Before you start questioning to yourself: is Austin doing a deep dive on some alternative religion to Christianity called “calvinism”? The answer is no. Calvinism is a theological/philosophical branch within the umbrella of Christianity. And for me in my own life, it has been one of the strongest and most influential branches I have come across.
It is important for me to start though by showing my cards. I am not a Calvinist. I at one point in time very loudly identified as a Calvinist and I still feel most at home in that camp even though I’m the person at the family dinner table who laughs at the families ideas about the world and its customs and traditions.
Calvinism has been a home to me not because I agree with its stance on different theological points but because it is in large part my introduction to real discipleship to Jesus.
I grew up in a Southern Baptist-fundamentalist-envangelical context. Every Sunday morning before we made our way to church, Jerry Falwell Sr. was preaching on the television. On the way to church Dr. David Jeremiah was preaching on the radio. My family had a tv cable service called SkyAngel(that I hate to this day for not letting me watch Cartoon Network) that was the christian alternative to television programming. Toby Mac and the Gaithers were the music playing in my household. And this all just helps create the scene of what version of Christianity was being pumped into me at a young age.
With this background though, my parents were very active in our local church. My dad made sure me and him got to the church first thing in the morning to help turn lights on, set up the coffee bar and make sure all the plumbing worked nicely before everyone else got there. With this I got to see a lot of the church that a casual attender may not have seen.
I was very aware at a young age that just because people go to church and have been baptized does not mean they are true followers of Jesus. And during my middle school years this dynamic of there being people claiming Jesus with their mouths but living differently really started to weigh on me and became the catalyst for me to ask questions. I found myself being reached out to by our new Youth Pastor.
My new Youth pastor was a church kid like me. He grew up in our church but had experienced Jesus and felt called to the ministry and so after a couple years at Liberty University he came back to fill the role of Youth Pastor. His name was Cobie. And Cobie’s example for me of what it looked like to truly follow Jesus was unlike anything I had seen before. Cobie invited people to his home. He took his wife out on dates. He sat down with teenagers and walked them through not only their personal issues but through the Bible and truly gave me my first example of what discipleship looks like. Both from the vantage point of being a disciple of Jesus and turning others into disciples as well. Cobie was, after my father, the most striking example of what it meant to love God and love people that I had seen yet and this radically changed my life by God’s grace.
Cobie though was a Calvinist. I learned this by way of looking at his book case. I noticed there was book with Calvinism in the title and I asked about it. Cobie then explained it to me by saying something along the lines of “yeah, all those christian rappers you listen to are Calvinist.”
This preceded to break my mind.
Lecrae, Tedashi, Trip Lee, Beautiful Eulogy, Jackie Hill Perry. All Calvinists. This was suddenly the marker that Calvinism was cool and worth considering because my favorite rappers were people I looked to from afar to understand what it meant to follow Jesus in the world but not of it.
Around this time I also discovered a little preacher named Mark Driscoll who had such a cool aesthetic to his church and really stepped on my toes and was the “bad boy” of Christianity at the time. He was known as the cussing pastor. He regularly had a time in his service called ‘MH-17’ which meant the questions submitted were about to get Pg-13 so be on guard because this preacher is about to answer tough questions that have no filter.
Calvinism at that time in my life was both rebellious and faithful.
It was rebellious because people like Lecrae and Mark Driscoll did not fit nice and neatly into the broader evangelical church culture. People at this time were still debating about whether Lecrae should be rapping about Jesus because “isn’t rap from the devil?” And then other preachers like John MacArthur vocally criticized Mark Driscoll because of his preaching style being “too offensive” when in all reality he was striking a chord that the church was failing to strike.
But Calvinism was also deeply faithful at the time because these Calvinists would put on conferences in order to gather together to dive into God’s word verse by verse and be honest about what the Bible says. They were the ones answering the tough questions, willing to accept the answer no matter how hard it was to swallow. Calvinists loved God regardless of what people thought about it. And they pursued their relationship with God above everything else which is why you seen such a huge move from God during these years of the “resurgence” because suddenly people were coming to Jesus and taking him serious in a way that truly put them at odds with the world and the religious culture many evangelicals found themselves in.
What is Calvinism?
Calvinism is a theological/philosophical way of viewing the world and specifically how God saves. Calvinism embraces the idea of determinism which is a philosophical viewpoint that even non christians can hold to. But then for christians, calvinism is a systematic way of explaining the process of salvation for someone.
It is built on this idea of monergism which is the process of God saving a person not because of anything they have done but solely because of who God is. It is in simpler terms: God reaching down to save us; not the alternative view(synergism) which is us reaching up to God and God reaching down(a joint effort).
John Calvin did not coin the term Calvinism, he likely would have punched someone in the face for calling it that but nevertheless his students coined this term and in that they gave us the five points of Calvinism commonly referred to as “tulip”.
- T-Total Depravity
- U-Uncondiotnal Election
- L-Limited Atonement
- I-Irresistible Grace
- P-Persevrance of the Saints
To start off lets take a look at the doctrine of Total Depravity.
