Are Calvinists Liars? ***Theology from a Golf Cart***

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Hey guys, I'm Keith Foskey and this is Theology from a Golf Cart. Alright guys, this is a different Theology from a

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Golf Cart today because as you can tell I'm not on the golf cart by myself but I'm with my very good friend and brother in Christ and fellow pastor

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Aaron Bell. Aaron is the pastor of Redeemer Church in Yulee, Florida and he and I have been friends now for a long time, 15 years, right?

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You came right after I became the pastor maybe two years after and you were our worship leader.

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You went to Southern Seminary against my recommendation, not because I didn't think

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Southern was a great seminary, I did and still do, but because I didn't want you to leave and I still hold that weight of guilt on you.

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I say I didn't, but I understood what was going on in your life and it was a big change.

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You took your whole family to Kentucky, up to Louisville and basically your life changed.

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When you came to me and said you wanted to become a pastor, that you felt God was calling you into ministry, our church affirmed that, encouraged you in that way, supported that decision, and everything changed.

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You went up there. Yeah, everything changed. I left behind a secular career of over a decade.

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Which you were very successful. That had gone very well, yep, and packed up my wife and my two children at the time.

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We were in our 30s and my wife had never lived away from home. When we got married she moved from her parents' home to my home and we took our kids and moved to Louisville, Kentucky where we knew absolutely no one and lived there for three years and God did incredible things we didn't know.

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We ended up meeting some very dear friends and planning a church within a few months of being there and yeah, life has definitely never been the same since that moment.

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It's been great, but yeah, and that was a really hard decision. I mean you remember we went back and forth for months and you were very gracious to give counsel and to be honest about kind of your wishes and hopes and to offer every way possible to make it work, but that's where the

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Lord led us and we didn't understand all the reasons why at the time, but as is so often the case, we can see in the rearview mirror now and tell that's exactly where the

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Lord was leading us and He used that time in a very profound way. And an amazing way brought you back home because there was a church that was basically waiting for you when you got back.

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You got to go right into pastoral ministry. Yeah, I came back to Pastor Redeemer Community Church, which had been planted while we were away, so they were being introduced to church planting really at the same time

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I was and came back to pastor among people I've known and admired for a number of years and the

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Lord's been gracious. I've been at that work for almost seven years now. Yeah, and you guys are,

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I mean, you're growing like gangbusters. Yeah, God's been good. Our community's growing and people are coming.

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Outgrowing your building. Yeah, we're struggling through that right now and trying to think about, you know, how to continue to reach people in our community.

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There's such a great need. I mean, we're in Northeast Florida and, you know, people are moving here, lost people who need the gospel, believers who need healthy churches to be a part of and so, yeah, we're working through all that.

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Well, one of the things we're going to talk about today, guys, is the subject of what I call covert

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Calvinism and I call it that because that's the accusation that I have heard as sort of a negative attack against Calvinism and Reformed theology and it's usually somehow stated in these words.

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It's like, well, Calvinists aren't honest about what they believe and so on this golf cart ride,

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I wanted to talk to Aaron because, I mean, I've been a Calvinist as long as you've known me. When you were at our church, it was fairly obvious that we were

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Calvinistic, even though even when we weren't using Calvinist language, it was obvious that that was who we were and what we taught.

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You know, I went into the restaurant that time and that pastor in the area goes, that guy's a Calvinist. So it was, you know, he's responsible for this show.

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He is the reason why I'm your Calvinist because I was his. But it is an issue of integrity when people claim, because it's one thing to disagree with our theology.

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It's one thing to say, I don't agree with Calvinistic teaching. Okay. But it's another thing to say, you as a

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Calvinist are not honest. Right. And first of all,

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I want to step back and talk about your seminary experience because you didn't go to, you know,

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Geneva Calvinistic College, you went to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is the flagship seminary of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. Yeah. Is that right to say? Yeah. It's the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Right. You stress the D. Okay. No, but it's, it's funny because lots and lots of Southern Baptists who

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I love dearly would be shocked to find out that their, to my knowledge, largest, most prolific seminary is very much

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Reformed and Calvinistic in theology and in teaching. It's not, it's not even a 50 -50 split.

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I mean, you don't have to be Calvinist to go to Southern. There are certainly brothers there who are not, but the teaching, the professors pretty consistently come from that perspective.

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That's what I was going to ask actually, is as we, as we talk about this idea of covert Calvinism, is it really that covert?

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That's the question. Is it really hidden? One of the things that is to me interesting about this conversation is every professor that goes and teaches at Southern has to sign something called the abstract of principles.

