Johnny - a thought on Calvin.
I am completely allergic to Calvinism from being hit over the head with big chunks of Cornelius Van Til and Francis Schaeffer when I was trying to find a way out of the Fundamentalist mindset. Sectarian Calvinism is a horrible thing… Extreme Calvinists think that all who are not of their party are simply depraved beasts with whom there can be no common ground. There is no common ground between them and us - secular science, for example, may cast doubt on a literal reading of Genesis; but there is no reason to trust this. The people doing the research are depraved and actually not seeing the same data the elect do. This mindset informed Apartheid in South Africa, for example (with a bit of racism thrown in to the recipe). I’ve always found it amusing that some Calvinist’s see Kuyper – the influential nineteenth century Dutch Calvinist - as a moderate and, therefore, a heretic. Kuyper suggested a policy of separate development for Calvinist, Catholic, and Secular communities in Holland. This idea became the root of Apartheid theology (although Kuyper would probably not have condoned apartheid himself). Kuyper was ‘generous’ enough to believe that people who are not of the elect are given a ‘common grace’ by God - which restrains their depravity and enables them to share a world with the elect - culturally, scientifically, and politically. So there can be good relations between the elect and the reprobate in this life -so long as a degree of separation is maintained. But this is all purely for the benefit of the elect - to make their lives comfortable here and now. In the world to come one of the punishments of the reprobate will be their despair at having common grace stripped from them. Nice eh!!!
Is Calvin responsible for all of this? Well some good things have come out of the teachings of John Calvin, like Calvinist Universalism (Barth etc). And if you ever want to read a sympathetic account of old John boy, by an open minded and very intelligent and empathic writer, I’d recommend the essay on Calvin in Marilynne Robinson’s ‘The Death of Adam’ (it certainly softened some of the anger in me).
All the best
Dick
) – but the Eastern view is that we should also see the image of God there, no matter who dimly (and, indeed, it is the light from this that points out the darkness in us without leading us to despair).
– but not one of those Mohican barbarians - and we were all rebelling against the likes of Sir Mick (I hated Punk’s speedy drift towards nihilism but I loved the X-Ray Spex and dear old Polly Styrene – who also got cheesed off with the nihilism and wrote very witty songs about consumerism and alienation and used her loud voice as a weapon to get the message across – and l Ioved/love Reggae ( but not keen on modern Reggae). It was a welcome holiday from being bashed over the head with large chunks of Francis Schaeffer at church!!! 
– is that if this is how we see ourselves, this is how we can view other people and act towards them in accordance with this view. Augustinian stuff has been used to justify all sorts of oppression – on the grounds that oppressive social structures are needed to constrain sin; and we both know about Apartheid theology. I’m aware that the Calvinist preacher in America, John Piper, has said that he used to be racist (and ‘saved’ at the same time). He now realise he was wrong and he and his wife have adopted a black baby girl as a result (poor kid). However, he still thinks that any fight against racism is low down on the list of Christian priorities and should not redirect energies form the more urgent task of evangelising God’s elect. He’s wrong. He wouldn’t have changed his mind about racism is Martin Luther King and not preached the message that black people are Royal People, beloved of God just as much as white people – and this was Wisdom theology. And the fight for social justice and inclusiveness is part and parcel of the gospel because we don’t derive our hope from our division in the old Adam, but from our unity in the New Adam.
I guess the above throws a little light on why I’m so interested in the whole subject of Original Sin and Ancestral Sin, and the ‘nature v nurture’ debate. I do not in any wish to abrogate responsibility for my own failures as a person. But I would like to try and understand better why I behave the way I do sometimes.
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