This is a very well written piece, though Mark “The Cussing Pastor” Driscoll is really just a foil and could have been left out. What drew Mollie Worthen’s attention was not Driscoll’s Calvinism but his assertion that questioning his leadership was a sin. Something tells me that the old “cussing pastor” doesn’t have a Voters Assembly.

Calvinism aside, it’s worth reading the NY Times article (I can’t believe I just said that), because it’s mostly about Driscoll’s rejection of the feminization of Christianity (which I’ll add, parallels the feminization of Western culture as a whole), which is indeed a very serious issue. One can easily argue that what most ails the ELCA (and Western decadence) is an excess of femininity.

I don’t have a problem rejecting limited atonement — I’m unsure it’s even coherent (in what sense can Christ’s death be said to atone for “N” souls and not “N+1″ souls?).
But, frankly, I don’t think for most regular folk that that’s a significant distinction between the Calvinist and the Lutheran doctrines of predestination. Ask the man on the street about the LCMS’s 1932 statement on the “election of grace,” and I suspect that he’ll tell you it’s as offensive to him as the Calvinist’s doctrine of limited atonement:
“[B]y election of grace . . . Scripture means this, that God, before the foundation of the world, from pure grace, because of the redemption of Christ, has chosen for His own a definite number of persons out of the corrupt mass and has determined to bring them through Word and Sacrament, to faith and salvation.”
I am also unsure that an LCMS Christian should be throwing stones at Calvinist denominations like the PCA regarding their orientation toward missions or their work among the poor. I suspect that they’d do pretty well in a head-to-head comparison of per capita giving relative to the LCMS.

All right! I can agree with the rejection of the feminization of the church and any attempts at doing so to the theology. Swearing does not make a pastor any nore of a man than one who does not.
If everyone were to take a Calvinist viewpoint then we have to take this into account . What makes us worthy and others not? When Christ said he would draw all men to himself and that he gave his life for all he was not stating he only did it for the “theological few”. If this is the case then we might as well be Pharisees of the New Testament.

A correction: I was wrong. Upon further review, the original article by Mollie Worten was indeed about Driscoll’s neo-Calvinism along with his manly man Christianity. I think this diagnosis of the “feminization” of the Church is insulting to both men and women. Machismo is as much a distortion of genuine masculinity as feminism is a distortion of genuine femininity. To blame the problems of the Church on “feminization” is more of Adam blaming Eve for his sin.
As for Calvinism, Worten says “Calvinism is a paradox.” This is not a a paradox: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” “God elects some to salvation, others to damnation.” This is simply wrong.

Jim–well said! Also, I think we could have done without this snarky remark: “Every cult convinces its followers that it has the Truth because it’s small and rejected and misunderstood. I am not equating Presbyterians with cultists, mind.” This is a little more than “acerbic,” I think.

I am very disappointed about this article here.

I noticed at Gene Veith’s blog that an Orthodox Presbyterian Church pastor took issue with Sacramone’s fairness. It’s too bad he didn’t comment over here because this “layman” would rather see some pastors continue this debate. Instead, at some sites it degenerates into a couple commentators lobbing snide remarks back and forth. If you don’t see any value in posting the OPC pastor’s remarks, Pastor McCain, please don’t. I do wonder, is it just the fact that Lutherans and Presbyterians are ultimately so far apart that you’d see this as a “well done critique” and the OPC pastor calls it a “hatchet job?” Or does it also reflect some of the flaws in this world of instantaneous “drive-by theology” that we live in? I’m glad some people still care about doctrine enough to understand it’s divisive and leads to heated debates, but at times I wonder how Luther’s 8th Commandment comment about treating “friends and foes” comes into plan. Here’s what the OPC pastor said:
“By the way, while I appreciate Paul McCain’s blog in many ways, I hope you Lutherans don’t really believe the hatchet job that his guest writer did on the doctrine of limited atonement. While the writer may have attended Tim Keller’s church, the presentation of particular redemption– the far better term– was really poor and the only biblical interaction was a sloppy job of proof-texting. Just as the article in the NYT resurrected some of the tired and historically inaccurate pictures of Calvin, the blogger on “cyberbrethren” didn’t give an accurate view of particular redemption, which, I might add, one can actually make a case that Luther held, if you look at his lectures on Romans 9 in the Library of Christian Classics edition, Vol XV (I don’t have the exact references, but it’s in the context of his discussion of the election of Jacob and Esau, around vv. 6-13 of Romans 9). Let’s all make sure we’re accurate in presenting an opposing point of view.”

