This Week in Calvinism - August 19, 2016

• Which joy rules your heart?
  
  
• The city of Steinbach in Manitoba gets its first Reformed church.
  
  
• Jesse Morrell doesn't like Calvinism because "any theology which is inconsistent with evangelism, or hinders the zeal thereof, cannot be a biblical God-glorifying Christ-centered theology." Come on, anti-Calvinists. You're still sticking with that tired argument?
  
  
• We can take comfort in knowing that Roger Olson considers "most Reformed-Calvinist Christians as evangelical."
  
  
• Dr. James White deals with anti-Reformed rhetoric on The Dividing Line.
  
  
• It's a G3 Conference giveaway, courtesy of Tim Challies.

This Week in Calvinism - August 12, 2016

• Ever wonder how to argue against the wicked heresy of Calvinism? Here are seven tips.
  
  
• Chris Dunn doesn't wear Calvinism on his sleeve.
  
  
• The Rio Olympics and Calvin's mission.
  
  
• Frank Morgan takes issue with the notion that man cannot choose good:

  According to Calvinism, man does not have free will; he cannot choose good over evil under any circumstances. The Bible does contain verses such as Isaiah 64:6, Jeremiah 13:23, Jeremiah 17:9, etc., but these are referring to man in his unregenerate state.

  Well, exactly. Unregenerated man cannot choose good. It would appear you have accepted the first point of Calvinism. Only four more to go!
  
  
• Plan now to die well.
  
  
• Ladies, are you looking for the perfect gift for that special Calvinist man in your life? Check out the latest products from Bath, Body, and Soul.

This Week in Calvinism - July 29, 2016

• Nathan Vogt is grateful that our Constitution and other founding documents are secular. This guards against those evil Calvinists, who "are intolerant of every other faith and killed or jailed people suspected of witchcraft."
  
  
• So, you think the Bible teaches Calvinism? You must be reading it while wearing your super Calvinist glasses.
  
  
• The marrow of Calvinism.
  
  
• Dr. Bob Hadley attacks the crux of Calvinism, which he sees as the idea that regeneration precedes faith.
  
  
• In blaming evangelical support for Donald Trump on the "prosperity gospel," Chris Lehmann links it back to "dour Calvinism" and a the eventual "revolt against Calvinist fatalism."
  
  
• HuffPo's John Carl blames the Calvinist Puritan's for America's unforgiving prison culture.
  
  
• John Piper on how to rise when we fall into sin.
  
  
  
• Registration has begun for Ligonier's fall conference, "The Dawn of the Reformation."

This Week in Calvinism - July 22, 2016

• Does the story of Cain and Abel overthrow Calvinism?
  
  
• John Piper dismantles "one-point Calvinism."
  
  
• "The Dirty Christian" talks Calvinism and Josh Feuerstein.
  
  
• Why is my delight in God so short-lived?
  
  
• Tim Challies discusses how to pray when your soul is bone dry.
  
  
• Check out this week's $5 Friday deals from Ligonier.
  
  
• Roger Olson announces an upcoming series of blog posts on why he is an evangelical, Arminian Christian.

This Week in Calvinism - July 8, 2016

• Dr. Tim White isn't looking forward to the Les Lanphere's documentary Calvinist.
  
  
• Neither is Jeff Amsbaugh. He criticizes Les for asking for people to contribute financially to the production of the film: "There is no appeal for us to appeal to God. There only is an appeal for us to give of our human resources to advance a documentary that emphasizes how God works independently of human resources." Seriously?
  
  
• "Calvin was much more than a proponent of salvific particularism," writes Rev. Roger Salter. "His theological efforts are vast and beneficial and his views on sin and grace are disciplined within the context of the saving work of Christ which he describes with expertise and attractiveness."
  
  
• Chris Cole tries to make the Presbyterian case for infant baptism, beginning with I Corinthians 7:14.
  
  
• In response, Andrew Taylor tries to make the Lutheran case for infant baptism.
  
  
• Apparently, "Pagan Calvinism" is a thing.
  
