[Happy Easter, y'all!]
I just found this (sad!) on Reddit Reformed: What happened to my conviction and love for God?
Reformedhabeshagirl said:
Hello brothers and sisters
I have always been a Christian and grew up fearing the Lord. I remember being convicted about my sins as young as 7 or 8 years old. I became Reformed around age 17 and I am 23 now. I have always been a repentant believer. My heart used to break when I sinned, and I love the Lord. I studied my Bible a lot, prayed often, and was very interested in theology, sermons, and everything related to faith.
The problem is that my heart has lost all desire for the things I used to love. I stopped listening to sermons and I don’t want to study my Bible anymore. Any interest I had in Bible study or discussions about the Lord only came when my ex-boyfriend shared things with me every day or when it came from my pastor every Sunday. Now my heart feels hard. I am not convicted about the things I used to mourn over.
I distanced myself from my amazing best friend and mentor who helped me grow so much in my faith and in my understanding of sin. I broke up with my boyfriend, and now I don’t even feel anything about it. I know he would be the best husband in the world and that I’m missing out, but I’m still not sad about it.
I’m not sad about not praying or studying the Bible anymore. I’m not interested in anything at all. I feel numb and emotionless.
I’m starting to think that maybe I was never saved, since I firmly believe that salvation cannot be lost. But if I was never saved, why did I feel all those convictions before? Now I don’t care about any of it. I want to care again. I want to miss the Lord like I used to, but I have no interest at all.
Am I lost?
[My note: Of course, there could be more going on here, such as depression, exhaustion, burnout (too much academic study of God, not enough personal connection with God), a phase of life, family issues, backsliding into sin, the wrong expectation that faith will always be exciting and full of emotional highs, or any combination of things.
But I have to wonder if - at the heart of it - it's really just because of the Calvinism.
She's been trained in Reformed (Deformed!) Theology for the past several years, which means that she has traded in the God of the Bible for Calvi-god, a god who predetermines and controls everything that happens, leading to a fatalistic mindset of "What's it really matter, and why care about anything anyway?"
And, additionally, Calvinism includes the idea of "evanescent grace," that Calvi-god sometimes tricks non-Calv-elect people into thinking they are really one of the Calv-elect by giving them a temporary fake-faith that makes them feel saved - just as saved as the Calv-elect - when they really aren't. And when that temporary faith fades, he blinds and hardens them even more to punish them more strongly in hell.
And so Calvinists have to spend their lives worrying if they are really non-elect even though they feel elect, always struggling to confirm their election but never able to prove it, and unable to do anything about it (no matter how hard they try) if they were given evanescent grace instead of saving grace. They spend their lives struggling to trust a god like that (when there is no reason to, because he's not worthy of trust) and to feel eternally secure, some sort of assurance of salvation in Calvinism (when there really is none).
How exhausting and discouraging!
And since Calvinism teaches reprobation, people who struggle with their faith will be tempted to think that maybe they just weren't chosen after all, and there's nothing they can do about it. So why not just embrace your reprobation, right?
Sad. Hopeless.
And, even more sad, there are plenty of people like her who've had their faith and their view of God destroyed by Calvinism:
Fr
"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)
"My parents used to say 'even the cutest baby is a dirty rotten sinner.'... 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.... 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... 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)
From the Reddit post "Verily verily I say unto thee, f*ck this sh*t!": "...When I realized our own judicial system treats us better than this sadistic god, I was out. 30 years of my life. Sure, there were good memories. But the weight of it all sure took a toll on me eventually. Thankful I can breath a bit more easy now not worrying if I have committed the unpardonable sin. I’m certain I have 100x over. ;) ..." (Miss_an100)
And from the reddit post "Election and Suicide": "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")
Sad, sad, sad!]
A Calvinist called The-Old-Path responded to her with this, not realizing how insightful it really is (but in an opposite, unintentional way):
Sin separates us from God. Love connects us with Him.... The more we love, the more we know Him, and the more we experience His blessings and life-giving presence. If we continue to love steadfastly despite the many obstacles satan tries to place in our way, we will overcome every form of temptation, dwell in the peace, love and joy of Christ, and discover eternal life.
... So, life is a choice. Every day we choose to love or to sin. To be selfless or to be selfish. To do the work of Christ, or to do the work of the devil.
If you want to find your way home, devote yourself to loving with the love of God.
God's love will abolish all darkness in your life and all barriers between you and Him.
We already have all of the love we need to love with, because God gave it to us before we were born. All we have to do is make the decision to let that love flow out of our hearts.
I urge you to start doing what is right for your life today, and throw yourself into loving God, yourself, and all of those around you.
The perfect, selfless love of God is the most excellent way of life there is.