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Am I, is that still the case? Still the case. And I, if I remember correct, and you, you'll know better than I do, I think it's 13 articles of faith, maybe more.

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I wish I knew, but it's, it's a relatively short list. Yeah. Somewhere around. But within that, it's clearly

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Calvinistic. Yeah, it is. It's, it's not hidden or covert.

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I mean, the only, the only way someone would say they didn't know is if they're just completely unaware of the theological divide between Calvinism and everything else.

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Yeah. I like that. I'm going to pick that up. The various forms of non -Calvinism. Because if you say, well, you're an

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Arminian, provisionists lose their minds. Right. Yeah. And if you talk to a Lutheran and say, well, you're an Arminian, they'll lose their minds.

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Yeah. It's just not a super helpful label these days. I think, I think honestly at this point, it's almost the question, and I, and I know this is chasing, chasing a rabbit, but you and I are very good at that.

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By the way, this was supposed to be pastors and golf carts getting coffee, which was a playoff of Jerry Seinfeld's comedians and cars getting coffee.

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But we don't have the coffee, as you can notice, because we're also making a video together where we're going to be testing

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Squirrely Joe's coffee. And I failed. Well, I was going to tell you on the bus, we, we are waiting for a piece of equipment to come because we're using this really neat coffee maker.

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It's called a siphon, a siphon. And and one of the pieces we need is still at Aaron's house.

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Super important piece. His son is bringing that to us so we can do that video. So be looking for that video as well.

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But I thought, you know, jumping in, talking about this and, and, and, and, and, and that's, this is hopefully going to be maybe a new series within the theology from the golf cart, inviting pastors to come and just talk about their theological backgrounds, talk about their history.

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But getting back to the, the, the issue of, of Southern and the question of the abstract of principles and the idea of covert, people will say, well,

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I'm, I'm not a Calvinist. And then they'll say, but I'm not an Arminian. Okay. I agree.

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There's more than just those two distinctions. But I would say this

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Augustinian, non -Augustinian. Yeah. That's a helpful way to think about it. Because the provisionists would clearly say, we're not

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Augustinian. Yes. That's, that's one of the big pushes within provisionism.

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There's even a push to say Augustine and his doctrine of original sin, his doctrine of total inability, his doctrine of absolute reliance upon grace to change the heart before you can do anything good towards God.

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All of those things are wrong and, but then they'll say, but we're not Pelagian. But which is a helpful way sometimes for us to approach the conversation around being

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Augustinian because, you know, the title Calvinism and the name Calvin carries with it strong feelings for many people and it's hard sometimes to even engage a conversation.

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So if you can go all the way back to Augustinian, then, then, then we can actually talk about ideas and our understanding of scripture without maybe some of the feeling, but the conversation seems to be shifting that way.

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Yeah, for sure. Now, do you think that there's any merit at all, and, and let's be completely transparent because that, you know, we want to be honest and as, as you know,

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Christ calls us to honesty in all things. Do you think that there's any truth, any truth to the idea that there are men who intentionally hide their

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Calvinism when they're going into ministry so as to,

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I don't know if the word is deceive, but conceal or mislead who they are.

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So I think that, I think the place where I could see this potentially being an issue is a man who is perhaps interviewing for a pastoral position and is talking to, you know, a search committee or a team of elders or deacons.

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And this is the place where, you know, you may feel the draw to not be as forthcoming with certain convictions in the hopes that, you know, you can get into a church and then, you know, lead from the front, right.

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Lead from the pulpit, lead through preaching and teaching. So it could be a problem there. I'm not personally aware of men who've done that.

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The other charge is leveled against churches where, you know, hey, I got here and didn't know you were

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Calvinist until I sat here for a week or a month or however long. And, you know, all of a sudden you showed up in Romans chapter nine and you dropped the hammer.

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Yeah. And I guess it could be a thing, but I don't think that's really a pervasive thing.

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I think there are churches that are choosing and bodies of elders and men as pastors who have chosen different paths in this.

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So you and I have talked about, you know, your church has a Reformed Baptist Confession of Faith.

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Right. Yeah. And we hold to the first London, not the second London. There's a whole conversation around that, but it's still very much a

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Calvinistic confession. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, your podcast is called Your Calvinist.

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That's right. I'm in your face. Doc Holliday is your huckleberry and I'm your Calvinist. So you wear that title and it's very forward.

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The church I pastor does not have a Reformed Baptist Confession of Faith. We're not a part of a denomination,

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Reformed or otherwise. You and I... Oh, you guys aren't SBC? We're not. No. Okay.

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I don't know why I didn't know that. I'm a SBC seminary grad, but not an SBC pastor.

