The Alabama Baptist on Calvinism

This week's edition of The Alabama Baptist contains a series of articles by James Leo Garrett, Jr. on Calvinism. In his opening comments, editor Bob Terry shares the goal and intent of this series of articles:

This week, The Alabama Baptist attempts what many believe impossible. We offer our readers an in-depth look into the theological understandings often called Calvinism. This effort is not an attempt to persuade readers whether this viewpoint is right or wrong. Instead we present a series of articles designed to inform readers about Calvinism... Our goal is to inform readers so they will understand the basic teachings of this viewpoint and be able to reach their own conclusions about the teachings of this theological understanding.

The series of articles by Dr. Garrett is to be commended for its structure and commitment to Terry's aforementioned goal. Garrett's articles might be described as follows:

1) Definitional/historical
2) Confessional/historical
3) Biographical/historical
4) Scriptural/interpretational
5) Practical
6) Optional

I would commend that all read the articles with the editor's intent in mind. The articles offer an informational introduction to Calvinism in some degree. However, I would like to point out a couple of weaknesses.

1) While the articles serve as a decent introduction to Calvinism, it does not serve as a true examination of Calvinism as the series title suggests: An Informational Examination of Calvinism. The reason for this lies in the brevity of the articles. Garrett simply touches on many things but does not properly expand on those topics. Of course, this brevity is necessary to fulfill the requirements of the paper and no slight on Dr. Garrett. However, the reader must remember that do to this brevity, historical and Scriptural thoughts are often understated and therefore can be misleading. Again, this is not to say that is Garrett's intent. He is bound to the length of a journal article. I would encourage the readers to do a deeper study historically and especially Scripturally. My greatest disagreement with Dr. Garrett would be with the article on Scripture and Calvinism.

2) It seems to me that if one were attempting to give an "in-depth" yet unbiased opinion, then the editor should have chosen more than one person to write the series of articles. It does not matter whether Dr. Garrett is a self-proclaimed Dortian Calvinist, a practicing Calminian (to borrow his term), or a flaming Arminian. While I do believe Dr. Garrett tries to be as unbiased as possible in the spirit of the stated goal, it is difficult if not impossible for one's historical and biblical interpretations not to bleed through on occasion. A better approach might have been to have taken the same approach and invited scholars on both sides to present their views over an extended number of papers. This would have guarded against the biases of an individual and left a greater breadth of information for one to make an informed decision.

Again, I encourage the reader to get his/her hands on a copy of the Aug. 2, 2007 edition of The Alabama Baptist and read for yourself. Unfortunately, while Terry's comment on the series is available online, I was not able to find a link to the articles themselves as of the time of this writing.