Here is the shorter version of my "9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult" post. I took out almost all the memes and quotes and my comments and the Bible verses and links, leaving just enough to give you a full-enough picture. But I highly recommend reading the original version someday, if you haven't already, because it's quite eye-opening. At least, I think so. But it does take almost 3 hours to read, which is why I made this short one. [And here are links to the individual long chapters: #1 deception ... #2 hidden agendas ... #3 multiple layers ... #4 strategic tactics ... #5 isolation and control ... #6 fear/coercion ... #7 mind-control/thought-reform ... #8 gaslighting ... #9 authoritarian narcissists ... conclusion and links]
A Psychology Today article - Understanding Cults: The Basics - shares some characteristics of cults and how they operate (I've condensed some of them here to three main points):
1. No one knowingly, voluntarily joins a cult, but they are "recruited" into it by cult leaders who take advantage of the vulnerabilities of the recruits, using deception and manipulation to suck them in.
2. Cults use isolation, control, fear, coercion, mind-control, and thought-reform to enslave the members to the cult. The members' "inner voices" are suppressed.
3. Cults are authoritarian (disagreeing with or opposing the leader is not allowed), and cult leaders are malignant narcissists.
And I think this kinda fits Calvinism, especially Stealth Calvinism. And so, based on these, I came up with 9 marks that I think identify Calvinism as a cult. Or more accurately, "cult-ish." You decide if you agree or disagree.
But don't take my word about any of this. Who am I? I'm nobody. Don't trust me. Dig into the research and Bible for yourself before forming your conclusions. Be a good Berean!
“Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11)
[FYI: I am not judging the hearts of Calvinists here or saying that they're not truly saved or that there's nothing good in Calvinism. But I am judging/examining the errors and cult-like methods of Calvinism itself (Stealth Calvinism, in particular), how they use manipulation and deception to sucker Christians into Calvinism and to subversively get into non-Calvinist churches (even if they're doing it unintentionally).]
1. Using deception to get into a church
Stealth Calvinism gets into our churches in deceptive ways, such as when an elder board hires a known Calvinist pastor but hides it from the congregation or when a Calvinist hides his Calvinism from everyone to get hired at a non-Calvinist church - and then the Calvinist pastor slowly maneuvers the church into Calvinism without our awareness.
Dr. Nelson L. Price's post "Covert Calvinists" (with some minor punctuation changes for better clarity) points out that "Many [Calvinists] have worked their way into local churches as covert Calvinists. They seem to operate on a 'no ask, no tell' basis. If representatives of a local church don't know what a Calvinist believes and how to ask questions, subversion often occurs. Once a Calvinist pastor comes into a church, his approach seems to be not to preach it from the pulpit but to mentor (or if you prefer 'disciple') cell groups, until their base is perceived to be strong enough to go public... [And] from among those they indoctrinated, they seek to establish elders in order that they might have a group of power brokers."
In fact, various Calvinist theologians and organizations even encourage Calvinist pastors to hide that they're Calvinists teaching Calvinism because "labels will just confuse people, the people won't understand, they'll just react emotionally, blah, blah, blah." (So it's our fault they need to be deceptive?)
Calvinist John Piper (in his article "Saying what you believe is clearer than saying Calvinist") does it: "But that label ["Calvinism"] is not nearly as useful as telling people what you actually believe! So forget the label..."
Calvinist Thomas Schreiner does it (in this YouTube clip) when he tells Calvinists to call themselves "biblical" instead of Calvinist.
Founder's Ministries, a Calvinist organization, does it in their "how to reform a church" plan: "avoid terms such as Calvinism, reformed, doctrines of grace, particular redemption, etc."
In a post at SBC Voices ("Why I'm Wary of Calvinists"), the author says, "in my experience Calvinist pastors have minimized their Calvinist beliefs with search committees in order to gain a pulpit... [they] obfuscate, finesse, dart and weave." He also wisely adds: "I would absolutely advise any church to be thorough enough in their search process to determine a prospective pastor’s beliefs on Calvinism. I know that Calvinists generally eschew the term ‘Calvinist’ in favor of other labels and descriptors. Laypeople must be savvy enough to understand the vocabulary." [Can I get an "Amen"!]
Stealth Calvinists know how to hide their true beliefs, to answer on different levels so that they're not "lying" (they're being deceptive but not exactly lying), to deflect uncomfortable questions, to turn it back on us, to redirect the conversation, to keep us talking in circles, and to masterfully spin their answers to appear to fix their contradictions and make their unbiblical, illogical ideas seem biblical and logical.
Here's my favorite example of Stealth Calvinism: "Saint" PJ's deceptions and manipulations." It's about a self-professed 7-point Calvinist who played dumb about the definition of Calvinism when asked if he was a Calvinist and who took advantage of poorly-worded questions to get into a church that outright said it didn't want a Calvinist pastor, tricking them into thinking he wasn't a Calvinist when he definitely was. Shameful! And even worse is that he did it deliberately, is proud of it, and is encouraging others to do it too. Even more shameful!
And here's one more major one: Calvinists will try as much as possible - with subtle word games that escape most people - to make it sound like they teach that Jesus's death is for all people. But they never truly mean this. They always mean that Jesus's death was merely for all kinds of people from all over the world, the elect from all nations. Never all individual people.
[And when they do say and mean "Jesus died for all people," they really only mean that Jesus died for the non-elect in theory, but not in any real, practical way that can benefit them. It would be like if I said I gave a starving man food, but I failed to mention that he was already dead or that I first sewed his mouth shut and tied his hands together so that he couldn't actually eat the food. But still... I wouldn't technically be lying when I said "I gave him food," would I? It's all about the details, about what I left out.]
And so when Calvinists talk about the gospel - about its beauty, joy, hope, power, ability to save and bring healing, etc. - remember that, in Calvinism, the gospel is only for the elect. Jesus's death is only for the elect.
As A.W. Pink says in Doctrine of Election: "... it is unmistakably evident that the 'all men' God wills to be saved and for whom Christ died are all men without regard to national distinctions..." And "It is to call the elect that the Scriptures are given, that ministers are sent, that the gospel is preached, and the Holy Spirit is here..."
John MacArthur at the 2010 Shepherd's conference (see in the first video here, from Discerning the World, starting at the 8:20-minute mark, about why Calvinists should evangelize if God elected who would be saved): "... I will not resolve the problem of the lost other than to do what the Scripture tells me to do... and that is that the Bible affirms to me that God loves the world, the specific people in the world, the specific human beings. I don't know who they are. Spurgeon said 'if you'll pull up their shirts and show me an 'E" stamped on their back and I know the elect, then I'll limit my work to them.' But since there is no such stamp, I am committed to obey the command to preach the gospel to every creature... But I don't think it's a good solution to diminish the nature of the atonement and have Jesus dying for everybody.... "
And from the second video: "There are those who God loves and there are those who God hates. Obviously!... Hullo!" (Robert Morey, a creepy dude!) and "You know that wonderful statement that goes something like this: 'God loves the sinner and hates the sin'?... That's not [what Scripture] teaches, sorry... It does not say here that God's hatred is manifested towards the wicked deed. It says that God's hatred is manifested towards the one who commits the deed... [So] how can anyone be saved? Here's our answer: the cross of Jesus Christ... [Christ] died the death of His people..." (Paul Washer)
"His people" is Calvinist-lingo for "the elect." So Jesus died only for the elect, and God apparently hates everyone else. In Calvinism.
And if that's not clear enough: "As a sin-bearing sacrifice, Jesus died a substitutionary death in the place of God’s elect. On the cross, He propitiated the righteous anger of God toward the elect... Jesus’ death did not merely make all mankind potentially savable. Nor did His death simply achieve a hypothetical benefit that may or may not be accepted. Neither did His death merely make all mankind redeemable. Instead, Jesus actually redeemed a specific people through His death, securing and guaranteeing their salvation. Not a drop of Jesus’ blood was shed in vain. He truly saved all for whom He died... With oneness of purpose, the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit into the world to apply this salvation to those chosen and redeemed." (Steven Lawson, Salvation is of the Lord)
(Anyone else feeling a little sad, heartsick, and disgusted right now?)
Many a church has been "recruited" into Calvinism without its awareness or consent by a Stealth Calvinist pastor who came in through deceptive means, taking advantage of the church's ignorance, naivete, and trust.
A mark of a cult leader.
(See my post about how to tell if a church, pastor, or website is Calvinist. And for a great overview of Calvinism - what it really teaches and how it goes wrong - see Patrick Myers' article "The Bible vs. Calvinism: An Overview.")
