The Tulip Trap

[Pilgrim]

Here's an interesting article I read the other day that may lend some perspective to our recent controversy over Arminianism, etc. It is by Conrad Murrell and it also addresses why we see fewer conversions in Calvinistic churches today as compared with the ministries of Whitefield, Edwards, Spurgeon, etc.

I'd like to post the whole article, but it's too long. So I will post the most pertinent passages. Here is the intro that sets the stage for the rest of the paper.

Arthur Wellesley, the brilliant British General who stopped Napoleon at Waterloo, had already posted an incredible record of battlefield victories against enemy armies greatly superior in numbers. When asked how he achieved consistent success without defeat, he replied, "œI never engage an enemy on grounds I cannot hold. I will retreat and wait until I can control the place and terms of the battle."
The late D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, whom I believe to be the keenest Bible expositor of modern times, had a similar strategy toward the many liberal churchmen, philosophers and atheists who opposed his ministry and wanted to have a try at his remarkable mind. He flatly refuses the "œfireside chat" forums and the public exhibition debates as settings that could only cheapen and trivialize the gospel he revered. When he did engage these enemies of truth, he utterly devastated them. "œI will not begin a discussion with them," he said, "œon philosophical grounds or using their terminology. I make them come to the Bible and state their arguments in strictly scriptural terms." He never lost a battle when the grounds and terms were the inspired word of God.
This is a profound principle, and imminently worthy of our adoption. It is a little realized, but well used tactic of the devil, to create a commotion off to the side, attract our attention, and draw us apart from our Spirit-let course. The enemy, then having chosen the ground and dictated the terms, proceeds to give us a sound walloping. Stung by defeat, we then regroup, reorganize (often with more and better flesh), and to at him again and again. Even when we "œwin" we have lost, for he has succeeded in diverting us from our God-ordered task. He, not we or God, has decided where our energies will be spent. And when we come away, smiling and feeling more than a little puffed up about "œputting down error", we usually have a creed or a doctrine that is stated in the most negative, provocative and unscriptural terms imaginable . . . something we would never have come up with from straightforward Bible study. We should have been better off by following the wise example of Nehemiah, who declined the council proposed by his enemies with, "œI am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?" (Nehemiah 6:3)

[Edited on 2-15-2006 by Pilgrim]

[Edited on 2-15-2006 by Pilgrim]

 

[Pilgrim]

Here's the heart of his argument. He's mainly aiming at those who seem to end up preaching practically every week on the 5 points, as well as those who won't tolerate any other preaching. But there are lesser degrees of infection with this disease than that, and no doubt we all have been affected with this to some degree at one time or the other. For most, this symptom is generally most pronounced during the "cage stage," but some seem to never progress beyond it.

