Confession of a Calvinist Football Fan

(AP photo)

My theological football dilemma: As a Calvinist, I know the outcome of the game has already been foreordained, but I still find myself cheering on my team like an Arminian.

This Week in Calvinism - November 29, 2013

• Stephen Bedard writes, "I must admit that I am shocked at Calvinist attacks on Arminians. I am sure that there are Arminians that attack Calvinists, but I rarely see it." Is he reading the same internet I'm reading? He concludes, "I am not saying the discussions should end, I am saying that they should be taken in the context of love that will show non-Christians that even in our disagreements we love each other." On this we can agree.
  
  
• Roger Olson doesn't think a Calvinist praying for his child to be among the elect is consistent with Calvinist theology of God's sovereignty. I suppose it makes as much sense as an Arminian praying for God to sovereignly intervene and save another person from sin. Wouldn't that be inconsistent with Arminian theology of free will?
  
  
• John Piper answers the question: Does John 15 Defy Calvinism?
  
  
• Peter went to Yahoo! Answers to ask a very important question: "Are there any churches in America that reject Calvinism or Reformed theology? I was just wondering." Yahoo! Answers: the site where you can ask others to do your Googling for you.
  
  
• A review Jeremy Walker's book The New Calvinism Considered.

Five Biblical Truths About Thanksgiving

As Christians, we should always be giving thanks. That means expanding our focus beyond food, family, and football. Joseph Scheumann, writing for Desiring God, discusses five biblical truths about thanksgiving:

1. Thanksgiving Is Trinitarian
   
2. Thanksgiving Replaces Sin
   
3. Thanksgiving Sanctifies Creation
   
4. Thanksgiving for the Gospel
   
5. Thanksgiving in All Circumstances

Read the full article here.

The Theatrics of Infanticide

The seemingly intelligent, well-educated, financially successful people in this video are being presented as victims of draconian anti-abortion laws. Seriously, this is the best Planned Parenthood could come up with?


This video could very well be legitimate, but it appears to me that the entire thing was staged, and that the selfish woman and her emasculated fiancé are simply paid actors. Either way, it's a pathetic attempt to turn baby-killers into martyrs.

Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist has more details on this ridiculous publicity stunt here.

This Week in Calvinism - November 22, 2013

• When it comes to discussing the issue of Calvinism, Albert Mohler thinks Southern Baptists need to "learn the table manners of denominational life."
  
  
• William Birch writes, "Calvinists like Dr. Mohler seem to eat, sleep, and breathe Calvinism. They give the appearance that Calvinism is their very lifeline -- not Scripture, not even Jesus, but Calvinism."
  
  
• Ben Simpson discusses three things on which Calvinists and non-Calvinists agree.
  
  
• The difference between double and single predestination is negligible, especially when you use ridiculous analogies.

This Week in Calvinism - November 15, 2013

• Gene Veith asks, "Why is Calvinism so influential and not Lutheranism?"
  
  
• Anthony Sacramone wonders the same thing, concluding, "Lutheranism is never going to be as 'appealing' as Calvinism. It's going to have to settle for being a church that former/burned-out Reformed repair to."
  
  
• Regarding D. G. Hart's book, Calvinism: A History, Joan Nienhuis writes, "If you want to see how Calvinism spread, the political situations encountered, and the people involved, this is the book for you. If you are interested in a history of the beliefs associated with Calvinism you will have to go elsewhere."
  
  
• Arminians are worried about the growing influence of Calvinism, especially among the youth. What can Arminians do to fight this menace? Roger Olson writes:

  My answer is simple: Rediscover, retrieve, teach and preach a robust, winsome, attractive, biblically-rooted Arminian theology—the one that your church or school has held officially for decades or centuries but has been largely forgotten and certainly neglected.

  He must mean the "robust, winsome, attractive, biblically-rooted Arminian theology" taught by the early apostles, I suppose.
  
  
• John Piper's newest book, Five Points: Towards a Deeper Experience of God's Grace, is now available.

This Week in Calvinism - November 8, 2013

• Bobby Grow explains the distinction he makes between Evangelical Calvinism and Classical Calvinism.
  
  
• An interview with Darryl Hart, author of Calvinism: A History.
  
  
• Romans 9: An Arminian interpretation.
  
  
• Roger Olson will be speaking at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary on the topic "Why Calvinism is Not a Transcript of the Gospel." You can tune in here for live streaming video of the lecture on Monday, November 11, at 11:00 a.m.
  
  
• Kevin DeYoung asks, "Is John Piper really Reformed?"

The Theology That Chooses You

(From my "cartoon" blog White Noise.)

This Week in Calvinism - November 1, 2013

• Will Duquette is a Catholic, but he admits to admiring Reformed Protestants. He just "couldn't accept their theology. It was too small; it seemed to put Christ in a straitjacket."
  
  
• Peter Berger writes, "The attraction of Calvinism to many young Southern Baptists is puzzling, because it so obviously deviates from what Baptists have traditionally believed and practiced." Really?
  