Sigh. Pr. Cwirla:
1) Is it ever possible for an institution or culture to be too feminine? Ever? The same as it’s possible to be too masculine? It’s not insulting at all. It’s a recognition that we are not complete, either individually or collectively, without the other. If one aspect predominates, it’s unhealthy. The good life is a struggle between extremes.
2) Feminization isn’t limited to women. Men, clergy included, have been driven to be more feminine than masculine.
3) Here are some characteristics I’ll contrast between masculine and feminine (masculine first, feminine second): Macro vs. Micro (Macro = big, abstract ideas, whereas Micro = the smaller, more interpersonal aspects of life); Standards vs. Compassion (Standards = rules, structure, order; whereas Compassion = making allowances for individual differences); Ruggedness vs. Delicacy; etc.. All of those characteristics can be displayed by both men and women, but the feminine best fits women, and the masculine best fits men (“the yoke that fits well”).
4) Ergo, the problem with the ELCA, is too much emphasis on the wants and desires of individuals (micro, compassion, delicacy) at the expense of the institution at large (someone tell us what the ELCA “stands” for, and what the outer boundaries of what is deemed acceptable are).
5) No one here is arguing that swearing and crude talk is the way to be masculine. The point though, is that Driscoll is tapping into a social pathology, and filling a void which isn’t otherwise being recognized, much less confronted.
One good book which addresses the problem within the church, is The Church Impotent, the feminization of Christianity, by Dr. Leon Podles.
DH

