Leaving Calvinism: Video - Testimonies of Former Calvinists

Here is an almost hour-long "Testimonies of Former Calvinists" video from Soteriology 101.  This is a website I highly recommend and one that my family and I have learned from immensely.  (I haven't finished this video yet, but I wanted to link to it anyway before time gets away from me.  If I have comments to add to this post after watching it, I'll add them later.)  

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List of Calvinist Preachers, Authors, Theologians, Websites, etc.

I  found a lot more names to add to my list of known Calvinists (found in my various "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist" posts).  [FYI: I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.]    And so here it is, a "master list" of known Calvinists to help you be careful and discerning about who you listen to and where you get your theology from.  There are plenty more Calvinists out there, but these are just the names that I ran across the most.   These are either definite, self-professed Calvinists or "most likely Calvinists," in my estimation.  (I haven't heard of most of them, but it's good to know their theology before I do.)   After finding these names in various places online, I looked up each person to see if they are Calvinist.  If they did not self-identify as a Calvinist, I tried to figure it out based on the statements of faith of the groups/churches they belong to, the books they write, the t...
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Leaving Calvinism: Comments from Ex-Calvinists #11

Here is the last of the ex-Calvinist testimonies.  The first one is from this post:  X-Calvinist Corner .   (It's an Arminian website, but I am not Arminian.)  I am going to highlight some of the comments that stood out to me the most.  If you want to read everything that everyone said, click on the link above: Dana Steele writes: I grew up in a Calvinistic Baptist church from age 11.  The 5-points of Calvinism (TULIP) were taught regularly with great enthusiasm ... But it wasn’t until college that I began to understand and embrace the “Doctrines of Grace” and TULIP more fully....  I also learned to love the doctrine of election because it meant that God loved me personally and specifically in a unique way.  Though it made me a little embarrassed to think that God did not love everyone this way, I was content to leave this as a mystery.  Who am I to question God?  I was just glad I was one of the lucky (I mean chosen) ones. ... [As ...
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Troublemaker? (#1 The Gospel; #2 Stealth Calvinism)

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Should I be making such a fuss over Calvinism, calling it out as strongly as I do?      Every time I wonder if I'm too strong, too harsh, in my criticism of Calvinism - if I should be gentler, more tolerant, more "let's just put our arms around each other's shoulders and sing Kumbaya around a campfire" (which, trust me, I'd  love   to be, because I'm not someone who enjoys rocking the boat, offending people, or fighting about things) - I just think again about what (and how ) Calvinism teaches about God, the gospel, Jesus's sacrifice, and people's eternities... a nd I go, "Nope, can't do it!  No mushy tolerance or ooey-gooey Kumbaya for me.  No blurring the lines." "Oh, but can't we all just get along?," asks the kind-hearted, well-meaning Christian .  "It's not really that big of a deal, is it?  Aren't we supposed to be unified as a church and not be divisive?   And aren't we all basically saying the sa...
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Things My Calvinist Pastor Said #15: No Altar Calls, And Replacing "Believe" With "Repent"

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(This "Things My Calvinist Pastor Said" series is a breakdown of this much longer post:  "We Left Our Church Because of Calvinism,"  which was written last year but updated July 2020.  All memes were created with  imgflip .) Updated October 2023 15.    Our pastor never does altar calls and never asks people if they want to ask Jesus in their heart or choose Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  Instead, Calvinists emphasize the need to "repent."             As I mentioned in the last point, w ith Calvinism in general, there are no altar calls, no "Do you want to ask Jesus into your heart, to choose Him as your Lord and Savior?"                They say it's because they don't want people thinking they're saved just because they "walked the aisle" or "prayed a prayer."  But I know it's because they don't want people thinking they have a choice.  Because that would contr...
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Series by Andy Woods: "Neo-Calvinism vs. the Bible"

I've been listening through this series by Dr. and Pastor Andy Woods called Neo-Calvinism vs. The Bible, and I'm finding it really good and informative, covering a lot of aspects of Calvinism, from historical to practical to present-day issues, etc.  [I even like his dry, monotone, and slightly-repetitive way of speaking.  It's calming to my over-active brain, helping me really hear him and absorb what he's saying.] He's still adding to this series (and I've only listened up to 19 so far), but here are the links to all the videos he's got in the series up to this point, with a little bit about each one.  They're great to listen to while you're doing something like cleaning or cooking or driving or whatever.   The following are links to his website (but here's the playlist on YouTube ): Video #1:   About the mixed blessings of Calvinism, including how it helped shaped our American government, and about some of the serious issues of Calvinism and o...
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How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist (simplified version)

