Dear friend, if you struggle with resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ and the security of your salvation then this post is for you. It’s also for you if you know someone who is plagued with fear and doubt about their standing in Christ. Men teach that we can’t know if we are saved. But that’s not what the Bible tells us. It tells us we can know and rest in that knowledge.
I am very thankful I grew up knowing the simplicity of the Gospel. I’ve heard the Good News of Jesus Christ as long as I can remember and was saved at an early age. I am thankful for the protection those truths gave me over many adult years as David and I struggled to find a theological and church home.
We spent several years in Calvinist churches (Christian Reformed Church) including being members of two. As I mentioned in Identifying and Working Out My Theological Framework, I have been working to purge the destructive residue that remains from those years.
While a part of me wishes I could have those years back, I am thankful for them. I know firsthand the destructive nature of these teachings. They aren’t an abstract idea for me. I’ve watched what happens to Christians when they become ensnared by ideas and theologies that strip them of their rest and peace in the work of Jesus Christ. This happens in so many different theological settings. It isn’t unique to Calvinism, but that is my focus here because it is the great burden on my heart as I watch this destructive teaching destroy individuals, families, and churches.
Dr. Thomas Cucuzza of Northland Bible Baptist Church has been a tremendous blessing to me since I found the church’s YouTube channel in the past few years. He put into words what I was struggling to weed out when it came to issues of salvation. I’m sharing several of his videos below.
As always, the sharing of a resource is not a blanket endorsement. For example, Dr. Cucuzza and I have different views of the last things (eschatology). But he is so solid on the Gospel that it is a joy to share these videos with whoever chooses to watch them.
I wish everyone reading this would watch or listen to every one of these sermons. I truly do. Even if you have not been impacted by the teachings of Calvinism, it is highly probable someone you know has. In fact, the teachings of Calvinism have become so pervasive in conservative Christianity that you might have absorbed them or even heard them at church and not realized it.
Here is a story someone shared in the comments of one of the videos. I’ve read and heard many such stories in recent months. This is the reality of Calvinism.
Every honest Calvinist sleeps with one eye open. Interesting but very sad story. In June of 2001, during his message at a Ligonier’s Conference in Orlando, Fla., the late Dr. R. C. Sproul indicated that Dr. James Boice, a scheduled speaker at the conference, was dying that very night. Then at the end of the message he asked all 5,000 present to pray that Jim “dies in faith”. Dr. Boyce was considered a great pastor, theologian, teacher, and author, yet Sproul was not sure that he was regenerate. Dr. Boyce did die that night. They all hoped he persevered … but they cannot know if that was God’s “gift” to him or not. The real irony lies in their ‘prayer’ that Dr. Boyce would truly be saved. According to “U”conditional Election… God either loved him ‘salvifically’ or he hated him. just like Esau, and literally nothing could ever be done to change his eternal decree. And, if God hated him, why would they run the risk of ‘loving’ him?… They just don’t know, and believe they cannot know, but most won’t admit it, even to themselves.
It is said that Dr. Sproul even wondered out loud near is own death if he had done ‘enough’. Calvinists can have no real personal assurance, they’re only hoping for the best, because they believe they’re either ‘picked’ or they’ll bust Hell wide open without a prayer…. literally. Desperate for ‘evidence’ of salvation, they cling to their ‘works’ as pieces of a broken shipwreck at sea, it’s all they have.
Dear friend, you can know and be confident of your standing before our Heavenly Father. The Bible tells us how. It is simple enough for a child to understand. I hope these video messages are a great blessing to you and set you free from the fear that grips you.
