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Showing posts from August, 2019

10. Because Memes Say It Best Sometimes

I never admit ... A "Secret" Will Y u no love Y u no trust Steve Confused Gandalf Congratulations How You Feel ... ... James White ...   ( click here to hear what he actually said) If God causes evil ... The Clueless Calvinist When you ask a Calvinist ... free-will When you ask a Calvinist ... love When you ask a Calvinist ... grace When you ask a Calvinist ... salvation When you ask a Calvinist if God meant ... When you ask a Calvinist ... the Bible When you ask a Calvinist ... Calvinism So let me get this straight ... What's the difference ... Freedom!

How Can Calvinists Say "God Causes ALL Things, But He's Not The Cause Of Sin"?

This is taken from the post "Do Calvinists Really Believe God Causes Sin?  Let Them Speak For Themselves!" (revised slightly for clarity): Calvinists believe that in order for God to be a "sovereign" God (their idea of "sovereign," that is) then He has to be the cause of all things.  All things!  This would include evil and sin.   But most Calvinists know not to accuse God of evil and sin.  And so they have to then find ways to deal with the contradiction of "God causes all things, but He doesn't really cause sin and evil." However, being the cause of ALL THINGS necessarily means that God causes all the evil and sins that happen.  Because if (according to their theology) there was one tiny thing that God doesn't cause/control, then He ceases to be God.  In Calvinism, an "in-control God" has to be an "all-controlling-everything-all-the-time God."   (Whereas I believe God can still be in-control and soverei

Did Our Church Handle It Wrong When We Left?

We left our church in May because of the dogmatic Calvinist pastor who seems to shame and manipulate people into Calvinism and who doesn’t seem to tolerate any other views but his. It's been over three months since we left.  And just recently, one of the elders (a long-time friend who is a Calvinist) apologized for how the whole situation was handled.  They even had us over for dinner with their family.  (They are truly wonderful people!)  Apparently, some people have gone to the elders with concerns about how our situation was handled, saying that it was handled wrong. Now you're probably wondering, So just how was it all handled?  What exactly happened? Answer: Nothing.   That's what happened - nothing. After we sent our letter to the elders detailing our concerns about the pastor's dogmatic Calvinism, nothing changed.   In fact, the pastor only got more vocal about it.   And so after hanging in there as long as we could, fruitlessly hoping that maybe our

Is God Only Concerned about His Glory and Being Famous?

In a couple posts I wrote ( "Are We Only Here For God's Glory?  What About God's Love?" and "Calvinists, Altar Calls, and Evangelism" ), I looked at my Calvi-pastor's ( ex -pastor) reasons for evangelism. He (and maybe Calvinists in general) believes that God's main goal (and basically only goal) is to be famous and to get as much glory as He can for Himself. T his pastor reminds us often about God's glory being His biggest concern.  And he wrote an article about "making God famous" being the main goal of evangelism, instead of something more like "sharing God's love and forgiveness with people, helping them find healing and hope in Jesus and leading them into a personal relationship with Him."  (Yes, he does believe in calling people to repent, but he doesn't do altar calls or ask people if they want to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, if they want to have a personal relationship with Jesus.  Challenging people to