How it feels to leave a Calvinist church for a non-Calvinist one

A friend who's struggling with the Calvinism in our previous church recently asked me how it feels to now attend a non-Calvinist church.  

My answer?

It feels like this:

 


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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Alana L. 5V (the twisted ESV)

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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 :   V:  "Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign."     Sidenote: The Calvinist ESV In a previous post ( 5Q: Robots ), I said I'd do a post like this... and now I'm finally getting around to it. In this post, I want to show you something about the Calvinist ESV, how I believe th at the Calvinists who worked on the ESV made sure their translation fits with Calvinism:  with their incorrect view of mankind's free-will (which is not really "free" at all in Calvinism, as we've seen in previous posts) and  with their incorrect view of God's sovereignty, that He preplans, decrees, orchestrates, causes, controls everything, including our thoughts, actions, sins, evils, unbelief, destinies, etc. (but just  try to find "sovereign" defined that way in the Bible, especially in the KJV, whi...
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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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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 (my paraphrase; 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. ...
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Melissa at The Comment Corral

Here's a comment from a reader named Melissa (from this post on my comment blog ): Hi Heather, thank you for the time and effort you put into your blog exposing Calvinism and also how to heal from it. About 9 months ago, after moving, my husband searched for new churches using 9Marks.  The priority was expository teaching vs topical (our previous church was non-calvinist, and had topical teachings).  I was completely unaware he was being pulled into Calvinism during the new church search.  Neither of us ever heard of Calvinism nor talked about it before.  The church he chose, that we are now members of (I was pressured into), is fully Calvinist - it is outlined in their "Our Beliefs" section of their website, the Pastors graduated Masters Seminary and each week, the sermons include some/all aspects of TULIP.  The Pastors from the pulpit frequently use phrases like other denominations are not real christians/the True Church, and that their doctrines are the only...
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Fending Off Calvinism (a.k.a. Destroying Calvinism in 28 Easy Steps)

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[I'm still taking a short break from writing until September, but - for easier reference - here's the second half of the previous post: Calvinism's Systematic Theology (and how to fend it off) .] How to fend off Calvinism's Systematic Theology Alternative title: "Destroying Calvinism in 28 Easy Steps" [Of course, I don't really think that there's anything truly easy about debating or destroying Calvinism.   It's such a tangled web of errors, with a cult-like vice-grip on people's minds, that it can't be defeated with just a few verses or rebuttals.  Its errors are so complex, interconnected, and deep-rooted that it needs to be completely dismantled idea by idea, wrong definition by wrong definition, misinterpreted verse by misinterpreted verse, false dichotomy by false dichotomy, etc.  And this takes lots of time and patience, with grace, compassion, and respect for the struggling Calvinist.  It took lots of time and effort for them to get ...
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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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Troublemaker? (#1 The Gospel; #2 Stealth Calvinism)

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Should I be making such a fuss over Calvinism, calling it out as strongly as I do?      Every time I wonder if I'm too strong, too harsh, in my criticism of Calvinism - if I should be gentler, more tolerant, more "let's just put our arms around each other's shoulders and sing Kumbaya around a campfire" (which, trust me, I'd  love   to be, because I'm not someone who enjoys rocking the boat, offending people, or fighting about things) - I just think again about what (and how ) Calvinism teaches about God, the gospel, Jesus's sacrifice, and people's eternities... a nd I go, "Nope, can't do it!  No mushy tolerance or ooey-gooey Kumbaya for me.  No blurring the lines." "Oh, but can't we all just get along?," asks the kind-hearted, well-meaning Christian .  "It's not really that big of a deal, is it?  Aren't we supposed to be unified as a church and not be divisive?   And aren't we all basically saying the sa...
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As evil as it gets: Calvinism on babies and the unreached

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[A.k.a: Snippets to Ponder, part 4 (#20-21).  This is such a long "snippet" - too many horrific quotes, couldn't resist adding them - that I decided to just make it a whole post.  (I might break this down into smaller pieces in future posts.)  Topics in this post: Calvinism, babies, and unreached people. Click here for snippets  part 1 , part 2 , and  part 3 .] #20: Calvinist comments about babies   [ buckle up, hang on tight, and have a barf-bag ready] : About the suffering and abuse of babies and children:   [ And remember that these are not my words.  These are Calvinist's own words , and so you can see that we are not misrepresenting them or putting words in their mouths.  This is hard stuff to read.  Really hard.  But you need to read it.  To know that they really do teach this garbage.  (And "garbage" is the nice word.  I was gonna use a stronger one.  Oh, yes, I was!  Note:  Any  bold ...
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When Calvinists say "But predestination!" (sermons)

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[Subtitle: My Calvinist pastor's sermons, and my thoughts about it all! This was mainly written for those in my ex-church, to see our Calvinist pastor's own words, and why I think he's wrong.  In the series of posts following this one, I comment more on the things he preached and where he goes wrong.   Here are the rest of the posts in this series:  M y comments # 1-4 (election)  and  5-6 (Romans and sovereignty)  and  7-9 (depravity, Book of Life, predestine)  and  10-11 (shaming tactics, Feb. 2015)  and  12-14 (dead, regeneration, born again)  and  15 (total depravity, manipulation)  and   16A (God's Will, babies)  and   16B (sin, evil, suffering)  and   17 (double-speak and the gospel) . The shorter version of this series - with a lot less quotes and a lot less of my thoughts, written for everyone and not mainly for those in my ex-church - can be found here .  And click here for t...
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