Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Editing Calvinism

So it turns out that Sword of the Lord editor Shelton Smith wasn't the first person to reprint theological works while editing out the Calvinism. Last week I happened upon a brief Christianity Today fact sheet that describes how John Wesley did the same thing to Jonathan Edwards. Here's the relevant portion:
Wesley read Edwards appreciatively and reprinted his Religious Affections, revising where the Puritan theologian's Calvinism was most strongly expressed.
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3 comments:

  1. Scott Aniol7/14/2009 3:18 PM

    Another related fun fact:

    Many of the Wesley hymns that we sing today are actually Whitefield edits, which is why some of them sound pretty Calvinistic.

    Wesley was not happy about that. :)

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  2. JohnBrianMck7/14/2009 5:24 PM

    Got an email from a friend this week about SOTL editing Spurgeon. Here is an edited version of that email:

    Sword of the Lord back about [year_withheld] published an issue with two messages on the front page, one by Spurgeon on salvation by grace, and one by [name_withheld] on "What's Wrong with Calvinism." I remember that issue keenly; my dad discussed it with me, making sure I had my doctrine straight. Neither of us were aware at that time that Spurgeon was a "five-pointer."

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  3. Jim Peet7/15/2009 9:48 AM

    Scott:

    Re: "Many of the Wesley hymns that we sing today are actually Whitefield edits, which is why some of them sound pretty Calvinistic."

    You should do an article about this.

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