"Well yes, but actually no"

 

































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!   And if you haven't yet, see the  "redd...
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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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Is The ESV (English Standard Version) a Calvinist Bible?

Just in case anyone missed this post (the longer title made it easy to miss the "ESV" part) ... "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And "Is The ESV a Calvinist Bible?") In that post, I write about a bunch of verses that I believe were intentionally translated to be more Calvinistic or based on manuscripts that were too corrupt to be trusted (click on it to see the verses).   And why would I think that the translators of this Bible version would do that? (From that post...) The ESV and ESV Study Bible are majorly preferred by Calvinists.  In fact, it's often considered "The Calvinist Bible."   Why?  And why would translators of a Bible make these kinds of Calvinist tweaks to Scripture? Wayne Grudem and J.I. Packer were editors on the  ESV Study Bible   (this is for the ESV Global Study Bible).  Grudem and Packer are both popular, strong, dogmatic Calvinists.  Very Big Names in the world of Calvinism.  Grudem in the General E...
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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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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 Gospel Project: Calvinist or not?

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Disclaimer: I have never gone through The Gospel Project for myself, and so this post is based on articles I've read about it and - mostly - on my knowledge of Calvinism and how it operates.  And this post doesn't even have to do just with The Gospel Project, but with anything Calvinists write or teach, especially if they claim that they're not trying to teach Calvinism. UPDATE 12/29/2025: I swapped the parts of this post, putting my answer to MPenny before my notes about Calvinism in general.  My answer is the shorter part, so I figured I'd get that out of the way first.  Also, here is a "part 2" to this post, exposing the Calvinism in their podcast:  "The Calvinist Gospel Project? (their podcast/the gospel)" . I had a question come in the other day  on my  "comment corral" blog   from a reader called  MPenny: " The Gospel Project: Do you or anyone here have specific wordage or examples of non-biblical or calvinist material within th...
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Calvinism in the Evangelical Free Church

Before we left our church because of Calvinism, we sent a long letter to the elders , expressing our concerns.  However, none of the elders cared enough or were concerned enough to do anything about it.  And so we left our church home, the place we had been at and loved for almost 20 years, the church we raised our kids in. After awhile, I became concerned that maybe the Evangelical Free Church, in general, didn't realize that there were dogmatic Calvinist pastors taking over their churches, blocking other views, manipulating people into agreeing with them.  And I thought maybe they would want to know this, especially since it seemed to contradict their "official stance" about this issue, which I believed was supposed to be a middle-of-the-road approach, falling under the heading of "significance of silence" (where they don't let the small controversial issues become big divisive issues).  I figured that if a pastor in one of their churches was manipulat...
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Alana L. 5S (Calvinism's "free will"/Dismantle)

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This series  is  loosely   based on this 14-minute video from Alana L.:   5 Signs Your Loved One is Becoming a Calvinist   Point #5 still :   S:  "Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign."     Since we're on the topic of God's sovereignty over mankind's actions - how God's "sovereignty" relates to ("predetermines/controls") man's "free will" - here's seven more quotes (and a conversation in the comment section of Soteriology 101's blog) about Calvinism's view/definition of "free will," to show that their idea of "free will" is not free at all. 1. John MacArthur  (" Doctrine of Election, part 1 " ):  " You’re guilty.  You’re culpable.    You did it.  You did it with your own will.    But God had predetermined it would be done. "    2. Mayhue   ( "Election and Predestination: The Sovereignty of God in Salvation" ) :  "... And the other thing that people stumbl...
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