And speaking of that quote from Luther’s lectures on Romans 9… How do you view this statement from his commentary, Pr. McCain?
“God will have all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4), and he gave his Son for us men, and he created man for the sake of eternal life. And likewise: Everything is there for man’s sake and he is there for God’s sake in order that he may enjoy him, etc. But this objection [to God’s sovereignty in salvation] and others like it can just as easily be refuted as the first one: because all these sayings must be understood only with respect to the elect [emphasis in original], as the apostle says in 2 Timothy 2:10, “All for the elect.” Christ did not die for absolutely all, for he says: “This is my blood which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20) and “for many” (Mark 14:24)- he did not say: for all- “to the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28). [Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans, translated and edited by Wilhelm Pauck (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), 252.]
McCain: A note to the readers, a common tactic/ploy by Calvinist apologists, or as some of them are known in the Internet community: “watchbloggers” … is to try to throw this quote into any discussion like this as if this somehow proves that Luther is every bit as much a Calvinist as anyone who asserts a limited atonement. Several comments:
1. A comment by Luther does not a doctrinal position make. This is significant for everyone to keep in mind. Trying to take a single quote or passage, or a handful of passages, and make Luther into a “limited atonement” man is sloppy scholarship, at best, and at worse, an intentional deception used to mislead people
2. The doctrine of the Lutheran Church does not consist of a catena of Luther quotes but is found in the Book of Concord, of 1580, which clearly rejects any such notion as “limited atonement.”
3. And finally, better to have a grasp of what Luther actually did, and did not, teach about Election. Here is something from an older journal article by Don Matzat that summarize this point well:
Martin Luther and Predestination:
At the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals gathering this past April, a noted Reformed theologian presented a paper on “grace alone.” He defined “grace alone,” not by the cross of Jesus Christ, but by the doctrine of predestination or election. In the course of his presentation, he attempted to demonstrate that Martin Luther was a participant in the historic Protestant predestination debate. In my estimation he failed to accurately present Luther’s position.
Luther’s approach to predestination, which I happen to believe is the best approach, can be summarized by three points:
1) In dealing with the issue of election or predestination, Luther understood the impasse at which one arrives by retaining the total depravity of man, universal grace, and God’s election of individuals, but he never tried to harmonize the teachings. He feared that he would be forced to make concessions that would violate biblical truth.
Luther believed that divine election was the cause of our salvation. The doctrine was for the comfort of the believer. He wrote: “The human doctrine of free will and of our spiritual powers is futile. The matter (salvation) does not depend on our will but on God’s will and election.”* Since salvation is totally of God’s doing, the doctrine of election comforts those who believe. We can say, “I belong to God! I have been chosen by God. I am one of his sheep!”
While accepting divine election, Luther refused to embrace the logical conclusions that led to an atonement limited to the elect and irresistible grace. He retained universal grace and man’s power to resist and reject the Gospel. For Luther, it was a mystery. Concerning investigating the doctrine he wrote: “we are not allowed to investigate, and even though you were to investigate much, yet you would never find out.”
Luther believed that Christians are eternally secure, but in Christ. After admonishing his readers to continue to look to the cross of Christ, he wrote:
For if you concern yourself with this alone and believe that it has happened for your sake, you will certainly be preserved in this faith…. Look for yourself in Christ alone. . . . Then you will find yourself eternally in him.
2) The doctrine of predestination was not central in Luther’s theology. The substance of sola gratia or “grace alone” was not in the doctrine of election but in the cross of Jesus Christ. He believed that one should follow the systematic presentation of Scripture, especially as illustrated in the Book of Romans. He writes:
In chapters nine, ten, and eleven (of Romans) the apostle teaches about the eternal predestination of God…. Follow the order of this Epistle: first be concerned about Christ and the Gospel, in order to recognize your sin and his grace; then fight against your sins…. Adam must first be quite dead before a man is able to bear this subject and to drink this strong wine. Watch that you do not drink wine while you are still an infant. Every doctrine has its limit, time, and age.
Later Lutheran theologians varied in their positioning of the doctrine of election in their systematic presentation of Biblical doctrine. Francis Pieper, for example, in his three-volume Christian Dogmatics, presented the doctrine of election at the very end of his work, immediately before his section on the end of the age.
3) Luther believed that any debate, discussion, or argument over the doctrine of election should be avoided. He wrote:
A dispute about predestination should be avoided entirely… I forget everything about Christ and God when I come upon these thoughts and actually get to the point to imagining that God is a rogue. We must stay in the word, in which God is revealed to us and salvation is offered, if we believe him. But in thinking about predestination, we forget God . . However, in Christ are hid all the treasures (Col. 2:3); outside him all are locked up. Therefore, we should simply refuse to argue about election.
Such a disputation is so very displeasing to God that he has instituted Baptism, the spoken Word, and the Lord’s Supper to counteract the temptation to engage in it. In these, let us persist and constantly say, I am baptized I believe in Jesus. I care nothing about the disputation concerning predestination.
Martin Luther did not know of the confusion and contentions that would later exist among Christians and the major heresies such as Universalism and the rebirth of Pelagianism that would arise as the result of the debates over the doctrine of predestination. If he had known, he most certainly would have reminded us of his words: “For this you should know: All such suggestions and disputes about predestination are surely of the devil.”
Perhaps the great Reformer John Calvin, if he had been able to see all the contentions that would arise in reaction to his position on predestination, might have stopped where Luther stopped and allowed a mystery to be just that – a mystery!
*All Luther quotes are taken from What Luther Says by Ewald Plass under the heading “Election.”]]

Thanks so much for posting those comments by Matzat. That was a good succinct summary. I’m not even sure why I posed my question above since I know Presbyterians and Lutherans will never find common ground on such issues. (And, as you noted, a citation of one Luther quote isn’t going to flesh out much of anything.)
The Sacramone commentary and the discussion at Gene Veith’s blog were of particular interest to me because a good friend of mine converted to Presbyterianism later in life and even became a pastor in the PCA, and his wife is from Wisconsin and a convert away from Lutheranism. So the issues Matzat raises (along with plenty of others) bring back memories of some past personal debates with friends. Our discussions were heated at times and perhaps if they had been transcribed on the Internet they would have appeared much nastier than they were in person.

