Grandpa and the Big Meeting

            Well I went with my preacher to a big meeting down at Ridgecrest, North Carolina. It was called a “bridge-building” meeting but they didn’t tell us how to build anything. I told my preacher that I had hoped to get some ideas for a better foot-bridge over the creek in front of my house. He just looked at me and shook his head. He has a hard time knowing when I’m pulling his leg. 

            Anyway, we went to the meeting and it turned out to be about Calvinist Baptists. To tell the truth, I had never heard of Calvinist Baptists and I’ve been a Baptist almost 80 years. I could claim 80 years as a Baptist but you can’t start counting until you are saved and baptized. It took me a little while to figure it out but I soon treed it. It is the doctrine of Uncle Ned and Aunt Mat who go to the Hardshell Baptist Church over on Pine Ridge. I grew up on family arguments over election and free will. Now I’m a Missionary Baptist and always have been and don’t have any interest in turning Hardshell. I got all excited about it when I figured it out but Brother Ron (that’s my preacher) told me that this wasn’t the same thing at all because these Calvinist Baptists weren’t like the Hardshells. These Calvinist Baptists believed in missions and witnessing and were really just good Baptists. Well, I settled down to see what I thought about that.

            The meeting seemed to be between five points Calvinists and less than five point Calvinists. I asked Brother Ron where the Baptists were who didn’t claim any points except just the Bible. He said they weren’t invited to this meeting and maybe they would pick up some points before too long and then they could come. The Five point boys and the less than five points boys kept up a lively discussion for parts of three days but I still wondered what the “Just Believe the Bible” Baptists would have said.

            The five points Calvinist Baptists made their case based on a lot of talk about confessions of faith and they talked a lot about Augustine and a man named John Calvin. Well, after we got back home, I went to the public library and used the internet to look up those two. (Yes, we have internet back here in the mountains now). Boy! I was surprised to learn about where these ideas came from. That Augustine was one of the biggest Catholic theologians and John Calvin started the Presbyterian Church! It turned out that John Calvin believed in a state church and baptizing babies. He was mighty rough on some of our Baptists back then. I wondered if all those Calvinist Baptists knew the whole story on John Calvin.

            Now they also talked about one Baptist preacher named Charles Spurgeon. He was a Baptist preacher in London (England, not Kentucky) a long time ago and a lot of people were saved in his church. He was a big time Calvinist and said that Calvinism was the gospel. Well, you could have fooled me because I thought the gospel was about Jesus. Anyway, they seemed to think modern Baptists should accept Calvinism because this old-time famous preacher believed it. My Mama said you shouldn’t just follow the crowd or you might walk off a cliff. If you are going to decide your doctrine by famous preachers, I guess you will need to get some books put out by that preacher named Joel on the T.V. He seems to have the biggest church of all. I think I’ll just stick with the Bible my Mama gave me when I was saved. 

            Now confessions of faith are O.K. I guess but they can’t take the place of scripture. If your argument depends on quoting a confession it’s not very strong in my opinion. Now the Calvinist Baptists claimed that their doctrine is in the Holy Book but they did the same thing Uncle Ned always did. Uncle Ned would find election behind every bush in the Bible. The problem was, you could only see it if you already believed in his brand of election. I’ll give you an example of how that works. I looked up John Calvin’s Commentary and looked up what he said about John 3:16. Now, Calvin admits that God extends the promise of salvation to “whosoever will” and it means every sinner. That sounds fine until you read on and see that he thinks only the elect are able to respond. He says, “…but the elect alone are they whose eyes God opens…”

(from Calvin's Commentaries, PC Study Bible formatted electronic database Copyright © 2005-2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)  This kind of Bible teaching is what brought on most of those family arguments I mentioned earlier. Pa would say to Uncle Ned, “You can make the Bible say anything if you change it’s plain meaning to suit yourself.” I don’t claim to be a Bible student but I take the plain meaning and I don’t find Hardshell doctrine when I read it.

            Toward the end of the meeting I heard some things I didn’t like. It seems that some of the young preacher-boys are getting out of school and taking churches without speaking plain about their doctrine. I guess most of them know they won’t get hired if they confess to following that Catholic and Presbyterian doctrine. Well, Pa always said a man’s word was his bond. Now that means a lot of things but it includes telling the truth all the time. Giving trick answers to get a job is low down and no true man of God would do it. I say, “Fire any preacher who lies to get his pulpit.” You can quote me on that.

            Another thing I heard toward the end of the meeting that made me wonder about the Hardshell Baptists. Some of the Calvinist Baptists have stopped giving invitations after the preaching in their churches. They say the practice has been abused and led to a lot of people joining the church who are not really elect. Well, I see in the Bible that Jesus said we were to confess him before men and he would confess us before the Father. I know the Hardshells are against giving invitations and when I hear that these modern Calvinist Baptists are following that doctrine, I just wonder how far away the new bunch is from the old Hardshell bunch. 

            It was an interesting meeting and it sounds like we are going to hear a lot more about it. I guess it will be something else to fight over. It seems we Baptists aren’t happy unless we are fighting about something. I guess if the Devil can keep us busy arguing over Calvinism we won’t have as much time to witness and win the lost. Well, if the Calvinist Baptists are right, that won’t matter anyway since only the elect can get saved and they can’t resist.