When I had an opportunity to preach at the SBC Pastor’s Conference several years ago, I took the opportunity to take a swipe at Calvinism and have wished ever since I had not.  Any believer who is reformed is my brother and we will spend eternity together, and I should treat them with the respect any brother in Christ deserves. 

            That being said I am not a Calvinist for a number of reasons, the most prominent being the denigration of faith that they commit.  They confuse action with meritorious deeds by making them the same, and they are not.  Scripture makes it plain that in response to the eternal sovereign work of God I must believe in order to be saved.  My belief does not merit salvation, it does not make me worthy of salvation, it merely receives the salvation offered from before the foundations of the earth.  That is the one and only condition required in order to receive the saving, regenerating benefits of grace.  Granted on the timeline of salvation, it is a very small spec of difference between believing in order to be regenerated and being regenerated in order to believe.  But the Bible makes this spec of difference significant, and for me it will always keep me out of the Calvinist camp.

            I have many days when I wish all of us Christians believed everything alike.  But that would be as too good to be true as Bernie Madoff’s returns on investment.  So in the meantime, I remain anchored in the Biblical necessity of faith and in love with my reformed brethren. 

            What about you? What do you think about Calvinism?