Strict Calvinism is a position that for most people is more easily caricatured than understood. This is unfortunate, because whatever its weaknesses may be, it has been carefully thought out. So I thought I'd say something about a common misunderstanding of Calvinism, one which involves a false view of what the 'Five Points' or 'TULIP' aspect of Calvinism really involves.
To understand the Five Points properly, you have to understand that the Five Points (Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints) are not the heart of Calvinism. They are not the most important doctrines for Calvinists generally, nor are they especially central to the Calvinist way of life. They may be in particular cases; but not generally.
The reason is that the Five Points were not formulated in order to sum up the Calvinist view of the world, but to sum up how Calvinists were distinguished from the followers of Arminius. While 'Arminian' tends to be used loosely, genuine Arminians (those in the Remonstrant tradition) actually share a lot of common ground with Calvinists. They are close cousins. However, they are also often in disputes with each other over issues related to atonement and free will; and it's necessary to have a clear way to distinguish the two. Enter the Five Points: the Five Points are things strict Calvinists agree on that Arminians don't. They are important in the sense that they are important for distinguishing Calvinists from Arminians; and since Calvinists very often have to distinguish themselves from Arminians, they come up a lot. But this does not mean that they are the most important Calvinist doctrines; nor does it mean that all Calvinists will regard all of the Five Points as being of equal importance. It certainly doesn't mean that Calvinists go to church each Sunday and discuss nothing but Total Depravity and Limited Atonement.
In fact, the Calvinists are in a sense not the ones responsible for the Five Points. The Five Points are nothing other than a summary of the response by the Synod of Dordt to the 'Remonstrance' of the Arminians (although probably not exclusively those articles), arranged on a point-by-point basis to correspond to those five articles. If you're a Calvinist and have difficulty believing that the Arminians are among your closest cousins, I recommend you read the five points of the Remonstrance and try to identify precisely where you differ from the strict Arminian view. They definitely differ; but the difference is subtle. The two groups can say almost identical things but mean them rather differently. This is because Calvinists and Arminians are not diametrical opposites; the Synod of Dordt didn't go through the Arminian list and simply contradict each point (they were better theologians than that). The Five Points of Calvinism and the Five Articles of Remonstrance overlap; they distinguish by not coinciding. So the Five Points are just a summary of the Calvinist response to the Arminians, on issues determined by the Arminians themselves; they are not a Calvinist summary of the core of Calvinism, but a Calvinist summary of Calvinist doctrine on points chosen by the Arminians (who were protesting the Belgic Confession on only a small handful of points, however important those points may be).
The Five Points, in other words, are not the heart of Calvinism, but an outer perimeter for it. Think of the Calvinist neighborhood as a group of houses. In one house we have the Calvinists in the strict and proper sense, and around this house we have other houses that are in many ways similar but in important ways not the same -- Amyraldians ('Four Point Calvinists', who accept all the Five Points except Limited Atonement), Arminians, and the like. The Five Points are the five posts that hold up the fence that distinguishes the Calvinist lot from the others. Now, that fence turns out to have a good deal of importance, because people keep trying to knock it down. So Calvinists end up arguing with their neighbors about the fence a lot. But no Calvinists in their right mind would hold that the fence is where they eat and sleep. It is not the heart and hearth and home of a healthy Calvinist life; and, however important the fence may be, obsessing about the fence to the detriment of the house is a case of bad priorities. The heart and hearth and home of Calvinism is elsewhere -- in the Trinity, and in Chalcedonian Christology, and in the centrality of Scripture, and so forth. (It's worthwhile on this point to read the Belgic Confession, which, because it was written in order to identify things they would not compromise on even in the face of persecution, is much closer to being a summary of the heart of Calvinism; then compare it with the impoverished view you'd get if you thought that TULIP were the heart.)
That's would I would think is the most important thing to keep in mind in order not to misunderstand Calvinism and Reformed traditions. I'm not Calvinist, though; one thing that would be neat, I think, if it is possible, is for Calvinist bloggers, like Jeremy or Rebecca or David Wayne or any others to say something about what they think is the single most important thing to keep in mind in order to avoid collapsing into a mere caricature of Calvinism or Reformed life.
