New essay book critiques Calvinism

Calvinists and non-Calvinists agree on the central truths of Christianity and should continue to work cooperatively in the Southern Baptist Convention. Nevertheless, Calvinists are wrong in many of their interpretations of Scripture.

That is the claim of "Whosoever Will: A Biblical and Theological Critique of Five-Point Calvinism," a new book published by B&H Academic. Many of the book's chapters are edited versions of presentations made at the John 3:16 Conference held in late 2008 at First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga.

Edited by David Allen and Steve Lemke, the book features chapters by two SBC entity heads?Paige Patterson and Richard Land?and several Texans. Allen is dean of the School of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, and Lemke is provost at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in New Orleans, La.

Part 1 includes a chapter on each of the traditional five points of Calvinism, represented by the acronym TULIP?total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. Part 2 is comprised of additional chapters on issues related to Calvinism.

Five professors at Baptist institutions in Texas contributed chapters to the work: Patterson, president of Southwestern Seminary; Allen; Malcolm Yarnell, associate professor of systematic theology at Southwestern; Alan Streett, W.A. Criswell Chair of Expository Preaching at Criswell College in Dallas; and Kevin Kennedy, assistant professor of theology at Southwestern.

Former SBC president Jerry Vines also contributed a chapter based on John 3:16 while current SBC president Johnny Hunt wrote the foreword.

In their introduction, Allen and Lemke note that Baptist denominations have long included Calvinists and non-Calvinists. While all of the book's contributors are deeply committed non-Calvinists, they have no personal animosity toward Calvinist brothers and sisters, according to the editors.

"The contributors are not 'anti-Calvinist' and therefore are interested in dialogue, not diatribe," Allen and Lemke write. "We have no desire to sweep the SBC clean of Calvinism. Since it has never been?and should never become?a crime to be a Calvinist in the SBC, any and every agenda to remove Calvinism from the SBC needs to be opposed. On the other hand, Calvinism should not be a major focus in the SBC either."

In a chapter on total depravity, Patterson writes that sin causes all humans to stray from God, be unprofitable for God's purposes and lack ultimate peace in their hearts. Yet God's grace gives every human the capacity to believe the gospel, he argues, disagreeing with those Calvinists who say that the new birth precedes faith.

"All people, though totally depraved and unable to do anything to save themselves, receive the witness of Christ lifted up in His atoning work to draw them to the Savior," Patterson writes. "This enablement, together with the witness of the Word of God and the convicting agency of the Holy Spirit, is adequate to elicit faith but may ultimately be resisted by the sinner in his depravity."

Land, president of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and a Houston native who served as academic affairs vice president at Criswell College, argues that the Calvinist model of unconditional election doesn't adequately distinguish between God's corporate election of Israel as his covenant people and his individual election of believers to salvation.

Because God experiences every moment in time as an eternal present, it is wrong to think that he first predestined some to salvation and later saved them, Land writes. He proposes an alternative model of election that he says is "neither fully Calvinist nor remotely Arminian" but which is consistent with the influence of the Sandy Creek revivals on Southern Baptist beliefs.

"I believe God led me to this understanding of election, and it was but a journey of a small distance to this doctrinal destination for a Sandy Creek Baptist," Land writes. "Some would say it was no distance at all."

Allen addresses the doctrine of limited atonement with historical, biblical, theological and practical arguments.