Does Calvinism discourage evangelism?

In an effort to understand "the other side," I browsed around a few Arminian websites just to get a feel for what they believe and their reasons for believing it. First, let me just say that I was surprised to learn that Calvinists and the Boogey Man are cut from the same cloth. One site, baptistfire.com, actually has an entire section of their website devoted to warning Baptists of the impending doom Calvinists are bringing into "The Church" (for those of you that don't know, that's the Southern Baptist Convention). The main recurring theme is that Calvinism is contrary to evangelism, and that a church will grow stagnant and eventually die if Calvinism is allowed to creep in unchecked.?

One of the most troubling of these articles was written by Bobby Welch, the current President of the Southern Baptist Convention. In his church's newsletter, Welch gives a lengthy excerpt from a paper by Dr. Steve W. Lemke, Provost and Professor ad New Orleans Baptist Theology Seminary. In this paper, Lemke addresses the question of, "How does Calvinism and great commission evangelism connect?"

Lemke's premise, like so many misguided Arminians before him, is that Calvinism pours water on the fires of evangelism. His route to proving this theory is an interesting one. He and a colleague "compared the baptism, worship attendance, and membership patterns" from 2004 in Southern Baptist churches that are endorsed by Founder's Fellowship. The study produced "startling results" in his opinion, though one should not be surprised that Lemke's study miraculously supported his ideology. Please feel free to read the entire article if you would like, but I will do my best to summarize his findings below. To be fair, I should also point out that Lemke was rather gracious to Calvinists in most sections of the full paper, with the exception of his handling of Calvinists and evangelism.

Here's a look at the data Lemke compiled. He found that not a single one of the Founders churches (FCs) had more than 40 baptisms, and 80% had fewer than 10. Their baptism-to-member ratio was 1:62, compared with 1:42 in "normal" Southern Baptist churches (nSBCs). Over 42% of the FCs had fewer than 100 members, compared to 24% of nSBCs. He also found that FCs were 10% more likely to be "plateaued or declining" than nSBCs. He then politely lists George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and D. James Kennedy as token Calvinist evangelists, though Spurgeon was peculiarly left off of the list (the Prince of Preachers happened to be Baptist AND a 5-point Calvinist). Lemke then urges us to "look at the hard evidence" when we try to judge Calvinism's impact on evangelism.

Man, based on such "hard evidence," what is a Calvinist to do? As for myself, I'm headed straight to CBD.com to grab a copy of Chosen But Free as fast as I can.

Or, maybe I'm not. Lemke is guilty of using bad research to support his bad theology. His statistics are interesting, but I'm not convinced that they support the conclusion he is trying to draw. Here is what his data supports: "Founders churches" are not as big, do not have as many baptisms per capita, and are not growing as quickly as "normal" SBC churches, and I'm not all that surprised by that. Beyond that, Lemke's conclusions are based more on opinion than fact.

First of all, God does not judge churches by their size, or evangelists by their conversion/baptism rate. If he did, Jonah should be lifted up as the best evangelist ever. His evangelistic efforts resulted in the conversion of more than 120,000 people. Oh, he also fled from God, hated the people he was sent to witness to, and cursed God when they repented, but he sure put up some great numbers. By the same standard, Jesus was a terrible evangelist. His teaching was difficult to understand, and just about everybody he witnessed to was either confused by him or so offended that they wanted to kill him. After a few years of ministry, he only had about a dozen devoted followers, and even most of those were hardly devout. Now, obviously this standard is in error, not the ministry of Jesus Christ. Big numbers and grand responses to "altar calls" do not a good evangelist make.

Secondly, baptism is a beautiful sacrament given to us by God, but nowhere does the Bible say that being baptized guarantees that a person is saved or converted. Anyone can be baptized, and I would be willing to bet that more than one person in the history of the SBC has been baptized because it was "the thing to do," without truly being converted. I would also guess that a lot of people "accept Jesus into their hearts" (what does that mean, exactly?) and get baptized, but have no idea who Jesus is or what they are being "saved" from. Being dunked in an over-sized hot tub does not a convert make.

