Election Is for Everyone
Michael MullanElection Is for Everyone
When I was a kid my brother and I would sometimes spend part of Saturday handing out gospel tracts in our neighborhood. We were pastor's sons and probably felt some obligation to do it (as it was something promoted in Sunday school and youth group), but I can honestly say we also felt it was our contribution to the kingdom of God.
One of our favorite tracts pictured a voting ballot. The great preacher Herschel Hobbs, known among Southern Baptists as "Mr. Baptist," preached a famous sermon based on that tract on The Baptist Hour in October 1967. His sermon was "God's Election Day," and its main point was: "The devil and God held an election to determine whether or not you would be saved or lost. The devil voted against you and God voted for you. So the vote was a tie. It is up to you to cast the deciding vote."
Without doubt that concept of the doctrine of election has become popular among Christians. After all, we Americans prize our right and freedom to vote. But is that what Scripture means by election? Is the gospel that God votes for our salvation, Satan votes against it, and we—individually, freely—cast the vote that decides our eternal destiny?
Probably not. Some biblical scholars and theologians would say, "Definitely not!" It does seem to trivialize the concept of election and especially God's sovereignty in our salvation. On the other hand, there may be some truth in this way of conceiving the issue, even if it does not do justice to the profundity of the biblical doctrine of election.
Unfortunately, the "doctrine of election" has come to be associated especially, even uniquely, with one particular branch of Christian theology—the one people know as "Reformed." It descends from the Swiss Reformation of the 16th century and most notably from the French reformer John Calvin, who lived in and spiritually led the Swiss city Geneva. Too often, "election" is identified as the distinctive doctrine of Calvinism—as if no other branch of Christianity believes in it.
In fact, it would be impossible to be a Bible-believing Christian without affirming God's electing grace and having a doctrine of election. The same could be said about predestination, often thought of as a synonym for election. The Bible is filled with references to God's choice of people, both individuals and groups. Abraham was not just "called" by God but also "chosen" or "elected" to be the father of God's "chosen people," God's elect nation of Israel (Gen. 12:1-3; Isa. 45:4). The church is the elect of God, chosen for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:5). Paul was clearly chosen by God for apostleship (Acts 9).
It would be no stretch of truth to say that God's election of people is central to the biblical message, to the gospel. And it can safely be said that people's election is God's grace, not human achievement. Nowhere does the Bible even hint that people elect themselves.
'Touched by an Angel' Theology
That brings us back to the gospel tract and Hobbs's sermon. All Christians, not only Calvinists, ought to reject the underlying message that election is a human act or achievement. Theologians have a term for that belief: semi-Pelagianism. It is arguably the default view of both salvation and service among American Christians, especially younger Christians. But all branches of Christianity have condemned it as heresy, because it completely contradicts Scripture.
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David Randall
Election to me is far easier to understand than how some can arrive at the myriad views represented here and still be reading the same Bible. :) Another thing I don't understand is the derivation of the term "evangelical Calvinism" and the description of it as lying between the Arminian and Calvinist views. If this is what I know as the "class election" view (and it sounds like it is) it is much further from Calvin's view than Arminius was, since it denies that individuals (other than Christ) are elect at all. If individuals are not elected, God's foreknowledge is also moot. He has only elected "those who are in Christ" (whoever they might happen to be). From this standpoint the view could coexist quite peacefully with the God of process theology who doesn't know the specifics of the future. At least a God who is omniscient with regard to the future does not seem to be necessary to the view. I imagine classical Calvinist's must be outraged at this appropriation of his name.
Roger McKinney
If the test of validity was the number of verses supporting the position, Arminianism would win hands down. Every passage in which God or a prophet asks people to repent bolsters the Arminian position, because not one time does God or the prophet who begs the people to repent add that they can't repent because God had not made them do it. When Jesus wept over Jerusalem because it refused to believe in him, he never added that of course they couldn't believe because God hadn't chosen them. A devout Calvinist commenting on one such passage in his book wrote that we must keep in mind that people really don't have a choice even if the passage leads us to believe that. What a sad way to have to read the Bible. Calvinism makes a mockery of thousands of pleas from prophets and God to people to repent.
Ted Johnson
It appears to me this is an attempt to make the Arminian position much more palatable to the general Christian audience. I laud his call for less polemics, and more charity, but in doing so, he improperly represents Calvinism by its most extreme statements, and improperly represents popular Arminian belief by saying that they are not seeing their individual decision as determinative. This may be what some theologians say, but the street level proponents of "free-will" believe strongly that their decision is determinative. And this is what he characterizes as "semi-Pelagianism" early in the article, which he says all brands of Christianity have declared as a heresy. This seems a bit oblivious to the reality of what many "free-will" churches actually teach and promote. Also, his statement that election may be construed as "corporate" in Eph 1 as elsewhere in Scripture is a very novel approach to a historic doctrine of personal election to salvation. Just saying...