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.
Today’s testimony is from someone using the screen name “Arminian”:
I was a Calvinist for a short time. I had basically been an Arminian. But I came under the influence of a campus minister who was a Calvinist. He convinced me to embrace Calvinism with the usual types of proof texts. But it did not sit right with me. It conflicted with so much that the Bible says. I became depressed as the clear and certain implications of the theology was that God has created most people to torture them forever in Hell, and this somehow is what glorifies him. I found it difficult to pray. But I did come to the point where I truly desired that if it would most glorify God to send me to Hell, then that he do so. It’s not that I was not already at that point as an Arminian, but that such a thought would never have occurred to me. The Bible gives no hint that God would prefer to see people in Hell than save them. But I came to trust that I may not understand it now, but that God was still good, and that it would probably make sense in Heaven. I came to trust that God was good despite what my Calvinistic theology said about him. Well, I came to realize that I did not have to try and sweep the thrust of the Bible, which supports an Arminian view of God, under the rug (for example, that God is a God of love with a true desire to save all), nor did I have to inflict implausible interpretations on to so many plain and obvious passages. But the Bible really said what I had thought it said. There are certainly some passages that can be taken as supporting Calvinism. And those texts must be dealt with. It has been a great delight to find that thorough and rigorous exegesis actually reveals those passages as typically more in line with Arminian theology. I find that Arminian theology, fully grounded in Scripture and sound exegesis, and enraptured by the goodness and love of of God, actually brings God the most glory and helps to fuel my love for him and my awe of him far more than Calvinistic theology.
To God be the glory! In Jesus’ name.
