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FWIW as a former Calvinist I think your your assessment of Calvinism is wrong on multiple points. Because it was the presupposition of his hearers, dispelling t

by kbd 5y ago

FWIW as a former Calvinist I think your your assessment of Calvinism is wrong on multiple points. Because it was the presupposition of his hearers, dispelling the notion that “The rich must have been good in this life and the poor must be getting what they deserve” is the whole point of Jesus’ rich man and Lazarus parable. And the concept of “fundamentally good vs bad people” is also out-of-nowhere for Calvinist doctrine as they hold to “total depravity”, that all people are sinful and under God’s judgement.

jetrink 5y ago
I grew up in a Calvinist church and in addition to being inconsistent with doctrine, that comment also doesn't fit with the cultural attitudes that I encountered. Money was seen as dangerous and worldly. Like sex, we were taught that it was important part of life, but also something that could lead us away from God. Being rich was embarrassing. We had wealthy people at our church, but I only found out when I was older, since they drove old minivans like everyone else.
mabbo 5y ago
It depends on your interpretation of Calvinism. The specific concept the parent post is talking about, I think, is Double Predestination. > Double predestination is the idea that not only does God choose some to be saved, he also creates some people who will be damned.[0] Even setting aside whether that's a mainstream Calvinist belief or not, the idea of "Good people" and "Bad people" is deeply ingrained in American Culture. "The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"- that very phrase presupposes the existence of two groups of people, one Good and one Bad, setting aside the whole 'right to bear arms' thing. And just as deeply ingrained in American culture is a lack of sympathy for "Bad people". You can make prisons a living hell, keep people in there for life after "3 strikes", remove their ability to find jobs if they ever get out- because they're Bad people and helping Bad people is wrong. It's morally superior to punish Bad people more, since they are Bad. Politicians get elected on that, calling it 'tough on crime'. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_in_Calvinism#Double_predestination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_in_Calvinism#Do...
- kbd 5y ago
  > Even setting aside whether [double predestination] is a mainstream Calvinist belief or not... FWIW Calvin taught double predestination (as the Wikipedia article says). It's the logically- and biblically- consistent view. But again it's not a "bad people deserve what they get in this life" justification. I'm with you on America's "tough on crime" BS.
  - dmarlow 5y ago
    I don't get where not being tough on crime comes from. Having grown up in a third world country with rampant crime, and also in the US (and having seen California decriminalize petty theft, traspassing and various other things), what is there left to do? Is the US system in need of fundamental changes? Yes, absolutely. But being soft on crime isn't going to make it disappear either.
    - kbd 5y ago
      By debating "tough" vs "soft" on crime you're already buying into their framing of the issue. "Tough on crime" in America is code for "feed people into the prison industrial complex for life for low-level crimes" thanks to things like Biden's "three strikes" policy. It's also rooted in racism, as typically the people the system is "tough" on are people of color. To give but one example of the difference in mindset: Portugal has had great success by decriminalizing drugs and treating addiction as a mental health issue, whereas America prefers to throw people in a cage and ruin their lives because "drugs are bad". That's part of what America means by being "tough" on crime: lack empathy, don't look at individual circumstances, and treat mental health issues as crimes to keep feeding a for-profit prison industry and ever-increasing police power. Edit: I wonder if the downvotes are partisan over my mention of Biden’s role in our current state of affairs. Just trying to help explain America’s peculiar pathology that led us to the shameful statistic of having the highest incarceration rate in the world.
    - mabbo 5y ago
      The difference is that the US has the money to attack the root causes of much of crime: poverty, and (mental) health care. But instead, it spends even more money punishing those who commit crimes. This has zero effect on reducing crimes, but makes people feel good about punishing the bad guys, because again: it's morally superior in American culture to punish 'The Bad People', and it's difficult to be elected on a platform that can be seen as helping 'The Bad People'. The cost of putting 100 at-risk kids into after-school programs to help steer them away from crime isn't small. But if it keeps 1 person out of prison, it pays for itself many times over. And Americans, generally, don't want to fund this sort of thing.
mwigdahl 5y ago
This is correct. Grandparent is conflating Calvinism and the more modern "Prosperity Gospel" phenonmenon.
- ericbarrett 5y ago
  I think they are quite related; see my sibling comment.
verytrivial 5y ago
Bah! It seemed so truthy. Thanks for the clarrifications.
will4274 5y ago
I think the combination of "unconditional election" (God has chooses those who he will save not based on virtue, merit, or faith in those people; rather, his choice is mercy alone) and "limited atonement" (Jesus didn't save everybody, only the "elect") strikes many people as very odd. The notion that God will only save some people and that they will have done nothing in particular to deserve it - and then of course, religious people always believe that they are among the people who will be saved. So "God will save some people but not others; they don't deserve it; and the saved just so happen to include me!" This all comes off a bit arrogant to me, as GP alluded to.
ericbarrett 5y ago
I was raised Calvinist (Southern Baptist), switched to Wesleyan (1st Church of the Nazarene) and actually studied the works of John Calvin, though it's been a hot minute. I actually agree with the grandparent comment. Ayn Rand-esque "salvation of the rich" may not be the front-and-center theme of his work, but it's definitely the implementation; this is how it's been interpreted by Calvinist church leaders century after century. Generally I think it goes doctrine of inerrancy (belief that the Bible is perfect and infallible) -> cherry pick some Bible verse glorifying material success and implying God will give it to you if you're good enough -> preach this to your congregation.
FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
1. "Deuteronomistic Logic" There's this arc in the Bible. Near the beginning of the Old Testament (say, Deuteronomy), there's a lot of "God will reward you in this life for righteousness" (heaven wasn't even invented yet) and "look how many cattle and wives he has; surely he is righteous; don't you want to be like him?" It's only later that this starts to change. You see this change a little in Job, where a righteous man is punished by God. And then it kicks into overdrive with Jesus, who is a reformer. So it's not like the "Prosperity Gospel" messages aren't there -- they are, in the Old Testament. But they miss all the subsequent reform. 2. "The English Civil War" One weird thing about all this is that the Calvinists (who I think of as aligned with Cromwell) went north; they became Puritans and went to New England. Their descendants also ended up, later, in the Pacific Northwest. They became abolitionists and such. And the English who went to Virginia and the Carolinas, and who practiced slavery, were more aligned with the royalists. The plantation was like an exaggerated bizarro version of the English "country home". Which then makes it strange that a lot of this Calvinist, Cromwellite stuff eventually ended up "on the right" in American society, with the "planters".
- kbd 5y ago
  > So it's not like the "Prosperity Gospel" messages aren't there -- they are, in the Old Testament. But they miss all the subsequent reform. I think that’s fair. It’s where Jesus’s hearers got that mindset he’s trying to change. Also see Luke 13 where Jesus is like “do you think the people that building fell on are any worse than anyone else?”

