General

Why Is Calvin Controversial?

, , No Comment

Doug Wilson, Mark Talbot, and Sam Storms are three speakers at the upcoming Desiring God conference, and each answer the question, “Why was Calvin controversial?”

I’ll admit, I was stunned by these three interviews. I think that the problem is that they were each presented with a complex question, and simply shot from the hip. The result was quite astounding.

Doug Wilson posits: “Calvin is associated with so much controversy because he was a good man and a faithful servant.”

If you asked the current Watchtower, Mormon or Seventh Day Adventist leadership about why their cult leaders were controversial, would you expect them to answer differently?

Read Post →

Dilemmas of Calvinism

, , Comment Closed

Some problems with Calvinism based on the book, The Five Dilemmas of Calvinism by Calvinist Craig. R. Brown: First, the chapter on Responsibility emphasizes that God decrees everything, controls everything and is the primary cause…

Read Post →

Book Review: The Shack

, , No Comment

(Warning: this review contains spoilers)

What would you do if you were invited to spend a weekend with God? What questions would you ask him? Maybe, why does evil exist? Why is there pain? That is the background for the book “The Shack” (Author: William P. Young).

“The Shack” has become a phenomenon. As of today (9-24-09) it is ranked #11 in sales on Amazon.com, and has over 3700 reviews.

There is a dual reaction to the book in Christian circles: people either love it or despise it. I fall into the former category, with a reservation. I enjoyed the story. It brought me to tears a number of times. As a father of two girls, I empathized with the main character, “Mack”.

Read Post →

Dort, Synod of

, , No Comment

Dort, Synod of (SYNODUS DORDRACENA), a national synod of the United Provinces, held at Dort (Dordrecht; Lat. Dordracum) in 1618-19. I. Origin of the Synod. — The opposition of James Arminius to the Augustinian and…

Read Post →

Essays by Collin Hansen about The Reformed Resurgence

, , Comment Closed

At Justin Taylor’s blog, Andy Naselli recently drew attention to a series of seven short essays on “The Reformed Resurgence” by Colin Hansen, author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists…

Read Post →

Interesting Links – 8/16/09

, , No Comment

Calvin Leaves a Divided Legacy in South Africa. “Now, as Protestants worldwide mark the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth, South Africans are remembering how the followers of the Protestant reformer were counted among the most…

Read Post →

Interesting Links 8-9-09

, , No Comment

Peter Lumpkins writes about the misuse of the word “monergism” among Calvinistic Southern Baptists. Ben Henshaw asks: Do you really want to claim John Calvin as your homeboy? Check out the reply thread on this…

Read Post →

The Failure of God?

, , Comment Closed

The following post is comprised of comments submitted to our website by [email protected], slightly revised with the author’s permission. Insofar as such infamous “failed God” arguments clearly assume the doctrine of irresistible grace (grace=force/deterministic salvation)…

Read Post →

Hyper-Calvinism: The Logical Conclusion of Regular Calvinism?

, , Comment Closed

Calvinist Phil Johnson has said, “History teaches us that hyper-Calvinism is as much a threat to true Calvinism as Arminianism is. Virtually every revival of true Calvinism since the Puritan era has been hijacked, crippled, or ultimately killed by hyper-Calvinist influences” (http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/hypercal.htm).

Might this be because hyper-Calvinism is the logical conclusion to the distinctive doctrines of Calvinism? Perhaps regular Calvinism simply refuses to go where its own doctrine logically leads because where it leads contradicts the Bible so blatantly.

Read Post →

Setting the Record Straight: The Current State of Reformation Arminianism (Part Three of Three Parts)

, , No Comment

R. C. Sproul, in his Willing to Believe, notes:

    Repeatedly the Synod of Dort charges the Remonstrants with teaching the doctrines of Pelagianism. Is not this charge overly severe and unfair? Both Arminius and the Remonstrants sought to distance themselves from pure Pelagianism.

    Arminianism is often said to be semi-Pelagian, but not, strictly speaking, Pelagian. What the fathers of Dort probably had in mind is the link between semi-Pelagianism and Pelagianism that renders the semi-Pelagian unable to escape the fundamental thesis of Pelagianism.1

But are the “fathers of Dort” right in their estimation? Is there a link between semi-Pelagianism and Arminianism? Though we agree with the Dortians that the “link between semi-Pelagianism and Pelagianism . . . renders the semi-Pelagian unable to escape the fundamental thesis of Pelagianism,” we will witness a rather glaring, broken link between semi-Pelagianism and Arminianism below.

Read Post →

Interesting Links 7-26-09

, , No Comment

British Calvinist Peter Masters criticizes the new American Calvinism. “The new Calvinism is not a resurgence but an entirely novel formula which strips the doctrine of its historic practice, and unites it with the world.” Masters is the current pastor of Charles Spurgeon’s church.

God in the Hands of Angry Calvinists. Describing the angry behavior of some Calvinists, William Birch writes that “How we view God affects how we think and act.”

Read Post →

Exegeting 1 Timothy 2:4: God Our Savior, Who Desires All People To Be Saved

, , No Comment

To some Calvinists, the very mention of an Arminian exegesis of 1 Timothy 2:4, in an effort to defend the biblical notion that God desires the salvation of every individual on earth, is insulting, both logically and theologically.

As Alan Kurschner, from the Triablogue blog, stated, “Arminians start with the human-centered assumption that if God does not love all people undifferentiated, then he would be unjust to love some more than others. The Calvinist begins with the Biblical principle that because man is unworthy of grace and deserving only of death, God in his holiness, wisdom, and freedom chooses to love and elect any creature he desires.”

Read Post →

John Wesley Charges that Calvinism Makes God Out to Be Worse than the Devil

, , Comment Closed

To follow up on Roger Olson’s essay recently posted here, perhaps it would be appropriate to post an excerpt from John Wesley’s famous sermon, “Free Grace”, in which he made a very similar charge about Calvinism as Olson, but more passionately and more forcefully. Whereas Olson states that Calvinism’s consistent divine determinism makes it difficult for him to tell the difference between God and the devil in the system, Wesley says that the system makes God worse than the devil and so is blasphemous (and he explains why). Now Wesley accepted Calvinists as brothers in Christ, so he surely did not mean that Calvinists are blasphemers or that they worship a false god or anything of the sort. I take him to mean that the logical implications of Calvinism are blasphemous, which Calvinists themselves might not really see, and which Wesley labored to help them see to bring them to the more bibilical position of Arminianism.

Read Post →

Interesting Links – 07-19-09

, , No Comment

The Albert Mohler program interviews Matt Pinson (Arminian) and Mark Dever (Calvinist) on Calvin’s 500 year legacy. They amicably address their theological differences. Were the 18th century (largely Arminian) revival movements based on Enlightenment thought?…

Read Post →

Exploring the Psychology of Embracing Calvinism

, , Comment Closed

In one of our private discussions, one of our members was wondering about the influence background may play in nudging some toward acceptance of Calvinism. He noted that he knows someone whose family background resulted…

Read Post →