[This series is "The 9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult" split up into smaller, individual posts.]
Cults are authoritarian (disagreeing with or opposing the leaders is not allowed), and cult leaders are malignant narcissists.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association - in the article "How do cults differ from Christianity?" - lists these things as characteristics of a cult (my paraphrase):
Cults reject the basic beliefs of the Chistian faith. They act like they alone have the truth and that we must come to them to get it. They have their own writings which they add to the Bible or replace the Bible with. They have a strong leader who demands obedience and claims to speak for God.
Now, of course, Calvinists don't reject the basic beliefs of the Bible; they just redefine them, qualify them, or add other layers to them until they become something completely different.
And they do believe they have the truth. But don't we all? We all think we have "the truth." No one willingly believes a lie.
But what makes Calvinism different than mere Christianity is this:
In mere Christianity, the Bible is for everyone, God's truth is for everyone, the gospel is for everyone. Anyone can read the Bible and learn for themselves God's truths that He revealed to us, and anyone can be saved by it.
But in Calvinism, it's only for the elect. No one can understand Calvinism's hidden gospel or their deeper Scriptural "truths" without their help, because it's not clearly, plainly in the Bible for all to see. (And only the elect can and will see "the truth" and be saved.) This makes Calvinists "the keepers of the truth" (as they define truth).
I believe this plays into the "authoritarian" side of Calvinism, the underlying vibe of "we are the authorities, we have the truth, we tell you how to think." Not all of them give off this vibe openly and obviously, of course, but it is inherent in their theology.
Now of course, many Calvinist pastors don't claim to "speak for God" (some do). Many do their best to present a humble posture. There are lots of articles on Calvinist websites calling Calvinist pastors to be humble and loving and gracious, etc.
But I think that while they might not outright claim that they speak for God - that they are "the authority" - they do say it in other ways, such as when they call themselves "the biblical, God-centered truth" or when they act like it's absolutely necessary that we study Calvinist writings to properly understand the Bible.
They may not admit to it, but Calvinists (especially leaders) don't have a high view of the average Christian, of our ability to read and understand Scripture. To them, we are simpletons who need them and their big Calvinist books and their months-long Calvinist classes to help us understand what God supposedly meant to say.
[My Calvinist pastor wrote a post once about how dangerous it is for Christians to study the Bible on their own without the aid of theological resources, without theologians who are smarter than us helping us understand the Bible. When he wrote it, I didn't know he was a Calvinist. But now that I do, I can see why he would write something like that: gaslighting. "You can't trust your discernment, so trust ours!"]
In their eyes, we need them to carefully, gently, covertly reform our thinking. We need them to hide/obscure their true beliefs and agendas - because if they revealed it all up front, we might overreact and let our emotions get in the way. We might let our biblical "ignorance," pride, and un-humbleness keep us from "the truth." And so they simply must be stealthy about leading us into Calvinism - "for our own good, of course."
As "Saint" PJ puts it in his 9Marks article, Calvinist pastors are "burdened by [the] biblical and theological illiteracy" of those who don't believe in Calvinism. [Oh, the poor things - burdened with fixing the mess the rest of us Christians are!]
The Calvinist author in this article against non-Calvinist Dave Hunt says that if we agree with the non-Calvinist view of the Bible, we are "unsuspecting and uneducated." (I critiqued this article in my post "My review of a Calvinist review of an Anti-Calvinist book.")
And in that 9Marks article "Calvinist Pastors and Non-Calvinist Churches: Candidating, Pastoring, and Moving On" - the Calvinist author posits that anti-Calvinists are anti-Calvinists because when we researched Calvinism online, we put our trust in ourselves and in strangers online ["internet hotheads"]. In the eyes of Calvinists, we couldn't possibly research or understand theology correctly without their help. [Actually, we couldn't reach Calvinist conclusions about God's Word without their help. No wonder they insist so much that we shouldn't study Scripture without them!)
I'm not saying the internet always leads us correctly - it doesn't! - so we need to be careful and discerning. But Calvinists do not think that we common, tiny Christians have the ability to research theology, understand God's Word, and come to an educated opinion on our own, without the help of theologically-superior Calvinist pastors and theologian. (Who needs the Holy Spirit to help us understand things and guide us into truth (John 14:25, 16:13) when we've got Calvinist pastors!)
