Robert Selph

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, but have seen fit over the last year or so to become a Free Will Baptist.

This book is poorly written and only slightly better argued. Selph, I gather, is an honest man who makes a heartfelt argument in favor of bringing the Southern Baptists back to their roots on the doctrine of election - that is, that they espouse Calvinistic UNconditional election. He makes the point that Southern Baptists were, in the beginning, advocates of unconditional election - Calvinist. Now they a pretty much, on the exterior, Arminian on election - i.e., anyone can come to salvation. The largest chunk of the book is devoted to showing that Southern Baptists and their ilk were Calvinistic - a huge boring chunk of the book. Three pages to prove John A. Broadus believed in unconditional election, four pages to prove Spurgeon did, five to prove Basil Manly, Sr. did. Okay, I get the point. It actually took me nearly four months to get through this portion of the book because it was so tedious. The last half of the book is devoted to proving that the Bible teaches unconditional election. Aside from being poorly written, unfocused, and, again, boring, it is nothing new. It is a weak argument for Calvinism pointing to iffy verses and building straw men of Arminians. Arminius did not teach that men are not totally depraved, men choosing Christ is not a work, and works is not what Arminianism is about. See the books by Olson and Picirilli in my collection to get the truth on Arminianism and its theology. His slipshod theology boils down salvation by election, not salvation by faith. Yet, like most Calvinists, he cannot help but make contradictory arguments. Selph spends an entire chapter telling us that man can do nothing to accept salvation, unless God has secretly chosen him before time began. Only God can make a man turn to Christ in his Calvinist schema, yet in the next chapter he claims: "The only person to be saved is the person who radically turns from sin and trusts in Christ.... God, in His love, will receive sinners with open arms...." Wait! How can a man turn to Christ and come to him? God makes them come, irresistibly (remember your TULIP). Pick one Pastor Selph.

The writing style is sloppy, yet you can see that Selph really does believe in his topic. This saves it from totally sucking. The "Bibliography" is in fact, the endnotes section, there is no bib. There is no index. Selph set out to prove first that Southern Baptists were Calvinistic in their theology, and his quite tedious history belaborously points this out. Okay. His attempt to prove that unconditional election is biblically sound rests on tired arguments that folks like Free Will Baptist theologian Picirilli have refuted years ago. He fails on that accord, unless you are convinced already.… (mehr)