Calvinism

Calvin was talking in a particular time and context. His approach was prophetic for a depraved, self indulgent, lazy, superstitious, idolatrous church in the Geneva of the time. He really laid it on thick. He needed to. (It worked - look at the effects on Geneva how many generations on !) Like Finney had to in the particular context he was speaking into. Like Jesus did to the Pharisees in that context. But to generalise from that teaching into everyone's situation is, in my opinion, more than unhelpful. Jesus would never say to the man in the street (or the field more like) you brood of vipers. He didn't talk to them about hell, only to the disciples and pharisees. He told them stories about a farmer with amazing quality seed, the employer who made sure no family starved, lost things and so on. As I saw in a recent study on Amos, God's wrath is for the spiritually complacent who take the letter of the law when it suits them but who crushed the poor, weak, foreigners etc. thus neglecting the heart of the law. So I think this way of looking at literal interpretation is very important. I think reading the Bible is so important it's worth doing properly. How many times have the seeds of revival been sown by those who are Bible translators - so called theological nerds who go back and find out what it actually says, now, in my language, understanding their language. Not just looking at what the words seem to say from their current meanings which was the mistake the well meaning Fundamentalists made.