Calvinist Flyswatter

Conversion of Nathan Finn

NATHAN FINN: PREDESTINATED TO
BE SAVED UNDER AN ARMINIAN?

Read the full account of Nathan Finn's conversion at this link. Here is the "heart" of what is called his "pilgrimage:"

But the thing that ultimately convicted me of my spiritual state was the radio sermons of Adrian Rogers. His program came on every day at the one time of day I had a standing delivery to make. Dr. Rogers was preaching through the book of Revelation, and I was cut to the quick. Little by little, over the course of three or four months, all of my legalisms were laid out before me. I was forced to confront every argument I had made to justify my standing before God. One by one the walls came down. I think it was probably during this time, in the spring of 1997, that I began to rest in the finished work of Christ. I verbalized that in my prayer at the North Greenville Centrifuge camp that summer.

Now, it is rather well known that Adrian Rogers was one of the alleged Southern Baptist "Arminians" who could and did sometimes make the Flounders fairly bristle with "righteous indignation" and contempt for his comments about "Calvinism." Rogers is even said to have written to Ernest Reisinger and told Ernie that he had "more zeal for the cause of Calvinism than for missions and evangelism" (Ernest Reisinger, A Biography, page 226).

Wonder what on earth could have given Adrian that idea?

Despite Rogers' flaming "anti-Calvinism," Nathan Finn, a young and apparent Flounders-Friendly faculty member at Southeastern in Wake Forest, says he was converted after listening to Adrian Rogers' sermons on radio, and I assume that the "prayer" to which Finn refers was something on the order of "the sinner's prayer" (another "no-no" to many of the Flounders).

Evidently, that period of Finn's life must have been when he was affiliating in some manner with what he might now categorize as "Arminianism" and "Arminians," and perhaps he would now think that those folks needed to be "reformed."

It seems rather paradoxical, to say the least, to consider that, according to the Flounders' version of "Calvinism," it must be concluded that before the foundation of the world, Nathan was elected, and it was before ordained, or predestinated, that he would be converted by means of the ministry of an alleged "Arminian," but would later find favor with the Flounders-Friendly camp, many of whom seem to have despised Adrian Rogers, the Gospel minister who was virtually Nathan's spiritual "father" (1 Cor. 4:15).

As the Flounders continue on their Sir Launfal-like search for the "holy grail" of "recovering the gospel," wonder if it might be of help to them if they, too, listened to some of Adrian Rogers' sermons?

posted by Bob L. Ross @ 10:05 PM