist Seminary as a textbook in systematic theology. Baptists would do well to get their heads together, instead of dividing over this theological stranger, and return to straight thinking in relation to the doctrinal standards of the Word of God. We need a new commitment to "whosoever” preaching, evangelistic passion and missionary outreach.
