BONUS EPISODE: Leighton Flowers: The Bible Verses That Made Me Leave Calvinism DMW#212

Exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between.

Broadcasting from an undisclosed location.

Dead Men Walking starts now.

Well hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking podcast.

I'm your host Greg Moore.

Not quite undisclosed this week.

We're still coming from Tullahoma, Tennessee.

The Y Calvinism conference.

As always you can check us out at dmwpodcast .com.

Go there and learn a little bit more about us.

Check out the merch store, support the show.

Well, a special guest we're gonna get right into.

We don't have a whole lot of time right now.

We're gonna do a short segment.

I have Mr. Leighton Flowers.

How are you sir?

Doing very well, thank you.

Showed up to the Y Calvinism conference.

Why not?

Why not?

I absolutely love it.

We got to have dinner, I think was the, I don't know, the days are running together.

Maybe yesterday, day before.

And it was just a good time of fellowship.

Now I have a special relationship to where I was watching some of the stuff you

were doing, debating like with James White years ago before you were cool and hip.

I've never been cool and hip.

That's my four kids.

I'm in the same boat, okay.

I got teenagers.

So it's been really interesting, and I'm not gonna do most of the talking, but it's really interesting to kind of

see that what you've kind of crafted online in your ministry and things like that.

But I just wanted to have you on to quickly talk about, well first let's, for those who don't know you, give us a little one minute

intro, who you are and what you do.

And then we want to talk a little bit about your journey from Calvinism into provisionalism and kind

of how that went.

Yeah, well my name is Leighton Flowers.

I'm the director of evangelism and apologetics for Texas Baptist.

That's my real job.

My nine -to -fiver.

That's what I've been doing for years prior to ever starting the podcast.

I didn't just come into existence in 2014.

That's just when people began to hear about me, because I started the podcast.

I had left Calvinism and felt that there was kind of a void online on this subject, and so I started

to produce this material in order to kind of fill that void.

What I felt like was a void of scholarly, robust answers to Calvinism's interpretation of

Scripture, as well as more of a positive presentation for what we believe about the love and provision of God.

And so most people know me online, especially in your broadcast, your audience would know me from

Sociology 101, that I created really separately to keep it from overrunning my evangelism and apologetics

page and the things that I do in my real world, because this is an in -house debate.

It's among brothers and sisters, and it can be contentious.

It can overrun a page if it's kept all together.

And so, you know, Dr. White's ministry has a ton of different, you know, apologetic works that he does, but

Sociology 101 is different, because I'm an evangelist and an apologist separately,

and a denominational worker, teaching pastor, those kinds of things, a Trinity seminary professor,

and so that's what I do most of the time.

On the Sociology 101 podcast, that's my debate page and the Calvinism discussions and all the things

that we do there, if that makes sense.

Yeah, and isn't it kind of crazy how you can do these kind of big important things, like you said, my real job,

but then sometimes if you get online, you have a podcast, you have kind of this ministry going, and it really touches a

nerve, it just kind of takes off.

It looks like it's really taken off in the last.

Few years, even.

Yeah, well, Keith Foskey, you had him on earlier and talking to him, same kind of thing.

People know him for his funny skit videos and stuff like that.

They think, well, that's all he does.

No, he's a pastor.

And a really good one.

Yeah, a very great pastor, and he does a lot of other things.

So you can get well known for a particular niche or a particular thing you do, and that's kind of what's happened with Sociology 101,

but I try to emphasize when I'm on the broadcast and other things that this shouldn't be such a myopic thing that this is all

you ever talk about or ever do.

One, it would be really boring.

I mean, you have to be pretty obsessed to only talk about this particular topic, but at the same time, it

also is not good balance.

I mean, if you're not doing your spiritual disciplines, sharing your faith, studying other topics and other doctrines and other

things, then it can get where you're imbalanced in your approach.

And so I have to feel like I have to say that when I go places because I don't want people to misinterpret my goal and

my heart in doing what I do with Sociology 101.

So what was that journey like?

Because mine's a little bit different to where I grew up non -Calvinist and was told, hey, those are weirdos and

heretics and was a closeted Calvinist for eight or nine years where I understood the theology, I agreed with it, but I didn't want

to tell anyone.

