Archdruid Eileen writes an interesting, but as usual not too serious, post Calvin Shrine Genes, in which she speculates about genes which might predispose people to belief in God. She marks today as the anniversary of John Calvin’s death by writing:

if your genes decide whether you believe or not – then Calvin was right. And it is down to God whether or not you believe in God. And that strikes me as a bit unfair, although I’m sure Calvinists would be able to explain to me why it’s not. Some argument along the lines of “God’s gaff, God’s rules”, I would have thought.

I can’t help wondering if there is a gene which predisposes people to Calvinism. I suppose people who carried this gene would have a seriously compromised free will, but they would be predestined to believe in the God of Calvin and the other Reformers and so to be saved. Meanwhile the rest of us with an intact free will would be able to decide freely whether to accept or reject the gospel message of salvation.

This Calvin gene would seem to be especially common among certain ethnic groups such as the Dutch, and so their ethnic churches are strongly Calvinistic. But this leads to problems for members of those churches who do not have the gene. Among them, very likely, is Harold Camping, who was once an elder in a Reformed church which, according to Robert Godfrey, “was almost entirely Dutch in background”, but then exercised his free will to go off the theological rails, and very likely to lose his salvation.

Well, I too have left the more or less Calvinistic fold in which I was first established as an evangelical Christian. Probably some of my brothers and sisters from those days, as well as some of my blogging friends today, would say that I too have gone off the theological rails. After all, I have dared to criticise on this blog such giants as John Piper and Wayne Grudem. But through the Holy Spirit I have assurance of my salvation from the only direction that matters.

I’m glad I don’t have the Calvin gene.