My note: First of all, this contradicts the whole Calvinist idea that Calvi-god predetermines and causes everything and there's nothing we can do about it. Calvinists constantly try to claim that God sovereignly controls all, especially our faith and all our decisions, while also putting the responsibility on people to do something to help their faith. Contradictory and confusing.
Calvinism thoroughly confuses anyone who thinks enough about it, examines it closely enough, or heeds their alarm bells. Maybe Reformedhabeshagirl is having a problem with it because she can't live with the cognitive dissonance required to embrace Calvinism. Her depression about her Calvi-faith is actually a good sign, showing her that something is seriously wrong with what she's been learning.
Secondly, love does connect us with God (because God is love)... but Calvi-god is not the God of the Bible and so Calvi-love is not real love, not God's love. And so it's no surprise that instead of Calvinism growing and enriching this girl's faith, it's destroying it, pulling her farther away from the God of the Bible and His genuine love.
I mean, think about it: Calvi-god hates most people, wants most people in hell, is glorified by and pleased with the damnation of most people, wants and orchestrates and causes all sin and evil for his pleasure and glory, and is deceptive and duplicitous (saying one thing but meaning another; commanding people to believe but preventing most from believing; commanding people to not sin but predestining and causing them to sin; punishing them for the sin and unbelief he caused but calling it "justice" and "deserved punishment"), etc. etc. etc.
Who can really love or trust a god like that? How is he any different from Satan?
No wonder she's struggling with her faith!
The-Old-Path can challenge her to live out of God's love all he wants, but if their god is Calvi-god - not the God of the Bible - then it's all wasted effort, climbing a ladder that's on completely the wrong wall. How can she live out of, and give out to others, what she herself isn't getting: true love from the true God?
Spending energy trying to feel and give God's love when you're not even following the real God is just going to exhaust and discourage you more, setting you up to fail, further confirming your sense of hopelessness, feeding your desire to deconstruct from the faith. So focus on getting back to the true God before trying to live out of His love. If you focus on finding the true God, you'll automatically get His love. But if you focus on living out of the love of a false god, you'll get neither the true God nor His love.
Thirdly, how can you resist and overcome the obstacles Satan puts in your path when you've embraced his Deformed Theology as truth? How can you "do the work of Christ" when your "Christ" is actually Satan in disguise and you're living out his lies? How will it help to go on "loving with the love of God" when you're following the wrong god who has no love?
Yes, "the perfect, selfless love of God is the most excellent way of life there is"... but this is exactly why she's struggling so badly. Because she isn't learning about the perfect, selfless love of the God of the Bible. She's learning about the corrupted, deformed, deceptive fake-love of Calvi-god (Satan in disguise).
When we commit ourselves to the wrong god, a false gospel, and a heretical theology, we invite darkness, instead of overcoming it... we put up barriers between us and the real God, instead of tearing them down... and we separate ourselves from the God of the Bible and His love, instead of drawing nearer to Him and enjoying His love.
It's no wonder that this poor girl is struggling so badly, that she's losing her faith, her love for God, and her desire to care about how she lives, to make wise and godly decisions.
Please, say a prayer for her! She's still so young. There's still hope. And my advice to her would be to get far away from Calvinism and Reformed Theology and start getting to know the God of the Bible again. It'll make all the difference!
(Extra notes from other posts that relate to this:)
For Calvinists who are starting to realize they've been led astray:
If you're a Calvinist who's getting worried right now because you're thinking "Oh no! I've been believing a lie all this time! What do I do? What should I think?", let me just say this: Don't worry, because the true biblical truth is even more beautiful than what you've been told by Calvinists. What God did for you, He can do for anyone.
God loves all people and wants all people to be saved (not just the elect). Jesus died for all people, paying for all men's sins on the cross (not just the elect). And He offers the gift of eternal life to all people, for anyone to accept. No one is beyond God's reach, beyond His love, grace, forgiveness, healing, salvation, etc. It's for all people, not just the elect. And so no one is hopeless. No one is predestined to hell, unable to be saved. God loves all, Jesus died for all, and God offers salvation to all (but He leaves it up to us to accept it or reject it).
But in Calvinism, God truly 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, and so the non-elect have no hope at all, no chance to be saved.
The truth biblical truth of the gospel is so much more wonderful, hope-filled, gracious, loving, etc., than what Calvinism teaches - because in the Bible no one is beyond hope. Anyone can be saved. And God loves all.
(Not to mention that in the Bible, God is not the cause of sin and unbelief, but He gives us the ability to choose our own decisions/actions and then He responds accordingly. But in Calvinism, He is the ultimate cause of all sin and unbelief but then He holds us responsible for it, for what He predestined and caused. Can you see the damage this does to God's character and to people's faith in Him and trust of Him?)
