Calvinism in a Small Town

Growing up I knew very little about the different theologies that permeated the "Christian" population. I knew my little town and the few churches that were in it. You might say I grew up in Mayberry. It was an extremely small town in Indiana where everyone knew or knew of everyone else. Ft. Branch was a town with almost 1000 people back then. Before computers, before cell phones, before the internet - a town that time forgot. And I say that with a grateful heart. We were a good 20 to 30 years behind the rest of the "civilized" world. A town situated in the middle of corn fields and fishing holes. There was one main grocery store and a smaller grocery, neither of which would be considered a "supermarket" for sure. You might say we had 1 1/2 grocery stores. The town had an old time candy store complete with a crooked and warped genuine wooden floor that sloped as you crossed it. There you could buy hard candy, gum and a slew of homemade goodies. We called it "Granny's Candy Store". The town had a train track that came through several times a day that was so timely you could set your watch by it. You knew what time of day it was by when that train came through the town. Right next to that train track, downtown was a coffee shop/hamburger joint that served the absolute best hamburgers a man could eat. I've never tasted a burger that good since.

In that little town, we also had a Catholic church, a couple of General Baptist churches, a small Southern Baptist church, a Lutheran, a Wesleyan, a Holiness church, a Presbyterian and a Nazarene church. There might have been another one or two, but I don't remember another one. A lot of churches for such a little town. My family was General Baptist. The GBs and the Catholics seemed to have majority rule in those days. The other churches were considered "fringe" and it was commonly known that they believed some "oddball" things when it came to the Bible. Each one had it's own reputation. The Holiness and the Wesleyans were on the "wild" side. The Catholics were, well, Catholics. Nobody could seem to explain what the Nazarenes and the Lutherans believed. The little Southern Baptist church, no one seemed to know too much about. However, the Presbyterian church was known as the "Calvinists". To a General Baptist, that was not a positive thing. Back then, you were either Catholic or Baptist. Everybody else was considered a tad "off" or "weird".

These were also the days when T.V. preachers were the entertainment for "Christians" who sinned and didn't attend church on a given Sunday morning. Back then it was Rex Humbard, Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy, Crystal Cathedral, Oral Roberts. Of course, there was always Billy Graham. Then along came Jimmy Swaggart and a host of Pentecostal and Charismatic preachers when cable came along. The broader the exposure, the more "strange" was the doctrine.

Now, with the explosion of technology, we are exposed to every form of bizarre

and crazy goofiness imaginable. Up to about the 1980s, one particular form of doctrine remained on the list of "fringe" doctrines - Calvinism. Pentecostal and Charismatic movements were more accepted and known more than Calvinism. But with the explosion of the internet and cell phones, etc. came this teaching that seemed to have the same vocabulary as the other mainline traditional denominations and it was beginning to take off due to some high profile preachers like John Piper, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, etc.

Quickly it became the "in thing" to follow these type of Bible teachers. They were educated, good orators, pastoral, godly and well respected. More and more people began to repeat their teachings and this "new" form of doctrine began to seep into places it never existed in. It was also at a time that the largest Evangelical denomination in the world underwent a transformation. The Southern Baptist Convention had been hijacked by a host of non-believers and liberal theologians who had turned a once conservative, Bible believing entity into a laughing stock. During the 70s & 80s, the SBC would undergo a massive transformation again, This time, back to the roots from whence it came. Conservative Bible believing, godly leaders, rescued the SBC from the liberal filth that had infected the convention. But along with that transformation came some who were not quite inline with Traditional Southern Baptist theology. These were Reformed Baptists. They held to the T.U.L.I.P. of Calvinism. Later, on the Baptist Faith & Message committee, there would be tension between them and the Traditional Southern Baptist leaders as to certain wording that would be contained in the BF&M 2000. The end result of that doctrinal statement saw the final result worded in such a way that whether you were a Traditional Southern Baptist or a Calvinist, you could affirm the statement. We will address that unfortunate tragedy at a future time. But, with the growing number of people following these new celebrities, along with the newly rescued SBC attracting more and more Calvinists and their seminaries now promoting this form of theology, the theological landscape changed dramatically. And, let me say, not for the better. Many have discovered that even though they may have the same vocabulary as the majority of Christianity, they most certainly have a different dictionary. The consequences of this form of doctrine are devastating. In our next blog, we will look at some of the terms they use and how they distort and confuse the very truth of the gospel and the character of God.