Totally worth watching: "Why we left Calvinism" with Jordan, Joshua, and Tyler

This is such a great interview from Jordan Hatfield (Great Light Studios) with Joshua Davidson and Tyler Fowler:  Why We Left Calvinism, Part 1 (1 hour 35 minutes)

So many great insights about so many things, not just Calvinism.  So many nuggets of wisdom to be found.  These guys are deep thinkers, and I loved hearing their stories.  It's totally worth watching.

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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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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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Strategy, gaslighting, and manipulation in Calvinist churches

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[I'll be posting the bigger posts every other week from now on for awhile.] When a Calvinist church starts losing people because of things like bad theology (Calvinism), a domineering pastor with a negative and shaming tone, the same repeated sermons over and over again, gaslighting and manipulation, the suffocation of spirits and strangling of faith under the pastor's theology/leadership, etc.... what's a  Calvinist pastor to do, especially when key people are leaving ( central, well-loved, heavily-involved, long-term members/employees whom everyone knows, likes, and respects),  and other people are starting to notice and talk about it? I've got an idea, Calvinist pastor!  You could strategically  preach about "church hurt" around the same time (let's say, hypothetically, on a random date such as, maybe, May 11, 2025😉) which makes it seem like those who leave a church because of "church hurt" are in the wrong.  That might work. You could preach...
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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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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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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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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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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 p...
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Calvinism on the suffering of children

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[This is taken from my post "As evil as it gets: Calvinism on babies and the unreached."   I'm breaking that longer post up into shorter pieces, to focus on one topic per post.  I'll intersperse this series with the Alana L series .] About the suffering and abuse of babies and children:   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: A ll bold emphasis in all quotes has been added by me. ) a.  Gordon H. Clark  ( Religion, Reason, and Revelation) :   “I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he shoul...
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