I didn't want, you know, and kind of was afraid of it to where you, for close to ten years, correct,

identified with that theology.

And then how'd you come out of that?

Well, I was raised in a Southern Baptist, typical Southern Baptist, whosoever will kind of.

So that's what I always believed growing up, but I didn't know really what I believed about predestination, election, the

deeper doctrines.

I just had a general understanding of belief that God loved everybody and everybody could be saved.

I went off to college and was introduced to a mentor who's still a good friend of mine, by the way, still have

a huge amount of respect for him, but he introduced me to John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul and the Ligonier tapes, and I got at

the table talk, you know, and all that kind of stuff.

I got a couple hundred of those in my house.

Oh yeah, and it took me forever to, my wife was trying to get rid of this box of Ligonier tapes and table talks.

I was like, still to this day, I'm like, no, it's a little, yeah, you have that.

And I cut my teeth with Sproul and then later Piper, and Matt Chandler came a year after me

at Hardin -Simmons where I was, and I helped convince him of limited.

Atonement.

You're welcome.

Well, what happened now?

Now we don't claim him.

Anymore.

He's a little too much.

Him and Mark Driscoll, what happened?

So anyway, so all of that to say is that, yeah, I

adopted at least a form of Calvinism.

Some, like Dr. White, don't think I was really reformed enough.

Okay.

That's our go -to.

He has a fair point.

If you left it, you never were really.

Right, yeah, exactly.

Once a Calvinist, always a Calvinist.

Well, and I probably wasn't the kind of Calvinist that he is, to be fair.

I was probably more of a kind of softer, moderate kind of a Calvinist.

Okay.

And granted, I was in my 20s when I was a Calvinist, so there probably was a lot of cognitive dissonance with some of the

harder issues that, you know, that we grapple with now in the program that I hadn't ever really dealt with as a Calvinist.

So it was one of those things.

Like, yeah, this sounds plausible and good, and there's smarter men who have an explanation of it, and I'll go with it.

Right.

Yeah, it's kind of like the.

Surrendering your sense -making to MacArthur or Sproul.

I didn't know how to answer some of those hard questions, but I figured they would, and so I didn't feel like I needed to provide answers

for the hard questions.

But I'm one of those kind of guys.

I'm a theology geek.

I like knowing answers to questions, so I'm not satisfied with that spot, and so I'm always looking for more

answers.

And I found myself getting close to my 30s as I was studying.

I was actually reading a book by Tozer, and I assumed he was a Calvinist because he's smart, and all Calvinists were

smart in my mind.

I was like, oh, he's smart, and Piper.

Quoted him all the time.

Yeah, who needs a theology degree?

Just ask a Calvinist a theological question, right?

He'll give you two hours on it.

You'll be an expert.

I just.

Assumed that Tozer was a Calvinist, and I'm reading The Knowledge of the Holy, and it begins very

clearly to realize he's not a Calvinist, and even begin to study on that and begin to find out actually he spoke out against

Calvinism quite vehemently, in fact.

Same with C .S. Lewis.

Another guy I had a huge amount of respect for, and I just assumed he was one of us, you know?

Yeah, but two, still two great guys.

Yeah, exactly, and so there was a part of me behind the scenes that was kind of like going, why would these guys, as

smart as they are, they reject Calvinism?

Are they just too emotional?

Are they just not biblical?

What's wrong with them?

And I had debated when I was in college, in high school, and you had to learn to take on the

other side of any issue, and it was something I learned was a really great way to get real

deep into your view, and I really started that process trying to firm up my Calvinism to become a better

Calvinist, and that process actually led the other direction where I was introduced to some thoughts and ideas

and concepts that I had never dealt with before, and that I couldn't answer from a

Calvinistic vantage point very well.

Okay.

And so I became more and more disillusioned with the Calvinistic structure and systematic, where I would

appeal to mystery.

Before, I was unwilling to do that anymore, and some of the issues and some of the quandaries that were created on the

negative side of the Calvinistic side, because the positive side of Calvinism is fun.

You know, got a Lex, and loves you, and he's chosen you.

You can talk about that all day long, and it sounds great, but it's it's when you begin to talk about reprobation, double predestination,

the non -elect, the blameworthiness of those not elected, being born unable to willingly believe

because of a nature they were born with, they can't control it.

