Question: ...Your recent attacks upon Calvinism, a subject about which you reveal your ignorance, ...

Question (composite of excerpts from several pastors): I have appreciated The Berean Call over the years and your stand against the error rampant among evangelicals today. However, your recent attacks upon Calvinism, a subject about which you reveal your ignorance, and your arguments against the sovereignty of God, can no longer be tolerated. Please remove me from your mailing list, and I am advising the members of our church to have their names removed as well. Why did you even find it necessary to address Calvinism? That was your undoing.

Response: In spite of long appreciating our stand for truth and against error, the moment we discuss Calvinism you throw away the agreement of many years? That puzzles me! Nor have I attacked Calvinism. Is no one allowed to give a sincere teaching from Scripture on sovereignty, man’s responsibility and ability to choose? Have Calvinists a monopoly on such truths so that they are off limits to others?

You say I am ignorant of and incompetent to address Calvinism. Is Calvinism so special that few can understand it? Do its teachings come from the Bible? I’ve been studying the Bible for more than 60 years. Should that not equip me to look at Calvinism as well as anything else in light of Scripture?

There are hundreds of books written in favor of Calvinism. Must I be muzzled from making a biblical response? Wouldn’t open discussion of issues be beneficial without cutting ourselves off from true Christians over differences? I find this attitude among so many Calvinists as though they are an elite group who alone can understand aright the mysteries of sovereignty, grace, depravity, atonement, etc. Why is that?

You say that I “raise arguments against the sovereignty of God.” On the contrary, while you may disagree with my views, I stand firmly and biblically, as I see it, for the sovereignty of God!

As for my understanding of Calvinism being inadequate, if you could visit my study you’d see scores of books I’ve gone through on this subject written by leading Calvinists both past and present. I am probably far more conversant with John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion than at least 90 percent of Calvinists. It is all highlighted in red, having been read and studied very carefully. I’ve done the same with the writings of Augustine, who, in spite of being the father of modern Roman Catholicism (highly honored recently by the Pope), was the source of most of Calvin’s ideas. Calvin quotes him more than 400 times in his Institutes, repeatedly stating, “By the authority of Augustine.” I believe that any Christian has the right (indeed, responsibility) to check Calvin and everyone else against the Bible as the Bereans checked out Paul—and we ought to be able to do it frankly without being denounced and disfellowshiped.