knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Savior of mankind, and the Christian faith, which in our royal intention and the adventurers free profession, is the principal end of this plantation.”  Furthermore, we identify with the great evangelistic Calvinists of times past – John Knox, John Bunyan, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, William Carey, Asahel Nettleton, C.H. Spurgeon and many others – who wept for sinners but told them the truth of their inability to respond without God’s mercy and prompting.  With these men in mind, there is no justification for the charge that “Calvinists are not evangelistic,” unless we mean that they have never carried out evangelism using the questionable methods of modern evangelists.  We highly recommend the excellent article by J.I. Packer, “Puritan Evangelism,” which more clearly explains the distinctions between the Puritan and the modern views.  With respect to our church, we consider evangelism to be more of an individual than a corporate responsibility, and it is one that differs from person to person:  “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:11-12).  Though we believe it is the natural yearning of the Christian heart to see others come to know our Savior, we believe there is a particular gift or calling for large-scale “evangelism” (thus, Jesus spoke the Great Commission to the Apostles, who were “sent ones” for that particular task, but very little is said of evangelism in the epistles); and that it is for the building up not of the local church as an institution, but of the body of Christ in general. 

 

Q:  Your doctrine doesn’t seem very mainstream.  Aren’t you being divisive?

A:  The New Testament exhorts us to “endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3); but nowhere is unity to be sought at the expense of truth, for “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  It is truth, not unity, that dwells within the true believer (John 14:17); that makes him free (Joh 8:32); that sanctifies him (John 17:17-19); that enables him to hear the voice of God (18:37); that is a fruit of the Spirit (Eph. 5:9); and that he is to speak in love (Eph. 4:15).  It is significant in Scripture that God divides more than He unites:  In Creation, He created light and divided it from the darkness; He made the firmament and divided the waters which were under it from those which were above it; He created lights in the heavens to divide the day from the night.  At Babel, He divided the tongues and, ultimately, the nations of the world, then founded a nation that would be separate from the nations around it.  Afterwards, He divided Israel itself, the Northern Kingdom from the Southern Kingdom, so that righteousness might be divided from unrighteoousness and thus survive.  In no case has the majority ever been right, and this fact is also true in the Christian era, for it is evident that the truth has rarely been preserved in the large institutions of Christendom.  God has indeed allowed error to rule the masses for nearly all of church history. His true church has most often continued as a small remnant, either outside of or within the large institutions, and it seems He has always allowed the insincere to be deceived (see Matthew 13:13-15).