What is Total Depravity
The english puritan theologian John Owen once said: “be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”
Paul the Apostle in Romans 6:23 says: “For the wages of sin is death.” He also says earlier on in the letter: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”(Romans 3:23 ESV).
The basic belief the doctrine of total depravity covers is that all of mankind are children of the fall(Genesis 3) and the result of that fall is that we are born into sin. Our sin nature is what we know best.
Your sin nature is the equivalent of the idea of how a lion eats the meat of animals it kills. It is not unnatural for a lion to do this rather this is apart of the lions nature. It is part of who this lion is. And so the same is true for us, we have a sin nature we have inherited because of the fall. We are all children of Adam, born sinners.
What this means for us is that no one is exempt. Which is right in line with why Paul is writing this letter to the Roman church to begin with because the issue he is addressing in this congregation is the sin of pride. The Jewish believers and gentile believers were wrestling with each other, trying to put each other down as the worst. Paul thus writes this letter emphasizing that. Paul makes it clear to both sides of this debate that they are born guilty.
No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:9-18 ESV)
The doctrine of total depravity is a doctrine(statement of belief) that seeks to explain how desperately we need a savior. Instead of being like a doctor who sees that you have cancer and says “well, just take some pain killers and that’ll help bring some relief.” The doctrine of total depravity is like a doctor just being brutally honest with you by saying “the cancer has reached every possible organ, blood vessel, molecule in your body. Your whole body is corrupt and the only way you will be saved from this cancer killing you is for a miracle to happen because of the devastating effects the cancer has already had on you by its reach.”
Total depravity means radical corruption. We must be careful to note the difference between total depravity and utter depravity. To be utterly depraved is to be as wicked as one could possibly be. Hitler was extremely depraved, but he could have been worse than he was. I am a sinner. Yet I could sin more often and more severely than I actually do. I am not utterly depraved, but I am totally depraved.
R.C. Sproul(Essential Truths of the Christian Faith)
The idea that comes to mind for many when we begin reflecting on this idea of being totally corrupted by sin is the pushback saying “yeah, but I am not that horrible of a person right?” This is where R.C. Sproul’s commentary helps because he is addressing this tension we feel. The Bible clearly states we are totally corrupted by sin. We are more broken than we realize, but it is odd for many of us when we look at the case study of our lives and feel like we could be a lot worse.
This doctrine gives room to resolve that tension by the common grace of God in our lives. The common grace of God holds us back from being as wretched as we are.
And so this doctrine again seeks to diagnose the problem with us as human beings in such honesty that it points us to Jesus not away from him. It explains how badly we need a savior. As a Christian of over 10 years, I will say from personal experience that over the years the more that I have come to know who Jesus is the more I realize how I broken I am. When I first became a Christian I thought my brokenness only extended to my struggles with lust, anger and cussing. Over tens years in though and let me add on to that list my need for control, my insecurities, jealousy, envy, gossip, a hurried life, and the list could go on. The more we get an accurate view of Jesus the more we see just how far off the mark we are.
Sin is missing the mark. And because of our total depravity we miss the mark in more ways than we realize.
For total depravity means that I and everyone are depraved or corrupt in the totality of our being. There is no part of us that is left untouched by sin. Our minds, our wills, and our bodies are affected by evil. We speak sinful words, do sinful deeds, have impure thoughts. Our very bodies suffer from the ravages of sin.
R.C. Sproul(Essential Truths of the Christian Faith)
How does this affect our Salvation?
We by nature are children of wrath. Paul the Apostle further elaborates on this point in his circular letter titled ‘Ephesians’.
You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.(Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV)
I remember in highschool one of my friends junior year was apart of a church that was very Arminian(opposite of Calvinism). And one day we were talking about theology and what not and someone at the table over referred to people as children of God. Me being the theological jerk I was at the time corrected him and said “well, actually the only people who are children of God are those who have been adopted by God. So if you are not saved, you have not been adopted.” My christian friend butted in and immediately we went into debating this issue.
The reality is I was probably being a bitt of nerdy jerk correcting people. But the truth still stands. The gospel story is that before we come to know God we are strangers to God. His ways are strange to us. Christianity is weird, and much its practices go directly against our inclinations.
This is because after the fall, we are products of our father Adam.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.(Romans 5:12-14 ESV)
When Adam sinned, death came into the world. Not just a literal death, but a spiritual one. That flicker of hope, that light inside of Adam and Eve at the beginning of creation faded away into the darkness that now consumed the first couple. As these two created more humans, the brokenness in the world spread, it multiplied. We are products of this brokenness. That flicker of hope is gone. Which is why Paul says earlier on in chapter 3 “no one is righteous.”
Because of this broken state we are born into as the result of the fall, we are dead in sin. There is no good we could possibly want. We cannot reach out to God because we are like Lazarus in the tomb.