All these things are going, that didn't seem right.

You know, there's something that doesn't sit well.

It's a hard pill to swallow.

Even Piper says he went three days when first introduced to it, and Spruill talks about being drug into the system, kicking and

screaming, because they're acknowledging, I think, what most Calvinists recognize.

It's a hard pill to swallow.

It's not.

Real easy.

There's some difficulty there.

And if they say it isn't, I don't, I think they're.

Just in a club at that point.

Exactly.

Yeah, it is.

And honest Calvinists, intellectually honest Calvinists, will come out and write out and admit, this is this is difficult, but you've got to be

willing to take truth even if it's hard.

And so some Calvinists wear it almost even as a badge of honor, because they'll even, you know, argue that

because it's so hard proves in their mind it must be right, because the Bible's offensive.

Right.

And Calvinism is offensive, so maybe the Bible is actually teaching Calvinism, and that's kind of where I was for a long time.

I found it offensive, but at the same time I figured, you know what?

Hell's offensive too.

And there's, by golly, God talked, Jesus talked more about hell than he did about heaven, and so sometimes things are offensive.

And so I really held on to my Calvinism despite some of my problems underlying the surface

with it because of those justifications, and it wasn't until I went to a deep study and really found some of the

other side of Calvinism and begin to see the exegetical reasons that people would would

read Romans 9, for example, differently.

Okay.

Because I didn't know how you get around Romans 9.

I mean, good night.

Right.

Just looked like Calvinism all over it.

How in the world is that not Calvinism?

I mean, like was it Keith Hayes preached?

Yeah.

I mean, when you hear Kevin, sorry, Kevin Hayes, when you hear somebody that articulate,

I mean, he is a great, great communicator, and he just walks through Romans the way that he did from a Calvinist perspective.

That's like MacArthur for me when I was going through it.

I mean, I just hook, line, and sinker.

I'm right there.

How in the world can you argue with that?

Yeah.

But it wasn't until I really began to understand the other side of how a non -Calvinist

scholar, not just the surfacy guys that say, let's skip Romans 9 today because it's too hard.

Right.

But the guys that are willing to go through it, once I understood where they were coming from, it was like, for me, it was kind of like the

same thing going into Calvinism coming back out.

It was like a light came on, like, oh.

Yeah.

Who are some of.

Those guys?

You remember, like, greeting anyone in particular and going, yeah, this.

Is the opposite side of me, but this is...

Well, you know, there's the Adrian Rogers, traditional Southern Baptist perspective, Herschel

Hobbes.

Okay.

A lot of these kinds of guys that weren't real well -known, you know, in the average circles, unless you were a Southern

Baptist, you know, you wouldn't know those names.

But there's... and there are many others.

As a matter of fact, what's really crazy is that there are some, even in the Reformed ranks,

that, in other words, that would still be claimed under more of a Reformed tradition that still had

interpretations that sided more with the more provisionistic, for lack of better word,

traditional Southern Baptist perspective, but they would still say, well, we still believe in Calvinism, but this interpretation, this text

better fits this.

Right.

And so that would make me kind of go, how in the world, how would he, why does he, how can you possibly still remain Reformed,

Calvinistic, and not see Romans 9?

Right.

Because it's the apologetic for Calvinism.

I mean, it's the linchpin of Calvinism, and how can you side.

With our interpretation, but still...

Yeah, the t -shirt right behind you.

Wine them,.

Dine them, Romans nine them.

Exactly.

Right.

That's what we love going to.

If you lose Romans 9, in my estimation, Calvinism's lost, and so, at least in my mind, I can recognize

that.

Okay, so how long was this process of like wrestling with this?

It was probably a good two and a half to three years.

Okay, so it wasn't something overnight.

It was like...

And I was a closet non -Calvinist for a while.

Same thing, alright.

So when I came back out of it, I didn't, I liked being a part of the Calvinistic brotherhood.

I mean, Matt Chandler, like I said, a friend, Bodie Bauckham came to speak at our events, Piper came to speak at some

of our events, and I felt like I was a part of the crowd.

Sure.

