Paul Claydon ('28)
In the late 4th century into the early 5th century there lived a theologian named Pelagius. Pelagius denied the doctrine of original sin and taught that man was basically good and could achieve salvation through his own efforts. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of St. Augustine, Pelagius was condemned as a heretic and excommunicated from the church. His heresy may not have prospered at his time but it prospered later on and it’s prospering right now in our churches. A famous preacher Billy Graham once said that God “has made it possible for all men to be saved. But the Bible indicates that salvation depends upon man’s willingness to be saved.” Another famous preacher R.C. Sproul said the exact opposite.
He said that if he was ever convinced that salvation was based on man’s willingness to choose Christ freely that would have to quit preaching because he “would have no hope whatsoever that the work of evangelism would be successful or that preaching would bring any fruit.” Both these great preachers articulated different views of how salvation works, Arminianism and Calvinism. Arminianism teaches that salvation is based on a person’s response to God’s grace and no one is predestined to go to heaven or to hell. Calvinism teaches that God predestines those who are elect to be saved and a person’s salvation is a result of God’s sovereign election of them. But before we can have debates about predestination we make it clear that God must initiate with us first if we are to be saved and not the other way around.
While I may not fully agree with the soteriology of R.C. Sproul, I agree with him that man is completely depraved and incapable of coming to God on his own unless God does something to change that first. While Evangelicals like Bill Graham may not explicitly endorse the heresy of pelagianism or semi-pelagianism, by believing it is their job to assist the will in choosing Christ they undermine the role of God’s saving grace in our salvation. They become salesmen instead of pastors. They preach as if Pelagius was right both pre and post salvation. Much of the modern Evangelical churches treat people not as sinners but as seekers before salvation and after salvation they treat them like customers in need of servicing and not believers in need of discipleship. Pelagius lives and thrives inside the American mega church. A mega church is not the size of the church it’s the mentality of the church.
The problem with the mentality of these churches is that in treating people as seekers and customers and is that they will never confront someone’s sin and they have the incentive to tell people what they want to hear and not what they need to hear because they don’t want to lose their customers. They don’t act like churches, they act like corporations. Before we can debate the doctrines of predestination, whether that be single or double predestination, we must first kick Pelagius out of the church.
To do this we must stop acting as if when someone gets offended by the truth and walks away from God that we’re responsible for their damnation because we didn’t do it right. It is not our job to turn people on or off for Christ. It’s our job to preach the gospel and pursue justice and mercy. It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to do the convicting and the transformation of hearts. To sum up, the return of Pelagian ideas in modern churches challenges Christian beliefs. Pelagius denied original sin and said people can achieve salvation on their own.
This weakens the main beliefs of grace and God’s power. Some churches focus too much on being seeker-friendly and lose true discipleship. This change ignores God’s role in salvation, aligning with Pelagian views. Before arguing about predestination, it’s important to remember that God starts salvation, not human effort. Churches should preach the gospel honestly and trust the Holy Spirit to change hearts. This way, they can focus on human sinfulness and God’s power. Only then can churches remove Pelagius’s influence and focus on truth and discipleship. ★