by kbd 5y ago

jetrink 5y ago

I grew up in a Calvinist church and in addition to being inconsistent with doctrine, that comment also doesn't fit with the cultural attitudes that I encountered. Money was seen as dangerous and worldly. Like sex, we were taught that it was important part of life, but also something that could lead us away from God. Being rich was embarrassing. We had wealthy people at our church, but I only found out when I was older, since they drove old minivans like everyone else.

mabbo 5y ago

It depends on your interpretation of Calvinism. The specific concept the parent post is talking about, I think, is Double Predestination. > Double predestination is the idea that not only does God choose some to be saved, he also creates some people who will be damned.[0] Even setting aside whether that's a mainstream Calvinist belief or not, the idea of "Good people" and "Bad people" is deeply ingrained in American Culture. "The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"- that very phrase presupposes the existence of two groups of people, one Good and one Bad, setting aside the whole 'right to bear arms' thing. And just as deeply ingrained in American culture is a lack of sympathy for "Bad people". You can make prisons a living hell, keep people in there for life after "3 strikes", remove their ability to find jobs if they ever get out- because they're Bad people and helping Bad people is wrong. It's morally superior to punish Bad people more, since they are Bad. Politicians get elected on that, calling it 'tough on crime'. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_in_Calvinism#Double_predestination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_in_Calvinism#Do...

