aint no daisy

A while back, I found an interesting examination of the "5 points of Calvinism," by popular Roman Catholic apologist, Jimmy Akin. As he "tiptoes" through the TULIP, he tries to show how a Roman Catholic could accept a majority of TULIP. It's interesting to me because it's a Roman Catholic (Presbyterian convert) announcing that much of "Calvinism" was already there to be found in the general Catholic tradition. A lot of his criticisms, as well, are only valid in regard to unhealthy American baptistic distortions of Reformed soteriology. But even John Piper, the very best of the "reformed baptist" crowd understands that Perseverance of the Saints, for example, does not mean "once you're in, you're in." Piper has said, "I believe in a doctring of the Perseverance of the Saints in which John Piper can lose everything and make a shipwreck of the Faith." (This is from his Cowper bio lecture.). Anyhow, to treat TULIP as the sum total of "Calvinism" is to ignore a large part of Reformed tradition. And isolating TULIP from its broader Reformed, covenantal context is not to deal honestly with the reformed tradition. Both Roman Catholics and many who would claim the moniker "reformed" are guilty of this reductionism.

I'm already late for work. Sorry that my thoughts are rambling.

For better and for worse, we have numerous popularizers of Reformed theology around today. The result is that what most of us think of as ‘Reformed’ is greatly truncated. American Reformed theology is like a bad cassette recording of the real thing.
-Rich Lusk, from Covenant and Election FAQ (version 6.4)