  
• Dr. Michael A. Cox finds evidence against Calvinism in the book of Colossians.
  
  
• Carrie Dedrick wants to see Calvinists and Charismatics get along.

This Week in Calvinism - July 1, 2016

• Calvinists drinking beer, smoking stogies, and getting tattoos? Well, we can't have any of that, can we?
  
  
• It seems that Calvinism robs Israel of being in the forefront of God's glory. After all, "Israel is God's foreknown people, not uncircumcised heathen Gentiles!"
  
  
• J. D. Greear wants to make it clear that Calvinism isn't to blame for declining baptism numbers in the SBC.
  
  
• Check out Ligonier's $5 Friday this week for a variety of teaching series from R. C. Sproul.
  
  
• Tim Challies is giving away some free stuff from Moody.
  
  
• Good news! The FDA has just approved Ritalin for the treatment of chronic hyper-Calvinism in adults and teenagers.

This Week in Calvinism - June 24, 2016

• Even many professing Christians shy away from the doctrine of total depravity, "Which is a shame," writes Tony Petersen, "because, if anything, the Bible is harsher on the question than TULIP."
  
  
• Calvinism found in John 3.
  
  
• Ennis Pepper gives nine reasons why Calvinism is illogical (and cruel, and abusive, and responsible for the Holocaust, etc.). Each point has been refuted countless times over the years, but for some reason they still persist.
  
  
• Benjamin Corey may be on his way to becoming a Calvinist. Three points down (UIP), only two to go!
  
  
• More pleas for Calvinist and non-Calvinist Southern Baptists to get along.
  
  
• Tim Challies explains why he is not dispensational.
  
  
• Whatever happened to beauty in worship? "Modern churches tend to look like prefabricated warehouses," writes R. C. Sproul, "or they're designed to be functional music halls so that the production of music may have center stage."

This Week in Calvinism - June 10, 2016

• If you missed ReformCon last week, you can watch the videos at Apologia Studios' YouTube channel.
  
  
• Dr. James White dismantles Molinism. Again.
  
  
• Norm Fields thinks TULIP is a lovely flower, but a lousy doctrine.
  
  
• One redditor asks a question about Calvinism: "[I]s there any worth in this theology? I have only see it cause harm for the people that cling to it the closest."
  
  
• The essence of the Calvinistic life.
  
  
• Michael F. Bird predicts "that there is about to be a miniature civil war among conservative Calvinist Complementarians about Trinity and gender."
  
  
• Check out the $5 Friday deals at Ligonier.
  
  
• Free stuff from Tim Challies: the God's Word For You series.

This Week in Calvinism - June 3, 2016

• William Thornton hopes the upcoming SBC election isn't about Calvinism. But nominee Steve Gaines seems to be focusing on that topic.
  
  
• Is atheistic determinism similar to Calvinism?
  
  
• "In Calvinism," writes William Birch, "God did not merely foreknow acts of evil, but He concocted evil acts in His mind to be carried out by certain persons, He decreed them from eternity past, and He then brings them into reality by His own secret methods." So, naturally, if we cannot read God's mind and know exactly why he decreed certain evil acts, then God cannot possibly have a reason decreeing certain evil acts, therefore Calvinism is wrong.
  
  
• Jon Bloom writes, "You don't have to know God's will if you are confident in God's word."
  
  
• For whom did Christ die?

This Week in Calvinism - May 27, 2016

• A former cage-stage Calvinist himself, William Birch lays the blame for the enabling of cage-stagers at the feet of men like R. C. Sproul and John Piper: "These Calvinist teachers enable young and impressionable Calvinist converts toward demeaning, objectifying, and condemning Arminians and other non-Calvinists, and maintaining a superior attitude that is most unChristlike." While Mr. Birch may try to assure us that "[t]here is no category as a cage-stage Arminian," I do find it interesting that the most vocal anti-Calvinists seem to be former Calvinists themselves.
  
  
• Peter Lumpkins presents evidence suggesting "that Baptists of the south were not as forged into strict, confessional Calvinism as many Southern Baptist Calvinists claim."
  