2. Hidden Agendas
Not only do Stealth Calvinist pastors get into churches using deception, but they come in with the hidden agenda to reform the church, to slowly drag it into Calvinism without the awareness of the people.
A post called "The Church Infected with Calvinism" shares this:
"This third scenario [of how Calvinism infects a church] is all too common. There are websites that instruct Calvinistic preachers who accept calls to non-Calvinistic churches on how to gradually 'acclimate' the church to Calvinism. I saw one website with a two-year, month-by-month plan for the stealth Calvinist to take a non-Calvinistic church into 'Reformed Theology' land. It's almost cult-like and certainly deceptive... While the Calvinistic pastor is crafting pulpit content to fortify his philosophical arguments, he will simultaneously be about the business of looking for and mentoring members of the congregation who are now open to Calvinistic logic. He'll slowly but surely transform as many of these folks as possible into full-blown Calvinists and, when possible, put them in places of church leadership, especially teaching positions... With the leadership of the church and a majority of the congregation now in league with him, the plan of transition is complete. The objectors, who are now in the minority, are powerless to reverse the Calvinistic course." [Yep, we've seen it happen.]
As that said, Calvinists have published plans for how to take over a church, such as this one from Founders Ministries ("Walking without Slipping") and this one from 9Marks ("A Roadmap for Church Reform"), both very Calvinist. (And FYI, I'm not picking on 9Marks with the title of my post. I'm picking on 9Marks and all other Calvinist organizations and Stealth Calvinists, too.)
These plans include suggestions like (my paraphrase) "Don't use words that will identify you as a Calvinist. Reform key people in the church first so that they can help reform others. Fill the church with Calvinist literature. Modify the membership list. Change the church's laws. Etc."
As the Founders Ministries' plan says: "Avoid terms such as Calvinism, reformed, doctrines of grace, particular redemption, etc. Most people will not know what you are talking about. Many that do will become inflamed against you. Teach your people the biblical truth of these doctrines without providing distracting labels for them."
Stealth Calvinists are most definitely and deliberately pushing Calvinism on the church, but they're hiding that they're doing it because they don't want pushback.
This post from Wartburg Watch - "How to figure out if your non-Calvinist or non-Authoritarian church is being taken over" - shares one person's experience of a stealth Calvinist take-over: "A few years ago, I realized that a church I attended was being co opted by the Calvinistas. I knew that the majority of the members were not Calvinists but quickly discovered that the newest elders of the church were and had planned to hire a New Calvinist pastor. At the meet and greet for the new pastor, they asked us to submit, in writing, questions for the soon to be lead pastor. All of the questions were asked except for mine because 'they ran out of time.' My question was simply: Are you a Calvinist?... Sadly, these new elders and some former pastors did not inform the congregation that their theology was about to change. This sort of gamesmanship is despicable for so-called Christians."
[And for a few more stories of Calvinism sneaking into and taking over churches, see Stealth Calvinism in Oklahoma (video) and How the Young, Restless, and Reformed Split My Church (video) and Church Takeover Success Using Strategies from the Calvinista Playbook and Spiritual Abuse in EFCA: Review of Once an Insider by Amanda Farmer.]
The thing is, to Calvinists, Calvinism is Christianity. Christianity is Calvinism. So they will always be teaching Calvinism. But if they think you'll resist, they'll simply tear off the label so that you can't tell what they're spoon-feeding you.
3. Multiple Layers for Maximum Deception
In Calvinism, there are always layers, at least two: the one they want you to see and the one they don't. What they say and what they mean. What they want you to think they really believe and what they really believe.
If you read this article by John Piper, you'll notice how somewhat sweet and humble he makes his hard-core Calvinism seem. But do you notice what's missing?
The flipside. The bad parts. The parts that would raise most Christians' red flags. The thing is, he's only sharing one layer of Calvinism, only telling the story from the side of the Calvinist elect and God's relationship to them. But he hides the deeper, darker layer, completely ignoring how God relates to the non-elect. [And why do Calvinist pastors hide the bad parts or sugar-coat them? "For our own good," because we "won't understand." And so they simply must be deceptive. (Hogwash!)]
If Calvinist teachings sound like "good news," it's only because they're telling it from the perspective of "the elect." And only the elect.
Calvinism has a biblical surface layer we'd all agree with, but then it has a deeper, hidden layer underneath which contradicts, negates, or totally alters the surface layer. There's always a hidden "but" behind everything they say, such as ...
"Yes, God tells all people to seek Him, to repent, to believe... But He didn't mean that we have the ability to seek Him or repent/believe on our own. He decides who will believe and who won't, and He is the one who causes the elect - and only the elect - to seek Him, repent, and believe. But He makes sure the non-elect can never do these things."
And "Yes, we are responsible for our sins. We choose to do what we want to do, and so we choose to sin because we want to sin. God does not force anyone to sin or to reject Him... But God has predestined everything that happens, even our sins and unbelief, and we can only do what He predestined we'd do. But He does not force us to sin or to reject Him - because He doesn't have to. We make our choices according to our nature, according to the desires that He built into the nature that He gave us. And so if He gave you the unregenerated-sinner nature, it comes only with the built-in desires to sin and reject God, which means that's the only thing you can want to do, which means that's the only thing you can 'choose' to do. But God will still hold you responsible for it. We can't understand it, but we just have to accept it, even if it causes tension. It's a mystery."
At first, Calvinists will reveal only the biblical surface layer. And it hooks us. It makes us think we're all saying the same thing, all on the same page. And this will make us trust them more, let our guard down, take off our critical-thinking cap, turn down our red-flag radar, and accept what they say. Because we all believe the same things, right?
And before we know it, we're being slowly drawn into Calvinism's deeper, unbiblical layers without realizing it, through their use of clever-sounding arguments, strategically-worded questions, carefully-chosen-but-misinterpreted verses, etc.
The thing us, you cannot take Calvinists at face-value because they don't take Scripture at face-value. They think the Bible has a deeper, hidden layer, and so their theology has deeper, hidden layers. But since their deeper layers contain some alarming things that contradict or negate the surface layer they first told you, they hide it as long as possible - until they think you're brainwashed enough to accept it.
In Stealth Calvinism, there is enough indications of Calvinism that those in-the-know will catch on, but these indications are obscured enough that those not-in-the-know won't. This is one reason why Calvinism spreads like it does and often goes unnoticed and unopposed. And it's very cult-like.
[If their deeper layers are so biblical and God-glorifying, why the need to hide them, to sugarcoat them? And if God Himself controls who believes and when, why do Calvinists feel they need to be careful and strategic in revealing their deeper layers? Nothing should be able to scare off the so-called elect from believing (not even revealing terrible, contradictory theological beliefs that make God seem like a monster), and nothing should be able to draw the so-called non-elect into believing (not even sugarcoating your theological views or being strategic in when and how you reveal them).]
4. The Fun Stuff (Strategic Tactics)
Besides their hidden "buts" and multiple layers, Calvinists employ a wide range of other tactics to hook, trick, trap, and reel us into Calvinism slowly, covertly. (But they don't do it to just us. They are victims of these tactics too, having allowed themselves to be tricked and trapped by them also.)
The tactics they use (no matter how unintentional they might be) are things such as:
... false dichotomies. ["Either God saves us, or else we save ourselves... Either God controls everything, or else He controls nothing... Either God is in charge, or else we are in charge." It's super-polarized - and badly-polarized - on purpose, to force you to reject the ridiculous option and pick the one that leads you into Calvinism.]
... fallacies and bad logic. ["In the Bible, God caused a storm, therefore He causes everything... God used wicked people to crucify Jesus, therefore He caused them to be wicked... The Bible says man doesn't seek God, therefore man cannot seek God... If Jesus died for all people, then all people would have to be saved... Jesus wouldn't die for those who reject Him because that would be a waste of His blood... God says He loved Jacob but hated Esau, so that means He predestined some people to heaven and the rest to hell." See When Calvinism's 'Bad Logic' Traps Good Christians.]
... bad analogies. [Such as "being spiritually dead is just like being physically dead." Or the "100 people on death row" analogy: "There's 100 people on death row for murder, and God graciously chooses to save 10 of them, but He lets the other 90 go to their punishment. Was He unjust to save some but not others? No. None of them deserves to be saved. They all deserve to be punished. So it's not unjust to rescue some but let others pay the penalty they deserve." This kind of analogy hooks many people. But the glaring flaw is that those people are only on death row in the first place because God "ordained" their crimes.]
