I don’t know about you, but I still haven’t stopped thinking about the Amish tragedy. It truly highlighted for me the doctrine of human depravity. That is a doctrine that all Calvinists adhere to. It is the reference point upon which drama of redemption begins. But taken out of context the results can be a hateful calvinism. That is where Shirley Phelps-Roper went wrong.
Rick Phillips said recently on the Reformation 21 Blog that:
Despite the shards of “truth” in Phelps-Roper’s words, the God she presented looked essentially like the twisted killer who murdered those precious girls — indeed, worse. And do we teach that man is a totally depraved sinners, a “child of wrath” who deserves to suffer eternal torment? Yes, but that truth is not true without the context of man’s dignity and glory as created in the image of God and without the incarnation of God the Son. The Christian message is not “you are a worthless scum.” Rather, it is “you are precious image-bearer of God, so valued by God and so tragically captured by sin that God sent his own Son to enter your race and provide for your redemption.”
Phelps-Roper also provided a primer in how Calvinism can collapse into hateful, prideful legalism. Do we have a robust view of God’s law? We certainly do. Does the Reformed faith teach that God requires obedience of everyone? Yes we do. But we must not teach what came out in Phelps-Roper’s teaching. When asked about the mercy of God, she replied, “The mercy of God towards the people who serve him.” What about God’s mercy for those who have failed and opposed him? It’s hard to figure out the conversion of Saul of Tarsus in this theology. She said, “Obey the commandments of the Lord your God and get his blessings.” That is true, in a certain context, but untrue in the context in which Phelps-Roper spoke. She summarized her message with these words to Alan Combs: “You have got the wrath of God poured out on your head. You need to fix that by obeying.” Given that many Reformed Christians see the need for a stronger view of the law today, both in evangelism and in Christian living, this is a bracing warning of how it may come across if not integrally bound with the gospel. As Sinclair Ferguson so eloquently said during our most recent Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, some of us who know the doctrines of grace have forgotten the grace of the doctrines of grace.
I was at that PCRT and I heard Dr. Ferguson say those words; and now I have seen what being grace-less looks like. It looks like Phelps-Roper. Some of us do the very same thing, although not to her extreme.
Rev. Phillips concludes that:
As you may already have guessed, several words that Phelp-Roper never said were “Jesus Christ” and “the cross.” Without Jesus and his cross, frankly, Calvinism is hateful and untrue. Let everyone who watches Phelps-Roper or who hears this brand of “Calvinism” resolve always to possess the kind of Calvinism that can say with Paul, “I have resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
It is not enough for us to speak things that are true. We must truly present the God of grace in our speaking, whether the topic is God or man, mercy or wrath. The Savior Jesus is the Truth, as well as the Way and the Life. Jesus is God’s Word for the world (Heb. 1:1). To summarize Luther, we must speak of no other God than the God revealed through the cross of his Son.
I also blogged about this topic the other day, but not nearly as eloquently as Rev. Phillips.
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