Rating: 
Summary: Calvinism Exposed as an Unbiblical System
Review: Dr. Vance gets 5 stars for this important work. I was once an ardent Calvinist -- supralapsarian, no air, die-hard John Gill-style predestinarian. I heard the logic of the 5 points over and over again and was ready for any objection from the irrational fool who would dare challenge the system. Eventually I saw some cracks in the system not only when held up to the light of Scripture but also as I observed that members of the 5-point community displayed some of the most intolerant and rancorous behavior one could imagine as they attacked one another in various media - especially the Internet. I frequently participated in food fights among the Calvinistic "brethren" over the web which included charges of "antinomian," "heretic," "apostate," "romanist," as reconstructionists, covenantors, various reformed groups, sovereign gracers, Amyraldians(the real heretics) lashed out to defend the purity of their own calvinistic stances. Almost all arguments boiled down to "my interpretation of the Doctrines of Grace is better than yours,"...believe it, the level of ego casualty in the 5-point clique is beyond measure. Later, I came across this book titled "The Other Side of Calvinism" and decided to investigate it so I could blast the heretic who would dare challenge the citadel of Calvinism. The book is sourced from thousands of statements by Calvinists as the author examines the validity of the teachers and tenents of this philosophical system. In a thorough and convincing manner, this book shows the the conclusion is a resounding "unbiblical" and it has the Calvinist community hopping mad. I see lots of "poison the well" comments and name calling in the book reviews from my old fraternity but they cannot escape the facts. As Dr. Vance puts it "Calvinists have one thing in common: God, by a sovereign, eternal decree, has determined before the foundation of the world who shall be saved and who shall be lost. To obscure the real issue, a vocabulary has been invented to confuse and confound the Christian. The arguments about supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, total depravity and total inability reprobation and peterition, synergism and monergism, free will and free agency, common grace and special grace, general calling and effectual calling.....are all immaterial. The stumbling block for the Calvinist is the SIMPLICITY OF SALVATION (emphasis mine), so upon rejecting this, a SYSTEM (emphasis mine) has to be constructed whereby salvation is made a mysterious, arcane, incomprehensible decree of God. Thus, the basic error of Calvinism is confounding election and predestination with salvation, which they never are in the Bible but only in the philosophical speculations....of calvinism." I guess my problem with Calvinism today is the fact that one has to be TAUGHT it as a system. Its main tenets do not readily appear from a plain reading of Scripture. Calvinistic soteriology of the extreme variety where intensive interpretation of the 5 points is hammered into a system takes lots of INFERENCE from different passages collected together and presented as a product of inductive reasoning -- this is what the Bible teaches about: SALVATION. Unfortunately the problem with inductive reasoning is that unless you complete the induction and collect ALL that the Bible says about a topic, you are likely to arrive at a false conclusion. Calvinists do this very thing for they select their favorite verses and repeat them over and over (Acts 13:48, John 6:37,44) and throw them together out of context and IGNORE the verses that teach against their system like 1 Tim 2:4, 2 Pet 3:9 and others. They also enter theories into their system that are not taught in the Bible. As A.W. Tozer once said, "the essence of idolatry is to imagine things about God and then preach them as truth" and Calvinism is guilty of this very charge. Therefore, Calvinists spin out abstruse and academic theories like Covenant of Redemption, the Covenant of Grace, Supra-infra-sub-lapsarianism, -- theories that are typically not arrived at by the typical believing student of the Bible. No, it takes theological eggheads the like late Augustine, John Gill, or Beza to develop and teach theories like these and teach them as biblical soteriology. The result is a loss of Biblical truth for some vain and extreme traditions of men. The author is no Arminian either. He holds to holds to assurance but disputes the intensive interpretations of Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Irresistible Grace, or Limited Atonement. His Biblical conclusions are then railed out by the theological elites of Calvinism to be arminian and heretical. I find it interesting that these 5-pointers are constantly lamenting that their system is misunderstood -- let alone the fact we are flooded with materials about how the system works. It is much more likely that more and more people are seeing that it is impossible to live consistently within the strict and extreme framework of 5-point Calvinism for it would be impossible to communicate the Gospel to anyone and God would be misrepresented as a grotesque, sadistic, and capricious monster -- all just and no love. The attributes of God, however, cannot be logically separated so the system of extreme calvinism skews God's justice over His omnibenevolence and thus misrepresents God in the worst way. Everyone Christian should read this book -- especially Baptists. Buy it, study and highlight it, and then go share the Gospel with "whosoever will." I also recommend "Chosen But Free" by Norman Geisler.