Finally, church growth and church size do not necessarily mean that a church is honoring to God. Paul warned Timothy that a time was coming when people would find teachers that would tell them what they wanted to hear. Could it be that these "normal" SBC churches are filling their seats by preaching a gospel that is easy to believe and pleasing to those who hear it? The Arminian gospel maintains that man isn't all that bad, and that God is willing to work with him unto his salvation. Man is sort of sick, and Jesus is the miracle cure for anyone willing to accept it. That's much easier to swallow than the Calvinist (i.e. biblical) doctrine of total depravity, which declares that man is spiritually dead (Eph. 2) from birth. Far from being neutral toward God and able to either choose God or reject him, man is a slave of Satan (John 8:31-47) and an enemy of God (Rom. 5:10-11). Salvation is completely and entirely the work of God, leaving no room for man to boast at all. Nobody wants to hear that, and certainly an unregenerate man would not want to return to a church that preached this biblical truth. So, churches tell people what they want to hear, as Paul predicted they would, namely that Jesus wants to be your friend and savior, and if you "believe" in him (kind of like believing in Santa), you will be blessed the rest of your life and for all eternity. From my experiences in a few different SBC churches, this is the kind of message that leads to a bunch of bodies in the seats, but very few mature Christians. Mega-church status does not a God-honoring church make.

It seems that the "hard evidence" from Dr. Lemke's study doesn't really prove anything, and certainly does no harm to my belief that Calvinism is actually a boon to evangelism rather than a deterrent. Here's what I mean. Bobby Welch concludes his article by saying that what the church needs more than anything is revival. I've linked to C.H. Spurgeon's "Prayer of the Arminian" before, but can you imagine what a truly Arminian prayer for revival might sound like?

Lord, I thank thee that I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists who think that you alone are the source of revival within your church. They pray to you and ask you to bring revival, but I praise thee that you do not interfere with the free will of man. Thank you for giving me the ability to proclaim the Gospel clearly and convincingly, that men might choose you by their own free will. If everybody worked at evangelism as hard as I do, perhaps men from every tribe, tongue, and nation would consent to being saved. Thank you that by your grace, combined with the right response from enough people, we can bring about a revival in our churches, assuming enough men choose you. In Jesus' name…

Hopefully nobody within the church would find this prayer acceptable. Yet, this is exactly how an Arminian should pray for revival, if he desires to be consistent with his theology. If the will of man is sacrosanct and off-limits to God, why would we pray to him asking for the conversion of even one sinner, let alone a full-scale revival? If all men have the same ability to choose or reject God, without any unfair interference by God, why ask him for revival?

Yet, Welch closes his article with the following:

Dr. Lemke goes on to say exactly how I feel about it all, ?The only real hope for the future of Southern Baptists is a heaven sent revival. What we need is a God-Ordained, Christ-centered, Spirit-anointed, Bible-based revival.?
I say, ?Amen and Amen!!!?

Welch inadvertently acknowledges the absurdity of his stated position when he says that revival must be "heaven sent [and] God-ordained." He almost sounds like one of those dreaded Calvinists to me. When you get down to it, the Arminian must betray his own theology when he admits that God is in fact sovereign over his creation and that revival, both in the individual and the church, is fully dependent on God's sovereign grace.

But, don't worry for too long. Welch has also stated that the biggest problem today is that pastors aren't giving enough altar calls!!! In an interview by ChristiaNet.com, Welch said, "Too many pastors have stopped giving invitations to accept Christ at the end of a sermon because they don't want to put pressure on people." That's right, Bobby, all we need is more altar calls and more "pressure on people." That's the key to your "one million baptisms" campaign.

I believe the key is more prayer, a better understanding of God's sovereignty, and more Christians living according to biblical convictions. God is honored when we preach the gospel appropriately, and by doing so we are free to leave the number of responses in his hands.

UPDATE: 01/05/2005
I should have checked this first, but Tom Ascol, the Executive Director of Founders Ministries, responded to Welch and Lemke's writings back in July of 2005. The links to thse replies (3 in all) can be found below:

Part One, Part Two, and Part Three