Calvinism!

A Strange Doctrine Among The Brethren Assemblies!

Dr. Johnson C. Philip

Dr. Saneesh Cherian

John Calvin And His Men Killed at least 50 Christians, Fined, Tortured, And Expelled
Numerous Christians, And Burnt The Houses Of Many Widows of Men Who Disagreed With
His Theology. (Above: A Modern Representation Of Burning Alive At Stake)

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Calvinism
A Doctrine Alien To The Brethren Is Influencing The Brethren Pulpit!

Saneesh Cherian, MA, DMin, PhD

Johnson C. Philip, ThD, PhD, DSc, DNYS

Edition:4th Revised And Expanded Edition

Copyright: Creative Commons Copyright: 2011

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Introduction

Heresies have always existed, and they have been an attack

against Christian doctrinal teachings from the beginning of first
century. In the long run, Calvinism is proved as a fatal blow to
worldwide evangelism. Calvinists and reformed Christians
indisputably believe
ieve God doesn’t love the entire world, but that
He loves only a select few and they are predestined for heaven.
The rest who are not chosen have no opportunity of getting
into heaven.

Calvinism is a form of Theistic Fatalism. “Fatalism is the doctrine

whereby
ereby all events are predetermined by fate and are therefore
unalterable.” Calvinism teaches that God predetermined the
fate of all men by an immutable decree, such that from eternity
past, every man’s lot in life has been fixed and determined by the arbi
arbitrary
trary power of God.

Worse, Calvinism also makes God the author of sin. The commentaries of Islamic scholars
use arguments identical to the ones used by Calvinist scholars to rationalize the doctrine
of Islamic predestination. If you remove some words such as Allah, the statements would be
indistinguishable from Calvinist commentaries. Dr. Samuel M. Zwemer says that “Islam
indeed in many respects is the Calvinism of the Orient.” Calvinism subtly crept into Kerala
Brethren assemblies and hoodwinked unsuspecting believers very easily.

Today Reformed Churches and leaders in America are trying to recover their lost doctrine of
Calvinism and convert all Evangelicals to it. They have deviously infiltrated among
Southern Baptists and Brethrens in America. R.C. Sproul the modern apostle of reformed
doctrine in America laments the lack of Calvinism among evangelicals because most
evangelicals are dispensationalists.

John Nelson Darby visited the USA in 1862, the first out of his seven visits, and converted the
Baptists as dispensationalist. Today reformed movement is coming back with a vengeance in
America. These Calvinists are usually anti Israe
Israell too. Let me quote Harry Ironside, the prince
of expositors. “Turn to your Bible and read for yourself the only two chapters in which this
word, “Predestinate” or “Predestinated” is found. The first is in Romans Ch.8.29-30,
Ch.8.29 and the
other is in Ephesians Ch.1:5,
h.1:5, and verse 11. You will note that there is no reference in these
four verses to either Heaven or hell, but only to Christlikness. Nowhere we are told in the
scripture that God Predestinated one man to be saved and another to be lost.”

John Calvin similar to Catholics murdered the people who disagreed with his doctrine. This
proves that Calvin’s life was not controlled by Holy Spirit and he had no access to God’s
mind. Here is an example to prove that he was a barbaric terrorist.

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Burning Heretics: Calvin had sent a copy of his book “Institute of the Christian Religion" to a
Spanish thinker Michael Servetus. Servetus was a gifted scientist and geographer. He was
the first person to accurately describe the human circulatory system. Servetus read Calvin's
work, making many refutations.

Three important ideas he criticized were Calvin’s teachings in Infant baptism, predestination,
and Calvin's explanation of the Trinity. (Servetus had many erroneous teachings regarding
Trinity). Servetus then sent Calvin's book back to him with his negative comments.
Infuriated, Calvin remarked that if Servetus ever came to Geneva, he would never leave the
city alive. However, the Catholic Inquisition caught up with Servetus before Calvin did. He
got arrested in France (where he had fled) and sentenced him to be burned at the stake as a
heretic. Servetus escaped from prison and headed to Italy. On his way to Italy, Servetus
unwisely passed through Geneva. He thought it would be interesting to hear Calvin preach.
But Calvin recognized Servetus in the crowd and ordered his arrest. The authorities then
threw him into a horrible dungeon with no heat or light, and little food.