Hello Sally, It’s Heather from The Anti-Calvinist Rant. I got your reply from your other post, leading me to this one. Thank you. I don’t know anything about the pastor in the videos you shared, but I did recently link to one of his sermons too in one of my blog posts about stealth Calvinism:
https://anticalvinistrant.blogspot.com/2025/05/troublemaker-12.html
I liked (and quoted) this section that he said in his part 1 video: “Calvinism is a man-made philosophy that is contradictory to Scripture. It is built on the classic error – now listen carefully to this – of interpreting clear passages of Scripture by unclear passages of Scripture. That is a violation of the ABC’s of Bible interpretation. One of the most basic rules of [Bible] interpretation is you interpret unclear passages by clear ones. Not the other way around. But Calvinism is built on the idea of interpreting clear, simple passages by unclear ones. Therefore, if you start with the unclear and you start with a false idea, then you start looking at the clear verses and you start saying, ‘Well, it doesn’t really mean that.'”
Well said! I’ll try to get around to watching the other parts of his series someday. I’m sure he’s got a lot more good things to say. Thanks for sharing. God bless.
Hi Heather,
Good to see you again! I think I read that post of yours, but missed that particular video. Everyone should click over and read that article. It is truly disturbing.
Don’t even get me started on the stealth Calvinism. I find it so reprehensible I can’t even discuss it with David without getting incredibly worked up. I have a post about it where Piper and MacArthur are laughing about MacArthur lying to his congregation for YEARS about his beliefs. (I think you shared it as well in your post.)
https://sallieborrink.com/stealth-calvinist-pastors-lying-to-their-congregations/
As you said in your article, most Christians have no idea how pervasive and stealth all of this is.
There are so many wolves in churches and on Twitter. SO MANY.
Sallie
Yeah, and I think it’s getting worse. It’s so important to investigate each church we attend/visit and their statement of faith so closely nowadays. So many bad ones.
I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it if Calvinist churches boldly proclaimed that they’re Calvinist, but many of them know not to do that. It’s the stealthy deception that really gets me worked up. It’s just so cult-like, and not at all how Jesus talked to people.
He just shared the truth and left it up to people to accept it or reject it. But Calvinists have all sorts of tricks to manipulate, gaslight, shame, and speak deceptively on multiple levels to make us think they agree with non-Calvinists, with the plain commonsense teachings of the Bible… when, in actuality, they really have a whole huge, deeper, hidden, complex web of theological ideas that they have to strategically reel people into.
The fact that they have to be so strategic and deceptive about their theology should tell us something is very wrong with it.
Thanks for standing against it too. I wish more people did.
Oops, I just saw I spelled your name wrong in the first comment. Sorry, Sallie. 🙂
This is a follow-up post.
Calvinist Couple Explains Salvation to Their Children
https://sallieborrink.com/calvinist-couple-explains-salvation-to-their-children/
Many churches don’t even mention anything about Calvinism on their website. Sometimes it’s not even clear and sometimes one can spot it. They should be much more clear about their beliefs in addition to their statements of faith on their websites. Although many churches believe Calvinism and it’s difficult to find one that doesn’t teach along those lines. At least in my experience and perspective.
Yeah, I think many churches are Calvinists but very careful to not be upfront about it. The more non-Calvinist they can sound, the more they can slowly and strategically lead people into Calvinism while keeping others from sounding alarm bells (and from even realizing that they need to be alarmed and need to doublecheck the pastor’s teaching).
I truly think most of the Church has been convinced that Calvinism is Christianity and have steeped in it so long that they don’t even know to question it.
In fact, we are made to feel like something is wrong with us if we have a problem with anything they teach: we’re prideful, glory-stealing, don’t want God to be in control, letting our emotions control us, biblically-illiterate, etc. I’ve deeply studied, for years now, the cult-like control aspects of Calvinism. That’s what I am most appalled at and alarmed by – because we can’t rescue people from a cult if they don’t even know they are in a cult, if they think their theology is nothing more than “biblical Christianity.” Scary.
After having been through a Calvinist take-over of our church (and learning how stealthy Calvinists can be), I wrote a whole huge post on how to identify if a church/pastor is Calvinist, especially when they’re trying to hide it:
https://anticalvinistrant.blogspot.com/2019/07/how-to-tell-if-church-pastor-or-website.html