I know that I am taking the Boss Bull by the horns in making these remarks; but I have been preaching in Sovereign Grace meetings for over twenty years. Sadly enough, in many of them, it seems that the main objective is to get your Calvinistic itch scratched. Oh, all the proper cosmetics are applied in the promotions: "œTo glorify God and humble the pride of man", "œBack to the faith of the founding fathers", "œRecovery of sound Bible doctrine". But if the required buzz-words (Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, Preservation of the Saints), are not liberally sounded in the message, one is suspected of being a "œrank Arminian"; and in this company, one had rather be accused of being unscriptural than of being unCalvinistic. And that is no exaggeration!!!
The dearth of conversions in modern day Calvinistic churches is not without cause. Most of what little growth we experience comes in the form of people who were converted under Arminian preaching and are now being converted to Calvinism. This is not surprising, since most of our preaching is conducive to making theological converts rather than gospel converts. Rarely, indeed, do we see a soul converted to Christ under contemporary "œfive point" grace preaching. I well know that few people are being soundly converted today, and that most Arminian evangelism is man-centered and produces many spurious decisions. But even after discounting all that shallow, superficial flesh, most people do come to Christ under a ministry uncluttered with the terminology of the councils and synods. The curse causeless does not come.
I have qualified such Calvinistic preaching as contemporary and modern day. For God did, indeed, greatly use Calvinistic preaching in the 18th century revivals and in the 19th century missionary movement. But one does not have to read too much of the preaching of that day before he is made aware of a stark contrast between it and most "œSovereign Grace" preaching of today.
Afire with the love of God and horrified with the monstrosity that passed itself off as Christianity in their day, Edwards, Prelinghuysen, Tennet, Whitfield and scores of others brought the scowls and thunders of Mt. Sinai to men´s eyes and ears. They magnified a holy, offended God, held men out over the flames of hell, extolled the beauties, glories, comforts and entreaties of a sufficient and seeking Saviour, and entreated men to come to Christ. Whitfield preached, "œYe must be born again", not as "œTotal Depravity" or "œIrresistible Grace", but as it is in the Bible, "œYe must be born again". Spurgeon´s sermons are loved by Calvinist and Arminian alike, for though he was a Calvinist, he preached in Bible terms with an evangelist´s heart. And God blessed his labors as He has no other Baptist preacher´s.
We, on the other hand, sound as if we had understood the Lord to say, "œGo ye into all the world and stamp out Arminianism." Thoroughly disgusted with the travesty of the gospel which modern popular Christendom calls evangelism, we strike out against "œdecisionism", declaring that salvation is determined by God´s election, not man´s decision. We decry "œfreewillism", asserting the total inability of man to will anything godly. We attack implicit synergism: "œGod has done His part. Now you must do yours." "œIf you will take the first step, God will do the rest," affirming that Bible salvation is all of God and none of man. We do preach that Christ died for sinners, but quickly add, "œonly for some sinners". We demand that our hearers repent of their sins, but warn them that they must first be granted repentance. We urge them to come to Christ, but assure them that they cannot come until they are irresistibly drawn by the Holy Spirit. We are so anxious that our evangelism be strictly theologically correct according to the orthodox doctrines and creeds, that we dull its cutting edge, chill its fire, and either bore our audiences to sleep or confuse them to despair with seeming antinomies. As well intentioned as this may be, it is not Biblical preaching. We use our Bible as a textbook, but feel constrained to interpret every verse as a statement of one of the five points. We preach, not so much the Christ of the Bible, as the Christ of the Creeds, We preach, not so much salvation for lost sinners, but high theology of salvation. And we are constantly quenching the smoking flax and breaking the bruised reed with our cold and brittle fixations.

[Edited on 2-15-2006 by Pilgrim]

 

[SolaScriptura]

I don't agree with everything he writes... and unfortunately, I think that those on this site who most need to read his words will not be able to get themselves past the objectionable parts to interact with the meat of his essay.

Nonetheless, I think this was my favorite part:

The dearth of conversions in modern day Calvinistic churches is not without cause. Most of what little growth we experience comes in the form of people who were converted under Arminian preaching and are now being converted to Calvinism. This is not surprising, since most of our preaching is conducive to making theological converts rather than gospel converts. Rarely, indeed, do we see a soul converted to Christ under contemporary "œfive point" grace preaching. I well know that few people are being soundly converted today, and that most Arminian evangelism is man-centered and produces many spurious decisions. But even after discounting all that shallow, superficial flesh, most people do come to Christ under a ministry uncluttered with the terminology of the councils and synods. The curse causeless does not come.
I have qualified such Calvinistic preaching as contemporary and modern day. For God did, indeed, greatly use Calvinistic preaching in the 18th century revivals and in the 19th century missionary movement. But one does not have to read too much of the preaching of that day before he is made aware of a stark contrast between it and most "œSovereign Grace" preaching of today.
Afire with the love of God and horrified with the monstrosity that passed itself off as Christianity in their day, Edwards, Prelinghuysen, Tennet, Whitfield and scores of others brought the scowls and thunders of Mt. Sinai to men´s eyes and ears. They magnified a holy, offended God, held men out over the flames of hell, extolled the beauties, glories, comforts and entreaties of a sufficient and seeking Saviour, and entreated men to come to Christ. Whitfield preached, "œYe must be born again", not as "œTotal Depravity" or "œIrresistible Grace", but as it is in the Bible, "œYe must be born again". Spurgeon´s sermons are loved by Calvinist and Arminian alike, for though he was a Calvinist, he preached in Bible terms with an evangelist´s heart. And God blessed his labors as He has no other Baptist preacher´s.
We, on the other hand, sound as if we had understood the Lord to say, "œGo ye into all the world and stamp out Arminianism." Thoroughly disgusted with the travesty of the gospel which modern popular Christendom calls evangelism, we strike out against "œdecisionism", declaring that salvation is determined by God´s election, not man´s decision. We decry "œfreewillism", asserting the total inability of man to will anything godly. We attack implicit synergism: "œGod has done His part. Now you must do yours." "œIf you will take the first step, God will do the rest," affirming that Bible salvation is all of God and none of man. We do preach that Christ died for sinners, but quickly add, "œonly for some sinners". We demand that our hearers repent of their sins, but warn them that they must first be granted repentance. We urge them to come to Christ, but assure them that they cannot come until they are irresistibly drawn by the Holy Spirit. We are so anxious that our evangelism be strictly theologically correct according to the orthodox doctrines and creeds, that we dull its cutting edge, chill its fire, and either bore our audiences to sleep or confuse them to despair with seeming antinomies. As well intentioned as this may be, it is not Biblical preaching. We use our Bible as a textbook, but feel constrained to interpret every verse as a statement of one of the five points. We preach, not so much the Christ of the Bible, as the Christ of the Creeds, We preach, not so much salvation for lost sinners, but high theology of salvation. And we are constantly quenching the smoking flax and breaking the bruised reed with our cold and brittle fixations.