In Doctrine of Election, Calvinist A.W. Pink says "Unless we are privileged to sit under the ministry of some Spirit-taught servant of God, who presents the truth [the doctrine of election] to us systematically, great pains and diligence are called for in the searching of the Scriptures, so that we may collect and tabulate their scattered statements on this subject. It has not pleased the Holy Spirit to give us one complete and orderly setting forth of the doctrine of election, but instead 'here a little, there a little—... No novice is competent to present this subject in its scriptural perspective and proportions."
This is telling! He's basically saying that the Calvinist doctrine of election is not clearly and obviously taught in any place in Scripture, that it has to be scraped together in bits and pieces, and that we would have a hard time finding it without the help of a Calvinist teacher systematically leading us through the Bible. (Duh!) So it takes a highly educated expert to teach these things, because the average common Christian cannot understand or learn them on their own.
This confirms two things: The sense of pride and spiritual authority that Calvinists have, and the fact that Calvinism is not clearly, easily found in the Bible and so people have to be educated into it by other Calvinists. Very revealing! (Is God's Word, the gospel, meant to be so painful, so difficult to read and understand? Or is it only that way because of the damage Calvinism does to it?)
Shouldn't it alarm us that, according to Calvinists, we're biblically-illiterate if we disagree with them and that none of us can really understand the Bible or the gospel until we've gone through months of study with them and their Calvinist literature?
And yet what does God's Word say? John 20:31: "But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."
Notice that it's not "But these are written so that Calvinists can take you through months of studying it alongside big, complicated Calvinist books so that you can figure out what God really meant to say, so that you may believe - if you are one of the elect."
That's much different, isn't it?
(Here's one person's look at Calvinism's trap of intellectual pride: "Origen's Revenge".)
And this flows into the next point, about cults having their own writings that they add to the Bible or replace it with.
The Jehovah's Witnesses have the Watchtower publications and their own translation of the Bible (New World Translation). The Mormons have the Bible and the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price which supersede the Bible. Christian Scientists have the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures, which also supersedes the Bible.
And Calvinists have Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, Grudem's Systematic Theology, Spurgeon's and MacArthur's writings (and others), and confessions like the Westminster Confession, Synods of Dort, etc.
Yes, they have the Bible and see the Bible as authoritative, but they cannot see (or admit) that they hold up the teachings of men to almost "Bible level." And I would even go so far as to say that their Calvinist writings (those "big, meaty" theology books) actually supersede the Bible - because Calvinists view/interpret the Bible through them (which is the only way to read Calvinism into the Bible to the extent they do).
In that "10 things to know about the psychology of cults" article, it says "Cults satisfy the desire for absolute answers."
What do you think those massive Calvinists theology books are for? It's to make you feel like you are learning deep, rich, complex answers to biblical "mysteries" and to so many of our questions about life, God, and faith. And in order to learn these things, we have to go to Calvinists - not just the Bible - for the answers. (However, many of the things they write are really just to try to fix the problems and contradictions they first created.)
Calvinist's have their "giants of the faith," their golden calves - Spurgeon, Calvin, MacArthur, Piper, Packer, Pink, Grudem, Sproul, etc. - and don't you dare question them or think they're wrong!
Because if you do, watch how shocked, offended, or insulted Calvinists get, almost as if you'd said that you believe God is a baboon or Jesus was a woman.
And so if you ask a particularly difficult question or point out a contradiction in their theology, you'll probably get an answer like "Well, MacArthur (or Grudem or Piper or Packer or Sproul or whoever) says..."
Such as, when you ask how they think God can cause sin but not be responsible for it, they'll say "Well, the Westminster Confession says that God ordains everything that comes to pass but that He is not the author of sin." (As if that's not a contradiction!)
Well, I don't care what the men who wrote their opinions down in the Westminster Confession say. I don't care what MacArthur or Grudem or Piper say. I don't care what Spurgeon or Augustine or Calvin said.
I care about what the Bible says... and about the damage Calvinists do to it. I care that they teach people to read the Bible through other men's writings. I care that they stealthily and strategically maneuver people into Calvinism using deception, manipulation, double-talk, bad interpretations of Scripture, etc. I care that they shame people into not questioning them, into not thinking for themselves, and into not researching the Bible for themselves. I care about how when you challenge the contradictions Calvinism creates, they think it suffices to give you answers that aren't really answers at all but that are just meant to shut you up. I care that Calvinism gaslights people, making us feel like we cannot trust our own ability to reason or think through things or understand the Bible, thereby ensuring that we go to them for the answers. I care that Calvinism manipulates good, well-meaning, humble, naive, trusting Christians into unwittingly joining a cult(ish), when all we really wanted to do was honor God and learn more of God's Word.
