Conversations with a Calvinist (repost)

  



















































































































(all memes made at imgflip.com)

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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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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Valerie and B1989W at The Comment Corral

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I'm interrupting the Alana L. 5K "sovereign" posts to share a couple comments from readers of this blog.  [I'll post the next Alana one in two weeks.  And Happy (early) 4th of July, America!] You may not know this, but I have a separate blog where people can share their comments on any of my blogs: The Comment Corral .  I decided to keep the comments separate and not allow them on this anti-Calvinism blog for a few reasons: 1. My posts are long enough, and so I didn't want to add more length with comments on each one. 2. I'd like my posts to stand on their own, without the back-and-forth debate that can sometimes happen in comments.   3. Sometimes comments enhance what we've read and add to it in a good way, but sometimes they tarnish it and leave us with a bitter taste in our mouths.  And I didn't want to take the chance. 4. If the process of submitting comments was too easy, then people who disagree or don't like what I say might instantaneously ...
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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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"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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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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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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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 13 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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"Neo-Calvinism vs. The Bible" - Andy Woods

This is just a quick post to share a series from Andy Woods against Calvinism: Neo-Calvinism vs The Bible | Andy Woods Ministries I've only listened to the first three so far, but I found this one quite intriguing:   Neo-Calvinism vs. The Bible 003 | Andy Woods Ministries In that one, he gets a little into the Catholic roots of Calvinism and the errors of Calvinism related to prophecy.  As he says, Luther didn't believe Revelation was inspired by God (and he considered it satanic to take end-times' prophecy literally), and this explains why many Calvinist churches don't address prophecy much.   And he also says that Calvin believed in amillennialism.  And to me, this would explain why the EFCA - which I believe has been taken over by Calvinists - removed the belief in premillennialism from their statement of faith, allowing for pastors to preach things like amillennialism. He also gets into the damage that Lordship Salvation - with John MacArthur at the for...
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Alana L.: 5k ("sovereign" 3/conflations: cause vs allow)

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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   I initially planned on 5k being four parts, but it's going to be 8.  So because there's so many parts, I'm gonna post them weekly to get through it faster.    Point #5 still :   K (part 3):  "Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign."     In "sovereign, part 1  and part 2 ", I looked at Calvinism's incorrect belief that "sovereign" necessarily means that God preplans/causes all things.  In these next few posts, I want to further examine their misunderstanding of "sovereign" related to their erroneous conflations of "cause" and "allow"... and "foreknow" and "foreplan"... and "natural evils" and "moral evils"... and their deceptive use of the word "authors."   [There will be some redundancy in here and some review of things I said in the previous parts...
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