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There is nothing whatever in "Celebration" that "rules out the Arminian doctrine of faith as an exercise of free will." The free will that is enabled by grace is strongly affirmed in "Celebration" in a way that is totally accept able to patristic and Reformation teaching. The statement "our faith itself is the fruit of God's grace" is not only unobjectionable to Wesleyans and Arminians, but moreso it is thoroughly in accord with patristic teachers such as Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen and Augustine, and with Luther, Calvin, and their Anglican and Methodist followers.
A great deal is at stake in the question of the extent to which the children of Dort and the children of Arminius are able to come in good conscience to consensus in a way no longer dominated by outmoded defensiveness and bitterness. "Celebration" found agreement in language that satisfied both parties' concerns by showing that they have more in common than previously realized. Why would not our critic wish to see such an irenic effort succeed where three hundred years of polemics have despoiled and embittered the Protestant consensus fidelium?
Careful students of Jacob Arminius are not satisfied with nineteenth-century stereotypes and have shown Arminius's theology to be understood as a type of Calvinism and not rightly viewed as in opposition to Calvinism (although he was resistant to specific points of the Counter-Remonstrance, which represents another type of Calvinism). Only a few defensive Wesleyans and self-declared Arminians still insist on pitting Arminian exegesis strictly against Calvin and Calvinism. As Dort is a type of Calvinism, so is Arminianism.
It is an exaggerated and defensive and tendentious reading of "Celebration" that leads the critic to conclude that "such evangelicals" as Arminians are being "kept outside the fold." No such intent is present or even implied in the confession. Prominent Wesleyans and Pentecostals and Charismatics have not felt such an exclusion. They have indeed voluntarily signed the document in good conscience. The critic feels that Arminians cannot "knowingly endorse" "Celebration." Why then did so many do so? Does the critic think that they did not read it, or that he knows better how to read it for them than they do themselves? Does he question their integrity? Are the very people he is trying to defend uninformed about their true beliefs? Hardly.
The critic dislikes repetition in "Celebration." There may indeed be some repetition in the document, but any document that goes through a multi-layered review and editorial process is likely to wind up with some repetition. It should be pointed out to one who dislikes repetition that he himself has repeated the phrase numerous times that this is a "strongly Reformed" document with a tone and stamp that "rules out" Arminian believers. But there is in fact no "denial of evangelical citizenship to freewillers" in "Celebration."
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