Crowder's Song - "I AM"

I watch this video often, especially in despairing moments, the middle of the storms, when I need to be reminded that God is always there, always holding onto us and calling us to hold onto Him:


I love the moment when Jesus meekly smiles and waves at the kids running alongside the boat, showing His tender, loving side.  I love the moment He gives an emotional, desperate hug to one of the disciples, showing His human, relational side.  I love the moment He slowly kneels down to take the whipping we deserved, showing His sacrificial, Savior side. 

But one of my favorite scenes in this song is at the 2:34 minute mark, when one of the disciples is laying on the floor crying, reaching out to a battered Jesus who is lying near him.  It's only a moment, a tiny, helpless, desperate reach, ...but, oh, how I've felt that way so many times these past years!  Life has repeatedly beaten me down, and I'm laying on the floor sobbing, hopeless, desperate, doing the only thing I can do - reaching out to the Lord with all the strength I have left, just hoping and praying that I can touch Him with just the tip of my finger to feel His presence and know that He is there with me through it all.  And then I know it will be okay.  

Reaching out for the Lord when you're in pain - sometimes that's all you can do.  

But sometimes that's enough.



[I think part of the reason I rage against Calvinism so fiercely is because I have hurt so badly in life and struggled with such despair and brokenness and hopelessness, even as a Christian.  And Calvinism, to me, is all about keeping most people in despair and brokenness and hopelessness.  Eternally.  It's about keeping lost people lost, putting most people beyond the reach of God's grace, love, forgiveness, and healing.  It blocks the door of heaven to most people, allowing only those few lucky "elect" to enter, informing everyone else that God doesn't love them, that Jesus didn't die for them, and that they have no hope of ever finding help or healing or salvation.  But I've hurt so deeply in life that my heart breaks for humanity, for all of us lost, hurting people.  And I will never make anyone else think that they are hopeless, that they are beyond the reach of God's love and grace and healing, that they were created to hurt forever.  (And I would never tell others, as Calvinists do, that it's impossible to choose to believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior ... when God clearly and repeatedly tells us in the Bible that to be saved we must choose to believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior.)  What a wicked theology Calvinism is!]

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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 things they say o
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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 Editor and Packe
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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 Calvinist church (that is, whe
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A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And "Is The ESV a Calvinist Bible?")

(For just the "Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible" part of this post, click here .) In my normal Bible reading today, I came across a verse about "singleness vs. marriage" that destroys Calvinism in a few short words: "But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but who has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin - this man also does the right thing."   ( 1 Corinthians 7:37, NIV ) When you get past all the layers Calvinism wraps itself in to disguise the bad parts, it ultimately teaches - at the heart of it all - that God causes/controls  everything , even controlling our wills and causing our sins.  (But He then punishes  us  for the things He caused us to do, which would make Him unjust, no matter how much Calvinists try to deny it and cover it up.  See  this post  for some links about that.)  Calvinism ultimately teaches that everything we do is because God preplanned it, ordai
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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.  My hope is that with this one long post, I can show the deceptiveness of
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Posts in the "Predestination vs. Free-Will" Series

I will post this at the beginning and end of the "Predestination vs. Free-Will" series.  (This is the beginning of it.)   These four are the really long posts that I broke up into smaller pieces for the series: Predestination Does Not Mean "No Choice" Controversial "Predestination" Verse Does Romans Teach Predestination? Does Ephesians Teach Predestination? These are the smaller posts of the "predestination vs. free-will" series, in order: Is Our Eternity Decided For Us? "Predestination vs. Free-Will" Overview Should "Predestination vs. Free-Will" Matter To Christians? Predestination Manipulation Does "In Control" Mean "Controlling Everything"? How Could A Loving God Condemn People To Hell? Sovereignty And Free-Will Working Together What Does "God Is Sovereign" Mean? Does God Cause Childhood Abuse?
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A Calvinist's best defense of their worst doctrine

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The following are parts of two sermons  given by the Calvinist pastor at my ex-church, about Romans 9 and predestination.   [I'd post a link to them, but if you know which church I attended then you'll know which town I live in, and I'm not ready to reveal that.  So you'll just have to trust me that this is what he said.  And for those who already know me or attend my ex-church, these sermons are from  June of 2016.  You  can look it up online if you want.] This was a little over 3 years after this new pastor was hired and brought in Calvinism, stealthy at first, then much more bold.  And by this point, I was done with him, really fed up and upset with his teaching, really alarmed.  Sadly, though, we stayed there listening to this garbage for 3 more years before we resigned our membership.  (But at least it gave me a lot of time to really hear and research what he was preaching.)   Notice that all these sermon sections contain are shaming, manipulation, deflection, bad
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When Calvinism Infiltrates Your Church

A note I recently added to my posts on "How to tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist" : On a personal note : After having seen firsthand how Calvinism stealthily infiltrates and takes over a church, I want to share with you something that Kevin from Beyond the Fundamentals said in the video   "Stealth Calvinism in Oklahoma"  (my paraphrase): "By the time you realize what's going on and start looking up information about Calvinism online, it's too late."   Calvinist pastors who set out to take over non-Calvinist churches are banking on the fact that most people don't know what Calvinism is, giving the pastors plenty of time to weave in Calvinism in sneaky, subtle, tricksy ways before people catch on to (and research) the red flags.  (*See note at bottom about deceptive pastors.)  By that time, too many people in the church have been suckered into Calvinism (without realizing it's called Calvinism), believing that they're just
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Calvinist Hogwash #4 (hell and justice)

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I think that Calvinists who deny double predestination are fooling themselves.  To not choose someone for heaven is to choose them for hell, especially if those are the only two options and if God created them to be exactly who they are for certain reasons (which He didn't, except in Calvinism).   Instead of just admitting that Calvi-god predestines people for hell, Calvinists soften or obscure it as much as possible to make it seem less harsh, less deliberate, than it is: "God passes over people... He just lets them be the sinners they already are... He leaves them to themselves... He doesn't force them to reject Him, He just doesn't give them saving faith..."  (I wonder if they'd try so much to soften it if they thought themselves one of the non-elect.)   It's  really just haggling over terminology because it all amounts to the same thing: I n Calvinism, God predetermined that the non-elect would be who they are and do what they do, and He made sure that
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For my new friend who's struggling:

Thank you so much for talking with me yesterday.  For sharing your hurts, losses, and struggles honestly.  It was a real blessing for me.  Honest, real, vulnerable people are my kind of people, the kind I respect the most.  😊 To you (and anyone else who's hurting and struggling), I dedicate some of my favorite songs, ones that help me when I'm hurting and struggling.  And I've had many of those times myself.  (You might also like this post: Healing your soul from Calvinism's damage .): From my favorite band, The City Harmonic  - the band that got me through my hardest times.  Their words became my prayers when I was so broken that I didn't have my own words to pray anymore.: Honestly (I understand this) Fell Apart  (My favorite opening line in a song, ever) Oh, What Love  (One of my all-time favorites - grace, forgiveness, mercy, healing, hope, purpose, all wrapped up in His amazing love!) Praise the Lord  (This is the key to getting through painful trials with ou
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