The Anti-Calvinist Rant

Here is the next batch of ex-Calvinist testimonies (and those who never were Calvinists but who came face to face with it) 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 I add any comments of my own, it will be  [blue and in brackets] .  I made minor corrections for better grammar and punctuation.  If you want to read everything that everyone said, click on the link above: Deborah Hansel   [a sad example of what Calvinism does to you and your faith] : I was raised in a Calvinist town, and I went to Calvin College.  I became a Calvinist (solidified/mentally) through listening to R.C. Sproul and reading John Piper.... However, over the years, my assurance began to erode, and it came to a head a couple years ago when we started attending a Calvinist church and the pastor asked me, “When did you become a Christian?”... I di...

I love this song.  It was such a help during a very dark time in my life - a time when I had little hope to cling to, when my heart hurt so badly that I didn't even know what to pray anymore.  I was all out of clever, fancy words, and all I could cry out was  "Lord, I Need You" .   Sometimes it's as simple that.  And that's okay.  Don't complicate it.

I got an email not too long ago from someone who wanted to challenge me on my anti-Calvinist stance.  To sum up what she said:   In a polite, gentle way, she essentially said that we find more peace resting in God's sovereign hand than in our own (My note: The Calvinist view of sovereignty is "God preplans, causes, controls  everything that happens, including sin and evil," though they won't admit it this way.) ... that Calvinism is more humbling because it’s admitting that we did nothing to save ourselves because God did it all (My note: Well, if God did it all to save some people then He also did it all to damn the rest.) ... that Calvinism becomes beautiful as you see God's amazing love (My note: Amazing love for whom, I wonder?  For the non-elect whom He predestined for hell, whom He causes to sin and to reject Him but then He punishes them eternally for it, all for His glory?  Yep, really beautiful !  If that's "amazing love," then that's...

Just throwing this out there for your consideration: Did Calvinists create the idea that Jesus is eternally subordinate to the Father so that they can push their ideas of complementarianism and that women will be eternally subordinate to men?  Is Eternal Subordination of the Son biblical, or did Calvinists read into verses and/or alter verses (particularly in the ESV Bible and study notes) so that it could match their theological views on this?   ( See this post for a bit on why I believe the ESV is a Calvinist Bible.)   I have no clue what to think about all this because I only just now heard of it.  But I do not trust Calvinists to understand the Bible properly, and I have seen how sneaky they are in twisting Scripture to make it fit their theology.  And so I think this issue is definitely worth looking into, or at least being aware of.  Read these articles for yourself and see what you think (and I don't know much about these websites overall,...

 

  I am breaking the  "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And 'Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible'?)"  post up into shorter segments so that each verse (or two) gets it own post. #17:   1 Peter 1:3  in most versions says either that God  “gave us new birth into a living hope”  or that He  “begotten us again into a lively hope.”   But the ESV is one of the only ones to say  “caused us to be born again to a living hope.”   It’s one thing to “give” someone something but it’s another to “cause” them to do something.  And to “cause” someone to “be born again” is very much a Calvinist concept.  (However, this verse is about God  regenerating believers , about believers – those who choose to put their faith in Jesus - being born into a “living hope.”  It’s not about God regenerating non-believers, forcing them to be born again, or about Him causing certain pre-selected people to be born into eternal life.  It’s about...

I love this song and video.  And so do my kids.  In fact, I'd say it's one of the best ever made: Burn the Ships  by For King and Country   ( Click here  for where I first found it.) This song is inspired by the wife of one of the singers who had to struggle to break free from an addiction to anti-nausea medication following pregnancy.  And it's also inspired by the story of an explorer (Cortes, I believe) who made sure that his men didn't leave him, that they didn't rebel and take the ships back to their homeland instead of exploring the new lands with him.  And he did this with a bold move: by burning the ships, making it impossible for them to retreat and go home.  And now they had no choice but to go forward into the new lands with him.  They had to put the past behind them and walk into the future. This song's about breaking free from what holds us back, about leaving the past behind, the things that imprison us.  It's about doing w...

To show you how Calvinists really don't mean "anyone" when they say "anyone can be saved" (how they don't mean "all people" when they say "God loves all people and Jesus died for all people"), here are some more comments from the Soteriology 101 post "Frustrated by the state of the world?"  (I made minor corrections for clarity and added a bunch of notes in response to what the Calvinists say):  My comment, in reply to something Roland (Calvinist) said: Roland, would you mind explaining how your comment “I agree that anyone can believe in Jesus” fits with your comment “unless God gives [you] a new heart, you will not seek God” ... and with your denial of the idea that since God calls everyone to believe, it means we must all be able to believe ... and with your agreement with Rhutchin (Calvinist) that “Certainly, God has determined who will be saved and who will not…”? How can you say “ anyone can believe” and yet hold those ot...