This Week in Calvinism - June 27, 2014

• Last week, Tom Chantry explained why New Calvinists are antinomian. This week, he explains why New Calvinists are legalists.
  
  
• Oh, and New Calvinists are also obsessed with celebrity.
  
  
• Shane Kastler offers an explanation of why sinful man is both totally depraved and without excuse.
  
  
• Matt Tuininga on "imperial Calvinism."
  
  
• Dr. Lawrence Cross criticizes the Australian prime minister's administration for being too Calvinistic, i.e. protecting the rich at the expense of the poor. Yeah. That's exactly what Calvinism teaches.
  
  
• Timothy Paul Jones discusses the manifold meanings of the term "Calvinist," and concludes that "if the term 'Calvinism' is used at all, it ought to be reserved for theological perspectives that stand in clear continuity with Calvin's own teachings."

This Week in Calvinism - June 20, 2014

• Some religion professor you've never heard of thinks the problem with Bowe Bergdahl may have been his Calvinist church.
  
  
• According to Briallen Hopper, the current resurgence in Calvinism "is a far cry from the Calvinist revival that burned through the Northeast a few centuries ago during the Great Awakening." He concludes, "The loss of ecstasy and the diminishment of bodily experience in American Calvinism is a real loss."
  
  
• Roger Olson asks, "Is this the best of all possible worlds?" He thinks the Calvinist must answer "yes."
  
  
• Well, what do you know? Some Southern Baptists disagree on theology, but agree on the urgency to evangelize.
  
  
• Is New Calvinism "rampant with antinomianism"?
  
  
• The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) takes a bigoted stance on marriage by voting overwhelmingly to limit marriage to only "two persons."
  
  
• FLOWER FIGHT!!!

This Week in Calvinism - June 13, 2014

• John Calvin was also known as Jean Chauvin. Does that make me a chauvinist?
  
  
• "Traditional" Southern Baptists counter Calvinism.
  
  
• David Brat, who unseated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, is apparently a Calvinist Catholic.
  
  
• The danger of hypo-Calvinism.
  
  
• Another ill-informed rant on the "imperfect God of classical Calvinism."

Romans 1:21

The fact that this woman can't see the irony in doing a pro-abortion video while her kids play in the background speaks volumes.

This Week in Calvinism - June 6, 2014

• D. G. Hart on Presbyterianism, Calvinism, and Scottish Independence.
  
  
• "There are many crazy and dangerous cults operating today, not many worse than Calvinism," writes one contributor in the Thinking Atheist forum. It's obvious the forum places much more emphasis on "atheist."
  
  
• Tim Challies on unanswered prayer.
  
  
• Tullian Tchividjian clarifies his apology following his departure from The Gospel Coalition.
  
  
• Doug Wilson schools N. T. Wright on evolution and theology.
  
  
• Matthew Westerholm discusses God's extraordinary work through our ordinary means.

Should we fast?

Fasting wasn't just for ancient Israel or the early church; it is a powerful tool for believers today. David Mathis of Desiring God writes:

What makes fasting such a gift is its ability, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to focus our feelings and their expression toward God in prayer. Fasting walks arm in arm with prayer — as John Piper says, she is "the hungry handmaiden of prayer," who "both reveals and remedies."

She reveals the measure of food's mastery over us — or television or computers or whatever we submit to again and again to conceal the weakness of our hunger for God. And she remedies by intensifying the earnestness of our prayer and saying with our whole body what prayer says with the heart: I long to be satisfied in God alone! (When I Don't Desire God, 171)

That burn in your gut, that rolling fire in your belly, demanding that you feed it more food, signals game time for fasting as a means of grace. Only as we voluntarily embrace the pain of an empty stomach do we see how much we've allowed our belly to be our god (Philippians 3:19).

And in that gnawing ache of growing hunger is the engine of fasting, generating the reminder to bend our longings for food Godward and inspire intensified longings for Jesus. Fasting, says Piper, is the physical exclamation point at the end of the sentence, "This much, O God, I want you!" (Hunger for God, 25–26).