kbd 5y ago
> Even setting aside whether [double predestination] is a mainstream Calvinist belief or not... FWIW Calvin taught double predestination (as the Wikipedia article says). It's the logically- and biblically- consistent view. But again it's not a "bad people deserve what they get in this life" justification. I'm with you on America's "tough on crime" BS.
- dmarlow 5y ago
  I don't get where not being tough on crime comes from. Having grown up in a third world country with rampant crime, and also in the US (and having seen California decriminalize petty theft, traspassing and various other things), what is there left to do? Is the US system in need of fundamental changes? Yes, absolutely. But being soft on crime isn't going to make it disappear either.
  - kbd 5y ago
    By debating "tough" vs "soft" on crime you're already buying into their framing of the issue. "Tough on crime" in America is code for "feed people into the prison industrial complex for life for low-level crimes" thanks to things like Biden's "three strikes" policy. It's also rooted in racism, as typically the people the system is "tough" on are people of color. To give but one example of the difference in mindset: Portugal has had great success by decriminalizing drugs and treating addiction as a mental health issue, whereas America prefers to throw people in a cage and ruin their lives because "drugs are bad". That's part of what America means by being "tough" on crime: lack empathy, don't look at individual circumstances, and treat mental health issues as crimes to keep feeding a for-profit prison industry and ever-increasing police power. Edit: I wonder if the downvotes are partisan over my mention of Biden’s role in our current state of affairs. Just trying to help explain America’s peculiar pathology that led us to the shameful statistic of having the highest incarceration rate in the world.
  - mabbo 5y ago
    The difference is that the US has the money to attack the root causes of much of crime: poverty, and (mental) health care. But instead, it spends even more money punishing those who commit crimes. This has zero effect on reducing crimes, but makes people feel good about punishing the bad guys, because again: it's morally superior in American culture to punish 'The Bad People', and it's difficult to be elected on a platform that can be seen as helping 'The Bad People'. The cost of putting 100 at-risk kids into after-school programs to help steer them away from crime isn't small. But if it keeps 1 person out of prison, it pays for itself many times over. And Americans, generally, don't want to fund this sort of thing.

mwigdahl 5y ago

This is correct. Grandparent is conflating Calvinism and the more modern "Prosperity Gospel" phenonmenon.

ericbarrett 5y ago
I think they are quite related; see my sibling comment.

verytrivial 5y ago

Bah! It seemed so truthy. Thanks for the clarrifications.

will4274 5y ago

I think the combination of "unconditional election" (God has chooses those who he will save not based on virtue, merit, or faith in those people; rather, his choice is mercy alone) and "limited atonement" (Jesus didn't save everybody, only the "elect") strikes many people as very odd. The notion that God will only save some people and that they will have done nothing in particular to deserve it - and then of course, religious people always believe that they are among the people who will be saved. So "God will save some people but not others; they don't deserve it; and the saved just so happen to include me!" This all comes off a bit arrogant to me, as GP alluded to.

ericbarrett 5y ago

I was raised Calvinist (Southern Baptist), switched to Wesleyan (1st Church of the Nazarene) and actually studied the works of John Calvin, though it's been a hot minute. I actually agree with the grandparent comment. Ayn Rand-esque "salvation of the rich" may not be the front-and-center theme of his work, but it's definitely the implementation; this is how it's been interpreted by Calvinist church leaders century after century. Generally I think it goes doctrine of inerrancy (belief that the Bible is perfect and infallible) -> cherry pick some Bible verse glorifying material success and implying God will give it to you if you're good enough -> preach this to your congregation.

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago

1. "Deuteronomistic Logic" There's this arc in the Bible. Near the beginning of the Old Testament (say, Deuteronomy), there's a lot of "God will reward you in this life for righteousness" (heaven wasn't even invented yet) and "look how many cattle and wives he has; surely he is righteous; don't you want to be like him?" It's only later that this starts to change. You see this change a little in Job, where a righteous man is punished by God. And then it kicks into overdrive with Jesus, who is a reformer. So it's not like the "Prosperity Gospel" messages aren't there -- they are, in the Old Testament. But they miss all the subsequent reform. 2. "The English Civil War" One weird thing about all this is that the Calvinists (who I think of as aligned with Cromwell) went north; they became Puritans and went to New England. Their descendants also ended up, later, in the Pacific Northwest. They became abolitionists and such. And the English who went to Virginia and the Carolinas, and who practiced slavery, were more aligned with the royalists. The plantation was like an exaggerated bizarro version of the English "country home". Which then makes it strange that a lot of this Calvinist, Cromwellite stuff eventually ended up "on the right" in American society, with the "planters".

kbd 5y ago
> So it's not like the "Prosperity Gospel" messages aren't there -- they are, in the Old Testament. But they miss all the subsequent reform. I think that’s fair. It’s where Jesus’s hearers got that mindset he’s trying to change. Also see Luke 13 where Jesus is like “do you think the people that building fell on are any worse than anyone else?”