So true!!!

 

[Pilgrim]

Originally posted by SolaScriptura
I don't agree with everything he writes... and unfortunately, I think that those on this site who most need to read his words will not be able to get themselves past the objectionable parts to interact with the meat of his essay.

I don't agree with every jot and tittle either, but I think the main thrust of his argument here is sound.

[Edited on 2-15-2006 by Pilgrim]

 

[RamistThomist]

A girl at his church, M.D., gave me some of his books. They were really good stuff. I went to one of those bible conferences in Bentley. I really enjoyed it.

 

[cupotea]

could someone post the link to this artcile? I googled and found nothing.

 

[turmeric]

http://www.graceandtruthenterprises.homestead.com/Gatepost85to94.html
For whatever reason I couldn't seem to copy the web address of the actual article but there's a link to it at the address I posted.

 

[fredtgreco]

Here is the actual link:

http://www.graceandtruthenterprises.homestead.com/files/Gatepost/14/The_Tulip_Trap_14-2.doc

It is a 36kb MS Word Doc.

 

[raderag]

I may agree with some of his points, but I find his premise to be utterly false:

It is worthy of consideration that all these grand convocations of great ecclesiastical minds occurred in the Established Churches, "œHigh Churchanity", the hybrid that resulted from Constantinian combination of Church and State. The outcasts, heretics, the pure Christianity that refused to be a part of this apostasy, never had any such councils. We have no derived creeds and dogmas left us by the Donatists, Paulicians, Bogomils, Cathars, Waldensans, Lollards, or Anabaptists. They had no councils because they needed none. They were doing quite well with the word of God as it was; and have, for the most part, just knocked along with the Bible and Biblical terminology. Which is precisely what has kept them out of the popular Church that has the blessing of the worldly Establishment. It is in these non-Catholic non-Protestant, non-Reformed, out-of-the-mainline churches that true Christian life and ministry still survives, while the great Protestant denominations which gave us the creeds, doctrines and formulations, apostatize and die. Could this be because the latter get to thinking more of their creedal statements than they do the Bible?

There heretics are the real Christians? Give me a break.

 

[polemic_turtle]

Has anyone read Leonard Verduin's "The Reformers and Their Stepchildren"? It would seem that he said about the same thing as directly above, only, he cited quotes from the Reformers that would chill most modern minds. From what I've read in his biography, John Owen was pretty revolutionary in the area of freedom of conscience, which was an area that hadn't been very reformed before his time. Your thoughts?