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Okay. And, but you and I would agree on most things, not every finer detail, but most things.

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Yeah. You're wrong on some things. Yeah. Exactly. I'm confident that I am. We would teach very similarly and we take a different approach.

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So I'm not concealing that I'm a Calvinist. In fact, there are plenty of people in my church who would. Conceal, don't feel. Don't let them know.

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Yeah. Let it go. Let it go. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. That'll be the cut in for the beginning.

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Oh, wow. Yeah. So, speaking of the frozen chosen. Yeah, frozen chosen.

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Let's... Oh, I'm making a movie poster for this. Yeah. The Calvinist frozen chosen. I'm sorry. No, you're good.

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I'm messing you up. Yeah. So we would not, we don't put that out front. I don't, you know, if you listen to a dozen of my sermons, you'll probably never hear the word

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Calvinist. And it's not because I'm afraid of or scared of the title. I'm happy to talk to someone about my perspective and teaching the scriptures.

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But for me, it allows people to come and be a part of our church and learn from the scriptures where they're at without a potential label or title turning them off from the front side.

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And so it's not a, it's not, in my mind, I'm being honest before God, it's not a manipulation tactic.

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It's simply a choice to meet and disciple and shepherd people where they're at, not where they want to be or where I want them to be, and to hopefully lead them not to where I'd like them to be, but to where God would have them be.

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And so I think you can be faithful in both of those ways. And I have lots of brothers in Reformed Baptist churches who are faithful and doing great work for the

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Lord. I've got lots of brothers in SPC churches who are faithful and doing great work for the Lord and lots of guys who are just like me who, you know, aren't necessarily planted in either of those camps.

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We're seeking to be faithful from scripture and our view is Augustinian or Reformed or Calvinist.

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However, we want to title it and talk about it today. But we're reserving the right to be able to speak truth from the scripture the way we understand it and perhaps stave off some assumptions of what we believe that get attached to those labels.

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That's where I wanted to go with this conversation is one of the hardest things to talk about with this is when you're talking to somebody who automatically assumes that they think that they know.

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And I will tell you right away, I get multiple comments every week.

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Sometimes I get emails, but a lot of it's YouTube comments and things like that. And some of it is just putting

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Calvinists on blast because obviously I do wear it on my sleeve a little bit more. And when

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I say wear it on my sleeve, I don't mean like a chip to be knocked off. I mean, it's obvious. Yeah. You know, literally, I have a shirt that says you're

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Calvinist and I wear it all the time. So the reality is, is when you say to somebody, I'm a

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Calvinist, you automatically have to deal with all of the misunderstandings that have been imposed upon this belief system.

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And that's where I've accepted that. I'm not saying I'm right or that we're doing it the right way.

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It just so happened that in my ministry, it became easier to deal with it in the front end and just say, you know what?

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I'm just going to throw it out there. And I spent a lot of time, you may remember this, but I spent an awful lot of time producing videos.

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I was making YouTube videos in 2008, 2007, back when YouTube had five videos and four of them were cats.

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Charlie bit me. It was cats, Charlie bit me, and me talking about why do

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Calvinists evangelize, right? Yeah, I remember. So I did that because I knew the questions were out there.

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I knew what I considered to be misunderstandings of Calvinism were out there. But I also don't think that it's necessarily something that has to be a, you know, we're going to wear it on our sleeve, make it our identity, because you guys are doing it in a different way.

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And I think what you said is completely right. You're preaching the truth from the scripture. And if somebody were to come up to you and say, well, where do you stand on this issue?

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You're not lying. You're going to tell them the truth. But at the same time, and this is true for both of our churches, if somebody came to our church and did not agree with us, that doesn't automatically mean they can't fellowship with us.

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A hundred percent. Yeah. This, we would say that this particular issue is something that we teach. It's something that we preach.

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But if you can stand listening to it and not be offended by it, this is, you know, we're not going to tell you, you can't be a part of this church.

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It, that's the part I think is, is often misunderstood like, like me. I don't know about you.

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I think this is true. So I'm going to ask, could you be a part of a Southern Baptist church that wasn't reformed?

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If you were, if you moved to an area, that's the only church that was available that was preaching the gospel. And do you think you could do that?

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Yeah. It wouldn't be my preference, but I think if that's where the Lord put me and that was the, the fateful gospel preaching option, then absolutely.

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I'm going to plant my life there and I'm going to seek to not be divisive. That's right. And make life difficult for hopefully a body of fateful qualified elders.

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Yeah. And you know, this is where you and I would agree. Just like you said, you don't have to agree with everything.

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By God's grace, our churches are full of people who don't agree with us about every single detail. And, and that's so good.