... deflection, arguments with no biblical basis, non-answers they pretend are answers, bait-and-switch, etc. ["Don't think about those predestined to hell. Just thank God that He chose to save anyone at all... Don’t try to resolve Calvinism's contradictions with philosophical questions, just live in the tension... Jesus's death is only a real atonement if it was for specific, prepicked people... For God so love the world, all kinds of people of the world." See MacArthur's Manipulations.]
... out-of-context verses or misinterpreted verses, such as Romans 9! [Romans 9 is about Israel as a nation, about God handing them over to their hard-hearted rejection of Jesus and giving the gospel to the Gentiles instead, because the Jews didn't want it. But then the Jews cried "not fair!" because they thought the Gentiles shouldn't get salvation. They thought the Jews were the "special" ones and should be the only ones to get God's favor and salvation, just because they were Jews. That's what Romans 9 is about. (Go ahead and read it and see if this fits better than Calvinism's "God predestines certain people to save, but He hardens everyone else because He predestined them to hell.") Paul is telling the Jews that God can give the gospel to - the offer of salvation to - whomever He wants to, to whomever is willing to receive it (and the Gentiles were), and that He can take it away from (and punish) anyone who rejects it, even Jews. But if Calvinists can convince you that Romans 9 is about God choosing individual people for heaven or hell, then you will be a Calvinist.]
... doublespeak, talking out of both sides of their mouths, ridiculously bad comparisons. [In the post "Exposing Calvinism: The 'Non-Elect' can come to Christ? Really!?!", I quote a Calvinist called Rhutchin who said this: "The non-elect can choose to come to Christ and will be eagerly accepted by God... anyone, including the non-elect, would be acceptable to God if they believed..." But later he says that unless God gives a person faith, they cannot believe: "Absent God giving a person faith, a person cannot be saved." Rhutchin is talking out of both sides of his mouth, first saying that anyone, even the non-elect, can believe and be saved, but then saying that God must give a person faith in order to believe. And of course, in Calvinism, God will only give faith to the pre-chosen elect, therefore the non-elect were never predestined to get faith. So the non-elect could never, would never, believe or be saved. Yet Rhutchin tries to say that Calvinists believe the non-elect can be saved if they believe. (What he really means is that any person could be one of the elect. It's just that we don't know who they are yet.) (Also see "Calvinism 101: 'Free-will choice" is not really 'free-will' or 'choice'.)]
... verse-bombing, quote-bombing, circular reasoning, talking in circles, etc. [Calvinists will throw a bunch of verses (and Calvinist quotes from famous Calvinists) at you, making it appear like it all confirms their views. Don't fall for it. Look up each verse they use and read them all in context, even looking up words in the concordance and cross-referencing them with other verses. And remember that the Calvinist quotes they use are going to be full of bad logic, biblical errors, unbiblical definitions, and hidden layers. (For example, see "On Spurgeon's 'Calvinism is the gospel'".)]
As the article "The Subtle Secrets of the Gospel Project" points out: "[The Calvinists at The Gospel Project, which is infiltrating churches all over] are prolific writers who are masters in propagating their doctrine without using recognizable Calvinist terms. Try asking one of these guys if they’re a Calvinist and you will probably get a 15-page essay about God’s sovereignty.... You most certainly will not get a direct answer to your question though and that is because they realize how unpopular it is to answer 'yes.' They’re banking on one thing: Given enough time and enough trust, they can sprinkle in the right amount of Calvinism to infect your brain and make you comfortable with their terms. Then it’s simply a matter of putting all the pieces together in their deranged puzzle... So don’t be surprised when you look around and discover a generation whose faith is built on the TULIP but they got there without ever hearing the label 'Calvinism.' We know what they’re doing. The evidence is undeniable. "
In these many ways above, the people in non-Calvinist churches are being "recruited" into Calvinism, but they don't know it. It's happening right under their noses - the mark of a cult.
Cults use isolation, control, fear, coercion, mind-control, and thought-reform to enslave the members to the cult. The members' "inner voices" are suppressed.
5. Information Isolation and Control
Of course, Calvinists don't physically isolate members in a commune or anything like that, as more extreme cults have. But Calvinist pastors do practice various forms of "mental" isolation by controlling the information and resources.
From the very beginning, Calvinist pastors set out to carefully control the information we get, the resources we have access to, the verses we hear, who's in charge, etc.
Verses: Calvinists will highly favor verses that can be twisted/interpreted to support their view that God preplans, causes, controls everything [such as Job 42:2 "... no plan of yours can be thwarted" and Proverbs 21:1 "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases".]... but they will ignore verses that contradict or disprove Calvinism [such as Jeremiah 19:5 "They have built the high places to Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal - something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind" and 1 Kings 20:42 "He said to the king, 'This is what the Lord says: 'You have set free a man I had determined should die.''"]
Resources: Calvinist pastors will flood the church library with Calvinist books, weeding out those that don't support Calvinism. They will publish their recommended reading lists, filled with Calvinists. They will give away Calvinist literature and require staff to study it and use it in their groups. They will encourage everyone to use their preferred Bible translations (the Calvinist ESV or a MacArthur study Bible, etc.). They will quote extensively and almost solely from Calvinist authors during sermons. And sometimes, they won't even mention that there are other views out there or that Calvinism has been debated for centuries. because they don't want you to realize that maybe you should be questioning it too. Saturation leads to slow and subtle subjugation.
Church laws: And then after the Calvinist pastor has saturated the church in Calvinism - surrounding himself with Calvinist elders, filling the church with Calvinist resources, and educating new members into Calvinism - he can then set about to change the church's rules and by-laws (tip #6 from the 9Marks' "reform a church" plan), making Calvinism the official rule of the church.
You know, I really wouldn't have such a problem with Calvinists if they were fully upfront about everything from the beginning. If they were honest about their views/agendas and if people flocked to them anyway because they wanted Calvinism, I would just be like "Well, the people chose it. They knew what they were getting into, and they got what they wanted. So be it."
But it's the stealth take-overs, the deception, the manipulation, the hidden agendas, and strategic tactics that really get me. And to me, it's a massive mark of a cult and a cult leader. And it needs to be exposed and fought. (Is this how God works, with stealthy deception? Or is it a hallmark of Satan?)
The sad part is that many Calvinists themselves don't realize that they've let a Calvinist put Calvinism glasses on them - that a Calvinist took advantage of their desire to be humble, to grow in biblical knowledge, and to honor God - and now they can only read the Bible through Calvinist lenses. They themselves are trapped in it but don't know it. And they won't realize that Calvinism is strangling their faith, destroying their trust in God, and slowly suffocating their spirit... until it's too late.
Calvinism is a very slow and subtle poison, working from the inside out over many years.
It's like what the article 10 things to know about the psychology of cults says: Cult members don't know they're in a cult. And so only those outside the cult can see clearly enough to help. Yet Calvinists (like all cult-ish members) are taught to distrust those outside the cult, to look down on us, to think that we just don't get it or that we're not really Christians or not spiritual enough or not biblically-educated enough or not humble enough.
And so why would they listen to us?
And that brings us to...
6. Fear and Coercion
None of us wants to be an unhumble, divisive, God-dishonoring, glory-stealing Christian, do we? These are fears of any good Christian.
Calvinist pastors know this and use it their advantage (even if it's not totally deliberate).
In that "10 things to know..." article I linked to above, the author points out this mark of a cult: "Cults maintain their power by promoting an 'us vs. them' mentality."
Calvinists will use flattery and shaming (forms of manipulation) to do just this: to create an "us vs. them" dichotomy, to coerce people into Calvinism. They will talk in such a way that makes those who agree with them feel like good Christians and those who disagree feel like bad Christians.
Our Calvinist pastor started with this kind of manipulation right from the beginning, before even revealing his Calvinism. He'd preach sermons that portrayed his theology as the only "right" one, the "biblical, God-centered" one. He'd say things along the lines of "Only unhumble Christians who don't like the idea of God being in control fight against these 'truths'. People in other countries don't have trouble submitting to authority. It's just us prideful, independent Americans who do, because we don't like anyone being in authority over us."
He was preconditioning us from the beginning to side with him, to be afraid of opposing him.
Us vs them. "Us good, humble, God-glorifying Christians" vs "them bad, unhumble, God-fighting Christians."
[As a licensed counselor, it's one of the first things I noticed, the first red flags. And it made me sit up and listen more closely. Because anyone who needed to consistently use that kind of manipulative-shaming was doing it for a reason, trying to break us down to get us to buy what he was selling. See Predestination Manipulation.]
