This Week in Calvinism - December 12, 2014

• Apparently, Acts 13:48 does not support Calvinism.
  
  
• Question: "Can an atheist beat a Calvinist?"
  Answer: "Yes, in a copper bowl with a whisk. Best results if the bowl is put in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before. Cream of tartar is optional, and leads to a slightly stiffer confection."
  
  
• According to D. G. Hart, "New Calvinism is warmed-over New Evangelicalism with a hint of hipster."
  
  
• Was John Calvin really a Calvinist?
  
  
• Roger Olson whets your appetite with a preview of Deviant Calvinism by Oliver Crisp.

'All About That Grace' (parody)

This Week in Calvinism - December 5, 2014

• An anonymous former Calvinist wants to evangelize a particular group of people. He asks, "How can we best reach the children of Calvinists whose philosophical presuppositions have undercut any genuine sense of man's personal responsibility or genuine free will?"
  
  
• Paul Dohse believes that "Calvinism keeps the 'Christian' under law via a particular view of double imputation."
  
  
• Proud Calvinism?
  
  
• More Arminian antics over at Calvinistic Cartoons.
  
  
• Christine Hoover shares one simple tip to make this Christmas unforgettable for your children.

This Week in Calvinism - November 28, 2014

• Leave it to Roger Olson to find a nonsensical link between Stephen King's latest horror novel and Calvinism. For Olson, Calvinism is the ultimate horror story.
  
  
• And whatever you do, don't accuse Roger Olson of setting up and knocking down "strawman" arguments. Such tactics are beneath him.
  
  
• Desiring God has released a new edition of Pilgrim's Progress. Download it today for free.
  
  
• For Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Tim Challies lists some great deals for Christian readers.

This Week in Calvinism - November 21, 2014

• Calvinism vs. Arminianism vs. Vaderism?
  
  
• If unconditional election is true, then that means God is guilty of favoritism, therefore unconditional election is wrong.
  
  
• Ben Franklin's Calvinist sister.
  
  
• John Piper preaches in Houston, Texas, on "Gospel-Centered History and Gospel-Centered Living."

The Bible doesn't make BuzzFeed's list of books that could make the world a better place

I don't spend a lot of time on BuzzFeed, but every once in a while a link will catch my attention. Like "21 Books That Could Make The World A Better Place." Here are the books that made the list:

1. Reason for Hope by Jane Goodall
   
2. Sold by Patricia McCormick
   
3. Night by Elie Wiesel
   
4. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
   
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
   
6. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
   
7. The Big Necessity by Rose George
   
8. Room by Emma Donoghue
   
9. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
   
10. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
    
11. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
    
12. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
    
13. If I Just Had Two Wings by Virginia Frances Schwartz
    
14. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
    
15. Quiet by Susan Cain
    
16. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
    
17. How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff
    
18. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
    
19. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
    
20. The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
    
21. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Naturally, the only book that actually could make the world a better place didn't make the list.

Interactive timeline on the inerrancy of scripture

From Moses to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. View the interactive timeline here.

This Week in Calvinism - November 14, 2014

• Now this is a new one. Steve Tassi believes the parable of the good Samaritan refutes Calvinism. He writes, "Jesus clearly makes the moral argument, that you are committing an immoral act when you do not help someone or simply pass by one who is unable to help themselves." Tassi goes on to argue that since Calvinists believe God passes by totally depraved sinners who cannot help themselves, then God is immoral by his own standards, and Calvinism can't be biblical. Surprisingly, Tassi is not a universalist.
  
  
• The Seeking Disciple is an honest Arminian who is consistent in his theology when he preaches to the lost. He wants Calvinists to do the same. He writes, "[Calvinists] simply end by pleading with the lost to come to faith in Christ and be saved when in fact they should be preaching, 'Those of you who are regenerated, come to faith in Christ as proof of your divine election.'"
  
  
• Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, misses Mark Driscoll: "Maybe he will eventually reemerge chastened and wiser. Unapologetic, polemical, muscular Christianity is needed in every age to challenge sleeping, self-satisfied, apathetic religion." Did we not have muscular Christians before Driscoll?
  
  
• You are not your own.
  
  
• Nine steps to putting that sin to death.
  
  
• Here's the trailer for Doug Wilson's upcoming book, Rules for Reformers.