Lazarus did not request for Jesus to come save him. Rather the image we see of Lazarus is a dead man locked away in a tomb and the one of who spoke creation into existence spoke life into this dead man causing him to walk.
The doctrine of total depravity captures our deadness.
You contributed nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.
John Owen
What is the downfall of this doctrine?
There was a time in my life where the majority of the preaching I was taking in was from Calvinists. Their preaching from my personal experience was depressing. The reason being: it felt like our story started off with “you are a sinner” and not with “you were made in the image of God.”
How we start our stories matters. I believe that is why Genesis is doing this work of giving a new start to the story the Israelites had been given for hundreds of years. When we start off reading our Bibles we are reading tribal stories given to a people who had lost the story. The Israelites had been enslaved in Egypt, with no source of connection to where they came from. Everyday they were being abused and mistreated, made to serve but never served themselves. The belief of the day was that the only person made in the image of God was the Pharaoh. And what this communicated to everyone else who was not the pharaoh was that they did not have God’s mark on them. They did not deserve to be treated with respect because of their identity. The Israelites only identity was as a slave.
Genesis is a story to these Israelites making this radical and bold claim that “all people are made in the image of God.” This would change the way the Israelites told their story. Suddenly their story instilled a sense of confidence in them that they do have a purpose, they may act in ways as the result of the fall but their story does not start with the fall.
Suddenly what this does for us is that those us who have struggled with depression, those feelings and thoughts of worthlessness. We can identify those feelings and thoughts as brokenness within us. We may feel unworthy, but we are not. Not in the sense of “we deserve to take our life.”
This is an area I heavily struggled with in my Calvinist days because it felt like every sermon told me how bankrupt my soul was even though I had already started following Jesus. And even though as you follow Jesus you need to be aware of where you came from and remain humbled by your salvation. I also needed to find some healing and much of the Calvinist preaching hammered home “you are broken” but never hammered home “this is what sanctification and healing look like.”
We don’t have a hard time realizing how messed up we are. I know I’m broken. I know I’m deeply flawed. I know I’m not good enough. You don’t need to shout these things out at me.
Jefferson Bethke(it’s Not What You Think)
The Problem with Calvinism’s Story
One of a few problems with Calvinism’s system of explaining salvation is that it starts off in the wrong place. It starts off in Genesis 3 not Genesis 1. In order for something to be broken, it has to have been whole at some point. In order for something to fall, it has to have had been standing right at some point.
Now I am not saying we are not born into sin. What I am saying is that before our identity is ever that of being a sinner deserving of God’s wrath, we are first and foremost creatures created in the image of God deserving of love and respect. Invited to participate and partner with God in all of creation. Before we are totally depraved, we are totally loved. We were made for something more and that is why the gospel is a restoration project like you have never seen before.
I have used and heard this example of salvation being like us stuck in a burning house and Jesus is the firefighter who comes to save us. The problem with this example is that the salvation is that the firefighters are completely removed from the person to begin with. There is no relationship there. There is no “knowing beforehand”. The firefighter and the person stuck in the fire are strangers and it is only at salvation they meet.
The gospel teaches us that we are stuck in the burning house and our big brother comes to save us. There is a previous connection already there. We were loved by our brother before the house went up in flames. And it is because of this previous love that the brother races into the house, sacrificing his own health and well being in the process all so that we can be saved.
The doctrine of total depravity is right and true. I hold to it loosely. Loosely in the sense of I teach it and believe it but only after I teach and believe our starting place is that we are made in the image of God.
What Does This Doctrine Offer Us?
In a world that chases this feeling of being known. The dangerous side of that coin is that in our desire to be known we sometimes want to be celebrated. We want to be worshipped. This should make us scratch our heads when we hear that the number one job kids are dreaming about is that of being an “influencer”.
Status, celebrity, being on top is highly desirable these days and it comes from a brokenness within us I believe. But it goes beyond just aiming to be a famous YouTuber or actor.
Many in our church homes find themselves wrestling with this feeling of celebrity because of how our churches are structured. Celebrity church culture is not something only found at Hillsong, it also found in our small 100 person churches around the world where 1 guy out of 100 people is considered to be “the man”. This man is the answer to all of our problems, the answer to all of our pain and trauma.
What I find beautiful about this doctrine that reveals for us how broken we are is that it humbles me.
In no way can I be boastful in anything I do because I am always remind that it is Christ who is doing things in me.
This affects me in my day to day at the cabinet shop I work at. I am reminded of how ignorant I was to the process of building beforehand and how much of a steep hill I had to climb to get where I am today. I would have been foolish to start off my career acting as if I had it all figured out. I likewise would be foolish if ten years later I still walk in and act like “I have everything figured out” because the reality is I am still learning. I am still course correcting and that is true for our own lives as well.
When you understand what Jesus saved you from, you understand how much humility you should have.
There should be not be an arrogant bone in your body.
The doctrine of Total depravity sets us up rightly with acknowledging the fact that we need a savior. None of us are righteous or good. We are strangers to God and thankfully by the grace of God someone has came to fix that.
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