Calvinist or Calvanistic?
By Joe Terrell, pastor of Grace Community Church in Rock Valley, Iowa.
People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them (Hebrews 11: 14-16.)

Here, in America, we have many who identify themselves with a dual name, such as Italian-American or African-American. For many of these people (though certainly not all of them) this dual name signifies that, even though they live here in the USA and enjoy the many liberties this nation affords, their heart is still with "The Old Country."

I can understand such divided loyalties about one's homeland. I guess I'm a hillbilly-Iowan: I live here in Iowa and I enjoy the culture impressed on this area by the Dutch folk who settled here long ago. But, I admit, that if I could have my way, I would probably move all of us back to the hills of West Virginia and we would worship God there.

But this divided loyalty is sometimes found among religious people and usually with disastrous result. There are many, I fear, who have tagged the adjective "Calvinistic" to their particular religious persuasion, but if push comes to shove, their primary loyalty lies with the noun, not the adjective: Many Calvinistic-Baptists will worship with free-will Baptists before they worship with Calvinistic Non-Baptists. Calvinistic-Fundamentalists will align with free-will fundamentalists if a choice must be made. In other words, when a choice becomes necessary, it is often the "Calvinistic" loyalty that is abandoned.

I find this shocking, but not surprising. To many, those doctrines nick-named "Calvinism" are simply a particular flavor of the gospel: the adjective, not the noun. They are only the spice, not the food; and many feel they can have the food without the spice.

I, as much as anyone else, resent the fact that the truth of God has been tagged with the name of a man (Calvin). But bowing to that reality, I say that Calvinism is not the spice of the gospel, but is the very doctrinal foundation of God's gospel. To deny any of those precious truths is not merely to have a poorly-spiced gospel, it is to have something else altogether: a non-gospel.

Those who profess a divided-ethnicity can do so until war breaks out between the nations of their divided loyalty. Then they must choose. A man's true loyalty is proven by the nation he aligns with in time of war. So it is in spiritual natters: the side with which one aligns when times are hard, or when spiritual warfare breaks out - that is what a man truly believes.

Throughout the life of a professed Christian, there will be plenty of opportunities to return to whatever form of spiritual darkness he was in when God saved him. That is the essence of the testing of our faith. For those whose conversion was simply adding the adjective "Calvinist" to their form of religion, such opportunity to return to "The Old Country" will likely prove tempting enough for them to go.

But, for those whose conversion changed the noun, there is no going back. Like Abraham of old, they would rather sojourn with just a few - or even alone - than join with those who deny their God. Their loyalties are with the God of sovereign grace, and with His people they desire to live in times of peace, and along side His people they will fight in times of war.