What is Arminianism?
by A movement led by the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (Jacob Harmensen, 1560–1609) who sought a ‘via media’ (middle path) between hardening Catholic and Protestant doctrines, and to moderate increasingly intemperate beliefs among Dutch Calvinist preachers.
He rejected Calvinism’s doctrine of absolute predestination (election), preaching instead that salvation was available to all who repented their sins and embraced ”The Christ.” This embroiled him in a lifetime of controversy which he only escaped in death, but which continued in a series of famous debates (”Remonstrances”) after his passing. His followers were more rigid than he was, and as they also tended to support peace with Spain they were suspect on political grounds. Neither doctrine nor politics endeared Arminians to Calvinists or Dutch nationalists. The crisis neared civil war in Holland over the issue of waardgelders in 1617, which was resolved only by a coup d’etat carried out by Maurits of Nassau.
Maurits purged Arminians from town councils, replacing them with members of old noble families. In England, Charles I was a follower of Arminianism, of sorts. He got into trouble in 1637 over introduction of the Arminian prayer book in place of the Book of Common Prayer and his effort to Anglicize the Scottish Kirk. English Latitudinarians shared Arminian views. In fact, all who wished to emphasize the differences between the reformed English church and more radical, continental-style Protestantism were called ”Arminians,” whether or not they agreed with the views of Jacobus Arminius. For English Puritans, Arminianism represented all the subtle artifice, black arts, moral trickery, and doctrinal falsehood that they abhorred and more usually associated with the papacy and the Catholic Church, which was in their eyes the Whore of Babylon or even the Antichrist.
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