Rating:
Summary: Are We To Follow a Man?
Review: What are these terms "Calvinism" and "Arminianism?" Last thing I checked was that I was a Dominican immigrant that believed in a righteous God, only to find out that I was an Arminian. Wow. Go figure. And I did some checking to see if Arminius was my great-granddaddy too. Sorry to disappoint the "label hungry" Christian, but I look more like a Jose or Felipe, than a James or John. I commend Dr. Vance for pinching some nerves. Calvinists likewise do a lot of nerve pinching of their own. The only difference is that Dr. Vance is not into polemics. In highlighting the treacheries of a man called Calvin, Vance tries to turn our attention away from a mere man, and onto Him who is more worthy of our affection and devotion; One who is more compassionate, loving and caring: the Lord Yeshua. This work should serve as a beginner's guide into a segment of Christianity that is too often neglected and requiring of the reader to be of an open-minded attitude.
Rating: 
Summary: Biased Book
Review: I had hoped this would be a good book... but.. This book will only appeal to those already extremely opposed to reformed theology OR who have never truly read reformed books. The author's bias comes across so strongly that no one could truly believe he is giving an accurate view of reformed theology or history. It's extremely slanted and has an unChristian and vindictive spirit to it. Look for the books by Robert Shank they are better (Elect in the Son; and Life in the Son). Good books by Reformed theologians are out by Sproul and James White. I graduated this summer from an Arminian Seminary, and can tell you this book takes history and quotes out of context... skip it!
Matt
Rating:
Summary: A Lie
Review: Well I have read books supporting Universal Atonement before, but this one beats all. The history lessons are all one sided. The use of the languages is unscriptural and go against all the rules for proper biblical interpretation. You can tell the end is near when writer's like this exist and even further when others reading them do not understand the difference between truth and error.
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Summary: Calvinism's cruelty exposed!
Review: Dr. Vance brilliantly exposes Calvinist thought in all its cruel teachings, and successfully vindicates the goodness, equity, and justice of the God of the Bible from all Calvinist accusations. Best of all he gives back to the reader the grace and hope that Calvinism so eagerly takes away. Dr. Vance does a splendid job of stripping Calvinism of its 'sovereignty' and giving it back to the living God instead. I encourage you to read this book, and to learn why this system of theology called Calvinism has never enjoyed a peace that passeth all understanding.
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Summary: OH, MAN, do I love this BOOK!!
Review: I have literally... LITERALLY... prayed for a book like this to appear for years. And you know what? God, as usual, has given me more than I asked for!! AMEN! I mean, this book is a corker! I can't even DESCRIBE the waves it's making in Christian circles on a State University campus near me (in Tucson, Az.) The geniuses at the Inter-Varsity book table are absolutely BESIDE themselves! Bless God, it's enough to warm my old Wesleyan heart to butter! Haha! I've found MY gift book for the holidays, boy! STEVE
Rating:
Summary: Licence For Immorality
Review: The book entitled, "The Other Side of Calvinism," was a very sad disappointment to me when I learned that the author really isn't teaching a rejection to Calvinism, as one might think from the title. While it is true that Vance opposes the first four points of Calvinism, the author actually teaches a license for immorality under his term of 'The Preservation of the Saints' in place of the fifth point of Calvinism. In other words, this book is nothing more than just like many others that teach you can go out and live wickedly after salvation and remain saved. Vance's unscriptural position is as follows: Arminians are just as wrong as Calvinists (p. 331), Arminianism is not an acceptable alternative to Calvinism (p. 331), Lordship salvation is heresy (p. 338), a past moment of faith makes a person just as secure as one of the members of the Trinity (p. 325), you can deny Christ but he won't deny you (p. 348), an unrepentant, practicing prostitute might be saved based on a past decision for Christ (p. 336), regeneration is an inalterable change from spiritual death (p. 346). (These are all from his 1991 edition.)
Consequently, if one correctly rejects Calvinism's first four points, but accepts Vance's replacement which is essentially the same as what Charles Stanley would term 'eternal security,' then living immorally just like you once did before coming to Christ (or even worse) won't prevent one's entrance into the Kingdom of God. Such a teaching is not Scriptural, nor is it Christian. The position that Vance, Stanley, Ryrie, Hodges, MacArthur, Hunt and many others teach is a distortion of God's grace. While God's grace teaches us to live HOLY LIVES (Titus 2:12), these false teachers present grace as allowing or permitting wicked behavior, the very teaching Christians are to contend against (Jude 3,4). For a much more detailed answer explaining the Biblical position of the believer's security, one should consult the massive volume entitled, "The Believer's Conditional Security" by Dan Corner, offered here at Amazon and other places on the web.