Charles Spurgeon, you know, the heroes of the faith, and I was a card -carrying member of the founders of

ministry for the Southern Baptist Convention, and I was a part of a Reformed Baptist Church, and I

knew, I remember how I used to think about Armenians, and I didn't want people to think of me like that,

because I saw Armenians as surfacy, you know, or even like even the Rick Warrens.

Sure, all the cliches.

Like Bill Hybels, Rick Warrens, Joel Steen, all of those folks are seen as like real surfacy, kind of

topical, and I knew how they were viewed by my Calvinistic circles,

and that turned me off to the point I didn't want to come out and admit that I wasn't a Calvinist

anymore, and so I kind of...

That's being real.

I mean, that's a.

Pride thing, or kind of like a, you know, and I know guys in this group that would probably, they look to their peers and

want to appear a certain way instead.

Of pleasing God.

Right, because I knew if I came right out and said what I was struggling with, or what I believed, I knew how some of my buddies, and

some of my friends now, I mean we contend over these issues, but I have some very strong Calvinistic friends, and

they do.

They did tease me, you know, and made all the jokes about the things that we used to joke with Armenians about,

and I begin to realize it's not so monolithic as to have either this camp or that camp.

There's a lot of in -between.

There's a lot of nuance, and once I began to recognize those spaces, and

I eventually went back and got my doctorate degree, and I ended up writing on the subject, which

outed me, so to speak, as a non -Calvinist, but I did want to be called an Armenian because I'm a Southern Baptist, and

Armenians, those are Methodists, you know.

That's not my crowd, and I did still affirm eternal security, and still do, and so

there was aspects of my particular views that did not align really with Calvinism or Arminianism,

and I was more aligned with what was referred to by the scholars at that time, anyway, was more of the

traditional Southern.

Baptist perspective.

Which is where I want to go, so where have you landed?

For the listeners, where are you at now?

Because you're in a unique position to where you've kind of coined provisionism, and I'm like, man, us

Amillennials, we've been trying to get that renamed for 500 years.

That only happens every so often.

It's kind of picked up to where you're now associated with that word, and you've created that, and you say, well, you know,

there's traditionalism in there and stuff like that, but now we're in this thing where we're talking about this P word now

because of you, and I'm not trying to puff you up or say, you know, I'm just saying it's really

rare to go, oh, here we have a guy defining something clearly, kind of rebranding, renaming it, and people

going, yeah, I find myself there too.

So where are you at for the listeners?

Yeah, and provisionism wasn't something, I wasn't like trying to start provisionism.

I mean, it's not the way it happened.

You didn't go buy the domain?

Yeah, I was like, no, I still don't own it.

Yeah, somebody came up to me, one of those young men that just walked by, he said, I'll sell to you, provisionism .com, because I

guess he went out and bought them all.

Hey, we're an entrepreneurial bunch.

Yes, we are.

He goes to Calvin and says, all right, buying up provisionism .com.

Somebody bought sociology101 .net or .org or one of the, I got .com,

and they have it redirected to James White's website.

Okay, well, that's a little game and chip, all right.

But anyway, so really, I was just more of a focus on God provides.

Okay.

So you can talk about how dead men are, how sinful, worm -like, viper in diapers, whatever you want to say about men.

And I'll just reply by going, okay, but God provides for those people.

And God provides for all people.

And so I don't think anybody perishes for a lack of atonement or a lack of God's desire in the

process.

I don't think God creates people for destruction or predestines them to that end.

I think if somebody perishes, they perish because they refuse to love the truth so as to be saved, as Paul put it.

And so the only reason anybody ends up separated from God for eternity is because of their choice, their

rejection.

So it's really more about, for me at least, the blameworthiness of the sinner.

And I think they're more blameworthy if they're rejecting a God who loves and provides for them than if they're rejecting a God who first rejected them

or a God that didn't really provide for them.

So I think they're more blameworthy on provisionism than they are on Calvinism.

Now, I understand there are answers to that, and I'm sure you're wanting to give them, but I'm just giving you kind of a

flyover.

Well, I really didn't want to get into that.

I wanted to kind of introduce you to the listeners with a different perspective.

Look, I've had guys on that came in and said anyone associated with Christian nationalism is a Nazi, and I've had

Sam Storns coming on defending, you know, Bethel.

And so this isn't a gotcha podcast.

I'm truly interested in this.