And I'm sure our pastor got his cues from one of his favorite Calvinist theologians, John MacArthur, who uses some even juicier manipulative-shaming (from God's Absolute Sovereignty, underlining to show what I mean): "No doctrine is more despised by the natural mind than the truth that God is absolutely sovereign. Human pride loathes the suggestion that God orders everything, controls everything, rules over everything. The carnal mind, burning with enmity against God, abhors the biblical teaching that nothing comes to pass except according to His eternal decrees. Most of all, the flesh hates the notion that salvation is entirely God’s work. If God chose who would be saved, and if His choice was settled before the foundation of the world, then believers deserve no credit for their salvation."
Do you think anyone in his church would dare to disagree with him after hearing stuff like this?
[And once again, if their theology is so clearly biblical, why the need to resort to tactics like these? This is exactly why my alarm bells started ringing very early on with our new pastor's preaching. The more manipulative-shaming I heard from him (before he even revealed his Calvinism), the more I wondered, "Why the need to manipulate and shame us into agreeing with him? You don't have to do that when you're preaching clear biblical truth to Christians, so what's he going to try to pull over on us?" And it made me lean in and listen closely and start writing down every questionable thing he said and every verse he used so that I could look them up for myself, in context. I took the red pill... and boy, am I glad I did! (I just wish I could've gotten others in our church to do it too, before it was too late.)]
R.C. Sproul (in God's Sovereignty) took a different approach and accused the seminary students in his class who didn't accept the Calvinist definition of God's sovereignty of being "atheists." And he did this in front of everyone. And so which side do you think most of those students would join: "us good Christians" or "them bad atheists"? It would take a very strong person indeed to stand up against that kind of shaming from a professor in front of all your peers who are now staring at you and judging what kind of Christian you are. Sproul ought to be ashamed of himself!
In the article "Why do some people so passionately hate Calvinism", the Calvinist author says that those who strongly oppose Calvinism do so because "they hate the idea that they are not in control... Simply put, they want to think that they are fully in control of their own eternal destiny."
An article from a reformed (Calvinist) seminary - "3 Reasons People Reject Total Depravity" - says that people who reject Calvinism's idea of "total depravity" (which is rejecting Calvinism itself) do so because "It presents a low view of man. Human nature loves to be coddled. Men and women love to be told of their self-worth, self-importance, and innate goodness. Total depravity destroys all that... Total depravity is rejected by man because it presents a low view of man. God is not gushing over us like a high school crush but 'has bent and readied his bow' because 'If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword.'" (Wow!)
If these are the kinds of things preached by a Calvinist pastor, what effect do you think it will have on us?
Most people will side with him. And those of us that don't will probably keep quiet because we don't want to cause trouble or be seen as one of "them bad Christians." And as a result - because no one is sounding the alarm - Calvinism will look more accepted and more correct than it is, which will further alienate those of us who have concerns, making us feel more afraid to question it, more alone, and more hopeless because there's no one to turn to for help.
And before we know it, we're wondering what's wrong with us: "No one else has a problem with what's being taught, so why do I? Why can't I seem to understand or accept what everyone else does? Why do I see it differently? What's wrong with me? What's wrong with my faith?"
And so on top of being afraid of being an unhumble, divisive, God-dishonoring, glory-stealing Christian (or at least being seen as one), we now fear that there's something wrong with our faith and our ability to understand Scripture.
Even if we've been a Christian for a long time and never had doubts before, we might start to feel the ground crumbling under our faith, the legs being knocked out from under us. (My husband and I felt it. We know.) We'll begin to distrust our discernment, our ability to recognize truth (we'll examine gaslighting later), and we'll wonder how we could've possibly misunderstood everything for so long.
And so we'll either flounder in distress, not knowing whom to turn to anymore and not trusting anyone anymore... or else we'll turn to the Calvinist pastor for help, trusting his discernment and his ability to understand Scripture, letting him coerce us into Calvinism.
7. Mind-Control, Thought-Reform
Reforming people's thoughts is absolutely necessary for Stealth Calvinism (or even non-stealth Calvinism) to be effective. Strategic brainwashing. (A lot of how they control/modify our thoughts has already been addressed, so I won't repeat all that. Much.)
Controlling the language: Remember, whoever controls the language also controls the conversation and destination. Calvinist pastors control the direction of the church by controlling not just the resources and staff, but also controlling the definitions of words, the theological language we speak. And by controlling the words (and verses), they can slowly modify our thinking and our perspectives on God and His Word, causing us to see everything through the lens of Calvinism - until we can't remember how to read the Bible in a clear, plain, commonsense way anymore. (See "Calvinist Bad Logic #1: Never Let a Calvinist Define the Terms!".)
In Chapter 2 (Scaling the Language Barrier) of Walter Martin's book "The Kingdom of the Cults" (The Revised, Updated, and Expanded Anniversary Edition, October 1997), we read this about religious cults (this is my paraphrased summary):
Terminology and definitions matter. When words are allowed to be redefined incorrectly - and those incorrect definitions are allowed to spread to people and throughout generations (because of our apathy or ignorance) - it can become a powerful weapon to enslave the masses. Cult leaders know this and use it to their advantage, hijacking language with their own definitions to slowly, hypnotically lead people in the path they want them to go.
Cultists are experts at taking texts out of their proper context, with no concern for the laws of language, logic, or proper biblical interpretation.
Religious cult leaders use the Bible's terminology and concepts, but in a very different way than how it was originally intended and how it's commonly, historically understood. They use the Bible's terms, but they secretly redefine them to fit their own theological framework.
This is why the cultist will often appear to be - and claim to be - in full agreement with you, because they are using the same words, same concepts, same verses. You just don't realize that they've got very different definitions and interpretations.
At first glance, a cult's redefinitions will appear to be in harmony with the historic teachings of the Christian faith. But this harmony is superficial at best - because it cannot hold up under serious biblical scrutiny when Scripture is read properly and in context and when words are correctly defined.
Cults take advantage of the fact that the average Christian is almost totally unaware of the "subtle art" of redefining terms. And much time is wasted debating about Scripture with cultists - talking in circles - when spending just a few minutes at first defining the terms would have disarmed them of one of their most powerful tools: theological term-switching.
The cultist's redefining and juggling of terms puts the cultist at an advantage because it frustrates the average Christian who can sense that something is wrong and that they're not really saying the same thing but can't quite put his finger on it. And so therefore, not realizing the words games the cultist is playing, he often falls silent for fear of ridicule or of continuing to talk in circles.
Briefly, for examples, here are some of Calvinism's hidden - and wrong - definitions of some main words we use [correct definitions are in brackets]:
"Sovereign" means God controls/causes everything, even sin and unbelief. [Correct definition: God is the highest authority there is. This means He can decide how to use His authority, even if it means allowing people to have free-will.]
"Predestination" means God has preplanned which sinners go to heaven, and He causes all things to work out just as He planned. [Correct definition: God has preplanned what happens to people who become believers (they will grow to be more like Christ, reach glory one day, and have their bodies redeemed in the end). Predestination is not about who believes or how they believe, but about what happens after someone believes. And anyone can.]
"Election" is the same as Calvinist predestination, about God predestining who goes to heaven." [Correct definition: Election is about God choosing people not for salvation but for certain roles, jobs, and responsibilities after they get saved. God doesn't choose who is going to believe, but He does choose that everyone who believes gets the responsibilities and blessings reserved for believers. Note: Sometimes "election" is really just about Israel, about them being chosen by God to be Jesus's bloodline and the first to receive the gospel and being given the job of spreading the gospel (until they rejected it, causing God to turn to the Gentiles instead).]
"Faith" is something God injects into the elect to make them believe in Jesus. You have to be given faith by God in order to believe in Jesus. [Correct definition: Faith is our decision to believe in Jesus, to trust Him, take Him at His word, and submit ourselves to Him.]
"Hardens" means God causes the non-elect to refuse to believe in Him because He predestined them for hell. [Real definition: "Hardens" is punishment for first hardening our own hearts against God and His truth, even after God has been patient and long-suffering with us.]
These are some of the main words Calvinists get wrong (and it ruins their whole theology). But they will keep their definitions of these words hidden as long as possible if they think that we'll push back against them. Then they can slowly lead us deeper and deeper into Calvinism without us even realizing it.
But if you can get even just these few words correct, you're well on your way to defeating Calvinism.
Preconditioning and Strategic Ordering: Besides preconditioning us to feel ashamed if we disagree with them, Calvinist pastors and theologians methodically precondition us to read the Bible in a Calvinist way, without us realizing it, through things like first implanting their Calvinist definitions into our minds (without calling it Calvinism) and then leading us to strategically-chosen verses that appear to support it (when taken out of context or misinterpreted).
