A Rare Moment of Calvinist Transparency

I mentioned a few weeks ago I wanted to return to a discussion that happened several weeks ago on The Happy Rant Podcast, with Ted Kluck, Barnabas Piper and Ronnie Martin. This takes place on Episode #94 when the subject of the Kickstarter project for the documentary Calvinist comes up in the discussion.

At first, the guys are just having fun with the various fundraising levels, but around the 30:00 minute mark (the whole topic is introduced at 23:45) the discussion about the need for the movie gets more serious. First Barnabas Piper says,

Nobody is going to watch this that’s not already a Calvinist… The only people who like talking about Calvinism are Calvinists and nobody likes talking about anything more than Calvinists like talking about being Calvinists… almost as much as introverts like to Tweet about being introverts.  It’s how Together for the Gospel thrives year after year without ever doing anything different… So this will succeed… I don’t understand why Calvinists love being Calvinists so much; I just don’t get it.

Then Ted Kluck chimes in,

I think it has something to do with when kids get to college and join fraternities. You just want to belong, you want to be part of something, you want someone to sit with at lunch.

Ronnie Martin says,

It carries such a heavy a weight of a label… Baptist love going around saying ‘I’m a Baptist.’  What’s fascinating about the Calvinist position, if you take that there’s two positions, Calvinist and Arminian… is that nobody walks around holding up a card that says, ‘Arminian, that’s me; arrow pointing at me;’ but Calvinists carry the weight and the title and the identity and wave the flag of this thing given that the other position never represents themselves with that position, but you have this position which we think is Biblical and it has the most clarity… we’re drinking the Kool Aid, we’re wearing the t-shirt, we got the sticker, we’ve got the conference, we’re writing the books, we’ve got the publishing companies, we’ve got the — wait for it — podcasts.

To which Piper replies,  It’s fascinating like a nature documentary

Martin: Then what are we doing right now?

Piper: We’re making fun of how strange it is.

Martin: But we’re one of them.

Piper: Yes and no; because there’s different ways to define them… There’s the theology; there’s Reformed theology which, at its best informs how you live life, it informs how you see the world, it informs how you read scripture, it informs how you interact with God… Then there’s the culture of Calvinism which I want absolutely nothing to do with because it’s absurd.

Martin: How do you separate them?

Piper continues:

By not being a jerk… It’s like you can be a college student without being in a fraternity.  You can still go to class and study hard. You can still pursue a degree. You can still make friends. You can do all of those things in college. You just don’t have to pledge and binge drink and generally be an idiot…

[later] …

When I hear people, and when I see stuff like this… people love the label Calvinist … that label is divisive not helpful… When I say I want no part of it, I’m talking about all of the things that are divisive about it because I believe a truly Reformed person should  absolutely be able to interact with an Arminian and a Semi-Pelagian and a Buddhist and a Hindu and whoever else… You’re arguing for the gospel, you’re not arguing for Reformed theology. If you want to come back and say Reformed theology is the gospel, you’re wrong. It’s not. The gospel is bigger than Reformed theology; it is a way of understanding… But Arminian people are saved too, and too many Calvinists act like they’re not and those people are morons…

[later]

… I’m talking about every aspect of the culture that I would deem to be divisive, or just dumb… When I saw this documentary, I just want to go, ‘Why?’ Who benefits from this. This is naval gazing by a naval gazing crowd. We love talking about ourselves, and how Reformed we are, so let’s make a documentary about Reformed Reformed people are.

[later]

…I’m talking about what will happen with it [the film]. …You know who’s going to watch this? Calvinists. And then they’re going to Tweet about it. And other Calvinists are going to re-Tweet it and they’re going to get their Calvinist buddies to watch it and we’re all going to be a little more Calvinist at the end of the day.