At his trial, Servetus was denied the right to have a lawyer or attorney. The authorities
charged him with forty articles of heresy. The judge did not allow Servetus to explain or
defend any of the things he had written. After hearing the evidence, the Geneva authorities
condemned Servetus to be burned to death at the stake for his heretical teachings even
though he wasn't a citizen of Geneva but was just passing through. The executioners
chained Servetus to a stake and piled faggots of wood around him, about half of which were
green. Because of the green wood, Servetus died a slow, agonizing death while the crowd
watched in amusement... Those who want to know more can go to Google and search "The
murder of Michael Servetus” Do you see any difference with modern day Islamic extremist
like Bin Laden and Calvin?

I appreciate Dr Philip and Dr Cherian for their sincere effort to publish this valuable book. I
hope you would publish it in English and Malayalam in a printed format. May our Lord
facilitate you to author more books for the furtherance of His Kingdom in truth and spirit!

Dr.Sunny Ezhumattoor
Houston. Texas
February 2.2011

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Calvinism
What Is Wrong With It?

Calvinism is a peculiar way of interpreting the Bible that made a strong entry into the
Brethren Churches in India in the nineteen sixties. Several Bible teachers in the nineteen
sixties went to the Hindustan Bible Institute where some of their teachers were strongly
committed to and extreme form of Calvinism. It is they who introduced Calvinism among
Kerala Brethren in a strong and loud way.

Eventually, one of the strongest Calvinists that India has seen, left HBI and started Bharat
Bible College in Secunderabad. Due to the influence of HBI graduates among us, many
younger evangelists went to BBC for their training and came back with a very strong
commitment to Calvinism. Many of them became faculty members
in the numerous Brethren Bible institutes that are there all over
India and indoctrinated hundreds of people from the next
generation in Calvinism.

Picture: John Calvin, Who Maintained That Torture And Murder Of

Christians Was Perfectly Fine To Attain His Mission

Meanwhile, the Fundamental and Independent Baptists established

a number of Bible Colleges and trained a very large number of men
and women in Calvinism. Many of these people eventually left the Baptist seminaries and
joined the assemblies and became evangelists and Bible School teachers.

In this way thousands of Brethren men and women were indoctrinated by an extreme form
of Calvinism for the last 50 years, and the result today is a very perverted way of looking at
the Bible. The outsides influenced our people from the late 1950s, and then the insiders
influenced our people from late 1980s. The ultimate result has been so bad that today there
are a number of people who strongly teach that the gospel should not be preached. They
claim that those who are going to be saved will be saved any way, and therefore all
evangelism is totally useless.

The History Of Calvin and Calvinism: The doctrine that we today call Calvinism was
formulated by John Calvin who produced his Systematic Theology (known as Institutes of
the Christian Religion) in 1536. Since the Protestant Reformation had started just in 1534,
Calvin lived and propagated his ideas at the very start of the Protestant Reformation and
that is one reason why he became very influential in spite of his errors.

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The new believers did not have much else to read during those days except Roman Catholic
books. There were very few Protestant writers, and those who wrote massive volumes at
the beginning were read with great interest by the new believers. What is more, most
people had not seen a Bible, let alone a Protestant book on theology. Thus they were not in
a position to assess the doctrines and influence of Calvin and Calvinism, and thus Calvinism
became all-pervasive before most people could realize what was happening.

He was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church but soon he found a place of rest
in Geneva that was undergoing a spiritual renewal. There he influenced the drafting of their
Constitution in 1537. It included stipulations for Holy Communion four times and year and a
catechism for children. The constitution also established a spy network on people opposed
to to Protestantism. A moral police was also established. In effect, this was just a "baptized"
Protestant form of Roman Catholic tyranny and criminal activity against those who
disagreed with his brand of theology. There was no question of freedom to think.

Displaying The Heads Of Christians Who Were Beheaded Was Common In Calvin’s Geneva.
All It Took Was Disagreement With John Calvin To End Up In This Manner!

Under his influence the State very soon arrested and tortured Jacques Gruet for a full month
because he had dared to disagree with John Calvin. Under a month-long torture he was
made to confess that he was wrong. On 25 July 1547 Gruet was killed for his dissent, with
Calvin's doctrine, by cutting off his head. Not satisfied with this, for the writings of Gruet, his
wife was thrown out of her house and the building was burned down by Calvin's supporters.

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Not satisfied with this, in the next five years John Calvin got fifty eight people killed for
differences of opinion, and banished seventy-six people out of the country for the same
"offense". In addition, he got numerous eminent citizens arrested, imprisoned and tortured.
Eventually he even dethroned Ami Perrin, the man who had brought him to Geneva.