  
• Pastor Ron Phillips criticizes John MacArthur for his cessationist position and the Strange Fire Conference. Phillips writes, "Cessationism (birthed by Calvinism) is killing both the spirit and the mission heart of Evangelicals." And that conclusion is based on...?
  
  
• That Paul Dohse would relish the public humiliation of someone like Doug Phillips is no surprise. What's even less surprising is what he believes to be the cause: "Calvin's false gospel," of course.

Job 6:28

"But now, be pleased to look at me, for I will not lie to your face" (Job 6:28).

This Week in Calvinism - October 25, 2013

• Ken Hamrick thinks there is a missing balance in Calvinism: "It is true, as the Calvinists emphasize, that faith is the gift of God; but it is just as Biblically true that faith is the requirement of God for salvation." Funny, because I can't think of a single Calvinist throughout history who has ever stated that God doesn't require faith for salvation.
  
  
• Heart-warming Calvinism.
  
  
• Keith Thompson of Reformed Apologetics Ministries offers a brief explanation of Calvinism.
  
  
• These "Five [Straw Man] Reasons to Reject Calvinism" are why I avoid theological "discussion" forums:
  
  1. The Bible does NOT support Calvinism
     
  2. Calvinism promotes arrogancy, which is not of the Spirit
     
  3. Calvinism makes God unjust
     
  4. Calvinism makes Jesus Christ a failure
     
  5. Calvinism is anti-Gospel

• A Modern Calvinist: An interview with James Bratt on Abraham Kuyper.
  
  
• Roland Boer doesn't agree with Max Weber's argument "that Calvinism acted as a crucial vanishing mediator for capitalism." He thinks "it is perhaps better to speak of the Arminian ethic and the spirit of capitalism."
  
  
• Dan Phillips reports on the Strange Fire Conference.
  
  
• Tim Challies reviews Mark Driscoll's latest book, A Call to Resurgence.

This Week in Calvinism - October 18, 2013

• Finally! Thanks to a ministry fellowship called Connect 316, non-Calvinist Southern Baptists now have a way to network with other non-Calvinist Southern Baptists.
  
  
• Uh-oh. Someone has finally discovered the one verse in scripture, the dreaded silver bullet, that refutes Calvinism. Maybe it's time to start thinking of a new name for this blog.
  
  
• Tim Challies liveblogs the final day of the Strange Fire Conference.
  
  
• Church stereotypes, according to Google.
  
  
• Rapper Lecrae unwraps his joy in Jesus.

This Week in Calvinism - October 11, 2013

• Abraham Kuyper on Calvinism and science.
  
  
• I recently ran across a book from Princeton Theological Seminary entitled Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England, by Augustus Toplady. It was written in 1774 and is available online here.
  
  
• Slideshow from Peter Hammond of Frontline Fellowship: "The Five Points of Calvinism in the Teachings of Christ."
  
  
• Lucas Bradburn of Credo Magazine interviews Lee Gatiss, author of For Us and Our Salvation: ‘Limited Atonement’ in the Bible, Doctrine, History, and Ministry (part 1, part 2).

This Week in Calvinism - October 4, 2013

• In this video, Brother Hicks explains that he doesn't have to misrepresent Calvinism to make it look bad because "it is horrible and blasphemous on its own." Oh, and Calvinists worship a different god, blah, blah, blah. Nothing you haven't heard before.
  
  
• James R. Rogers of First Things writes:

  For better or for worse, it's the Calvinists who are taken to be "in your face" in asserting a Christian anthropology in direct opposition to the spirit of the age. While I don't count myself among their number, they should be credited more broadly by Christians for taking so much heat on their view of the will.

  
  
• B. D. McClay considers the Calvinists and what they know.
  
  
• According to Aric Clark, Calvinism and capitalism are a "poisonous mix." He thinks Calvinism might get along better with socialism. Actually, he seems to think everyone would get along better with socialism.
  
  
• Ligonier is offering John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Doxology as a free ebook until October 31. Download it here.
  
  
• Jeff Straub interviews Darryl Hart, author of Calvinism: A History.

This Week in Calvinism - September 27, 2013

• It came as news to me "that the controversy of Calvinism versus Arminianism is a brand-new theological discussion in the Hispanic culture."
  
  
• Matt writes:

  Calvinism's perennial problem is that what God's moral nature predestines and decrees is by nature so closely aligned to what God condones that a Calvinist must step outside his theology to condemn it and redress it.

  Never mind the fact that God himself ordains sin and yet condemns it. The alternative is to believe that sin was not ordained as a part of God's plan, and therefore serves no purpose whatsoever, and that God is powerless to control it.
  
  
• Jerry Walls wishes Arminians were more like Calvinists:

  Calvinists are indeed far more confident, and less tolerant, and make a bigger deal of their theology than Wesleyans do. And I believe these factors are very closely related. Calvinists are intolerant because they are confident that their theology is true, that it is nothing more or less than the gospel, and they are passionate about preaching it and contending for it. ... I wish more Arminians were confident, not in themselves, but in the truth of their theology, and had the courage and conviction to teach and preach it more passionately, even aggressively, in the best sense of that word.

  
  
• You can attend the Desiring God 2013 National Conference for free Friday, Saturday, and Sunday via the live-stream.