Such as, a Calvinist pastor will often begin by preaching his Calvinist views of predestination and election (but he'll call it the "biblical view"), and then he'll lead us to verses that contain the word "predestined" or "elect" and say, "See! There it is, just like I said, and so you have to believe it, even if you don't like it. Because it's 'biblical truth.'"
Or maybe he'll begin by preaching Calvinism's "total depravity" - but to trap us, he'll make it seem at first like he's just talking about being sinful. And since we all agree mankind is sinful, we unwittingly agree to his use of "totally depraved," not knowing that he has a different, hidden, Calvinist definition. And then he strategically leads us through carefully-chosen and Calvinisticly-interpreted verses, taking us from "total depravity" to "unconditional election" to "limited atonement, etc., until we've gone all the way through the Calvinist TULIP without ever realizing he's teaching Calvinism.
You see, all the points of TULIP lead into, flow from, and support the other points. And so if he can get us to bite onto the first one (to accept the Calvinist idea of "total depravity"), he can easily lead us into the next one and the next one and the next one. If you agree with one, you have to agree with the next. And the fact that all the points of TULIP support each other so well makes the whole theology seem more solid and biblical than it is.
[But this also means that if you disprove one point, you disprove them all. Because they all need each other to survive. They all rise and fall together. See "Is Calvinism's TULIP biblical?". (And once again, for the record, I agree with Calvinists that true believers cannot lose their salvation, just not for the reason they say.)]
Unbelievably, here's a whole sermon series by Rob Jansons on how to preach Calvinism covertly, literally called "Covert Calvinism". And he does exactly what I said - strategically teaching through the whole TULIP without calling it Calvinism, leading people into Calvinism one disguised petal at a time, complete with Calvinist definitions and carefully-chosen verses interpreted Calvinisticly.
And don't just take my word for it. Read the sermons. Or even just the descriptions to the sermons, which includes: "[this is] a prelude sermon to a covert series on Calvinism... This is the 'Total Depravity' sermon without using the stock theological labels. It is the first sermon in the series and it's covert because too many of our [listeners] will shut down their receptors when they hear the words 'Calvinism.'... [This sermon] focuses on God the Father choosing us to be his children. It uses biblical, not theological, language to teach about election."
Basically, the plan is "indoctrinate them with Calvinism without telling them, and then once they're hooked, reveal to them that they are now Calvinists."
This is how Calvinists reform our thoughts under our radar.
"It's not that important": Another way Calvinist pastors get us to let our guard down so that they can reform our thinking is to claim that Calvinism is a non-critical, second-level issue that we shouldn't divide over. They'll say that we shouldn't fight about the "finer points" of Calvinism, that we should put it on the back-burner, in the background (and they'll promise to do so), so that we can focus on the "more important" first-level issues.
But remember that to Calvinists, Calvinism IS the gospel, the Bible, the sum total of Christianity. So do you really think they would ever or could ever let Calvinism be a secondary, back-burner, not-that-important, shouldn't-cause-division issue? No Calvinist worth his salt would do that.
Make no mistake, they will always be pushing Calvinism because they think it's synonymous with the Bible. But if they think we'll resist it, they'll call it a "secondary issue" and "finer points" and they'll promise to put it in the background, in favor of "more important issues." But no good Calvinist pastor will ever let this truly be a background issue, not when they think it's Christianity itself. And so all they'll really do is go underground with it, undercover, so that they can spread it in more inconspicuous ways.
Indoctrination classes: Calvinist pastors will also try to reform our thinking directly, by taking people through what I call "Calvinist Indoctrination" classes (but they might call it "Bible study" or something like that), often starting with key people, elders, those in leadership, and maybe even (as we looked at earlier) with prospective new members, ensuring their brainwashing before they even get into the church.
And when a person goes through a Calvinist Indoctrination Class, Calvinist brainwashing is pretty much guaranteed. There's really almost no way someone can escape the Calvinist brainwashing when soaking themselves in big Calvinist theology books which weave such a tight theological web that few can escape it. After being strategically taken through their "systematic theology" classes, you won't be able to see the forest for the trees anymore.
Listen to how the pastor in this "Reformed by the Word" article handles it when he began facing opposition to his Calvinist theology:
"By January of 1999, questions began to be raised by some in our congregation. In a deacon’s meeting, one of our deacons asked if I was a 'Calvinist.' When I asked what he meant, he really didn’t know. He just knew it was something bad. So, I asked specifically what I had taught that concerned him. Again, he didn’t know of anything. He’d just heard this word used about me. Clearly there was 'talk' going around. I decided the best way to answer his question would be to lead the deacons through a study."
And guess what? It worked. In the end, the church chose to keep him as pastor. (But it split the church and up to half the people left.)
My experience: The Stealth Calvinist pastor who came into our church started with shaming, with reminders of how tiny, depraved, God-hating, and rebellious we are, and with subtle accusations of "you're being prideful and disagreeing with God if you disagree with my views" - manipulating us to side with him before he even revealed his theology, scaring us into not wanting to disagree with him.
And then, when we were broken down in humility and shame and were malleable, he began implanting into our heads his Calvinist definitions of things like sovereignty, predestination, election, depravity, etc., and then he led us to (out-of-context) verses that appeared to support it, essentially going "See, there it is! Just like I told you. Now you have to believe it."
And he always asked "What does the text say? We always have to go back to the text!", making it sound like he was being true to the Word... but then he'd slip in his Calvinist interpretations. And he constantly quoted from Calvinist theologians (in one sermon, he never even used a Bible verse, just lots and lots of Calvinist quotes). And he began flooding the library with Calvinist literature.
Along with this, he was leading small-group studies of Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology with the elders and other key people, ensuring that they all became Calvinists.
And then, since that's not enough, he created "sermon-based" groups for the common people (even though we already had independent Bible study groups). And he continually stressed the importance of everyone joining one. These groups study and discuss not just the Bible itself, but his sermons, the Bible through his teachings. Everyone gets a list of the same questions about things he said in his sermons, and these questions - surprise, surprise - have a built-in Calvinist bias from the beginning, the assumption that Calvinism is true. (And from what I hear, attendance is taken and reported to the church. Unlike how it was for the independent Bible studies before he came along.)
So not only are his sermons full of Calvinism, and the church full of Calvinist literature, and the elders (and other key people) required to take "Calvinist Indoctrination" classes, but now everyone in the congregation is asked to join mid-week groups that focus on his Calvinist sermons. (My husband and I resisted the "sermon-based" groups because we felt there was something wrong with the whole concept, even before we realized the pastor was slyly pushing Calvinism.)
And - I'm sure much to the pastor's delight - it worked. By the time we left the church six years after he got there, it had essentially become a fully-Calvinist church. Even if only the leadership knew it.
(I'm not sure if the average Christian knew they were in a Calvinist church because the pastor never really identified his theology as Calvinism. Those in-the-know, such as the leadership and those who knew what Calvinism was, probably knew it. But the rest of the people probably didn't. They probably just thought they were learning "biblical truths," as the pastor always called it.)
When we were leaving the church, we had a friend (who had various roles there) who had previously believed more in free-will but who had begun taking Systematic Theology classes with the pastor. And we sent this friend an email to warn him that Wayne Grudem was a Calvinist and that the pastor was immersing the church in Calvinism, encouraging him to be cautious, to research it for himself. We reminded him that we didn't leave the church for superficial reasons but because we really believe Calvinism is unbiblical. The strongest warning we could give.
We figured that out of everyone there, the one who already believed more in free-will would be the one most likely to heed our warnings, to recognize the errors of what the pastor was teaching. Maybe he would be someone we could "pass the baton" to. He was kinda our last hope to help the church.
But we knew it was over when he replied with "I was a little apprehensive about entering the Grudem class as I know the text is from a Reformed Calvinism perspective, and my training and understanding has not perfectly aligned with all 5 points of the TULIP. However, truth is truth because God is truth, and we must not fear truth." [I knew right then that he was a goner.]
He went on to quote a few verses about the truth making us free and about not quenching the Spirit and about it being God's Will that we rejoice in all things. And so "If I am moved or changed due to ‘examination’ of a Biblical Systematic Theology whether Calvinism, Dispensationalism, Covenant or other, then praise God. I know that I have room to grow and learn. While I open myself to something uncomfortable, I will rejoice, and pray and be thankful that God has chosen to allow my flawed and finite mind to wrestle with and gain more understanding of His perfect and infinite ways."
I appreciated his trusting, humble heart (but that's how Calvinists get you!), but I felt like it was the pastor's words coming right out of his mouth. And I saw how all those years of laying the groundwork - of stealth Calvinist tactics and manipulation - paid off. Well done, Stealth Calvinist Pastor!