Calvin believed in infant-baptism, and since Anabaptists did not practice infant-baptism, he
got them banished from Geneva. Government officers were required to go house to house
to examine the faith of people, and all those who did not subscribe to Calvin's form of faith
were punished. The punishment ranged from fines, banishment, imprisonment, torture,
killing, and burning of houses. No pity was shown to the widows and orphans and their
houses were razed down with fire. Thus district by district all who were found not loyal to
Calvinism were punished or banished.

A person known as "Freckles" Dunant was accused of spreading the plague. He was tortured
to extract a confession, but he did not admit to the false accusation. He died due to the
torture. His body was dragged to the middle of the town, and he was burned alive.
Immediately after this, again under the influence of Calvin, many more men and women
were caught on religious charges. For example, a hospital supervisor was charged that he
had make a pact with the devil. Soon after two
women were accused of sorcery, and that due to
sorcery they are spreading plague. Thus they were
burnt alive on 7 March 1545.

Picture: A Modern Rendition Of Burning At Stake, A

Very Painful, Agonizing, And Slow Method Of Killing
People

At the request of John Calvin these executions were

done hastily, instead of allowing them time to plead
their innocence. People those days were executed in
most barbarous way, but not satisfied with the
prevailing cruelty, the executioners were instructed
to be very diligent in cutting off the hands of the
accused before executing them. This followed with
more arrests and executions. Those that were
tortured were carefully watched so that they do not
die but under torture for prolonged periods of time. Most of those who were tortured by
Calvin's supporters refused to confess, as they were innocent.

Often those imprisoned committed suicide to escape torture, so terrible it used to be. A
total of 7 men and 24 women were executed on charges of spreading plague. Of these, 15
women were burnt alive.

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Soon Calvin introduced many more harsh orders. He made a list of names and all other
names were forbidden for Christians. (There were no non Christians in Geneva at that time).
Dancing was prohibited, and a number of women were arrested without evidence. A woman
by the name of Ami Perrin was pressurized to testify against those who danced, and when
she did not do that she was thrown into prison.

Soon theologian, scholar and physician Michael Servetus was arrested and charged of
heresy. Servetus was the first European to describe the function of pulmonary circulation in
medicine. His interests included mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, geography,
human anatomy, medicine, pharmacology, jurisprudence etc. He is renowned in the history
of several of these fields, particularly medicine and
theology. John Calvin played an important role in his
cruel execution. Before his execution he was deliberately
kept in a prison in a near naked and dirty condition where
worms and insects crawled all over him and devoured his
body.

Pic: Theologian, scholar and physician Michael Servetus

Who Was Burnt Alive Deliberately On Slow Fire Due To
Calvinism

He was burnt alive in Geneva in front of a very large crowd.

A wreath full of sulfur was placed on his head. Non-dry
wood was placed around him to prolong the pain of burning. He shrieked in pain, and it took
him more than 30 minutes to fall unconscious due to the slow burning.

We can go on listing hundreds more of such cases, but the above would suffice to tell what
John Calvin was as a person and Christian. Throughout his life he kept urging the
government to keep prying into the lives of the citizens and to torture and punish them in
the harshest possible way, and execute as many of them using as cruel methods as were
needed.

Calvin's Theology: Today many in the Brethren circles project John Calvin as a great
theologian who opened up divine truths to the people of God. When people interpret the
Bible, even the most terrible heretic might state SOME truth, but this does not absolve him
of the errors he teaches. Nor does this make him a model to us for Christian doctrine. In the
light of this we need to have a look at some of the interesting doctrines that he taught and
these include:

• Baptism: He taught firmly that infants are to be baptized. He taught that this was a

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biblical principle, and that infants must be baptized so as to make them members of the
church and also of the kingdom of God. He presented numerous arguments in favour of
infant-baptism. Anyone who opposed his stand on infant baptism was fined, punished,
or tortured.

• Lord's Supper: He taught that as soon as the bread and wine were blessed by the priest,
the lord was really and physically present in the bread and wine. In other words, those
who participated of the bread and the cup participated of the real body and blood of the
Lord. He emphasized that the bread and cup were not symbols, and anyone who dared
to suggest that these were only symbolic of the flesh and blood of Christ stood the
danger of getting fined, punished, or tortured.

• Sin and Evil: He taught that God controlled everything to the minutest move in the
Universe. Thus even for sin and evil that Adam and Even committed, he held that God
was responsible. Since man had no freedom, God was the author of every sin committed
by mankind, but mankind was responsible for undergoing the punishment for it. Humans
were not supposed to question this arbitrariness of God. Anyone who dared to question
this stood the danger of getting fined, punished, or tortured.

