Who Elects?

Let me start off on the right foot.  If you are a fan of free-will in salvation, I love you.  I was one of you.  I would have gladly sat with you in a public place and tore into “Calvinism” until we ran out of ways to tear into “Calvinism” and had to complain about how much we hate the Yankees.  But now, I can’t.  I did what my pastors hoped I’d never do and went – gasp! – Reformed!

Why do we hate Calvin, especially in places like Bible Belt Amarillo where I am from?  Some will say it is the pride of some Calvinists who engage in intellectual snobbery, and while there is some truth to that, let’s not push this off on other people.  The answer is simply our pride.  Calvinism, or Reformed Theology, says, simply that Jesus saves sinners from beginning to end.  He died on the cross, rose from the dead, and chose those who would follow him.  We don’t like that last part.  It interferes with our ideas about “democracy” and is designed to humble us.  We, in America especially, are the electors.  We don’t have a king!  So why would religion be any different from politics?  In fact, after the American Revolution, “Reformed” or “Calvinist” denominations such as Lutheranism and Presbyterianism took a huge hit while Methodism and non-Reformed Baptists surged. 

WE ARROGANTLY LIKE TO BE THE ONES WHO PICK OUR LEADERS

The Economist, a British newspaper, last year in an article titled “The New Calvins” if the Southern Baptists were going to go “Reformed” or not.  I asked the same question in a public forum and I received an angry response from a woman insisting Jesus had died for her sin not Calvin.  I found this interesting since the question wasn’t will the Baptists chose Calvin over against Jesus, but rather would they tolerate the idea that Jesus chose them over against them choosing Jesus.  But the anger was not unexpected.  What this woman was really saying was that she chose Jesus and would not tolerate a view that says Jesus chose her.  She is proud of her decision for Christ.  She democratically elected her ruler.  This idea is not unique; we arrogantly like to be the ones who pick our leaders.  If you didn’t vote for Obama, you are probably stewing until 2012 when you have a chance to drive him from office.  I don’t know how many “Impeach Bush” or “1-20-2009: Bush’s Last Day” bumper stickers I’ve seen.  If we aren’t in charge, it ticks us off!

Unfortunately, this concept is not well imported to biblical theology.  We don’t choose Jesus, the Bible says, because “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:4-5 ESV, emphasis mine).”  Last I checked, unless some serious voter fraud is involved, dead people don’t get to vote!  They also can’t perform the heart transplant on themselves that God does when he “remove[s] the heart of stone from their flesh and give[s] them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19 ESV).  Beat that Jarvik!  Jesus is a gracious God who storms into a burning building to save his people who have already choked on the flames of a fire they caused, drags their lifeless bodies away and trades his life for theirs as he pushes the Holy Spirit – who in Scripture is described beautifully as a wind or breath in the Hebrew or Greek – into their lungs in order to resuscitate them.

When we fail to see this picture and dwell on how we made and awesome decision for Christ, our pride begins to move beyond our decision-making abilities to how well we live our lives: how “perfect” our families are, how we don’t smoke or drink, how we never use curse words, and all the while we alienate a world that is hurting and broken and we drive them away with our arrogant “Culture Wars” rather than proclaiming a hero Jesus who doesn’t stand idly by waiting for his people to make decisions Romans 3:11 says they won’t make.  We have a hero King; let’s proclaim his saving grace from beginning to end even if we didn’t elect him.