A writer ask Michael Pearl : "I’m writing to ask, “Where is the consistency?” Your newsletter regularly promotes the book, The Other Side of Calvinism. It’s proclaimed to be “…the best book exposing the heresies of Calvinism….” Yet, in your Nov-Dec 2007 newsletter, you have an article featuring Charles Spurgeon, one of the biggest Calvinists of all time. So, where is the consistency? If Calvinism is a heresy, then Spurgeon is a heretic. Yes, or no?"

Michael answers:

There prevails a misconception, historically promoted by Calvinists, that the great doctrines of the faith are the product of, and exclusive to, Augustinian Calvinism. I have read and appreciated many wonderful works written by professed Calvinists. I graduated from a strong Calvinist Bible College. If you have read much of Spurgeon, you know that you will read a thousand pages and not come across anything that is exclusively Calvinistic. He teaches the same gospel that is taught by so-called Arminians, like Wesley and Finney. The old Methodist and the General Baptist churches preached the wonderful words of grace and life exactly as Spurgeon did. Long before Luther or Calvin, the gospel Spurgeon preached was believed and taught by many non-Catholic groups throughout the Dark Ages, and even all the way back to the Apostle Paul. If the Apostle Paul were to preach in a Calvinist School, he would be labeled a Pelagian or an Arminian and never invited back.

Sound Biblical exegetes do not reject all that a professing Calvinist believes; we reject those doctrines in particular that interpret the total depravity of man as an inability of the sinner to choose Christ after having been drawn by the Holy Spirit. I have read thousands of pages of Spurgeon and only found one place where I found him to be in error regarding this subject.

If I say your apple pie is no good because it has too much salt, that doesn’t mean I don’t like apples, brown sugar, and spices.

Finally, if Spurgeon were representative of all Calvinists, the “kinky” twists of Calvinism would never be known. Old-fashioned Methodists and Bible-believing Baptists would invite him to preach an autumn revival.

http://nogreaterjoy.org/articles/spurgeon-is-a-heretic/