Calvin vs. Wesley

This post was not prompted by any recent encounter with the Calvinism/Armnianism debate. It is something that has been on my mind since the beginning of my college career. When a new student at SEBC takes their first class dealing with doctrine, they find themselves standing on either side of a theological line. They may not know anything about this heated debate and be stuck straddling the line. That was me. I had never heard of Calvinism or Arminianism in my church or youth ministry. I quickly understood that this was a heated topic for debate and that people felt very strongly about their convictions. I realized that I needed to figure out what I thought about these two schools of thought. I began to read books, lots and lots of books about topics such as atonement, free will, God's knowledge, mans depravity. I read Grace, Faith, and Free Will. I read Chosen By God. This was the book that finally convinced me of reformed theology. I began to see where different denominations fell on this issue. I had people tell me what type of church to go to based on this theology. I really had problems with this. As soon as I took a side, people started drawing denominational lines for me that I was not to cross.

I had run across this denominational discomfort before. After I graduated high school, I became the intern at my home church. I was interning under an interim youth minister at the time and he put me in charge of the back to school event at the end of the summer. I wanted to have an area wide youth rally to focus on the idea of school as a mission field. I called Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Pentecostal churches. We had one other church attend the event and it was Baptist.

A fundamental change in practices is required of the contemporary church in how we network. If a young aspiring pastor plants a baptist church and desires to affect change in the community and unify the local church under the banner of God and does not cross evangelical denominational lines, he will never reach his goal. He may affect change in the baptist community. He may unite a few baptist churches under a banner. He will not unify the body, he will unify the arm. The church must work together. Paul addressed the church at Emphasis or the church at Philipi. These were likely letters to the multiple house churches of entire cities. These churches did not have the luxury of choosing who to work with. They were believers and were united as such. Luxury has been and will be the ruin of the North American Evangelical Church. Our luxury blinds us of the need around us. Luxury is what keeps our hearts docile. God desires a humble heart that will break for him and for what breaks his heart.

We would do well to attempt to return to the look of the Acts church in several ways including the way we network. If we do not, we will remain segregated and docile for the gospel.