Calvinist theologian Paul Owen left this comment on Roger Olson’s post, “Is the Problem Calvinism or Fundamentalism (or the Combination)?”:
If one wants to see the problem illustrated, you need look no further than John Piper’s video entitled, “The Doctrines of Grace Are My Life.” In that glowing eulogy to “Calvinism” Piper calls the doctrines of grace (TULIP) the “source of” his life, the “joy of” his life, the “sustaining foundation” of his life, the “hope, the end, the goal of” his life, and “the center” of his pastoral ministry for the last 33 years. That is an amazing example of what happens when Christ our Lord is taken out of the center of Christianity and replaced with TULIP. Supposedly, were it not for TULIP, Piper would not have been able to overcome his prostate cancer, and a family in his church would not have been able to get through the nightmare of discovering their child had been molested. Sorry, but that is just doctrinally aberrant and bizarre. I cannot imagine Calvin, or any historic Reformed theologian from centuries past speaking in such a worshipful tone about any particular theory regarding election, the atonement, or the mechanisms of the ordo salutis. And people accuse me of building a straw-man when I say that modern Calvinists have reduced the essence of Christianity to the never-ceasing gnostic contemplation of TULIP? That’s precisely what I mean by the TULIP cult.