Interestingly, Reformed scholars are not at all agreed that John Calvin taught a limited or particular atonement, notwithstanding a few isolated passages that suggest it. Compare, for example, the following: Kevin Dixon Kennedy, Studies in Biblical Literature, 48 (New York: Peter Lang, 2002); G. M. Thomas, (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1997); and Robert A. Peterson, (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1983). Apparently the systematic later Calvinist position is post-Calvin (not unlike a certain trend in Lutheranism from Luther’s own positions, including on Predestination). As has been stated (approximately)–a Luther quote does not a Lutheran doctrine make (and a Lutheran doctrine may not be so clearly developed in every Luther quote!)
I would like to throw into the discussion a statement I was led after fairly careful research to make in a recent paper on the atonement in Luther, Zwingli and Calvin: “It is noteworthy that the Lutheran Formula of Concord in its condemnation of Calvinism never condemns the Reformed doctrine regarding the atonement, indeed does not identify a teaching of a limited atonement as a threat to pure teaching of the gospel in the many specifics of Calvinist teaching that it condemns.” In other words, was the Calvinist teaching of limited atonement really post-1577? Or did the writers of the Formula miss it or ignore it? Or am I just plain wrong?

This article is not helpful. The caricature of Calvinism in the article is almost unforgivable. All Christians must struggle with the problem of God’s complete foreknowledge and sovereignty, yet the existence of evil. After all… our Savior is the lamb slain before the foundations of the world, not slain as a reaction to humans surprising God and thwarting God’s plan. God ultimately allows sin, albeit is not its author, and therefore created people knowing that they will go to hell. Why did the all powerful God create a world with that possibility?
By the way, Calvinists agree that people are condemned to hell because of their evil actions. Reprobation is God letting them stay in their sin. Lutherans should agree that grace is not something that God MUST give everyone, because it is not owed to anyone… so you cannot fault the Calvinist on that point either.
And then there is Romans 9. “Good luck” with that.

Mark despite the last centuries obsession with the young Luther you have to ballence young Luther against the mature development of his theology. The idea of limited atonement did not begin with Calvin but many loyal sons of the Roman Church had taught this doctrine all the way back to Augustine. So it would not be surpising at all for a loyal Roman Catholic monk in the Augustinian order to teach something like this at all. It would not have raised any hackles or caused any sort of ruckus. There is great debate as to Luther’s understanding of the Gospel at the time of his commentary of Romans. He had not yet begun his work as the reformer and before the 20th century obsession with young Luther most would have dated his discovery of the Gsopel as occuring after these lectures. So if before Luther understood the Gospel in its purity as the imputed alian righteousness of Christ imputed to ungodly siners and recieved by faith alone he believed in limited atonement again that would not be surpising. But as the Reformer pointing the way for men to find assurance of salvation he would point hearers to the universal promises of the Gospel and Christ crucified for a world of lost sinners.