(For the extended version of this post, which I recommend, click here .  It is loaded with lots more information.  This simplified one is just the highlights.  And feel free to copy this and share it with others, to help them learn to identify Calvinism when they see it.  Just make sure to share the link to this blog so that they can find the original post.  Thank you.  New : For the super-short version, click here .  And FYI: I found a couple times when the Calvinist author of an article I linked to changed their article after I linked to it.  So if their article doesn't seem to match what I said about it, it may be because they altered it. ) We just left our church of almost 20 years because of the dogmatic Calvinist pastor who recently came on board.  ( Read my "Letter to Our Elders Regarding Calvinism Growing in Our Church" here.)   And I was thinking about what precautions I might take to make sure we didn't end up in another...
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9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult #4 (strategic tactics)

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[This series is  "The 9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult"  split up into smaller, individual posts.]   4. The Fun Stuff (Strategic Tactics) Besides their hidden "buts" and multiple layers, Calvinists employ a wide range of other tactics to hook, trick, trap, and reel us into Calvinism slowly, covertly.  (But they don't do it to just us.  They are victims of these tactics too, having allowed themselves to be tricked and trapped by them also.)   The tactics they use (no matter how unintentional they might be) are things such as:  ...  false dichotomies .         "Either God saves us, or else we save ourselves... Either God controls everything, or else He controls nothing... Either God is in charge, or else we are in charge."   It's super-polarized - and badly-polarized - on purpose, to force you to reject the ridiculous option and pick the Calvinist one.  See  Calvinist Bad Logic #7: False Dichotomies .   ....
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Ah, yes, praise God for hell-bound vipers!

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In a recent Reddit Reformed post, a Calvinist celebrates the birth and dedication of another  wretched, depraved, hell-bound viper-in-a-diaper   wonderful little innocent baby ! Of course, I myself believe that babies are wonderful little innocent blessings from God, and so  I celebrate the birth of all babies and congratulate parents on baby dedications. But I can... because I'm not a Calvinist. Calvinists, however, hmm?  I know they truly love their children and praise God for them, feeling like they are (I hope) blessings and sweet little bundles of joy.   But I wonder if Calvinist parents have ever read these quotes of Calvinists' own views and teachings about babies and young children.  (I've already shared many of these before, but a bunch are new.  FYI: I'll also repost this in smaller individual posts soon, bite-sized pieces.) Because if they did, then maybe they wouldn't be so quick to view them as sweet little bundles of joy, but ...
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"But Calvinists don't say God causes sin and evil!"

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If you point out to Calvinists that Calvinism's view of sovereignty - that God fore-ordains and orchestrates everything that happens and we had no ability to do anything differently - makes God the cause (and truly the only  voluntary cause) of all sin and evil, they'll probably respond with something like "That's not what we're saying.  You're putting words in our mouths.  And you don't understand Calvinism."   When they do that, show them a few of these quotes -  Ca lvinists' own words about their beliefs of God's sovereignty and how He preplans, wills, ordains, orchestrates, directs, controls (code-words for "causes")  everything  that happens.   And then ask them if they still think you're really misunderstanding them.  (Bold emphasis added)   [Note: Even "foreknows" means "causes" in Calvinism, because Calvi-god only foreknows what will happen because he first predetermined it would happen, and then he ca...
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Watching Stealth Calvinism in Action

Here's a recent video from Kevin Thompson at Beyond the Fundamentals about how Calvinism sneaks into churches:  Stealth Calvinist Strategies   (And check out his other videos on  "Stealth Calvinism" )  And along these lines. here's a book review I once posted about another woman's experience with Calvinism taking over her church:  "Review of 'Once an Insider, Now Without a Church Home' - A Look at How Churches Go Wrong" . And since we're on the topic, I thought I'd give a  quick  synopsis of what it was like watching Calvinism take over ours, in case you notice anything like this in yours.  The fuller version of our experience can be found in these posts:  "What's the best way to take over a church with Calvinism"  and  "We left our church because of Calvinism (Things my Calvinist pastor said)"  and  "Letter to our elders regarding Calvinism growing in our church" .   And FYI: My whole blog is here becaus...
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