Calvinism is also a faith for people on the run. Literally. It was not rooted in one country, dependent on a nation-state or powerful patron. Calvin tried to settle in Geneva, but even there things did not always go well with the locals, who either resented the intrusions in their lives or refused to divvy up power in a specific way. (Calvin and Farel were exiled in 1538.) So whether persecuted by authorities (France, England) or resented by Christians of other temperaments, Calvinism learned to pack light, cut to the chase, emphasize only what’s absolutely necessary. No time to build cathedrals or altars.

Gene Veith has a post over at Cranach entitled “Why Is Calvinism So Influential and Not Lutheranism?” He’s responding to a D.G. Hart post over at Hart’s Old Life blog.

As someone baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, literally a former altar boy/acolyte, who left the church about five minutes after his confirmation, but who returned to the faith in his 20s only to attend Wesleyan churches and, finally, to join Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York (and leave after eight years), let me try and explain the appeal of Calvinism over Lutheranism for many. (I’m speaking more about its contemporary manifestations than its influence in the U.S. over the past three centuries, although the two are not completely unrelated, I don’t think.)

Calvinism, like other evangelical movements, offers new beginnings. Under powerful preaching, even the baptized come to believe they are starting a new life in Christ. Before they may have experienced, or been subjected to, dead religion with its rituals and liturgies, but now they have living faith — a personal relationship with the Risen Christ. They often mark their lives by the day they came to faith (which had nothing to do with water baptism) and how nothing was the same after that. We love the idea of the do-over. The Lutheran teaching of continual repentance does not have the same psychological effect (nor is it intended to).

Calvinism also offers some of the more potent expository preaching you will hear. Where are the Lutheran Spurgeons or Martyn Lloyd-Jones? Or, for that matter, Tim Kellers? The Law-Gospel paradigm in the pulpit does not lend itself easily to the kind of dynamism, for lack of a better word, often found in Reformed pulpits — preaching that often offers specific direction to the person in the pew, over and above repentance. Lutherans can roll their eyes at such preaching, but it is precious in the life of Reformed Christians, as far as sustaining their life of faith goes.

There is also the call to young Christians, especially young men, to (a) discipline themselves and (b) engage the culture. Don’t underestimate the motivational power of these expectations. For example, 2K theology reads too often like defeat in the public square — “Christ is for church on Sundays; at your humdrum job, just keep your head down, do your duty, be obedient, pay your bills, and wait until the Eschaton.” And double predestination, as horrifying as it is, at least makes a kind of logical sense and also has a role to play in motivating the baby believer: “God chooses whom to adopt. And since everyone born deserves to go to hell because of sin, we should be grateful he chooses to save anyone at all.” That’s actually comforting — if you’re convinced you’re one of the Elect. Then you can rest in the fact that you can never fall away, that your faith will never ultimately fail, that God has plucked you out of the garbage bin that is Gehenna* — and for a purpose: not only to grant you eternal life but also to glorify Him.

But how can I know I’m elect? Calvinists have no problem with the subjective element in faith. Romans 8: 16: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Read 2 Peter — it talks of believers making their calling and election sure. (It also talks of  making “every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.” Try and preach that in a confessional Lutheran church and you’ll be chastised for confusing law and Gospel.) The Lutheran doctrine of predestination makes little sense to most non-Lutherans: a monergism that also says you can lose your justification. Doesn’t the Scripture say that God will glorify all who are justified? Etc. Etc. That subjective element in Calvinism is then balanced by weighty tomes of systematic theology to exercise your noggin.

Calvinism is also a faith for people on the run. Literally. It was not rooted in one country, dependent on a nation-state or powerful patron. Calvin tried to settle in Geneva, but even there things did not always go well with the locals, who either resented the intrusions in their lives or refused to divvy up power in a specific way. (Calvin and Farel were exiled in 1538.) So whether persecuted by authorities (France, England) or resented by Christians of other temperaments, Calvinism learned to pack light, cut to the chase, emphasize only what’s absolutely necessary. No time to build cathedrals or altars. Even images misdirect. It’s a tabernacle kind of church, not a Temple. In a world of multiple (false) choices and distractions, a faith that does the honing and pruning for you no doubt appeals.

Calvinism is also more Jewish than Greco-Roman. The emphasis on the unseen God, on iconoclasm, on the covenant and its blessings, on the law in the life of the believer makes that seam between testaments less unsightly.

If this is all true, why do so many people leave, in some cases flee, Calvinism/Reformed churches?

1. They come to believe that limited atonement is simply not biblical. It may be the logical consequence of double predestination, but if the Faith were reasonable in that sense, where do you begin and end? What is “reasonable” about the Incarnation or the Cross?

2. The lack of ecumenicity (or even simple courtesy). Lutherans are often slammed for teaching closed Communion, but it does not deny the name “Christian” to Arminians, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, or, for that matter, the Reformed. Many Reformed do not believe Catholics and Orthodox are Christians at all, because these communions embrace a false gospel. But that means the overwhelming majority of all Christians who have ever lived got it so wrong that they are almost certainly lost. Which leaves an Elect pool of about 11 people, relatively speaking. Then what constituted the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ, for all those centuries before Calvin, Zwingli, Beza, Vermigli, et al.? For a tradition that prizes logic, this doesn’t make a helluva lot of sense, when the Church was promised the Holy Spirit and Christ’s abiding presence.