This Week in Calvinism - February 22, 2013

• Vox Day addresses what he sees as the intellectual costs of Calvinism: "It is really rather remarkable how many historical and intellectual crimes can be quite reasonably be (sic) traced back to Calvinist thought and be considered the natural consequences of Calvinism."
  
  
• Three debates between James White and Michael Brown on divine sovereignty, predestination, and free will.
  
  
• Michael Brown reflects on his debate with White.
  
  
• James White responds to Brown's reflection.
  
  
• T. E. Hanna explains why he believes Calvinism is ethically incoherent.

The Government Schools' Trans-Agenda

Reason number 5,327 to get your kids out of government schools (from Fox News):

Parents across Massachusetts are upset over new rules that would not only allow transgender students to use their restrooms of their choice – but would also punish students who refuse to affirm or support their transgender classmates.

Last week the Massachusetts Department of Education issued directives for handling transgender students – including allowing them to use the bathrooms of their choice or to play on sports teams that correspond to the gender with which they identify.

The 11-page directive also urged schools to eliminate gender-based clothing and gender-based activities – like having boys and girls line up separately to leave the classroom.

Schools will now be required to accept a student’s gender identity on face value.

Really, is any further comment necessary?

This Week in Calvinism - February 15, 2013

• Surprise, surprise. Roger Olson has a problem with limited atonement, and he accuses Calvinists of being just as inconsistent as Arminians.
  
  
• Steve Hays of Triablogue responds to Olson.
  
  
• Mike Leake lists five reasons why a discussion on Calvinism in the SBC doesn't matter.
  
  
• Adrian Warnock encourages us to read Spurgeon as a bridge to the Puritans.

Dating Site for Calvinists

A dating site for Calvinists? It was predestined to happen.

Meet & Fellowship With Other Reformed Singles

Sovereign Grace Singles is the only site of its type - designed specifically to help Reformed believers meet like-minded believers and start a God-honoring relationship.

(via Tea Party Economist)

This Week in Calvinism - February 8, 2013

• Robin Schumacher addresses the top five misconceptions of Calvinism.
  
  
• As one anti-Calvinist YouTuber puts it, "All man-made theologies tend to humanism and pride, but the grand-daddy of all heresies is Calvinism, or Gnosticism in new clothes." Oh, how I long for the day when these critics would pause long enough to at least find out what Calvinists actually believe before launching their attacks.
  
  
• Jared Moore helps Joe Aguillard and other Louisiana Baptists understand what it means to be a hyper-Calvinist.
  
  
• Dave Miller is working to see a more productive discussion of Calvinism in the SBC.
  
  
• The John 3:16 Conference was first held in 2008 at the First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Georgia. It was led by former SBC president Jerry Vines, and its intent was to offer a scholarly refutation of Calvinism. The event was so popular, so insightful, and so inspiring that, a mere five years later, they're having another one.
  
  
• In the weeks leading up to this year's John 3:16 Conference, SBCToday will post interviews with each person scheduled to speak at the Conference. Up first: Dr. Jerry Vines. Naturally, the conference has garnered some criticism, but Vines states that this demonstrates "what I have been saying for sometime now: There is a New Calvinism among us that is aggressive, hostile, and militant." Hmmmm. I guess that would explain all those conferences organized specifically to attack Arminianism.
  
  
• John Piper recommends these seven books for pastors.

Talk During a Sermon, Get Publicly Humiliated

Imagine you're a pastor. A member of the congregation is talking during your sermon. What's the best way to prevent that person from becoming too much of a distraction for those around him? Call attention to the talker and ensure that he becomes a distraction for everyone.


If a preacher is that easily distracted, one has to wonder if what he has to say is really all that important.

(via 22 Words)

How to Write a Worship Song

(via 22 Words)

This Week in Calvinism - February 1, 2013

• You don't have to be a Calvinist to believe that "the mysterious role of God in our lives is something for all of us to ponder and pray about."
  
  
• Calvinism is not allowed at Louisiana College.
  
  
• Is Calvinism inconsistent with free will?
  
  
• Should we change the five points of Calvinism?
  
  
  1. Total Depravity Radical and Pervasive Evil
     
  2. Unconditional Election Divine Initative
     
  3. Limited Atonement Particular Redemption
     
  4. Irresistible Grace Effectual Grace
     
  5. Perseverance of the Saints Perseverance of God with the Redeemed

  That might work, but "RDPEP" doesn't exactly flow off the tongue as well as "TULIP."

• Wow. All I can say is that I'm glad Paul's thoughts on Calvinism are merely passing. Permanent thoughts like that could really mess a person up.
  
  
• Steve Warsa shares a joke about predestination vs. free will.
  
  
• It's sad when theology professors teach that the doctrine of predestination is nothing more than a cosmic game of Duck, Duck, Goose.
  
  
• How John Piper responds to death threats.

This Week in Calvinism - January 25, 2013

• I was a teenage Calvinist. Hmmmm. That sounds like a good title for an Arminian horror movie.
  
  
• Why debate Calvinism?
  
  
• Mark Driscoll tweeted the following before Barack Obama's inauguration: "Praying for our president, who today will place his hand on a Bible he does not believe to take an oath to a God he likely does not know."
  
  
• Christian Piatt didn't like Driscoll's judgmental tweet.
  