I received my undergraduate degree in management engineering at Grove City College, in Grove City, PA. Grove City College is a good college, loosely affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and very conservative, but it was in my required Religion 101 class that I had my first enounter with classic Calvinism and that from perhaps the most Calvinistic Professor on campus. Always consistent to his reformed theology, he presented his doctrines on the sovereignty of God, double predestination and the limited atonement to a class of naive, “wet-behind the ear” freshmen. I can still remember sitting in class dumbfounded and more than disturbed by what I was hearing. I witnessed girls who were actually crying as they left class. Guys were angry and upset. Why? Because the God of love they thought they knew was now being called into question.
In one of his lectures on God’s absolute sovereignty, in which he posited that God was even above his own Word and could act contrary to His Word, the professor was asked a question by another student: “Is it possible that at the end of all time, on the day of judgment, God could say, “Ha, Ha, boys and girls, the joke is on you, you are all going to hell. None of you are going to be saved.” The Professor thought a moment and said, “Theoretically that is possible, but in my heart I know that He will not do that.” What a great comfort it was to us (not!) that the professor’s heart told him otherwise. According to him then, our only hope that God would not do this was to be found in the assurance that the Professor felt in his heart, or at the very least, in some kind of assurance that we might be able to muster on our own.
One thing I have learned is that classic Calvinism closes the Bible. It literally shuts down the Gospel. Except for teaching us some laws and rules for good behavior, the Bible, under strict Calvinism, cannot be the source of our knowledge and assurance of God’s favor in Christ. That there are Christians among even the strictest of the Reformed can only be due to their own failure to follow their own doctrine. Under Calvinism, I can never come to the Bible and discover whether God loves me or not. I cannot discover that even from John 3:16, whether Christ died for me or not. The objectivity of Scripture is lost. The object of my faith becomes altogether subjective. I now have to find a “Word” behind the Word of God that tells me that God is for me. I have to look for the Spirit to talk to me beyond the Words of the Bible. The arrogant may be able to find some kind of assurance of God’s love this way, but those beaten and trembling under the weight of their sin are left helpless in despair. Nor is the truly calvinistic preacher any help to them. He can’t preach Christ to troubled souls, because he can never really know if Christ died for his hearers or not. Like my Professor. I can still remember how he remained consistent to the very end when he gave us his “Gospel” invitation on the last day of class, “All I can tell you,” He said, “is to consider Jesus. See if He might be your Savior.” Despite the emptiness of this message, I give him credit. In a world where few remain faithful to their confession, he did.
Ironically, that professor has helped me to see the Gospel more clearly,and, for me as a pastor, the Lutheran importance of the objective nature of the means of Grace.

Macro/Micro; Standards/Compassion; Rugged/Delicate? Hmmm. Mighty odd categories, if you ask me, especially Standards/Compassion, which is more of an ethical distinction (deontological vs teleological). If these were true gender distinctions one would expect personality assessments to parallel gender, but they don’t. Of the four Jungian pairings: E/I, N/S, F/T, and P/J, only the Feeling/Thinking pair shows any gender distinctions with more women being Feeling (F) and more men being Thinking (T) in how they render decisions. (This is NOT the same as being “emotional.”) Looking at SJ and SP, which comprise 78% of the total population, the distribution is evenly distributed between genders. The “intuitives” (N) are also evenly divided, though there are predictably more female NFs and more male NTs.
Then of course, there is this:
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience…” (Col 3:12)

“And then there is Romans 9. “Good luck” with that.”
This is hardly a problem, since Romans 9 doesn’t deal with God’s election to salvation but His sovereign selection of people to serve specific roles in salvation history to show that it is by grace and not by Law (second-born Jacob over Esau, etc). Romans 11:32 is the clincher: “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all,” though I suppose one can always argue that “all” doesn’t mean “all” and “is” doesn’t mean “is.”

Some of what I’ve read here is merely a characterization of Calvinism. I’m not a TULIP Calvinist, but have been a member of churches with a pretty strong Calvinist influence. I’ve never been in a Calvinist church where I’ve heard anything other than salvation by grace alone through faith in Christ alone; and that faith is a gift from God, not something I’ve come to by my own powers. Sure, you’ll find some extreme teachings by some Calvinists, just as you’ll find some unbiblical teachings on say, sanctification, taught by Lutherans.
I prefer the approach taken by the White Horse Inn — confessional Reformed and Lutherans getting together and realizing how much they have in common, without compromising on the points that divide them.

I second that. I love the WHI approach. As a Calvinist, I acknowledge that we need balance from our Lutheran brothers. Predestination should never be central. It is biblical, but not central. Christ and the message of the cross is central. Thank you to my Lutheran brothers for reminding us that Jesus Christ is of supreme importance.

Hello,
I am strongly opposed to Calvinism and lately started another blog committed to refuting the doctrines of grace on the basis of the scripures. I just wrote a post on Calvinism’s treatment of Rom. 8:28-30, golden chain of redemption. The calvinistic interpretation thereof surely doesn’t hold water. I’m gonna deal with Rom. 9 as well soon.
Feel free to visit….
-a helmet