My husband wondered if he should reply with something like "But what if it's not God's truth? What if you're being taught lies?"
I just shook my head and said, "He's gone. There's no point. He won't be able to hear it, not when he thinks he's learning 'truth' and humbly submitting to it."
This is how a Calvinist take-over happens. Slowly. Sermon by sermon. Person by person. Week by week. Month by month. Year by year.
We've seen it happen. We watched it happen over years. And sadly, it took us 6 years to truly understand what the pastor's theology is (he wouldn't reveal it as "Calvinism"), to realize how unbiblical and damaging it is, and to start speaking out against it.
And by that time, it was too late.
Learn from our mistakes. Speak up early and often and to as many people as you can, even if it's just to voice vague concerns. (Take a page from their book and go underground if you have to.) If you're feeling it, someone else is too. And so don't let Calvinists make you feel ashamed about your concerns or about speaking up. You have every right - and obligation - to doublecheck the accuracy of what a pastor is teaching. So don't let them shame you into silence.
Which brings us to the next point...
8. Silencing the members' inner voices
Gaslighting: manipulating people into doubting their own sanity, memory, or powers of reasoning.
And "manipulating people into doubting their own power of reasoning" is what Calvinists do (even if they don't mean to). It's one of the reasons it spreads so unopposed, so easily.
In addition to manipulative-shaming, Calvinists have ways of getting us to doubt our abilities to correctly think, judge, and understand things. They make us feel like if we disagree with Calvinism, then there's something wrong with us, not with their theology. This causes us to question our discernment and to possibly ignore any doubts or "red flags" we get. (Or at least to keep quiet about them because we fear others distrusting our discernment too.)
And if we can't trust our own judgment and discernment, guess whose we'll trust?
That's right: theirs. Just like they want.
Emotional Reactions: Another way to gaslight us is to make us feel like we're just having a bad emotional reaction to what we're hearing, like our feelings or pride are getting in the way of our discernment. An example of this is from my Exposing Calvinism: Causing evil isn't sin for God post, where I quote a Calvinist who said: "Choices do matter. They've just been predestined by God for us.... But since you don't seem to want to discuss biblical evidence here, then maybe you just dislike Calvinism on an emotional level. I know it's hard to accept emotionally. I understand. And I am willing to talk to you about it more. We do have choices in life; they're just choices that we have not freely willed."
If we say that it's terrible and unbiblical for God to predestine people to hell and to "ordain" sin and unbelief, Calvinists will accuse us of letting our emotions (anger, fear, disgust, etc.) cloud our judgment. This allows them to dismiss our doubts, concerns, and arguments against Calvinism as unreasonable and illegitimate, as if we're just being hysterical or over-reacting or something.
[Do we have emotional reactions to Calvinism? Yes, of course. But Calvinists think our emotional reactions cause us to reject Calvinism as unbiblical, when it's really the other way around. We believe Calvinism is severely unbiblical, and that's why we have such strong emotional reactions to it.]
"I understand": On the flip-side, a Calvinist might use the "emotional reaction" accusation to build a sense of comradery with us, as the Calvinist above did: "I know it's hard to accept emotionally. I understand. And I am willing to talk to you about it more." (I bet he is!) They want us to feel like they understand the terrible "struggle" we're going through over Calvinism's teachings, like they've been in our shoes.
They'll say things like "I know it's hard to accept these 'truths.' It was hard for me too. I cried over it. When we first hear these things, it's like putting on an itchy sweater. It's uncomfortable. It rubs against us wrong. We want to rip it off. But the longer we wear it, the more comfortable and comforting it gets. I understand. I didn't like it at first either. But you're just having an emotional reaction to things you don't like hearing or don't understand. But if you give it time, you'll come to see the beauty in it, the comfort. Here, let me take you through Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology to help you understand it more."
They want us to think that they've already been on the journey we're on, already thought the things we're thinking, struggled with the things we're struggling with, examined the contradictions we're examining, faced the doubts we're facing... and so if they came out the other end convinced about the "truth" of Calvinism and comforted by it, so will we. They want us to trust that if we just keep following them - even though our red-flag radar is going off like crazy - it will all be okay.
But don't fall for it. You know they're not saying the same thing you are, even if you can't put your finger on it quite yet. If you know something's "off" but can't figure out what yet, just keep praying about it, reading Scripture, and researching against Calvinism until it becomes clear.
And whatever you do, do not take Calvinists up on their offer to "talk to you about it more" or to take you through Calvinists studies to help you understand it more.
That's like asking Jim Jones to pour you a glass of Kool-Aid.
"You don't understand Calvinism": If Calvinists don't like the arguments we use against their views - if we point out their wrong assumptions, unbiblical definitions, hidden layers, contradictions, or the terrible logical conclusions of their beliefs - they'll say "You don't understand Calvinism." (See Soteriology 101's post You don't understand Calvinism.)
And if we "don't understand Calvinism," then our opinions don't count and we should just shut up and listen to them.
But it's not that we don't understand Calvinism (actually, yes, it is - because you can't really understand something as convoluted, illogical, and contradictory as Calvinism!), but it's that they don't. They refuse to see their contradictions, multiple layers, bad definitions, the terrible end-result of their beliefs, etc.
Not to mention that because they have multiple contradictory layers, any point we make will inevitably conflict with one of those layers. Such as, if we say that Calvinists believe God causes sin, they'll say "You don't understand Calvinism. God does not cause sin. We make our own choices, the ones we want to make." But then if we say "So, you believe in free-will then?," they'll say "You don't understand Calvinism. God is sovereign and controls all things." And so we'll say "Then doesn't that mean that God controls us, so He is responsible for our sins?" And they'll reply, "You don't understand Calvinism. God 'ordains' our sins but does not author them." (As if that makes any sense!)
And so we will always appear to "not understand Calvinism," on one level or another. This keeps us running in circles. Furiously rocking back and forth on a rocking-horse. Always moving but never getting anywhere.
But it's not that we "don't understand Calvinism," as if the problem is with us. It's that they use doublespeak, have irreconcilable contradictions, have multiple layers, and speak on multiple levels. And so we can never really make sense of what they say or pin them down or get a consistent, logical answer from them.
Talking with Calvinists, trying to get a grasp on what they really believe, is like trying to wrestle of greased pig. (Have you ever wrestled a greased pig? It's not easy. I mean, I've never done it either, but I imagine it's not easy.😉)
Personally, I don't think they even understand what they really think, which is why they always have to resort to "We don't have to understand it. We just have to accept it."
"You don't understand God": In addition to "You don't understand Calvinism" is the accusation that we can't understand God and His ways because He is so far above us - and so, clearly, we should just be quiet and accept what Calvinists tell us without trying to think through it too much.
And when we point out contradictions in Calvinism that they cannot resolve satisfactorily or biblically, they will inevitably appeal to "mystery" or "tension," and to the idea that we have to "humbly accept" the things we can't understand: "God's ways are so far above us that we can't fully understand Him, and so we shouldn't try. It needs to be enough for us that God knows how these things work out, and so we don't have to. It's like two parallel trains tracks running off into the distance that, to us, look like they never meet... but in eternity, they do. And until then, God just wants us to trust Him. That's what being humble like a child really means. There are some mysteries God reserves for Himself, and who are we to think we can try to peer into them, to figure them out? We don't have to like these things, but we do have to accept them and learn to live with the tension."
Calvinists want us to think that we are unable to reconcile their contradictions not because their beliefs are wrong but because they're "mysteries" that God chose not to reveal to us. And so we shouldn't try to figure them out or to find a more reasonable way to view things - because then we'll be dishonoring or distrusting God!
What a convenient way to stop people from exploring and opposing their contradictions!
"Pumpkinpie666" (whoever that is) left a comment on a Reddit post called "Calvinism is disgusting" that neatly (yet vulgarly) sums up Calvinism's answer to their idea that God is the ultimate cause of all evil: "The Calvinist answer to every question about injustice is 'f*ck you, he's god.' It's just 'might makes right'. It's a pretty convenient theology for its adherents when you think about it. They don't have to defend any absurdities or injustices dealt out by God in that paradigm because by definition he's God, so he's right and you can go f*ck yourself." Yeah, that's pretty much Calvinism in a nutshell, minus the colorful language.
If Calvinists can get us to buy this - that teachings about God don't have to make sense, that it's okay if it's totally contradictory and appears unjust and unloving - then they can get them to believe any terrible thing they want us to believe about God. And we won't fight back. We'll just accept it in "humbleness" - "thankful that God has chosen to allow our flawed and finite minds to wrestle with and gain more understanding of His perfect and infinite ways."
