The Anti-Calvinist Rant

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...

(This is not an official part of the "Calvi-cult" series, but I'll include it anyways because it fits.  And I think I'm gonna take a month or so off from writing, returning in the fall sometime.  Have a great rest of your summer!) Here's a very insightful comment from Malaclypsell in the Reddit Reformed post The System in Systematic Theology : " Systematic theology strives to give an orderly, coherent account of Scripture, such that the entire system of belief could potentially be explained, so to speak, in a power point presentation of sufficient length.  And all the points in all the slides would be seen to connect and reinforce each other and be textually grounded, as much as possible... the goal is to clear up ambiguity wherever possible. As I reflect on this, and on the Scriptures, I can't help but notice, the procedure of Scripture is very different.  Scripture teaches primarily through narrative.  It also contains other genres, like prophecy, instr...