  
• SBC presidential nominee Steve Gaines on teaching Calvinism: "I do believe that our students need to know about Calvinism. I don't mind our seminaries teaching about Calvinism, but it should not be the exclusive theological position taught in any of our schools."
  
  
• This week's Free Stuff Fridays giveaway is sponsored by Missional Wear. And don't forget to claim your free sticker!
  
  
• The Calvinism debate between Dr. James White and Steve Tassi has been postponed.

This Week in Calvinism - May 20, 2016

• Tim Challies explains why he is not an atheist.
  
  
• John Piper on how to hate your life.
  
  
• Mary A. Kassian discusses the issue of women teaching men in the church.
  
  
• Richard Bushey responds to Eric Lounsbery regarding Calvinism and Luke 8:12.
  
  
• You might think that Arminian William Birch doesn't have any Calvinist friends:
  

  That is not so. I do have Calvinist friends that I love, cherish, and highly respect. I think they hold to egregious theological errors. My hope is that they will, like me, abandon those errors and glorify the Lord by maintaining a proper hermeneutic that informs us rightly regarding the character and integrity of our sovereign God.

This Week in Calvinism - May 13, 2016

• Colby Bonham responds to a self-proclaimed "destroyer of Calvinism."
  
  
• Trevin Wax argues that "it is problematic to claim that a move away from Calvinism necessarily entails a move toward theological liberalism."
  
  
• Jared Longshore responds to Trevin Wax.
  
  
• Another response.
  
  
• Benjamin L. Corey finds John MacArthur's statement about reaching the Spanish-speaking world with the gospel "racist" and "paternalistic."
  
  
• Jared C. Wilson troubleshoots the celebrity pastor problem.
  
  
• Ronnie Rogers eschews the Calvinist view of compatibilism and instead embraces extensivism.

This Week in Calvinism - May 6, 2016

• "The doctrine of Calvinists should not trouble us," writes Jack Wellman, pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane, Kansas. "Debating over something that is not essential to salvation leads to the ruin of the hearers." While I agree that a belief in Calvinism is not essential to salvation, I disagree that a loving debate over the doctrines of grace is harmful. As Dr. James White so often points out, "theology matters."
  
  
• Timothy George of First Things takes a look at Mark Dever and Capitol Hill Baptist Church in his article "Puritans on the Potomac."
  
  
• Good living is rooted in good theology.
  
  
• Tom Nettles discusses Calvinists and non-Calvinists in the SBC.
  
  
• The free stuff featured today at Challies.com is sponsored by Westminster Theological Seminary.

This Week in Calvinism - April 29, 2016

• Tracey Rowland sees the potential for a Catholic revival in Scotland: "It can't be all that difficult to compete with liberal Calvinism and garden-variety New Age paganism when one has the full treasury of a sacramental Catholicism..."
  
  
• Arminian William Birch lists five reasons why New Calvinism is worth rejecting.
  
  
• Carol Howard Merritt, a feminist who embraces "marriage equality," proudly dons Calvin's mantle, despite being against everything he stood for.
  
  
• Dr. Jeff Hagan offers a concise summary of Arminianism and Calvinism.
  
  
• "But the horror genre also shows us how Puritan Calvinism was intimately entwined with witchy folktales," writes Kathryn Reklis, in her review of the film The Witch. "The fear of witches went hand in hand with the Calvinist God whose inscrutable will predestined some to hell."
  
  
• Dr. Vern Charette ponders God's goodness in light of what many Calvinists would consider a false assurance of salvation.

This Week in Calvinism - April 22, 2016

• Mark Driscoll is back, and he answers the question: is the God of Calvinism cruel?
  
  
• Let's avoid hyper-Calvinism when we preach.
  
  
• Jeffrey K. Jue gives five reasons why the New Calvinism is worth supporting.
  
  
• Calvin, Basil, and heathen learning.
  
  
• Most of the talks from this month's T4G Conference are available online.
  
  
• Jesse Johnson addresses the issue of using sermon illustrations from movies.
  
  
• Do we participate in our own salvation?