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Two pieces of advice I learned from my seminary theological mentor, a moderately Reformed Baptist, have especially stuck in my mind. During the reception, immediately after the graduation ceremony, Ralph Powell pulled me aside, and in the most touching, grandfatherly way, said: "Roger, don't ever lose your evangelical cutting edge." Knowing I planned to continue my theological education at a secular university, he could think of no better parting advice for his young protege. Nor could I. I have always remembered his charge fondly and tried my best to meet its challenge.

The other piece of advice came earlier. Powell was concerned about my rather firm Arminian beliefs. One day he took me aside and said, "Roger, you should know that Arminianism has usually led to liberal theology." Like many Reformed theologians, he believed that an Arminian emphasis on free will grants too much power to humanity and therefore contains a humanistic impulse. While I appreciated his implicit admonition, I knew from my own experience that this was not entirely true. Ever since, I have strived to prove that Arminian theology and an evangelical cutting edge can be combined comfortably.

Tulip theology—made in Holland
Arminian theology did not begin in Armenia. In fact, it has nothing specifically to do with that part of Asia. Arminianism is a label derived from the name of a Dutch theologian who died in 1609 at the height of a controversy surrounding the doctrine of predestination. Jacob Arminius rejected some of the doctrines of Calvinism while accepting others. He studied under Calvin's successor in Geneva, Theodore Beza, but had come to repudiate some of Beza's beliefs, such as unconditional election and irresistible grace, in favor of conditional election, free will, and prevenient, resistible grace.

Arminius's staunchly Reformed counterpart in theology at the University of Leiden was Franciscus Gomarus—another pupil of Beza's—who insisted that the doctrines Arminius rejected were part and parcel of Reformed theological orthodoxy.

Arminius's followers in Holland were known after his death as the Remonstrants, and some of them formulated a document known as the Remonstrance, in which they detailed their rejection of Gomarus's Calvinist theology. Gomarus's summary of Reformed faith had five points (the famous "TULIP" formula): total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance.

Arminius himself had never denied the first and last of the five points, and his followers debated those among themselves for centuries. Briefly stated, the "five points" rejected by the Remonstrants mean (in order) that humans are all (with the exception of Jesus Christ) born utterly spiritually dead and unable to do anything pleasing to God because of the inheritance of Adam's fallen nature; God has predestined certain people to receive forgiveness and eternal life, and God's selection is in no way conditioned by the elects' lives or decisions; Christ died on the cross to provide atoning sacrifice for the sins only of the elect; God imparts regenerating grace to the elect in such a way that they cannot or will not resist; and the elect of God will persevere in a state of grace unto final salvation.

The leading Re formed ministers and political leaders of the United Provinces of the Netherlands—of which Holland was the most prominent state—met at the Synod of Dort from November 1618 to January 1619 and condemned the Remonstrants as heretics. Dort affirmed the so-called five points of Calvinism as orthodox and forced Arminius's followers either to recant their beliefs in free will, conditional election, resistible grace, and unlimited atonement or be banished from the Reformed Church and from the Nether lands. Some Arminian leaders, such as the Dutch statesman Hugo Grotius, were imprisoned. One was beheaded. In those days it was not as easy to separate theology and politics as we do today.

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September 6 1999, Vol. 43, No. 10