And Lastly, A Great Ending

 Every great story needs a great ending.  Here's one of the best end-of-movie songs from one of the greatest movies ever made: Storybook Love from The Princess Bride.  (You know it's true!)  The lyrics have nothing to do with my story or my blog, I just really, really love this song and movie.  (And I just watched it last night, so it's fresh in my mind.)  :) 

And now, it's time to say goodbye.  

Seriously, let's not stretch it out.  It only makes it harder.  Let's just get it over with.  So ... 

So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye!

Most Popular Posts Of The Month:

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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"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, will, ordains, orchestrates, directs (code words for "causes")  everything  that happens.  And then ask them if they still think you're really misunderstanding them.  (Bold emphasis added) [And before reading the quotes, here's a great, satirical 4-minute video that I think everyone should see:  Hitler and Calvinism .  Awesome!] 1. R.C. Sproul Jr.  ( Almighty Over All) :  ...
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Why Is Calvinism So Dangerous? (re-updated)

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Because it  appears  to teach biblical truth while actually teaching  the opposite  - while using  manipulation and cult-like tactics to suck you in!  And it's spreading.  Stealthily, fast, aggressively. (We watched it happen firsthand in our church, which is why I wrote this blog.  See  "What's the best way to make people agree with your Calvinist views?"    Sadly, we ended up  leaving that church , a place we attended almost 20 years.) [ I updated this November 2022 to try to shorten it.  I failed.  But I hope it's more readable and streamlined at least.   If you only read one anti-Calvinism post of mine, I think it should be this one.  But I'm warning you, this post is long.  Very long.  So pack a lunch and bring a sleeping bag.  But it has to be long because Calvinism is so deceptively convoluted that it takes time to peel off the layers so that you can see it for what it really is.  ...
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The 9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult

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[For the shortened version of this post,  click here .  For the tiniest version, click here .  And since this whole post will take you about 3 hours to read, h ere are links to the individual chapters:  #1 deception  ...  #2 hidden agendas  ...  #3 multiple layers  ...  #4 strategic tactics  ...  #5 isolation/control  ...  #6 fear/coercion  ...  #7 mind-control/thought-reform  ...  #8 gaslighting  ...  #9 authoritarian narcissists  ...  conclusion and links ] A  Psychology Today article -  Understanding Cults: The Basics  - shares some characteristics of cults and how they operate (I've condensed some of them here to three main points):  1. No one knowingly, voluntarily joins a cult, but they are "recruited" into it by cult leaders who take advantage of the vulnerabilities of the recruits, using deception and manipulation to suck them in. 2. Cults use isol...
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Alana L.: 5Q (robots)

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This series  is based on this 14-minute video from Alana L.:   5 Signs Your Loved One is Becoming a Calvinist    [About the numbering of this series: The number refers to which point Alana is on.  The letter is which post it is in my series, one letter per post, but some of Alana's points get more posts/letters than others.  And fyi: I re-lettered #5 to streamline it.] Point #5 still :   Q:  "Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign."     Robots? As I said in the last post, I believe that  God gave us free-will and an awful lot of room to make real decisions that affect things - because He wanted real people, real relationships, not robots.  "Oh, but we don't think people are robots controlled by God," says the Calvinist. Oh, really?  Then I must have misunderstood:  John Calvin   ( Institutes of the Christian Religion,  book 1, chapters 16-17, bold added in all quotes ):  " ...  the counsels and...
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Is Calvinism's TULIP Biblical?

[This is based on a post I found online: What's wrong with Five-Point Calvinism?   I was going to send a copy of that post to my relative who is in jail awaiting trial, but I ended up adding so many of my own notes that it became a whole new post.  (But there are still some very similar parts, and I give credit to the author of that post for what he wrote.  Read it.  It's short and good and worth reading.)  My relative (who dabbled in, if not embraced, Calvinism, at least back in the day) shares what I send with the women on her floor, doing their own little Bible study.  And so I figured, "Why not send them my thoughts on Calvinism since I know they will read it?"  And as a bonus, the cops have to read every letter that passes between us, and so they will have to read it too!  A captive audience!  (Ha Ha!  Bad joke.  But if I don't laugh, I'll cry.)  Anyway, this is what I sent to her, a "brief" look into Calvinism's TULIP....
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When Calvinists say, "But Romans 9!"

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Warning: You must understand Romans 9 correctly, or else you'll be a prime target for being lured into Calvinism! Calvinists believe  Romans 9 teaches that God predestines the destinies of individual people, who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, and that we can't do anything to change the destiny we were assigned.   After all, it has the word "hardens" in it, so it has to mean "predestination," right?   But when you understand what Romans 9 i s really  about, you see how wrong they are, how much sense Romans 9 actually makes, and how God's love and justice remains intact instead of being destroyed like it is by Calvinism's incorrect theology. Simply put:  Romans 9  is about Israel as a nation, about God punishing them for rejecting Jesus and the gospel (handing them over to their own hard-heartedness) and about Him giving the gospel to the Gentiles instead (and the job of spreading it) because they were willing to receive it.   Matt. ...
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My Testimony

I’ve scattered bits of my story all over my blogs, but I’m gonna pull it all together here, about how I became a believer and some things I’ve gone through and how my faith has been affected.  (I’ll include links to posts where I explain things more fully.) Starting the journey:   I became a believer when I was eleven years old.   (I am now getting close to 50.   I don't know how that happened. )   At a Christian camp, on one of the last nights, they gave an altar call.   I wanted to go up but was nervous about standing up in front of everyone.   But being more nervous about the window of opportunity closing, I felt myself stand up and walk to the front.   I knew exactly what I was doing, that I was making a commitment for life.   And I meant it.   I really meant it.   I knelt down, asked Jesus into my heart, and have never turned back.   It hasn’t been an easy, carefree journey (as you’ll see), but I haven’t turned back (tho...
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A Crash Course in Calvinism (A letter for pastors)

We recently started attending a new church and are enjoying it enough.  But having come from a church that was hijacked by Calvinism, I am highly alert for any whiff of it in this one.  (It's kinda sad when words like "sovereign" and "grace" make you wince.)  We haven't really noticed any Calvinism in this one, but the pastors do quote from and praise Calvinist theologians.  Sure, they're good quotes, but it makes me nervous.  I doubt they know what Calvinism  really  teaches or how easily it traps people.  And so being someone who can't just ignore it, I decided to write them a letter, to make sure they realize what they're dabbling with.   (If I don't warn them, it's on me.  But if I do warn them and they ignore it, it's on them.)  And I figured I'd post that letter here, too, for anyone else who might want to know this stuff or who might want to copy it to share with their own pastors (or family or friends) who dabble in Cal...
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When Calvinists say "But predestination!" (shorter, basic version)

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[Finally, the much-shorter version - I said shorter, not short😉 - of my "But predestination!" series.  The longer version - full of many more Calvinist comments, my Calvinist ex-pastor's sermons, and my replies to them - can be found by  starting here .  But in this simplified version, I'm simply sharing the basics.  And I'll do a tiny version soon too, cutting out many quotes and memes.  But, oh, they add so much that it's hard to cut them out. ] At the heart of Calvinism is predestination and God's sovereignty (among other things, like "total depravity"), which according to Calvinism essentially amounts to: "God preplans and controls everything, even sin and evil and all our decisions, and so He pre-picks who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.  He causes the 'elect' to believe in Him and be saved, but He made sure the 'non-elect' have no chance or ability to believe and be saved because He predetermined they'd go to ...
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