We won't go too much longer here.

So for someone listening who might know these terms, they would go, well, there's Calvinist and there's

Arminians.

I mean, what is this third thing that he's introducing?

How are you different?

We know how you're different maybe from the Calvinistic view.

How would you be different from a purely Arminian.

View?

And that's hard because just like Calvinism is not monolithic, as we well learned when we had our coffee and all the different foods

around the table, you Calvinist.

And if you ever want to get off the hot seat, just insert dispensationalism or escapology or whatever.

That's a good trick for 50 minutes.

But what I'm saying is Arminianism is not monolithic either.

There are different kinds of Arminians.

Wesleyan Arminians, classical Arminians, modern day Arminians, all different perspectives.

But generally, the Augustinian grid is the grid that adopt

the concept and idea of original sin, also including original guilt and inability.

Okay.

Meaning that we inherit the guilt of Adam, and because of that, we're also unable to respond

positively to the gospel appeal or to the light, the goodness of God's revelation.

We don't stay on that Augustinian grid.

We believe that was introduced by Augustine, and we don't believe that that's the proper grid.

Now, we're accused of Pelagianism and all kinds of stuff, which we discuss on our broadcast because of some of those views,

and we defend why we don't land there and various reasons.

But basically, what we're saying is we're not born guilty for what Adam did.

That doesn't mean there's not results of the fall or cast out of the garden.

We're separated due to our rebellion.

We're in a corrupt environment with corrupt desires, but we're still able to respond,

responsible.

We're able to respond to the light and revelation, calling us to repentance from that fallen condition.

And we're not guilty for what Adam did.

We're guilty for what we do.

We're held accountable for how we deal with the words of God, as John 12 talks about,

that He didn't come to judge the world, but what will judge you on the final day are the very words that I've spoken to you.

And so we're going to be judged and held accountable, not by how many sins we commit or what Adam did.

We're going to be held accountable for what we do with the words of Christ.

And so that's the ultimate kind of overview of our view.

We don't have an Augustinian grid, so we don't have to deal with original guilt causing

inability by inserting this thing called prevenient grace into the mix going, okay, that fixed our

inability.

And so I don't have to have that, what might be called an inherited guilt.

And so that would be a difference.

Between our perspectives, if that makes sense.

Okay.

So as we finish up here, who do you see your core audience?

Are they rehabilitated Calvinists?

Are they Arminians wandering on the spectrum?

Because I feel like, is there anyone who's non -Calvinistic even coming to you and going, no,

I feel like they would mostly agree with everything that you're saying.

So who do you see your demographic as that on the Sociology 101 channel?

There's a lot of.

Ex -Calvinists, and there's a lot of people, traditional Southern Baptists that don't like what

Calvinism has done in their churches.

The rise of Calvinism among Southern Baptists has a big controversy, so some of them are looking for answers, and

a lot of them don't know what to do with Romans 9, for example, or they get some very good teacher, like we heard

from Kevin, and they come into the church and begin to teach this, and they sound real convincing, but they're not

Calvinists themselves, and so they don't know how to deal with it.

So they come to the program, and you get all types.

Obviously, when you're on a broadcast, you're going to get some, we've got a lot of regular Calvinist listeners that just like to be challenged.

They like to contend with us, and they'll contend in the side chat, and they'll banter with us.

There's some Armenians who agree with us on a lot of points, but maybe differ with us on a point or two.

So we have of all kinds that join the podcast, and I get messages all the time from people who are

convinced and have left Calvinism because of what we said, and then others that think that my theology is heresy,

and that I'm going to hell.

So I mean, I get all types.

All right, okay, let's put bookends on this.

Dr. Leighton Flowers, thank you so much for being here.

Throw out to everyone where they can find you, see you, follow you, all that good stuff, and if you're a listener and you

go to that stuff, make sure you be nice even if you disagree with.

Them.

So Theology101 .com, if you just typed in my name, Leighton Flowers, it'll link all

the same.

And you can also learn about my ministry with Texas Baptist as well if you do that.

There you go.

All right, thank you so much for being here and taking time.

Guys, thanks so much for listening to another episode of Dead Man Walking Podcast.

Dmwpodcast .com is where you can find us.

And remember, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

God bless.

And that's forever, man.

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