The truth of the Bible is so much more beautiful and hope-filled and life-giving 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!
To end this post:
Here are some snippets from my post "Healing your soul from Calvinism's damage" that I would like to share with Reformedhabeshagirl (and anyone who's struggling like her):
For the 6 years that the new Calvinist pastor was at our church, subtly teaching his Calvinism, my soul was starving. I'm not kidding; I could feel it starving. Shriveling up dry. It wasn't dying - because I have a very strong faith, and my faith is in God, not in some preacher - but it was starved for truth and encouragement and joy, etc.
And it wasn't just because of what he was teaching, but it was also because of what he wasn't teaching. He hardly talked about God's love for us, how God cares about us, how He helps us in the hard times, etc. There was no real encouragement, compassion, grace, love, hope, etc. At least not in my eyes.
Instead, it was often lofty, academic knowledge for the head, hardly ever comfort for the heart. And it was often about how depraved we are, how much we don't deserve God's love, how much we deserve hell, how we should just ignore that God predestines people to hell and be thankful that He chose to save any of us wretched sinners (the lucky lottery winners!), and how God "ordains" every evil that happens and every tragedy we go through - including childhood abuse - for our good, for His glory, and to keep us humble.
No wonder my heart was aching and my soul was starving!
This is so destructive to faith, not helpful or encouraging, because it's so destructive to God's character. I mean, how can you take comfort in a God (Calvi-god) who causes all evil and sin - things he commands us not to do, but then causes us to do, and then punishes us for doing? A god who says one thing but means another? What kind of a god is that!?! Does that make you want to trust him and love him and worship him more? (Or are you just worshipping him out of shame and fear?) Does it comfort you in the hard times? Or does it break your heart and your faith?
Calvinism is garbage! Faith-suffocating, joy-killing garbage!... 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 (they're not!)- 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. (Many people who try to get rid of Calvinism end up getting rid of God and biblical truth, too. Because they don't know there's a difference. They've been taught it's one and the same.)
Calvinism's god who loves himself so much that he chose to predestine people to hell for his glory...
... and the God of the Bible who loves people so much that He chose to die in our place to offer everyone salvation from hell...
... are two very different Gods!
Calvi-god sacrifices people for himself.
The God of the Bible sacrificed Himself for people.
Which one would you love and trust and worship?
Anyway, after 6 years of our pastor's Calvinist preaching, my faith was on life-support, gasping for breath. I was aching for some good, soul-refreshing truth. And so after we left our church (which was a huge relief in itself, see this post), I realized that the best thing I could do - what I really needed to do - was to go "back to the basics," even though I had been a Christian for over 30 years.
Maybe it's because Calvinism is such lofty, academic hogwash, or maybe it's just because it destroys the foundational truths of Scripture and God's character, but whatever it was, what I needed most after leaving our church was to hear all the simple beautiful truths all over again, to replace the lies I'd been hearing for the last 6 years. To heal my heart. To revive my faith. To just rest in His presence again for awhile and learn to enjoy Him again.
And so, based on my experience leaving a Calvinist church (I was never a Calvinist though, so I didn't have the added struggle of restructuring my theological views, but I did feel the faith-shaking effects of Calvinism), here are some of my recommendations for anyone else who is trying to recover from what Calvinism has done to their heart, soul, and faith:
1. Grieve the loss. Feel the pain. Express your doubts and fears and struggles and hurts to God (and to a trusted godly friend or counselor, if possible). The only way to get through it is to go through it. And to go through it with God.
So in prayer, tell God your pain, the damage that's been done, the fears and doubts Calvinism's created, the messed-up views you have of Him now, how much you don't know or can't figure out, the things that scare you, etc. Pour it all out to Him honestly. (He can handle it.)
Don't blame Him for Calvinism's errors and damage. Don't wall yourself off from Him or walk away from Him in pain, anger, distrust, or disgust. God Himself hates lies (and Calvinism is a big lie). God Himself hurts when His truth and character are attacked (and Calvinism attacks God's truth and character). And God Himself hurts with us when we hurt, especially if the damage has been done in His name. So He is hurting with you. He wants more for you. He wants to heal the damage Calvinism's done to you in His name.
But He needs you to let Him do it. He needs you to open yourself up to Him honestly, to reach out for Him, even if you're scared or hurt or angry. He cannot heal you and help you on the right path if you reject Him along with the Calvinism.
Calvinism is not the gospel!
So get rid of the Calvinism, but keep the gospel, keep your faith, keep Jesus.