A dangerous religion

This Week in Calvinism - November 7, 2014

• Regarding Oliver Crisp's book, Deviant Calvinism: Broadening Reformed Theology, Guillaume Bignon concludes, "[I]f the Westminster Confession of faith is the standard by which we measure whether a view qualifies as reformed, we must conclude that the hybrid view contemplated (though likely not believed) by Oliver Crisp is still too deviant to be Calvinist."
  
  
• Over the years, Roger Olson has said some foolish things. His recent comments on capitalism are no exception. Comments like, "Capitalism is a thoroughly secular economic system where participation requires thinking, deciding, and acting as if God does not exist." Olson concludes:

  All I want to say here is that when Christians support and engage in modern, free market capitalism, as it exists in America, they ought to feel it as a crisis within themselves and not comfortably internalize its methodologically atheistic foundations and impulses. Beyond that, insofar as it's possible, they ought to support cooperative businesses and government regulations that soften the "blows" to the weak built into capitalism.

  I am not at all surprised at Dr. Olson's economic ignorance. What surprises me is that he didn't take the opportunity to get in a dig against Calvinism.
  
  
• Calvinism is refuted by all those Old Testament references to "freewill offerings"? Um... okay.
  
  
• "Nicene Nerd" Caleb Smith seeks to explain how "Evangelical Calvinism" differs from classical "TULIP Calvinism."
  
  
• According to T. C. Moore, "New Calvinism makes God into God's own enemy."
  
  
• An Arminian asks, "If God has indeed causally determined 'every thought, word, and deed in all of history,' wouldn't that reduce the inspiration of Scripture to a redundant doctrine?" No, it wouldn't, but since when do Calvinists hold to strict causal determinism? Ever heard of compatibilism?
  
  
• God is merciful not to tell us everything.

This Week in Calvinism - October 31, 2014

• James Ach accuses James White (and other Calvinists) of being "inconsistent."
  
  
• Bob Wilkin will be leading a conference next weekend titled "Doubt and the New Calvinism: The Current Crisis in Assurance."
  
  
• Calvinism on the ground in China.
  
  
• Roger Olson reviews Prevenient Grace: God’s Provision for Fallen Humanity by Arminian scholar W. Brian Shelton (no relation).
  
  
• Lots of free resources available from Ligonier through the end of Reformation Day Friday.
  
  
• Jon Bloom of Desiring God tells the story of October 31.

Anti-family planning propaganda, courtesy of Disney

"All of us have a responsibility toward the family of man...including you."

This Week in Calvinism - October 24, 2014

• Pastor Ronnie Rogers finds Calvinism's new birth analogy unconvincing.
  
  
• Paul Helm reviews Oliver Crisp's book Deviant Calvinism: Broadening Reformed Theology.
  
  
• Mark McDowell interviews Oliver Crisp.
  
  
• And so does Kevin P. Emmert of Christianity Today.
  
  
• John Piper teaching on Romans 8:3–4: "Love fulfills the law."
  
  
• According to the elders at Mars Hill Church, Mark Driscoll chose resignation over restoration.

This Week in Calvinism - October 17, 2014

• Why do so many people resist Calvinism, even those who eventually become Calvinists? "Isn't the answer obvious? It is because Calvinism contradicts, and blatantly so, our most basic moral axioms or intuitions. It contradicts, for example, the self-evident truth that we are genuinely free."
  
  
• Kent Brandenburg writes, "The five points of Calvinism do not present a different gospel per se, because those five points don't deal with the crux of the gospel, which is, one, whether you believe in a biblical Jesus, and, two, whether your faith is a biblical faith in Christ."
  
  
• James J. Cassidy lists five reasons why he is not a New Calvinist.
  
  
• Chris Woznicki writes, "To say that predestination, a doctrine clearly taught in scripture, is unjust is to say that there is a rule of righteousness above God."
  
  
• Be prepared to answer your kids' questions about the Bible.

This Week in Calvinism - October 3, 2014

• Roger Olson on where Calvinists and Arminians agree.
  
  
• "In Romans," writes Jeremy Myers, "'Salvation' is about deliverance from the temporal consequences of sin now." It ain't about God's sovereign choice.
  
  
• What is the highest good? Phillip Holmes explains.