Rating:
Summary: Best Book on the Subject
Review: Excellent book that exposes Calvinism as the unscriptural, man-made philososphy that it is. Every Bible believing church should have it in its library and every pastor should read it.
Rating:
Summary: You're kidding right? This is some kind of a joke, eh?
Review: I first read this book about 6 or 7 years ago when it was a meager 466 pages. In reading the reviews I see that it has grown over the intervening years. Some friends had heard that I was about to embark upon studies at a "Reformed" seminary (horror of horrors) and were trying to warn me off of such a perilous path. To rescue me they suggested this book. I was not a scholar then, nor am I one now, but I know a bad book when I see one and this one takes the cake. Vance contends that Calvinism is inimical to evangelism. He erects a false dichotomy whereby he asserts that if someone is committed to evangelism, then they are, ipso facto, not committed to Calvinism. It is with this handy little tool that he dismisses well known Calvinistic evangelists throughout history like Andrew Fuller, Adoniram Judson, William Carey and Luther Rice. Never mind that Calvinists like Jonathon Edwards, George Whitfield and C. H. Spurgeon were some of the greatest evangelists in history. Even today, the leading evangelistic methodology being used by the church, Evangelism Explosion, was authored by a committed Calvinist. When confronted with such facts Vance simply retreats to say that these folks were inconsistent with their Calvinistic principles. However, this begs the question. These theologians and evangelists were concerned with being consistent with the Bible, and if the Bible teaches the sovereignty of God in salvation, so be it, and if the Bible teaches the necessity of evangelism, so be it also. I found it interesting that Vance criticizes Augustine for Platonic influences on his thought, while Vance himself resorts to Aristotelian categories of causation in his description of the alleged tripartite nature of man (p. 80 in the old edition). More troubling is some of Vance's outlandish Scriptural interpretation. On page 19 of the old edition he says that the Parable of the Mustard Seed in Matthew 13:31-32 is a description of a "demoniac religious monstrosity." Pardon me, but verse 31 says that this is a description of the Kingdom of Heaven - so, Vance is calling the Kingdom of Heaven a "demoniac religious monstrosity." My favorite Vancism is found on page 54 of the old version and this comes straight out of the "I promise I'm not making this up" department. Chapter 5 begins on this page and Vance begins talking about "The Five Points of Calvinism." Here is what he says (you've got to see it to believe it.) "It is certainly fitting that chapter five brings us to the Five Points of Calvinism, for as five is the number of death, so the Five Points of Calvinism will kill anything within twenty thousand miles. Just as it takes no keen intellect to see that five is the biblical number of death, so no insight is necessary, other than an ability to read the Bible, to see the flagrant perversion that the Five Points of Calvinism make of Holy Scripture. D-E-A-T-H: five letters. Devil and Satan both have five letters, and rightly so, for he is the fifth cherub (Ezek. 28:14) and has the power of death (Heb. 2:14). The first man dies in Genesis 5:5 (my comment - I guess Abel didn't really die in Genesis 4). In Acts 5:5, Ananias dies after being asked five questions about his sin ("The wages of sin is death [Rom. 6:23]). The tabernacle altar was five by five (Exodus 27:1 [and your point is?]), Paul was whipped five times (2 Cor. 11:2) . . . " Oh, I could go on but I am getting tired of typing and my laughter is making it hard to finish this review. Five is the number of death, huh, Death and Devil and Satan have five letters, ooooohh. Here's a few other words that have five letters - Jesus (count em - there's five there), angel, light, peace, grace, faith, truth, and . . . drumroll please - V-A-N-C-E. Come on people, this book is a joke and everyone who is giving it four and five stars is kidding, right? ...
Rating: 
Summary: good work!
Review: As a christian who has gone studies both sides of the argument for many years, this book was quite convincing. I also recommend these 2: 1)The Believer's Conditional Security ISBN 0963907689 2)Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up : A New Look at Todays Evangelical Church in the Light of Early Christianity ISBN 0924722002 , by David W. Bercot. Also David's 'Common Sense' is recommended.
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