  
• Neither did "Rev." Emily C. Heath, who writes, "President Obama is a Christian, by both his own attestation and the witness of many others who know him. He prays. He reads Scripture. And I sincerely believe he tries to act out of his faith beliefs. And yet, there are so many Christians who refuse to take him at his word." She seems to think it doesn't matter what kind of fruit you bear as long as you say you're a Christian. I'd suggest reading Luke 6:43-45 for starters.
  
  
• Got an hour to kill? You might want to check out Beyond Augustine, a documentary asserting that the "historically heretical" doctrine of the natural inability of man originated in Gnosticism: "It doesn't take much to connect the historical dots to see the evident fact that Augustine brought Manichean views into the church, and these Manichean views were further propagated by Luther, Calvin, and other Reformers."
  
  
• John Piper explains what he means when he says, "Safety is a myth."

Penn Jillette's Ignorant Statement on Faith

From atheist Penn Jillette comes the following:

Religion is faith. Faith is belief without evidence. Belief without evidence cannot be shared. Faith is a feeling. Love is also a feeling, but love makes no universal claims. Love is pure. The lover reports on his or her feelings and needs nothing more. Faith claims knowledge of a world we share but without evidence we can share. Feeling love is beautiful. Feeling the earth is 6,000 years old is stupid.

I see. Faith in a Creator cannot possibly be based on the evidence found in the existence of a creation. Why, that's as silly as saying the computer on which I'm typing is evidence of a computer manufacturer.

What does scripture have to say?

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:18-23)

Mr. Jillette is an intelligent man, so statements such as his can only be made from blind ignorance. I pray that his eyes may one day be opened.

Papal Bull

(from my "cartoon" blog White Noise)

John Piper on Healing and Exorcism

Last week I posted videos of John Piper discussing the gifts of tongues and prophecy. Here, he discusses healing and casting out demons.

This Week in Calvinism - January 18, 2013

• It's always interesting (and sad) to hear atheists decry Christian and Calvinist beliefs as evil and yet never hear an explanation of how they account for things like good and evil or how they can tell the difference between the two.
  
  
• T. C. Moore writes:

  Theology changes the way people live—for better or for worse.

  Can't argue with that.
  

  Good theology leads people to live worshipful lives of discipleship (following Jesus).

  Agreed.
  

  Bad theology leads people to worship idols of power.

  Yes, it does.
  

  Calvinism is therefore bad theology.

  Absolu... Wait. What?
  
  
• Moore also goes on to say that the "Calvinist conceptions of power as control and special chosen-ness are directly responsible for centuries of racial injustice and oppression." Another T. C., T. C. Robinson, responds.
  
  
• How do you refute the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity taught in Romans 3:10-11? Simply claim Paul is using hyperbole.
  
  
• It's much easier to make the case that Calvinism teaches that "humans are nothing more than God's actors on God's stage performing their lines and given roles" if you refrain from using any scripture to support your position.
  
  
• Larry E. Ball warns, "Calvinism which is first of all a theology of grace is also a theology of sovereignty. Only God himself is sovereign, not man or the politics of man. This is a threat to the autonomy of modern man in modern America. ... Look out, Calvinists; if persecution comes to the Church, it may very well begin with you."

John Piper on the Gifts of Tongues and Prophecy

On the subject of spiritual gifts, John Piper would fall in the continualist camp. He has stated as much from the pulpit:

Virtually all the great pastors and teachers of history that I admire and that have fed me over the years belong to the first group who believe that signs and wonders were only for the apostolic age (John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, Benjamin Warfield, my own father). But I am not fully persuaded by their case. On the other hand, there does seem to be something unique about the way God did signs and wonders in the ministries of Jesus and the apostles.

So what I think I can say for our guidance is this.

1. On the one hand, we ought to honor the uniqueness of Jesus and the apostles and of that revelatory moment in history that gave us the foundational doctrines of faith and life in the New Testament.
   
   
2. On the other hand we ought to be open to the real possibility that this too might be a unique moment in history, and in this moment it may well be God's purpose to pour out his Spirit in unprecedented revival—revival of love to Christ and zeal for worship and compassion for lost people and a missionary thrust with signs and wonders.

I want to have my keel deep and stable in the once-for-all biblical revelation of God, and I want to have my sails unfurled to every movement of God's Spirit upon the deeps.

Here, he discusses his views on speaking in tongues and the gift of prophecy in the New Covenant:

I have greatly appreciated my time at Bethlehem Baptist Church under the teaching of John Piper. While I may not agree with his position on every issue, I don't think I've ever met a man more humble and more biblically oriented when tackling controversial issues.

This Week in Calvinism - January 11, 2013

• Roger Olson is "losing patience with theologians (including theologically informed and astute pastors and popular writers) who continue to misrepresent Arminianism." It's his experience that the vast majority of Arminians familiarize themselves with the writings of Calvinists, while Calvinists rely on Calvinist literature for their information about Arminianism.
  
  
• Tim Challies reviews Francis Chan's latest book, Multiply.
  
  
• Uh, oh. Someone has finally discovered proof that the doctrine of eternal security (or perseverance of the saints) is false.
  
  
• More nonsense from anti-Calvinist crusader Kerrigan Skelly, a man who claims to be without sin.
  
  
• How prayer glorifies God.