• About Mary: He maintained with Roman Catholics that Mary is to be labelled as the
Mother of God.

• About Hell: He maintained that God had predestined the majority of the human
population to everlasting hell. Though God was the ultimate author of their sins, they
were going to pay the ultimate penalty for ever and ever. He also maintained that since
God had predestined them to everlastig hell, there was NO way in which they could ever
have been saved by accepting Lord Jesus as their Saviour. As a result he also taught that
salvation was NOT available to all men.

• About Millennium: He believed that there was no 1000 year millennium, and opposed
everyone who taught about the forthcoming millennial reign of Christ.

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John Calvin And His Team Often Instructed The Executioners To Kill People Slowly So That
Their Pain And Agony Would Be Prolonged As Much As Possible! So Much For Their
“Christian” Values!

• Persecution: He believed that other than him nobody had freedom to think about
Bible, doctrine, and theology. He also believed that it was his moral duty and
obligation to punish, torture, and kill anyone and everyone who opposed his
theology and even his whims and fancies.

• About The Bible: He rejected the doctrine of Bible Alone (Sola Scriptura) by
repeatedly claiming that it is not Bible that should be the source of theology, but
that it is theology that should decide how Bible is to be interpreted. This is Roman
Catholic approach, and even today the majority of Calvinists take this stand that
instead of deriving one’s theology from the Bible, the Bible is to be made
subordinate to one’s theology.

• Authority Of The Bible: John Calvin found it difficult to establish his erroneous
doctrines from the Bible and therefore he repeatedly depended upon the Church
Fathers as his authority. He heavily relied upon Augustine instead of the Bible. We
find the same tendency among Calvinists today. They often reject the Bible and
depend upon the opinion of human writers.

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• Church/Israel: Calvin and Calvinists reject dispensations. The pick up passages
related to Israel and apply them to the church. This can be seen even among the
dedicated Calvinists among the Brethren who base a large number of their
arguments on the basis of passages related to Old Testament.

The Present Danger

Calvinists among us were relatively silent for decades, but they kept spreading their
teachings via assembly pulpits and Bible Schools for decades. However, in recent times they
have become very noise and have started spreading their deviant teachings openly and
loudly. Consider a few examples:

The First Calvinist Conference In Kerala: Some two years ago there was a Conference in
Kerala for the promotion of Calvinism. Several prominent young teachers among the
Brethren spoke in that meeting. Some of them very clearly declared the following points:

• It is totally false to say that the gospel of salvation is open to all. Salvation is available
only to a few selected people.
• The fact that salvation is available to ONLY a few is a “Family Secret” known only to
born again people.
• To the rest of the people we just keep declaring (the lie that) they can also have
salvation, though in reality they cannot be saved.
• God had fixed the number of people who are going to be saved. Thus God has
condemned the rest of the people to everlasting hell-fire.
• God has decided and ordained that the MAJORITY of mankind should go to hell and
suffer forever and ever.
• Though God closed their way to salvation, God is justified in burning them forever in
hell because God is “righteous”.

Many other strange declarations were made by the young Calvinists in this meeting and the
audience was restless on hearing these barbarous proclamations in the name of the Bible.
However, the speakers simply brushed aside these complaints under the pretext that they
have studied theology and they know better than the others.

The dangers of such declarations are obvious to every God-fearing Christian.

The Second Calvinist Conference: There is a new Brethren Assembly in Ernakulam which
has taken a cultistic form around their Calvinistic doctrines. Sometimes back they invited
close to 200 selected people from around Kerala, paid them money, and taught several
abominable doctrines to them. Some of my friends were there and some of them even

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recorded these classes. They were so alarmed by the anti-gospel stand taught in this
Calvinistic program that they informed us the same day.

One of the teachings by this person was that there is NO need to preach the gospel because
it is false to say that God invites everyone. They claimed that only a few people have been
selected by God, and such selected people will automatically be saved. This cultistic
assembly is gradually spreading its tentacles among believers from other assemblies
through secret teaching programs.

Another big LIE being taught by this group is that when the Scripture says that God so loved
the world, the world “world” is the word “church” in the original Greek. Since the average
believer has no idea of Greek, and since they do not doubt evangelists, they fall into this trap
and read John 3:16 as “God so loved the Church that He gave His only begotten Son …”. If
any one of you has fallen into their trap, we wish to remind them that in John 3:16, and in
other places where Holy Spirit uses the word “world” it means exactly that, and not the
church.

Subsequent to the release of the last edition of this ebook, numerous believers contacted us
an told about how this Calvinist group is stealing the mind of their members through very
subtle one-to-one teaching.