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That's a wonderful thing because we're not the standard. If you got a place where everybody agrees with you and you're the leader and nobody ever questioned you, you're probably a cult leader.

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Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so Jesus is the standard. The gospel is the kind of essential, you know, not up for debate or discussion.

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And then a lot of things that still are very important come under that. And we think through those things, but, but you and I think also would both agree.

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And you can tell me if I'm wrong. If, if you and I both taught the passage of scripture and taught it faithfully to our understanding of the word.

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And somebody came up to you and said, well, that doesn't agree with Calvinism. We would both say, okay.

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Yeah. Yeah. I'm not, because I'm not here to teach Calvinism. I'm not beholden to a system. I'm here to teach the word of God. That's right. You know, if Calvin disagrees with me, well, we're not going to debate it cause he's, he's wrong.

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That's right. He baptized babies. He's wrong about a bunch of stuff. Sip a refermanda. That's right. Oh, that's going to get some comments.

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Hello, superior theology Presbyterians. Yeah. But that that's at the end of the day, we want to teach the scriptures and be faithful to where God has placed us and where he's called us and understand that there is a level of context and cultural conditioning to each of our churches.

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God's put us in a specific place with a specific group of people, and that's going to impact how we approach these things.

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And we're still brothers in fellowship together, walking along with each other. We're not trying to hide anything.

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We're not trying to make the main point something it's not. We're trying to be faithful to what God's called us and teach his word because we know it has the power to change lives.

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And we're not saying that there haven't been guys who have been dishonest because we, I'm sure that there have been.

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And I've heard people tell stories, you know, well, my church got blew up because a Calvinist came in and turned everything on its head.

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Um, but at the same time, I've seen churches implode with Armenian preachers.

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I've seen churches implode with revisionist preachers. We're always finding reasons. And, and, and, and to be quite honest, um, one of the things that you do know if you have a

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Calvinist preacher and he's, and he's faithful and is Calvinistic as far as what we would call

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Calvinism is he's a man who is, um, faithful to the five solas.

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So you got a guy who believes in solo scripture. You got a guy who believes in solo fide. You got a guy who believes in solo gratia, uh, solo deo gloria, who believes in the one

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I'm forgetting. Solus Christus. Thank you. Yeah. Solus Christus. Don't forget Jesus. So you've got, you've got a man who believes these things and have, you know, have there been

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Calvinist jerks who've come in and done wrong things? Yes. Sure. But there've been, there've been jerks on every side.

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Yup. And, uh, and I can point you to some of them because there've been people who've been jerks to me. We'll tag them in the description.

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Yeah. I'll put a star. I'll star the comments. I'll pin the comments of all the jerks because they're going to come on this video.

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But ultimately the, the, I just thought it would be fun to have a short conversation with you about how we approach this subject from our side because the opposite side is saying things like it's dishonest, you're being covert, you're being intentionally deceptive.

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I can say one thing about our church. We're not intentionally deceptive. You guys are not intentionally deceptive. Nobody's deceiving anyone.

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If anybody looks into what you're teaching for any length of time, they're going to know what it is that you guys stand for and what it is you believe in.

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And so when somebody says somebody is intentionally deceptive, the only, I see that working out of somebody, if you ask them and they say, no,

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I'm not a Calvinist. They're evasive. Yeah. Yeah. Or, or, or not willing to say it. But again, part of that comes from, there has been such a misrepresentation of Calvinism that makes it a

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Calvinistic boogeyman. Right. And we have to be honest and say, if you ask me if I'm a

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Calvinist and you're defining it in a way that I wouldn't, yeah, I'm not that. I'm not that. I'm not the thing you've created in your mind.

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And maybe that would be a question for a future episode. And that is this question. What are some, what are some things about Calvinism that you believe that you might want me to explain or that you might feel have been misrepresented?

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That might be fun for a future episode of this. And maybe define your Calvinism. That's right.

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Define your Calvinism. Ask questions and leave them in the comments and Lord willing, I'll do a, another golf cart video very soon where I can answer those and who knows?

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Maybe I'll have MDiv from Southern Seminary, Pastor, Dr.

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Reverend, not yet, but he's at least Pastor Reverend Aaron Bell to come back on the show with me.

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Aaron, thank you for being part of Theology from the Golf Cart today. Yeah, thank you. It was fun. Absolutely. And last thing guys, don't forget.

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If you enjoyed this show, hit the thumbs up button. And if you didn't hit the thumbs down button twice, don't forget to hit this subscribe button too.

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It helps us out a lot. Thank you for watching Theology from the Golf Cart and I'll see you on my next ride.

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