What Love Is This?

Book excerpt: Many sincere, Bible-believing Christians are Calvinists only by default. Thinking that the only choice is between Calvinism (with its presumed doctrine of eternal security) and Arminianism (with its teaching that salvation can be lost), and confident of Christ's promise to keep eternally those who believe in Him, they therefore consider themselves to be Calvinists. It takes only a few simple questions to discover that most Christians are largely unaware of what John Calvin and his early followers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries actually believed and practiced. Nor do they fully understand what most of today's leading Calvinists believe. Although there are disputed variations of the Calvinist doctrine, among its chief proponents (whom we quote extensively in context) there is general agreement on certain core beliefs. Many evangelicals who think they are Calvinists will be surprised to learn of Calvin's belief in salvation through infant baptism and of his grossly un-Christian behavior, at times, as the "Protestant Pope" of Geneva, Switzerland. Most shocking of all, however, is Calvinism's misrepresentation of God, who "is love." It is our prayer that this volume will enable readers to examine more carefully the vital issues involved and to follow God's holy Word­--not man's teachings. "The first edition of this book was greeted by fervent opposition and criticism from Calvinists. In this enlarged and revised edition I have endeavored to respond to the critics." --Dave Hunt