Here’s another reason Calvinism is morally bankrupt

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on September 4, 2025.

Note: This article includes detailed discussion of child sexual abuse in the context of why God allows suffering in the world.

Now the TheoBros are using the gospel to spread indifference about the rape and murder of 10-year-old girls. This week’s example of Calvinist claptrap began when a user on X quoted the late R.C. Sproul saying, “The bottom-line assumption for anyone who believes in the God of providence is that ultimately there are no tragedies.”

“This is excruciatingly troubling to me,” the user commented.

So to the Calvinists
Pamela Butler
10 years old
Rollerblading
Kidnapped by Keith Nelson
Taken to a wooded area
Tortured for hours including electrocution
Raped
Strangled to death
Please tell me how this is NOT a tragedy.

Then along came R.C. Sproul Jr. in an attempt to do just that.

R.C. Sproul Jr.

Without offering a single word of empathy or lament, Sproul Jr. started in: “The closest the world has ever come to a tragedy is when a man, who had never sinned, was tortured to death. Do you believe God ordained that event?”

When the X poster asked how the Crucifixion of Jesus “remotely compares to the event I described,” Sproul Jr. added: “No, it does not remotely compare. Because in one instance a little girl received the judgment from God she had earned. In the other a perfect man received the judgment I earn. So you are OK with saying God ordained the torment of Jesus but not a sinner?”

From there, Sproul Jr. boasted of being “an orthodox theologian who affirms the doctrine of original sin,” attacked the original poster for us.ing “an emotional appeal that denies what the Bible clearly teaches about our sin,” and demanded that the person “submit to what the Bible plainly teaches.”

He concluded, “If the girl is not a believer, she received justice from God.”

While Sproul Jr.’s words are horrifyingly shocking to anyone who has even a hint of human decency about them, they are indeed the logical outflow of the power- and violence-obsessed gospel prevalent among conservative evangelical Calvinists today. There’s a link between the pop-Calvinist’s obsession with power over women and their indifference to violence against women. And when we begin to probe, we’ll discover the connection in their gospel.

Remembering Pamela Butler

Since the TheoBros offer nothing more than indifference, it’s important that we honor the life of Pamela Butler by sharing her story.

Pamela Irene Butler

Pamela Irene Butler was born March 13, 1989, and grew up in Kansas City, Kan. In a 1999 piece published in the Kansas City Star, her family and friends told journalist Stacy Downs about their memories shopping for school supplies and enjoying church retreats.

“As the news spread, friends and relatives gathered to hug and cry on the front lawn of the family’s home in Kansas City, Kan.,” Downs wrote. “They shared memories of Pamela, who loved to play outdoors. They said she was a sweet girl, who often smiled and laughed.”

Pamela was a straight-A student who dreamed of attending a middle school for high academic achievers. But as her mother Cherry West spoke while sobbing, she lamented, “Her wish didn’t come true.”

Regarding the kidnapper, West said, “He not only took my little girl, he took my tomboy. She’s my baby.”

Continue reading at Baptist News Global.