Summary: Believers need to be very very careful about all kinds of alien and strange
teaching that the Calvinist crowd is importing into the assemblies in India. Eternal vigilance is
the cost to be paid for spiritual freedom.

Be sure to read the next chapter on The God of Calvinism and Hypercalvinism in the next
chapter.

Ideas Have Consequences! Let us saturate the world with right ideas.
You are welcome to distribute unmodified copies this Ebook in any manner that you wish!

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The God Of
Calvinism, Hypercalvinism & Neocalvinism

Calvinism is the name often given to a system of thinking that was developed in seed form
by John Calvin while he was still on the payroll of the Roman Catholic Church. Thus Calvinism
is basically a Roman Catholic system of doctrine, though it has been baptized into the
Protestant Church after Calvin left the Roman Catholic Church.

We now wish to bring the Calvinism/HyperCalvinism differentiation to the attention of our

readers because some friends, after they read the first edition of this book, wrote to us that
this book is dealing essentially with hypercalvinism and not with Calvinism.

While modern Calvinism was spelt out much after the time of John Calvin, and while those
who have tried to give an expression to Calvinism in modern times have tried to eliminate
some of the shortcomings of John Calvin’s system, they have not been very successful.
Calvinism, as numerous well-known and well-accepted writers have pointed out, has either
got to be 5-point Calvinism, or nothing at all.

As a result, all faithful 5-point Calvinists insist that any tampering with any of the 5 points
totally destroys the system. In other words you are either a 5-point Calvinist, or you are not
Calvinist at all. Thus the distinction between Calvinism and Hypercalvinism is totally false. If
one is a Calvinist, then he is a 5-point Calvinist. And every 5-point Calvinist has to insist the
following, among others (as an illustration):

• God arbitrarily chooses who is going to be saved and who is going to be condemned.
• Those who have been chosen for condemnation cannot be saved in any way because
from eternity past Christ has rejected them and, by doing so, forbade salvation for
them.
• Those condemned have no freewill to choose Christ as personal Saviour.
• Even if they had a freewill, they could not have been saved because Christ DID NOT
die for them. Christ died ONLY for the church.
• God arbitrarily condiments the majority of human population, billions upon billions of
people, to EVERLASTING burning in hell for no mistake of theirs.
• God is glorified by arbitrarily condemning the majority of his creation because He
does NOT love them.
• Verses that say that “God so loved the WORLD …” should be interpreted to mean
that God so loved the Church.

In other worlds, Calvinists teach a God who NEEDS to be glorified by first creating billions

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upon billions of people who have an immortal soul. (Calvinists are very strong on this point
that the soul is immortal and that it cannot die). Then this God needs glory by deliberately
keeping salvation away from the majority so that He can burn them in hell forever and ever.

Summary: The picture of God as depicted by Calvinists is different from the picture og God
as depicted by the Bible. The Scripture teaches that God is an all-loving eternal father who
wants everyone to be saved.

The God of Calvinists is NOT an all-loving Father. On the contrary, he loves only some. He
arbitrarily hates the rest. Like a dictator, He refused freedom of choice to the majority of
mankind. He then burns them in Hell for rejecting Christ, though it is GOD who made them
to reject Christ. He is a God who needs the glory from this sadistic action.

We need to abandon the erroneous view of Calvinists and need to return to the Scripture
that ways “For God so loved the WORLD ….”

Have you ever been close to an inferno? I have been. It simply singed my shirt, though I
maintained a great distance. Then what about an unending eternity – if you were denied an
opportunity by God to escape it?

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About The Authors

Dr. Johnson C. Philip and Dr. Saneesh Cherian have been co-workers
since 1995. Together they have authored dozens of books, ebooks, and
thousands of articles. Their main commitment is to defend the faith and doctrine
that was once delivered to New Testament believers.

Dr. Philip is based in Kochi, India and Dr. Cherian is based in Maneed, a rural
township about 30 kilometers from Kochi. Almost all their writings are available
free, and these are being uploaded at http://FreeEbooks.Itz4u.com
from where you can download them totally free.

You are welcome to distribute unmodified copies this Ebook in any manner that you wish!

You can download the latest edition of this ebook, and numerous other titles, from http://FreeEbooks.Itz4u.com

We encourage you to distribute unmodified copies of this ebook to as wide a readership as possible. You are also
encouraged to distribute it from your website, on CDs, etc. No further permission is needed for such distribution.
Join hands with our biblical literacy project through such free distribution.

15