You know, Calvinists love to say "sola Scriptura" - Scripture alone! - but what they really mean is "Scripture through the eyes of Calvinists."
[Calvinists won't think that they read the Bible through Calvinist lenses. But you'd be surprised at how often we all read the Bible through previously-held ideas, assumptions, misconceptions, presuppositions, philosophical ideas, etc., instead of reading what it really says. Try this sometime when you're reading the Bible: Ask yourself what you are assuming about it from the beginning or what you're reading into it that might not really be there. And see what you learn. Also see 12 Tips on how to think critically about Calvinism.]
You know, I was just thinking today of the verse "knowledge puffs up." And I totally think this is what happens when studying those big Calvinist theology books. People spend months learning a lot of information through Calvinist books and sermons and videos, etc., and it makes them feel smarter, more spiritual. It puffs them up. But what they don't realize is that it's all air, all emptiness. They mistake learning lots of information for growing in the faith, in truth, and growing closer to God.
Imagine you wanted to study world history - to get really good at it and to feel closer to the world because of it. And so someone took you through an intensive study of some big, meaty, complicated, history books... of Middle-earth. You read The Book of Lost Tales and The Lays of Beleriand and others. You devoured The Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. You wrestled with some of the difficult, disturbing aspects of it all. You know all the history of Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, the Ents, the Wizards, Sauron, Numenor, Gondolin, Valinor, etc. Maybe you even learned to read Elvish.
You gained so much knowledge and feel so close to the people and events of history because of it... until you sit down to take an official test on world history and realize that you've got nothing.
Sadly, you were learning all the wrong things. And as a consequence, you missed out on all the right things. But you didn't realize it at the time because you were deceived by, enchanted by, how much knowledge you were gaining.
I think Calvinism is like that. Calvinists think that all the knowledge they are gaining means they are growing in the faith, in truth ... until they wake up one day and realize that their faith is on life-support, that it's been starving all this time for real truth and hope. And yet they couldn't feel it through all the information they were learning.
Furthermore: It's one thing to recommend the books, resources, and theologians we like. As I said before, there's nothing particularly bad about Calvinist pastors recommending Calvinist resources or teaching what they believe (as long as they're upfront about their beliefs). That's to be expected from anyone who strongly believes in something.
But when Calvinist tactics really cross a line is when they don't allow disagreement or when they silence or kick out those who disagree with them. This is a whole different level of control, because it's not just "here's what I think," it's "you're not allowed to think anything else." (Of course, Calvinist do this in more subtle, gentle ways than extreme cults.)
Our Calvinist pastor would regularly tell us that when it came to the "truth" of predestination (his Calvinist definition of it), we only had three options: we could ignore it, get angry about it, or accept it.
Clearly, disagreeing with him was not allowed.
[He had given a sermon where he essentially taught that babies who die go to hell because they couldn't repent, but then he immediately wrote a post on the church blog saying that babies who die might really go to heaven. I'm thinking he got hammered after the sermon and had to do some damage control. But I couldn't let this go unchallenged, letting him think that he pulled the wool over our eyes, and so I called him out for it in a comment on the church blog (not so politely). And of course, they didn't publish it (but I saved it because I expected that). And then they stopped allowing comments altogether (but I didn't expect that). (Click here for my belief about the "age of accountability.")]
When I saw my predestination comment removed, I knew it was the nail in the coffin for us. We could've stayed there if they allowed open discussion about this, but it was clear that they wouldn't. So not only was he filling the church library with Calvinist books and quoting almost solely from Calvinist theologians and roping everyone into Calvinist Indoctrination classes or "sermon-based" small groups, but now he was not allowing opposing ideas to be heard, not allowing someone to openly disagree with him and to point out why they disagree from the Bible. (It wouldn't have bothered me so much if my comment never got posted in the first place. But it's very telling to me that it was posted but then deleted.)
And my husband and I couldn't, in good conscience, stay at a church that demanded having such a tight grip on what people are allowed to think and on what views they're allowed to share. And we couldn't keep our kids there. We couldn't teach them, by example, that compromising God's Word and the gospel is okay. We couldn't let them grow up in a Calvinism-saturated environment any longer. (Remember: Saturation leads to slow and subtle subjugation.) We had to resign.
Thankfully, for us, we chose to resign and there was little drama over it. Some people are not so lucky. Some people are forced out of the church because they dared to question the pastor, the authority. Here is one such story: Excommunicated for Exposing Stealth Calvinism (video).