And, oh yea, I find this fellow's point at least partially correct in that, as Calvinists, we're not making many actual conversions from heathen to Reformed, but are rather attracting those who were converted under Arminian principles, but grew convinced they were wrong and recognized the truth in our doctrine. I don't know about much more than my church, but we don't have very many baptisms a year. On the other hand, just about the same exact doctrine is resulting in dozens overseas in the Phillipines and India. It could be Americans are cynical. :-\

[Edited on 3-27-2006 by polemic_turtle]

 

[Archlute]

It sounds like the circles in which he runs are not as reformed as they may think. Another instance of a group of people wanting call themselves "Calvinists" due to merely affirming the "five points", all the while rejecting the ecumenical creeds and councils of the Church, a covenantal understanding of Scripture, and disdaining reformed polity and scholarship. If you don't hold to those elements as well, yes indeed, your preaching will surely be a one-note trumpet. I hear elements of "no creed but the bible!!!" in his article.

It would be interesting to have him explicate what he means by "gospel conversions" vs. "theological conversions". For every true conversion is a theological conversion, it's just that in regeneration the Holy Spirit is exchanging your pagan theology for the true theology (knowledge of God) of Christian Trinitarianism. This may indicate that conversions from an Arminian to a Reformed theology are merely continued conversions from a semi-pagan theology to a truly Christian theology.

 

[polemic_turtle]

Originally posted by Archlute
It would be interesting to have him explicate what he means by "gospel conversions" vs. "theological conversions". For every true conversion is a theological conversion, it's just that in regeneration the Holy Spirit is exchanging your pagan theology for the true theology (knowledge of God) of Christian Trinitarianism. This may indicate that conversions from an Arminian to a Reformed theology are merely continued conversions from a semi-pagan theology to a truly Christian theology.

I would understand the distinction being that although a person's heart may be converted, his head might not be, even to the point so that even though he maintains that God forces Himself on no-one, he almost, if not actually, prays that God will convert a loved one in spite of what that loved one thinks; so, even though his head is Arminian, his heart is Calvinist. "Change his heart, Lord", not, "Whisper thou in his ear, but not so much as to cloud his thinking and to obscure his right to refuse you, Lord."

When a person comes to accept what every true Christian desires to believe in their hearts( is that saying too much? ), I suppose that would be called a "theological conversion", a conversion of the intellect to accept the Grand Sovereignty of God, as opposed to a "gospel conversion", which is the regeneration of the soul/heart. I suppose that's what he means.

 

[Pilgrim]

Originally posted by Archlute
It sounds like the circles in which he runs are not as reformed as they may think. Another instance of a group of people wanting call themselves "Calvinists" due to merely affirming the "five points", all the while rejecting the ecumenical creeds and councils of the Church, a covenantal understanding of Scripture, and disdaining reformed polity and scholarship. If you don't hold to those elements as well, yes indeed, your preaching will surely be a one-note trumpet. I hear elements of "no creed but the bible!!!" in his article.

It would be interesting to have him explicate what he means by "gospel conversions" vs. "theological conversions". For every true conversion is a theological conversion, it's just that in regeneration the Holy Spirit is exchanging your pagan theology for the true theology (knowledge of God) of Christian Trinitarianism. This may indicate that conversions from an Arminian to a Reformed theology are merely continued conversions from a semi-pagan theology to a truly Christian theology.

You are correct that he is not Reformed and he would reject the term. But I also think his main point in the article (the part I posted) about preaching is generally sound and not dependent on the other opinions that he advances in the article about church history, etc.

I think what he may mean by theological vs. gospel conversions is that it is possible to believe the facts about the gospel or even Calvinism and yet be unregenerate, and especially that we see few who were not previously Christians come to Christ in Calvinistic churches.

Since he is baptistic, he is mainly (though perhaps not exclusively) reporting on conditions in Sovereign Grace Baptist churches that he was familiar with at that time. Unfortunately, many of them do tend to be a "one note trumpet" that continually emphasize the 5 points to the exclusion of the whole counsel of God, whether they subscribe to a creed or not.

[Edited on 3-28-2006 by Pilgrim]

 

[fitzage]

I grew up in rather Arminian leaning churches, and I must say that this dearth is not completely the Calvinists problem. There weren't many conversions in the churches I grew up in either, despite all the evangelistic crusades and such.

 

[Pilgrim]

Originally posted by fitzage
I grew up in rather Arminian leaning churches, and I must say that this dearth is not completely the Calvinists problem. There weren't many conversions in the churches I grew up in either, despite all the evangelistic crusades and such.

No doubt about it.