2. Simplify. Slow down. Breathe.
There may be a point when you need to briefly get away from everything for awhile [church in general, friends, any kind of study (even researching against Calvinism), traditions, religious rituals, etc.] so that you can take time to just decompress, breathe, heal, and reach a healthy balance, especially if you came from a legalistic, performance-based church or mindset or if the journey out of Calvinism has been emotionally hard on you.
Get rid of the legalistic, ritualistic "shoulds" for now - the "I should do this, I should do that, I need to try harder or do more or be better" things we do to try to please or impress God, others, or ourselves, trying to be the "good Christian" we're "supposed to be" or that other Christians (especially the leaders) make us feel we "should" be - and just let yourself fall into the arms of God and rest there awhile.
You may even need to stop trying so hard to find the "right" words to pray, maybe even - when the words won't come - just letting silence be your prayer for awhile. It's okay to not have the words sometimes. God knows your heart better than you do.
Hab. 2:20: “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.”
Romans 8:26-27: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”
(When you can't find the words or energy or faith to pray, it also helps to let worship songs be your prayer, and to simply recite Psalms or the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13, and to pray Scripture. This has been immensely helpful to me when I'm struggling with prayer.)
Sometimes, it's time to stop doing so that you can focus on just being for awhile - just being with God and letting Him be with you. He doesn't always want or need us to do things for Him (or even need us to know what to do or how to do it). Sometimes, He just wants us to be with Him, to let Him hold us and tell us it's okay.
Psalm 46:10: "Be still and know that I am God!"
James 4:8: “Come near to God, and he will come near to you.”
Psalm 62:5: “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.”
Psalm 34:17-18: “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
1 Peter 5:6-7: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Psalm 25:9, 37:7: “He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way… Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him…”
Isaiah 26:3: “You will keep in perfect peace he whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”
So don't worry about the man-made rules and traditions, about learning more "doctrines," or about what "good Christians" are "supposed to do" according to other people. Get rid of all the extra things that we humans have piled on top of faith over the centuries, the things that obscure and smother and suffocate it... and just learn to enjoy God again. His creation. His goodness. His blessings. His love.
When you're coming out of Calvinism, you've probably been starved of this for a long time while you've been spending your time, energy, and brain cells learning heavy, complicated, theological ideas (wrong ones!). You've been learning so much about God (so many wrong views about Him) that you've missed out on being with God. And so after leaving Calvinism or a Calvinist church, take some time to pause, to simplify, to learn to enjoy Him again, trust Him again, love Him again, and get to know Him again, as He is in His Word. Don't deconstruct from the faith, but do disentangle from the lies, errors, and man-made ideas, traditions, and rules that have corrupted the faith, The Truth, God.
It's not necessarily going to be easy or pain-free, but you're going to come out the other end with a purer, stronger, more genuine faith and trust in God. The God of the Bible. And that's a very good thing.
Recently, a friend who's struggling with the Calvinism in our previous church asked me how it feels to now attend a non-Calvinist church.
My answer?
It feels like this:
Imagine you wanted to study world history - to get really good at it and to feel closer to the world because of it. And so someone took you through an intensive study of some big, meaty, complicated history books ... of Middle-earth.
You read The Book of Lost Tales and The Lays of Beleriand and others. You devoured The Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. You wrestled with some of the difficult, disturbing aspects of it all. You know all the history of Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, the Ents, the Wizards, Sauron, Numenor, Gondolin, Valinor, etc. Maybe you even learned to read and speak Elvish.
You gained so much knowledge and feel so close to the people and events of history because of it... until you sit down to take an official test on real world history. And it's only then that you realize that you've got nothing.
Sadly, you were learning all the wrong things. And as a consequence, you missed out on all the right things. But you didn't realize it at the time because you were deceived by, enchanted by, how much knowledge you were gaining.
I think Calvinism is like that. Calvinists think that all the knowledge they're gaining through those huge Calvinist theology books means that they're growing in the faith, in truth, closer to God... until they wake up one day and realize that they've got nothing, that their faith is on life-support because it's been starving all that time for real truth and real hope, and yet they couldn't sense it because of all the noise created by all the bad information they were learning.
It's sad.
These are some books I've found helpful as I set out to undo the damage Calvinism has done.
He loves all people with a saving love. He died for everyone so that anyone can be saved, if only they will choose to believe in Him. He is reaching out His hand to all people, asking us to grab onto Him, to let Him love us and heal us and save us! All of us. Everyone.
This is my Jesus! My God! My Lord and Savior!
My Jesus by Todd Agnew
Fell Apart by The City Harmonic (my favorite opening line ever!)
Here and There by The City Harmonic ("If I'm barely hangin' on..." I get that!)
The Champion by Carman
(And there are more great songs in these posts: My "When Anxiety Strikes" Playlist and To All Who Are Ashamed or Hurting.)
