LEARNING FROM CALVINISTS WITHOUT BECOMING ONE
It is possible to be grateful without being governed; to learn without yielding allegiance; to receive nourishment without joining the camp that baked the bread. Theology, like history, does not require total agreement to offer genuine insight.
And so it is with Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
I am not a Calvinist—and I do not want others to be. Yet I would be dishonest, and perhaps ungrateful, if I denied how much I have learned from Spurgeon. Truth is not invalidated by the system that attempts to contain it. God has never waited for perfect frameworks before pouring out light. “Test all things; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Discernment is not disloyalty; it is obedience.
Spurgeon called himself a Calvinist, but he did not act like the mechanical determinists of our own day. He was no theological commissar, no cold architect of inevitability, no preacher of a gospel that sounded more like a decree than an invitation. He did not speak as though men were puppets or as though repentance were theatrical rather than urgent. He preached as if souls were truly summoned, as if heaven and hell hung in the balance, as if men could actually come—or tragically refuse.
I think I have read everything the man did. Spurgeon’s “Calvinism” was not the bureaucratic Calvinism that now dominates conference stages and podcast studios. It had blood in it—tears in it—pleading in it. He begged sinners. He urged hearers. He spoke in the language of Scripture rather than the language of systems. Again and again, he thundered the free and open call of the gospel: “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). That is not the voice of determinism; that is the voice of a preacher who believed the invitation was real.
Modern Calvinism often sounds like a closed circuit—self-reinforcing, internally logical, emotionally distant. Spurgeon’s preaching was nothing like that. He did not flatten the warnings of Scripture, nor did he explain away the urgency of repentance. He could say, without embarrassment, “You will not come,” and still plead, “Come to Christ tonight.” He refused to let logic silence the Bible’s plain speech—“Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die?” (Ezekiel 33:11).
This is where the comparison must be made carefully—and honestly. Spurgeon cannot be recruited as a mascot for the hard, ideological Calvinism represented today by figures such as R. C. Sproul and John MacArthur. Whatever one thinks of those men, their tone, their emphasis, and their theological rigidity would have been foreign to Spurgeon’s evangelistic instincts. He was not interested in building a gated theological community; he was interested in seeing sinners saved.
Spurgeon did not preach election to quiet sinners—he preached Christ to awaken them. He did not use sovereignty as a cushion against responsibility—he used grace as a summons to repentance and faith. Whatever conclusions he held, he never allowed them to mute the gospel’s urgency or sincerity. “Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
I reject Calvinism—not because I reject Spurgeon, but because I take Scripture’s invitations seriously. I reject any system that dulls the edge of biblical warnings or turns the gospel call into a formality. The appeals of Scripture are not theatrical; they are real. The responsibility of the sinner is not imaginary; it is urgent. “Choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15).
Yet I remain grateful. I take the gold and leave the gravel. I learn from Spurgeon’s reverence, his courage, his Christ-exalting passion—without surrendering to his system. My loyalty is not to Geneva, nor to London, nor to modern conference platforms—but to Jesus Christ alone, “who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).
I am grateful without being governed. I listen without submitting my conscience. I honor the man without inheriting the system. And I will not uncritically allow Charles Spurgeon to be retrofitted into a theological machine he himself never inhabited.
___________
I am not trying to be unfair to R. C. Sproul or John MacArthur. I have read their works; I am familiar with their arguments; I do not doubt their sincerity. I am sure they were godly men, and I have no reason to question their love for Christ or their devotion to Scripture. Many of their followers are godly people as well—earnest believers who love Jesus, cherish the Bible, and desire to think carefully about the faith once delivered to the saints. This is not an indictment of character, nor is it a dismissal of devotion. It is simply a historical and theological observation: there is no world in which Charles Spurgeon would have signed his name to “Chosen by God” by Sproul. Whatever labels we attempt to apply, Spurgeon’s preaching instincts, evangelistic urgency, and refusal to quiet Scripture’s open invitations place him outside the modern, system-driven Calvinism that book represents. To say that is not uncharitable; it is honest.
BDD
