CALVINISM ON THE SPECTRUM

In the course of my weirdest hobby - consuming YouTube debates over Calvinist doctrines - I recently came across a young YouTuber who wears his Calvinist doctrine like a badge of honor.

I mean, even more than your average Calvinist does.

His videos frustrated me. Although he often came across as incredibly intelligent, he made really poor arguments in favor of the 5 points of "TULIP" and seemed incapable of fully grasping his opponents' perspectives. His temper would flare on occasion and he would fling politically incorrect slurs at his challengers. 

I sometimes engaged him in the comments section of his videos and he told me Scripture is "objectively obvious" - there was no need to dive into the Greek or Hebrew or even spend any time examining the context of a passage. If you were born again and could read English, you could read any Scripture passage and instantly grasp its meaning.

If God said in Romans 9, "Jacob I loved and Esau I hated" then that's what it objectively means: God hated Esau. It's there in plain English.

And if you didn't "get" that, then you were probably not born again. 

There was no use in speaking of Biblical idioms, the Old Testament context from which Paul was quoting, or the fact that Jacob and Esau represented two nations from the time they were in the womb.

None of that mattered because the Bible says plainly that God hated Esau. 

In our back and forth in the comments section he often repeated his conviction that I myself was a "God hater" since I didn't accept the doctrines of Calvinism and I was denying what the Bible objectively said. 

I thought this was particularly dangerous ground for a believer to occupy since, in effect, he was saying salvation wasn't dependent on faith in Christ alone - but also on a proper understanding of certain doctrines. But I couldn't get him to see the problem with that!

Finally, this evening the lightbulb went on in my head and I decided to ask him a straightforward question: 

"Are you on the spectrum?"

His response came quickly and bluntly: "Yeah, big time."

And suddenly I found myself utterly uninclined to debate with him any further. If he finds comfort inside the harsh contours of Calvinism, who am I to argue?

I would have never picked a fight with this guy in real life.

The internet so easily twists communication and social interaction, blinding us to each other's humanity.