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Showing posts with label Labels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labels. Show all posts

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Who or what is a Hyper-Calvinist?

Question: "Who or what is a Hyper-Calvinist?"
Answer: "Anyone who is more Calvinistic than I am!"

Some folks regularly write about and against "the Hyper-Calvinists" as if that is some readily identifiable group, when in fact it is not.

Free Will Baptists look at Southern Baptists and say they are hyper; while Southern Baptists look at Calvinistic Southern Baptists and say they are hyper; while the Calvinistic Southern Baptists look at the Limited Predestinarian Primitive Baptists and say they are hyper; while the Limited Predestinarian Primitive Baptists look at the Absolute Predestinarian Primitive Baptists and say they are hyper! You get the picture.

Many would think the Absoluters wouldn't have anybody to point the finger at, but then there's the
Outside the Camp folks who believe a true Christian "...obviously believes that Arminianism is a false gospel, that all who hold to it are lost, and that all who claim to believe the true gospel but who speak peace to those who bring a false gospel of Arminianism are lost." I'm not sure if there is anyone more hyper than that! ;-O

The point is not just about what the above groups believe, but to point out that "Hyper-Calvinism" is truly a matter of perspective. AND the use of the term is generally pejorative, a type of argumentum ad hominem debate sometimes called poisoning the well. The fact that one is a Hyper-Calvinist should be "proof" enough that they are wrong, shouldn't it?


Ultimately, if we're reading discussion about "Hyper-Calvinism" we must try to find in the context of the writer just whom he/she thinks is a Hyper-Calvinist to properly understand what is being written.