The X-Calvinist Corner is a page on this website that shares the stories of people who were once Calvinist but have left Calvinism for a more Arminian theology. This series (The X-Calvinist Corner Files) highlights one of the testimonies from the X-Calvinist Corner in each installment. We are going through the testimonies gathered there a second time in this series. That is why the testimony titles are numbered as 2.x.
Today’s testimony is the very first testimony in the files. It is from SEA member Dan Chapa:
I grew up in Baptist churches, and though I read the bible quite a bit, I didn’t really know about Calvinism/Arminianism. In high school I was challenged by a Calvinist. He pointed out certain aspects of Romans 9 that I hadn’t noticed before and at the time, I didn’t have a better interpretation of Romans 9 than he did. In retrospect, I didn’t really have an interpretation of the passage at all. Although I struggled a bit, I became a reluctant Calvinist. What I found appealing about it was 1) I found total depravity to be biblical and 2) Calvinism was a system as opposed to no system and most importantly 3) the Calvinist view of Romans 9 was the only view I knew of.
One night I was having my devotions when I stumbled across Hebrews 10:26-29. I was shocked and upset. Why hadn’t my pastors/teachers told me there were warnings like this in the bible? I resolved to not declare myself either Calvinist or Arminian, but rather to re-baseline my views from the bible. In some sense, I never stopped digging into the issues, but today I am decidedly Arminian. The key for me was Romans 9. At the time I started studying about predestination, there weren’t many Arminian resources. Calvinists had warned me that Arminianism had been condemned as heresy, so I was very cautious when I read Arminius’ commentary on Romans 9. The first time I read it I probably only understood about 20% of what I read. So I read it again and again and other portions of Arminius’ writings. What I found was Arminius also had a system. So the choice was not a system vs. no system, but rather which system is scriptural. I think coming to understand Romans 9 was perhaps the most convincing aspect of my move away from Calvinism.