And when all else fails: And if we still can't accept their views - if we still keep asking probing questions that challenge their contradictions and errors, and if the Calvinist cannot talk his way out of it - he will always, always, always resort to some form of "Who are you, O man, to talk back to God? He is sovereign, we are not. He is the Potter, and we are the clay. What right do we have to question His ways or to judge how He gets glory for Himself?"
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.
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!)
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?
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, much of what they write is really just an attempt to try to fix the problems and contradictions they first created... and to try to convince themselves and us that Calvinism doesn't teach that God causes sin when it really does.)
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.
"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?"
Conclusion:
I think Calvinism does this to people too. I think the longer someone stays in a Calvinist church, the more it will destroy their faith (what should be a simple faith), their relationship with God, their trust of God, and their ability to discern truth for themselves, to understand the Bible the way God meant it to be understood. And if and when someone leaves a Calvinist church, it may destroy their relationships with others and their ability/desire to get involved in a new church.
People leaving Calvinism will be so burned by it that they'll always be on the lookout for it now, always over-analyzing every word and phrase. They will always flinch at good words like "grace" and "sovereign" and "biblical"... always shudder when they hear "high view of Scripture" and "God-centered" and "salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone"... always feel like pastors have an agenda and hidden layers... always distrusting the church and other Christians, afraid of being fooled again and too exhausted to care... and if their church was an authoritarian, legalistic kind, they might rebel against God and all of His rules and truths as a way of breaking free from the legalistic, domineering control of the church leaders (and this can lead to all sorts of heart-breaking consequences in their lives).
A kind of spiritual post-traumatic stress disorder.
You know what, maybe it'd be best to let you hear it right from the people. Here are some stories I found online of the real-life damage that Calvinism has done to people (quoted in my post "Calvinism's Heart-Breaking Destruction"):
From a Reddit post called "Calvinism is disgusting":
"As an ex-Christian who used to be a Calvinist, what alarmed me is that all the fears about satan applied to god... [Calvinists] ascribed so many characteristics to god that could be applied to satan that made them seem indistinguishable." (from 'deleted')
"I remember as I was leaving my faith, I thought 'If God exists, then he let my parents waste thousands on private Christian education, let me be baptized and study his word and be confirmed, let me have periods of doubt and repentance, all when he knew that I would be damned to hell.' Even when I was still a Christian, he knew that I was damned and he never helped me." (Uriah_Blacke)
"My parents used to say 'even the cutest baby is a dirty rotten sinner.' It was somewhat of a joke in our family, but also definitely what we all believed. I’m turning 30 this year and I still have trouble turning down the volume on this narrative about myself. It has led to issues in my friendships, with my partner, and now, with my parents... I have deconstructed to the [point] of agnosticism... This has crippled my emotional growth as an adult in ways..." (foreverlanding)
"The [Calvinist] concept of total depravity is so completely toxic. I'm still unlearning this as well. It does make me angry sometimes thinking about how absolutely f*cked up it is to teach children they are inherently awful just for being... The system is designed to make you feel like a POS [piece of sh*t] just for being a human. I'm 37 now and am agnostic after trying really hard to believe until about 2ish years ago. I feel more hopeful and free without the church." (eab1728)
"Agreed. Total Depravity isn't the "Good News" espoused in Reformed circles... Reformed doctrine never allowed me to truly accept my own self-worth; it robbed me of dignity and replaced it with constant, grating guilt. And it's utterly worthless in the face of real hardship... I am a universalist now, which couldn't be further from Reformed doctrine. And honestly, what a relief." (come_heroine)
"This is a screenshot from an email that I sent to my mom when I was 12 years old, simply titled "distressed". [In the email, the 12-year-old is telling the parent that she (I'll just assume it's a 'she' for now) is distressed because she's praying and reading the Bible, but nothing is happening. She's looking for assurance that she's saved, one of the elect. And the father replies that she should keep asking God to show her the way, that only God can save her, that only God can awaken her dead spirit and make her alive, that she can't do anything to save herself. So essentially, it's "Do something about it, but you can't do anything about it, and so wait to see if God convinces you that you're one of the elect." So confusing. So biblically off-track. And it basically just boils down to "if you're not elect, you can't do anything about it and there's no hope for you." No wonder the kid is distressed!] I'm so angry that I was taught that I was completely bad, simply by being human, and I deserved to be tortured by the Creator for all of eternity, AND I COULD DO NOTHING ABOUT IT. All I could do was pray to God and hope that he had mercy on such a miserable, worthless, depraved wretch such as twelve-year-old me. I lived with a phobia of hell until the cage of my mind opened when I was 22, and I could finally think for the first time in my life..." (why-homo-sapien)
"A few years ago I was wondering why my self-esteem was so crap and then suddenly realised that the people who taught me to hate myself were my parents, through the medium of calvinism :)" (pktechboi)
From the Reddit post (with a few minor spelling and punctuation corrections) called: I have posted on another Group as well. I NEED SOMEONE TO EXPLAIN Calvinism to me because what I understand of it is scaring me!!! : r/Christians (reddit.com)
"Okay.... so I have just watched a sermon from Paul Washer (which I thought was one of the most amazing sermons I have ever seen). That man has a fire for Christ that cannot be extinguished. But for the first time, I found out what Calvinism is. And I am scared to death!!! So if I am not elected by God to be saved, I will not be saved??? No matter how much time I devoted to prayer, how many times I have been broken by his feet have, how many hours I spent learning scripture, how many days I "thought" I was talking to my best friend. It was all just a lie??? I come in heaven just to realize I was never elected??? And get thrown into hell because the day I was born I was already doomed from the beginning??? And my whole faith is just one big hoax???" (Dingus_bellator1027) (That's some serious struggling going on right there! And Calvinism can offer no real hope, no real help, no real comfort other than "wait until you die to see if you won the salvation lottery or not".)
If you are raising kids in a Calvinist church, take all of this very seriously. Because this could be them someday:
"I have recently discovered the doctrine of election and I believe that I am not elect. I don't have any spiritual fruit and I hate God with all my heart. My question is, at this point is it right to want to die? Might as well go to hell now instead of later. I do not want to kill myself (I never will hopefully) but I cant see a reason to live when my end destiny will be the same." (from "deleted") (Found in Election and Suicide : r/Calvinism (reddit.com))
(And I can only hope that the last one is a sick joke.)
Is it any wonder that people under Calvinism end up with that kind of despair and hopelessness when this is what Calvinists teach:
John Piper, in answer to the question “Does God Predestine People to Hell?”, says “My answer is yes. God does determine from eternity who will be saved."
John MacArthur: “God's love for the elect is an infinite, eternal, saving love... Such love clearly is not directed toward all of mankind indiscriminately, but is bestowed uniquely and individually on those whom God chose in eternity past.”
Wayne Grudem: “If God ultimately decided to create some creatures to be saved and others not to be saved, then that was his sovereign choice, and we have no moral or scriptural basis on which we can insist that it was not fair... Reformed theologians say that God deems his own glory more important than saving everyone, and that God’s glory is also furthered by the fact that some are not saved.”
R.C. Sproul Jr.: “God wills all things that come to pass… God desired for man to fall into sin... God is as delighted with His wrath as He is with all of His attributes."
John Piper: “Has God predetermined every tiny detail in the universe... and all of our besetting sins?... Yes, every horrible thing and every sinful thing is ultimately governed by God… He controls everything, and he does it for his glory and our good.”
Gordan H. Clark: “... if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God... this view certainly makes God the cause of sin."
Theodore Zachariades: "God works all things after the counsel of His will, even keeping those kings who want to commit adultery from committing so... and when He wants to, He orders those to commit adultery when HE WANTS TO!"
James White, in answer to the question: “When a child is raped, is God responsible and did He decree that rape?”, says "... Yes, [He decreed it] because if not, then it's meaningless and purposeless..."
Mark Talbot/John Piper: “God brings about all things in accordance with his will. It isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those that love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects… This includes God’s having even brought about the Nazi’s brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as … the sexual abuse of a young child.”
Paul Washer: “If you reject Christ, then the moment when you take your first step through the gates of hell, the only thing you will hear is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding and praising God because God has rid the earth of you. That’s how not good you are."
Kevin DeYoung: "Should Christians rejoice in the doctrine of hell?... in one sense it is appropriate for Christians to say 'I don’t like the idea of hell.' But be careful. It’s never safe to dislike the truths God has revealed. We should actually like what the Bible teaches."
