From the time of Calvin purity has been an obsessive concern of his followers.
In the history of the Calvinist churches of Scotland, for example, clique after clique took pride in “splitting the kirk” as groups of “elect” shunned and hated each other in the name of Christ — all in a vain quest for perfect rectitude and purity of doctrine and life.
In my youth, I had contact with a branch of Calvinists called the “Wee Frees.” They were a split of a split of a split off the original Calvinist Church of Scotland. And they gloried that they were both “wee” (tiny in number) and “free” (not contaminated by the bigger churches). They rarely smiled. Laughter was considered worldly. They met in a back street to save money. They were the supreme puritans. But they would have nothing to do with me, a seeker for truth, for I was a lost sinner disturbing the equanimity of the elect and wasting their time.
It came about that obsession with the virtue of “wee-ness” is characteristic of many Calvinists. Totally misunderstanding Jesus’ words, “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. 7:14), to them smallness itself is virtuous and a mark of the pure; the smaller the group, the more obvious the proof of their election.
Effect on Christadelphians
In 1866, the year after the name “Christadelphi an” was reluctantly coined by Bro. John Thomas, the Birmingham Christadelphian Ecclesia sent a warning to brothers and sisters attending the annual fraternal gathering in Edinburgh [Scotland was a stronghold of Calvinism] that they must adopt the name Christadelphian or else be considered heretics: “With parties who assume names not to be found sanctioned by use of the apostles, or their hearers, the disciples of Christ can have no fellowship.” This provoked a very reasonable scriptural response from one of the speakers at the gathering: “Were we to admit that considerations like these, in themselves, forbid fellowship, where might we stop? It seems to me immaterial whether or not a man prefers to call himself a Christadelphian, Antipas, C.C.C. (Constituent of the Church of Christ), a member of the Royal Association of Believers, etc. etc. (all names used by ecclesias in fellowship with Bro. Thomas at the time). The vital question I submit is, Does he believe and obey the gospel of the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus the Christ? If he does so truly, any pedantic or fanciful designation he may adopt will not, surely, blot out his name from God’s book of life.” It was particularly sad that this brother had to request anonymity, lest he should be excommunicated!
Much confidence, little unanimity
Calvinists are very confident that they know here and now who the elect are. But, despite their pretensions, there is little unanimity among them as to the precise identification of God’s chosen, other than it must obviously include the ones doing the identifying. Consequently, factionalism, rivalry and division are inevitable. They pounce with evident and real satisfaction upon two statements in the New Testament: “There must be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you,” (I Cor. 11:19) and, “The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable” (James 3:17). The passages are cited to justify, indeed glorify, the most acrimonious dissension within the church, for ruthless excommunication, not of sinners, but of sincere believers with whom they disagree and what Bro. Thomas described, in frustration, as irritated leaders, unable to get their own way, “kicking their mulish heels and galloping off to break a factious loaf in solitude.”
The Calvinists never explain how it comes about that Paul can appear to justify something as having God’s approval in one passage and the same thing being described as “carnal” in another passage in the same letter (I Cor. 3:1,3,4) nor do they know how to answer Paul’s question: “Is Christ divided?” (I Cor. 1:13).
Concern for other people’s morals
Calvin is reputed to have had “an inordinately long nose, for poking into other people’s affairs.” He systematically trained his pastors to supervise every detail of their parishioners’ lives, visiting their homes regularly to check on moral laxity. He encouraged church elders to overlook Christ’s warning and do a thorough job of rooting out the tares from the church. One dissenter who dared to criticize Calvin was ordered to kneel and apologize in the presence of the Geneva city council. Calvin rejected the apology, and ordered him to undress and walk around the city crying to God for mercy (Calvin’s friend Knox thought this “the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in earth since the days of the apostles”).
It was Calvin and his assistants who were responsible for the Puritans’ pre-occupation with sins of sexuality and weaknesses of the flesh, ignoring the greater sins of pride, strife and lack of mercy. In the history of our own community, a dominant leading brother insisted that a brother whose home was above a tavern move out before being accepted in fellowship, while he himself described another faithful brother — one of brother Thomas’ former coworkers — in print as “Mr. M…., dark, shallow, wanton, incompetent, deceitful, dangerous as the beautiful snake, full of loving professions but prompted by hostility bitter as gall.”
In a Gentile court, the victim of such a horrendous libel would have been entitled to punitive damages for defamation of character.
“Judge Not!”
The apostle Paul rebuked the Corinthian elder ship for being slow to withdraw from the brother guilty of incestuous fornication. But he did not shun them, abandon them, withdraw himself from their fellowship or threaten them with dire sanctions. In fact, in the same letter, he wrote this:
“I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way…He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus” (I Cor. 1:4-8 NIV).
And that was the ecclesia with moral lapses, incipient doctrinal heresies, drunkenness at the Lord’s table, brethren going to law, sisters usurping brother’s duties and what else…! We must suppose Paul’s words were genuine and not hypocritical. Moreover he was inspired and had the spirit of Christ.
How unlike this gentle and gracious spirit is the attitude of John Knox, the great Scots Calvinist called “the light of Scotland” of whom it was said at the time: “the threatening’s of his sermons were very sore and violent, and so particular that such as did not like them took occasion to reproach him as a rash ranter. He was vehement in prayers as well as in sermons; narrow, fierce, unforgiving. ..he could see no merit in an opponent, but could overlook any faults in a follower.”
Contamination by association
It was most disturbing to read the following in a recent issue of a Christadelphian periodical:
“Fellowship at the Lord’s table is the hedge around the truth. It separates errorists from the faithful. We must have no fellowship with any among whom the poison of the serpent might be detected. The only workable principle of table fellowship is to step aside from the unworthy, and also those who fellowship the unworthy, and so on. If an ecclesia retains in fellowship any who are unworthy or who teach wrong doctrine, other ecclesias should involve themselves by disclaiming fellowship with that ecclesia. Refusal to do this feeds corruptness of fellowship. Division is the way that the Truth is preserved.”
It is very instructive to listen to brother John Thomas one year before he fell asleep in Christ:
“It is not my province to issue bulls of excommunication, but simply to show what the truth teaches and commands. I have to do with principles, not men…All whom the apostles fellowshipped believed [that Jesus Christ came in the flesh common to us all]; and all in the apostolic ecclesias who believed it not — and there were such — had not fellowship with the apostles, but opposed their teachings; and when they could not have their own way, John says ‘They went out from us…Had they been of us they would have continued with us’…The apostles did not cast them out, but they went out of their own accord, not being able to endure sound doctrine. So, then, preach the word and exhort with all long suffering and teaching. This is the purifying agency. Ignore brother this and brother that in said teaching; for personalities do not help the argument. Declare what you as a body believe to be the apostles’ doctrines. Invite fellowship upon that basis alone. If upon that declaration, any take the bread and wine, not being offered by you, they do so upon their own responsibility, not on yours. If they help themselves to the elements [emblems], they endorse your declaration of doctrine, and eat condemnation to themselves.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One