He concludes:

Fasting, like the gospel, isn't for the self-sufficient and those who feel they have it all together. It's for the poor in spirit. It's for those who mourn. For the meek. For those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. In other words, fasting is for Christians.

It is a desperate measure, for desperate times, among those who know themselves desperate for God.

I think a better question is "Why don't we fast?"

A men's conference to skip

It's not a written rule, but I typically shy away from any men's conference that features as its headline speaker a liar directly responsible for the senseless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people, and who denies the exclusivity of Jesus Christ.

Way to go, LifeWay.

This Week in Calvinism - May 30, 2014

• Steve Hays responds to Roger Olson's question, "Do Arminians and Calvinists worship the same God?"
  
  
• Zach Hoag used to be a Calvinist. "But when the intellectual high wore off," he writes, "I was faced with an inhumane theology that shut good, Christian people out of the kingdom and created church environments of drastic unhealth and dysfunction."
  
  
• Isaac Watts: the Calvinist.
  
  
• Bob Robinson thinks "these New Calvinists should not be called 'Neo-Calvinists,' but rather 'Neo-Puriatans.'"

This Week in Calvinism - May 23, 2014

• Four misconceptions about Calvinism.
  
  
• Jonathan Merritt sees some troubling trends in the "Calvinist revival," such as isolationism, tribalism, and egotism.
  
  
• Despite the fact that Roger Olson believes "consistent Calvinism turns God into a monster and makes it difficult to tell the difference between God and the devil," and despite the fact that he said he would not worship God if it was proven that "the God of consistent, five point Calvinism is the one true God over all," he still believes that Calvinists and Arminians worship the same God.
  
  
• In the SBC, Calvinism is on the rise while baptisms and church membership are declining. Do we blame Calvinism?
  
  
• Red-letter Christian Jenny Rae Armstrong asks a "big question" of both Calvinists and non-Calvinists: "How does our concept of God impact our beliefs about authority, submission, and how God has called people to live in relationship with one another?"
  
  
• John Piper introduces us to his latest book, one that "may be the one most different from all the others. It is less about the God we see and more about how to see him."

The "full gospel"?

Healing, miracles, moving, teaching, AND prosperity? This church has it all!

Common Problems in Modern Preaching

From topical sermons with too little law and gospel, to theological lectures that fail to connect with listeners, Andrew Webb discusses some common problems in modern preaching, both in reformed and non-reformed circles.

This Week in Calvinism - May 16, 2014

• Author Marilynne Robinson discusses guns, gay marriage, and Calvinism. Is it really surprising that one who writes fiction for a living would have such a weak grasp of the truth of scripture?
  
  
• Biola senior Nate Lauffer writes:

  Either we give up 2 Thessalonians, our familiar moral reasoning, or unconditional particular election. I'm not giving up the first two. So then, unconditional particular election has to go and Calvinism is false.

  He reasons that scripture wouldn't command us to do something we aren't capable of doing. Of course, there's that whole depravity thing, but he doesn't address that.
  
  
• Kellen Kriswell of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa offers some advice for card-carrying New Calvinists.
  
  
• Shane Kastler explains why Calvinism is not fatalism.
  
  
• At 4:00 pm (PDT) today, you can tune in live for a special Friday edition of The Dividing Line. Dr. James White will be interviewing Dr. Michael Brown about his new book Can You Be Gay and Christian?
  
  
• Tim Challies asks, "Whatever happened to evening services?"

Our Community Is Hosting a "Conversation" on Race

It seems the city in which I live has a human rights commission. Who knew? On May 22, they're holding a "conversation" on the topic "White People Facing Race: Uncovering the Myths That Keep Racism in Place." According to the city's web site, "This will be a safe place for participants of all races to explore their personal and societal views on race and gain an understanding of where those views come from."

