Blaine,
This is not an open rebuke, so don't get defensive about reading this. I am going to quote you, but only for the purpose of explaining my point. Here is a quote that I have from you:
"I might add that I'm writing as one who used to be a staunch five-point Calvinist. I would defend the reformed Faith with my dying breath. Whereas once I had the life of Jesus having come out of the Jesus movement. The life of the Spirit was killed in me when I embraced the deadness of Calvinism. Calbinistic theology puffed-up my mind. But it did very little to my dead heart."
Brother, I respectfully submit that this is true every every single person who has ever come to faith in Christ from dead religion, and not indicative of Calvinism in and of itself. This is the very testimony of all who were "religious" before they were redeemed.
All doctrines, all creeds, all faiths--if the person is not rooted in Christ--is pure and empty religion. The reason why Calvinism did not produce life for you is the same reason why the scriptures did not produce life in the Pharisees, which is the same reason why there are unsaved Baptists, unsaved Methodists, unsaved pentacostals, etc in the midst of true believers--it is because they loved religion and not Jesus.
The Jesus Movement, for the Jesus Movement's sake--apart from the love of Jesus--is still dead religion, brother.
Someone can know all the facts, believe all the right doctrines, etc, and still not know Jesus.
What I find to be true by and large is this: People who have come out of dead religion do have a tendency to rail against the dead religion. You didn't pass from death to life because you left Calvinism for the Jesus Movement. You passed from death to life before you abandoned your own efforts and trusted in Jesus. Calvinism had nothing to do with your lostness. Your refusal to trust in Jesus had everything to do with it.
Consider this, brother. Think about it.
I know men who were lost in a Baptist church and joined with the pentacostals and came to know the Lord.
I know men who were lost in the pentacostal church and joined with the Baptists and came to know the Lord.
I know men who were reformed and moved away from it and then encountered Jesus.
It is NOT from whence we have come that saves us--it is WHO we encounter along the way. It is Jesus, brother. It is Him alone.
I am reformed in much of what I believe, but I am a victim of that title more than a supporter of it. I have beliefs that fall in line with reformed theology, and beliefs that seem to align with Pentecostals, and beliefs that seem more post-trib than others but what does it matter?
I know Jesus. He has saved me. He is working in my life. The evidence of it is there day to day that He who began a good work in me is finishing it.
So brother, I encourage you to move away from railing against certain aspects of certain beliefs simply because that is what you came out of and focus on Jesus, whom you encountered on your way "out". You didn't move from Calvinism. You moved from dead religion in your own heart to Jesus.
Thanks,
Nathaniel