R.C. Sproul: "Don't you know that when you're in heaven, you'll be so sanctified that you'll be able to see your own mother in hell and rejoice in that, knowing that God's perfect justice is being carried out."
Vincent Cheung: “All that God does is intrinsically good and righteous, so it is also good and righteous for him to create the reprobates."
Vincent Cheung: "…man is morally responsible even if he lacks moral ability; that is, man must obey God even if he cannot obey God... man must obey God's commands because God says that man must obey, and whether or not he has the ability to obey is irrelevant."
Vincent Cheung: "God decreed evil ultimately for his own glory... One who thinks that God's glory is not worth the death and suffering of billions of people has too high an opinion of himself and humanity [and] should reconsider their spiritual commitment, to see if they are truly in the faith.”
Vincent Cheung: “The popular position that all infants are saved is wishful thinking, and continues as a groundless religious tradition... Thus [it] deceives the masses and offers them hope based on mere fantasy... if the parents cannot finally accept [the idea of infant damnation], that God is always right, then they are headed for hell themselves and need to become Christians… If someone dies without hearing the gospel, it just means that God has decreed his damnation beforehand... This would mean that those who are unable to exercise faith are all damned to hell, and this would include infants and the mentally retarded... I have no misgivings about this. I have no problem with the idea that all who die as embryos, infants, and mentally retarded would burn in hell... if they all burn in hell, they all burn in hell…”
Calvinism makes me sick!
And I think it's majorly responsible for much of the atheism out there today. Because if this is how God really is (He's not!) - and if people are tricked into thinking that Calvinism and Christianity are one and the same - then it's no wonder people reject God and the gospel. A God like that cannot be trusted and is really no better than Satan. [For more quotes (and the resources where the quotes are from) and for my responses to the quotes, see "A Crash Course in Calvinism (Calvinist quotes)."]
A word to worried Calvinists:
If you're a Calvinist who's getting worried right now because you're thinking "Oh no! I really enjoy Calvinist preachers and my Calvinist church. But now I'm afraid I've been misled this whole time. What do I do? What should I think?," let me just say this:
Just because the deeper layers of Calvinism are unbiblical doesn't mean you didn't or can't get a lot of good teaching from Calvinists. 95% of what they teach in any given sermon could sound great, setting off no alarm bells, because they still do preach a biblical surface layer and have some good practical insights and knowledge about other non-gospel issues. And I think there's enough truth in Calvinism's surface layer that unaware people could still find the Lord through it. God can use anything, good or bad. So it's not all been a waste.
[But when you know what the last 5% is - the bottom-line of Calvinism, the hidden layers they cover up with the 95% good stuff - it all becomes tainted, and you can't listen to even their good points anymore because you know what they really believe, how deceptively they present it, and how very wrong their fundamental beliefs are.
And in fact, that 5% is the most important stuff, the issues that matter most: their views of the gospel, sin, salvation, forgiveness, Jesus's death, faith, God's true character, etc. That 5% is so huge and critical that it overshadows and defines the 95%. And so since they get that 5% wrong, it doesn't really matter what lesser issues they get right. They got the most important, fundamental truths wrong, and it taints everything else.
(Kinda like if a witness to a murder got 95 details right, such as the color of the clothes the people wore, the time of day, the weather conditions, the weapon used, etc., but they got 5 critical details wrong: the city it happened in, the year it happened, the gender of the victim, and the gender and name of the murderer. These 5 details are so critical that they would obliterate their testimony, far overshadowing the 95 details they got right.)
Listening to Calvinists is like drinking a glass of 95% clean water and 5% poison. It might not get you at first, but the longer you drink it, the more likely it is to hurt you, to destroy your faith and your trust in God.]
But if you are just now starting to come out of a Calvinist coma and it's freaking you out, don't worry. And in fact, rejoice - because the true biblical truth is even more beautiful than what you've been told by Calvinists, even more faith-affirming. And the farther you get away from Calvinism, and the closer you get to the plain and simple truth of the Bible, the deeper you are going to dive into God's love, faithfulness, righteousness, trustworthiness, grace, joy, peace, etc.
And not only that, but you'll be able to freely spread it to others because you'll begin to truly understand that what God did for you, He can do for anyone.
In Calvinism, God loves only the elect, Jesus died for only the elect, and God offers salvation only to the elect. And so only the elect can/will be saved. The non-elect have no chance to be saved, no hope at all. And not only that, but "the elect" have no real hope either - because they cannot know for sure until they die if they are truly elect or if they just got "evanescent grace" which only makes them think they are saved for a short time. And so until they die, they always have to worry that they might not really be elect, even if they think they are. And if someone does backslide or "lose faith," it's because God made it happen... and there's nothing they can do to change it. There is no real hope or assurance in Calvinism because no one can know for sure that God really does love them, that Jesus really did die for them, and that God really did give them real faith. What a sad kind of faith to cling to!
But in the Bible, God really does love all people and want all people to be saved, and Jesus really did die for all sins of all people, and so anyone can believe in Him and be saved. This includes me, and you, and our kids, our family members, our neighbors, our friends, and, yes, even our enemies. We can all know for sure that God loves us personally, that He wants us to be saved, that Jesus died for us, that God offers us salvation, and that we can be saved if we choose to believe in Jesus. Because the Bible tells us so.
And so no one is beyond God's reach, beyond His love, grace, forgiveness, healing, salvation, etc. No one is predestined to hell. No one is hopeless. God loves all, Jesus died for all, and God offers salvation to all - an offer that all of us can accept. And so no matter how far we've fallen or how long we've been running from God, we can turn around and throw ourselves upon His grace, grabbing ahold of His promise to save anyone who puts their faith in Jesus. A promise that's for all people. And we can trust His promise because the God of the Bible (unlike Calvinism's god) is trustworthy. This is where our hope and assurance is found.
The truth of the Bible is so much more beautiful, hope-filled, life-giving, faith-affirming, and "for all people" than Calvinism ever could be. And so don't worry. When you give up Calvinism for the plain teachings of the Bible, you get something so much better!
[Also, you might find encouragement in this 5-part series from Jason Breda at Living Christian: "Why I don't believe in Calvinism anymore." My husband watched it all and said it's one of the best summaries of what's wrong with Calvinism.]
Summing it all up:
I'd like to end this post on a quote from a video called Stealth Calvinism and How it Splits Churches from The Church Split. These guys - Brian and Will - have a lot of great insights to share about the dangers and errors of Calvinism, especially Stealth Calvinism. (And I love Brian's self-deprecating "Hello, heretics" that he often greets us with.😄)
Near the end of that video (starting at the 1:46:36 minute mark), Will said this (I am quoting him with his permission):
"I am not attacking my church, okay. It's just when you see it happen before your very eyes... It can happen anywhere. You think that you're safe, maybe in your church, but you're not, even though you trust the people around you. They're good people around you. They're loving, thoughtful, serving. But because they might not be aware of this particular issue... anyone can bring something stealthy in. You have to just know what that is, right. You have to be aware of the terminology. You have to be aware of what you believe. You have to be aware of precision: 'How can I be more precise in my speech so that I'm very clear in where we stand on things?'... You have to be aware of the issues. Because if you don't, they WILL split your church or you're gonna have a bunch of brainwashed people or you're gonna have a bunch of people so theologically confused that they defunct from the faith or they're no good in their evangelistic efforts because they have a ton of contradictory views."
This is pretty much my whole post condensed into one paragraph. And it nicely sums up my reason for this post. (Thank you, Will!)
So considering all we've looked at, what do you think? Cult-ish or not? Unbiblical or not?
It's okay if you say not. I won't fight you on it.
[But I might point out that Calvinism may have connections, historically-speaking, with Freemasonry. And apparently, a good percentage of Presbyterian ministers are Freemasons. I'm not sure how true this is, but it might be worth checking out. Here are some resources to get you started, but you'll have to evaluate them for yourselves: Huguenots, John Calvin and Freemasonry, Charles Spurgeon 100% Freemason, Calvinist connections with freemasonry, and Calvinism: More Evidence of Cultic Origins. And I might suggest that you consider the roots of Calvinism as shared in this post: "The Pagan, Gnostic Origin of Calvinism" from 20/20 Scriptural Vision Ministry.]
But if you say cult-ish - if you agree that Calvinism corrupts the gospel and destroys God's character, truth, and people's faith - then what are you gonna do about it? Who are you going to tell? How are you gonna help protect the gospel, God's Truth?
The gospel is at stake here. God's character and Word. People's faith and eternities and their relationship with Him.
And if that's not worth fighting for, nothing is.
