Compassionate Calvinism and "Not playing God"

As I have been researching Presbyterianism for my and Ed’s presentation on Wednesday, I am seeing a lot of similarity between the United Church of Christ’s stance on social ministry and Presbyterianism’s. Being both heavily influenced by the protestant reformer, John Calvin, it seems to me that both are faced with a similar challenge of justifying moral works and faith. Calvin’s obsession with the justification of salvation through faith alone has always troubled me, especially since learning so much about the Puritans in New England in our freshman MOI class. The atrocities that happened at Salem and other places in New England that were in large part due to certain ignorances perpetuated by Calvinist Puritans have given me a strong suspicion of traditions that so strongly emphasize faith as a virtue above all others that they often overlook virtues as essential to Christianity as love and mercy. I do find it quite refreshing and revealing of my own ignorances that there can be such a wide spectrum of within the Calvinist tradition, for, on the one extreme there is the case of the Puritans and near the other end of the spectrum the United Church of Christ (as well as Presbyterianism) can be so involved in progressive ideas. I was really surprised to learn just how liberal the United Church of Christ is, especially how they have already opened up to the concept of gay marriage and incorporated into their own beliefs. I was very pleased to see a similarity of view to Catholicism (which tends to combine faith and works/love together more as a single unit) with the quotation from the Epistle of James in the first paragraph of the longer reading we had on the United Church of Christ, which stated, “faith apart from works is dead.” I have found a very similar point of view coming from Presbyterianism in preparing for our presentation. From the presentation, I really enjoyed the refrain that we should not play God, which to me seems to be one of the biggest problems that Christianity faces. For as Christians live in a manner that they, at least as individuals, believe is in accordance with God’s will, it becomes very difficult to be faithful to that view without falling into the danger of judging other people according to their personal beliefs. I think that the statement that we should not play God, especially when dealing out judgments to other people, is a major part of being a good Christian. For even in the Gospel, one can see Jesus resisting the making of judgments over others’ actions (with the exception of barren fig trees, but that is precisely because of their own inaction) as he forgives the tax collectors, prostitutes, and adulterers. To me it is the times in the history of Christianity, when man begins playing the role of God (like the inquisition, crusades, etc.) that all hell breaks loose.