This is such a vital and important conversation that space is limited to 25 people. And the discussion was developed by someone with a Ph.D. who has written a lot about "white privilege," so I'm sure it will be entirely objective and unbiased. Those who take part "will learn about the myths that entrench racism in our society. These myths include Meritocracy; Manifest Destiny; White Racelessness; Monoculture; and White Moral Elevation." I'm not sure what there is to talk about when they seem to have already zeroed in on the problem, but, hey, it can't hurt to sit around and chat for an hour or so.

I'm half-tempted to show up with my entire family...

That ought to break the ice and get the conversation rolling.

On the issue of race, I would start at the very beginning, when human beings were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Regardless of color or ethnicity, we are all part of the same creation.

From there, I would point out the real problem: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Racism is selfishness. Racism is pride. Racism is sin, pure and simple.

Once we recognize what's wrong, we can understand the remedy: "For God so love the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). The solution to racial problems can only be found in the person and work of Jesus Christ: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).

One creation. One problem. One solution. And no Ph.D. required.

This Week in Calvinism - May 9, 2014

• An Arminian lists five reasons to remain a Calvinist.
  
  
• The Associated Baptist Press reports that Al Mohler believes in the Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement. This is news to the ABP?
  
  
• "This Week in Calvinism" just wouldn't be complete without some comment from Roger Olson. Here, he rails against Mohler's defense of limited atonement:

  I believe that limited atonement is more of a dividing line than Mohler claims. Perhaps in this case he is more generous than I am. I don't reject someone who believes as he does as a heretic, but I would have real trouble preaching the "gospel" alongside them. ...
  
  ... I believe that belief in limited, "definite," "particular" atonement is a "deep deviation" from historical Christian orthodoxy, a doctrine that makes God monstrous and unworthy of worship, unbiblical, and a serious threat to the gospel and evangelism.

  But at least he still considers Calvinists to be Christians.
  
  
• Does Calvinism thwart evangelism? No.
  
  
• Dr. Eric Hankins closes out his four-part response to Dr. Nathan Finn's essay "On the 'Traditionalist Statement': Some Friendly Observations from a Calvinistic Southern Baptist." According to Dr. Hankins:

  The coherence of Calvinism is the coherence of determinism. ... We are not troubled by the claims of Calvinism because we don't understand them. We are troubled by the claims because we do.

  (Also read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.)
  
  
• You can believe Calvinism without wearing it on your sleeve. Clayton Milano writes:

  Calvinism stopped becoming a belief to be taught and instead became a worldview to be embraced. The truth is that I am more of a Calvinist today than I was nine years ago. It is my worldview. It is so biblically self evident that I no longer find a need to argue for it. I am living out of it rather than preaching it.

Woman's Abortion Video Celebrates Child Sacrifice

For my wife and I, YouTube was a site for sharing with friends and family the joy of becoming parents through adoption. For Emily Letts, it was a site for sharing her first snuff film. I'm sorry. That was a bit harsh. It was a site for sharing the sacrifice of her child on the altar of convenience in her pursuit of consequence-free sex.

According to filmmaker and author Jennifer Baumgardner (no, I have never heard of her either), Emily's video was "totally moving, simple, and philosophically powerful." So much so that it won a Judge's Choice award in the First Abortion Stigma Busting Video Competition.

"I just want to share my story," Emily says in the video, "to show women that there is such thing (sic) as a positive abortion story." Positive for whom, exactly? The one who makes it out of the abortion mill alive, of course.

The video is extremely graphic. No, it doesn't show the actual murder—the pro-aborts aren't that stupid—but it does expose the raw wickedness of abortion and those who support it.

If you choose not to watch it, I will sum it up for you. Once the horrific procedure is completed, Emily sighs, "Yeah. Cool. I feel good." And then, as she is wheeled out of the execution room, "I'm done! Yay!" The epitome of grace and class.

She saves the best for last. A month-and-a-half after murdering her child, Emily looks into the camera and says, "I don't feel like a bad person. I don't feel sad. I feel in awe of the fact that I can make a baby. I can make a life."

And there you have it. Emily knows exactly what she did in that room. She sacrificed her child to the spirit of the age, and she's proud of it.

"They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds" (Psalm 106:36-39).