(Interestingly, after we resigned and my husband left his youth-leadership position, he ran into someone from church who asked him if he was enjoying his break. Apparently, instead of telling people that he resigned - which would raise eyebrows and questions - they must've been telling people that he was taking a break. Clever!)
I think what makes me saddest about leaving our church is not just the isolation we feel and having to start over, but it's also that it hands them over to Calvinism's stronghold even more. When all those who disagree with Calvinism leave or are silenced or forced out, all that's left are those who agree with it (or who appear to agree with it), and the Calvinism grows stronger. (But maybe that's for the better - because when Calvinism is more "out in the open," incoming people will know what they're getting into because the Calvinists won't have to be deceptive and stealthy anymore. They can be bold and open and obvious.) Sadly, though, this makes those who still secretly disagree or struggle with Calvinism feel more alone, more hopeless, more suffocated. It's sad.
But there is a time for everything: a time to stay and fight, and a time to shake the dust from your feet and run for the hills.
"Cult leaders are malignant narcissists":
Hahaha, I'll just leave it at that, only adding this:
Or you know what? Maybe I'll quote High-Calvinist John MacArthur talking about Alana L who studied the Bible on her own and discovered that Calvinism is wrong and spoke out about it. [MacArthur doesn't call her out by name, but it's obvious whom he's talking about if you know the whole story.]
In a video, he said this about her: "You know I was looking at the internet the other day and some wistful girl said 'How I became a Calvinist and left Calvinism'... well, the sophomoric comment ["pretentious or juvenile," I looked it up] like that, from somebody who should keep her thoughts to herself because she has no idea what she's talking about, is to be measured against someone who for 50 years has taken every text of the Bible and put doctrine into that text and see if it survives. And I can say that it has." [Translation: "Don't listen to that ignorant, uneducated girl, but listen to me, to someone who's proven that Calvinism is true."]
Prideful much!?! It's like "No one questions ME! Don't you know who I am!?! Who is this tiny, stupid girl who comes out against me, a spiritual giant of the faith? Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks?"
[And MacArthur is bad enough, but what gets me almost even more is the adoring fan sitting next to him in this video clip (from Great Light Studios, at the 2:30 minute-mark), chuckling and nodding his head in approval and admiration, almost like "May I worship at your feet, Johnny? May I kiss your ring, Johnny? May I prechew your food for you, Johnny?"
For those in Calvinist churches (9Marks' churches, in particular), be forewarned that disagreeing with the doctrinal views of the Calvinist pastors and telling people about it could be a serious enough offense to get you disciplined by the church. This 9Marks article (A Church Discipline Primer) shares one preacher's list of what the church should discipline, and notice that it includes: "the denial of Christian doctrine... [and] the stirring up of division," both of which could be accusations leveled against Christians who disagree with Calvinism and who tell others about it. Calvinist churches might discipline you for this because, in their eyes, they are protecting the gospel against those of us who "mislead both the world and other sheep about Christianity."
And on a related note: Oh funny! Today in my normal Bible reading, I stumbled across high-and-mighty Calvinist leaders summed up in one verse: "[The Pharisees] replied, 'You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out." (John 9:34)
That, folks, is Calvinism in one verse!
[I guess we can find Calvinism in the Bible after all! 😄]
And I'll also requote a line from that "Reformed by the Word..." article where the Calvinist pastor says "As I was soon to discover, reshaping a church from its man-centered assumptions to a God-centered Gospel is rarely done without opposition and pain."
Can you hear the "I am the authority, the leader, the hero" undertone in this?
Calvinist pastors labor under the (delusional) burden of "It's my job to fix this church, for God's sake. I will lead the tiny, lost, stupid, man-centered sheep into the Calvinist Promised Land. Come hell or high water, I will rescue this church!"
For more on this, here are some videos, articles, or blog posts from other people who also think there are huge problems with Calvinism, that it's cult-like, or that there may be something "off" with Calvinist pastors:
Calvinism and Narcissism Link Examined (Beyond the Fundamentals video, 1 hour, 50 minutes. I found this and watched it after I wrote my post. It's really good and relates to a lot of what I say in this post.)
Pulpit Narcissism vs Godly Women, video from Brian at Faith on Fire. Watch it to the end - it's good (but disturbing). Well said, Brian! (Also from Brian: Christian Apostacy & Cults: Calvinism, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses)
Narcissism + Christianity = Calvinism
Extraordinary Christian testimonies that expose John MacArthur's church as a mind control cult
