This Week in Calvinism - February 25, 2011

• C. Michael Patton, Tim Kimberley, and Sam Storms present part 5 of their series "An Invitation to Calvinism."
  
  
• God is not an egotistical maniac. As C. Michael Patton writes, "God's purpose in creating us was to give to us life, love, and joy. His purpose in creating us was for us to share in his glory. He calls on us to worship, serve, and adore him precisely because he wants us to be fulfilled. His glory is reality. Our glorifying him is merely a recognition of that reality."
  
  
• God's love is the cause and result of ours.
  
  
• Register now for the Ligonier Ministries 2011 National Conference.

This Week in Calvinism - February 18, 2011

• Q & A: African Americans in the Reformed tradition.
  
  
• 10 questions with John MacArthur, one of which deals with Reformed Charismatics.
  
  
• "Biblical" ways of doing church: a grace-killer?
  
  
• Phil Johnson reminds us of the truth that God justifies the ungodly.

This Week in Calvinism - February 11, 2011

• OK, you're not an Arminian or a Calvinist; you're a biblicist. But what kind of biblicist are you, a monergist or synergist?
  
  
• Richard Beck writes, "I reject Calvinism because I find the doctrine of election to be loathsome." The nice thing about being a universalist is that, other than selecting a few verses in the Bible that talk about God's love, you don't really have to worry about having a biblical foundation for your beliefs.
  
  
• Joel Madasu believes the doctrine of limited atonement "limits the power of the Gospel and the faith necessary for Salvation. How can one witness, knowing that the love of God, His Word, the work of the Holy Spirit is only limited and viewed as strictly to the elect? [Dave] Hunt states that no true Calvinist, who believes in limited atonement, can look into the eye of an unsaved person and say that Jesus Christ died for you." First of all, no one knows who the elect are. We are called to "go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation" (Mark 16:15). Secondly, what's wrong with simply calling on others, as Jesus did, to "repent and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:14-15)?
  
  
• *Sigh* Here we go again: "It was at just about this time 2-years ago that I began to read Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, a guided tour through the mind of a sociopath and, doubtless, the engine of huge amounts of human misery; if it could all be totted-up, Calvin would surely rank near the top of the list of history's monsters."
  
  
• John Piper speaks with Tim Keller and D.A. Carson about the role of gospel-centered theology in fighting the temptations of pornography.

This Week in Calvinism - February 4, 2011

• Does Hebrews 6 teach, as many Arminians believe, that one can lose his salvation? No.
  
  
• One way around the predestination dilemma in scripture is to conclude that the way that leads to death is just as predestined as the way that leads to life: "Both paths are made available. Both paths lead to real and legitimate finish lines. Both paths are predestined. But we must choose which path we take."
  
  
• The controversial Covenant of Grace.
  
  
• William Birch believes we Calvinists should be opposed, but he doesn't think we're heretics.
  
  
• Austin Brown presents an Arminian conundrum.

Calvin the Impaler

You would think that a couple of educated gentlemen might actually do a little research before lashing out against Calvinists. In a short ebook entitled Calvinism!: A Strange Doctrine Among The Brethren, Dr. Saneesh Cherian and Dr. Johnson C. Philip manage to condemn Calvinism without quoting a single Bible verse or citing a single source to back up their accusations. In essence, the authors have slapped together a venomous diatribe that paints John Calvin and his followers as bloodthirsty maniacs.

Consider these excerpts:

"Anyone who opposed [Calvin's] stand on infant baptism was fined, punished, or tortured."

"[Calvin] emphasized that the bread and cup were not symbols, and anyone who dared to suggest that these were only symbolic of the flesh and blood of Christ stood the danger of getting fined, punished, or tortured."

"Since man had no freedom, God was the author of every sin committed by mankind, but mankind was responsible for undergoing the punishment for it. Humans were not supposed to question this arbitrariness of God. Anyone who dared to question this stood the danger of getting fined, punished, or tortured."

"[Calvin] believed that other than him nobody had freedom to think about Bible, doctrine, and theology. He also believed that it was his moral duty and obligation to punish, torture, and kill anyone and everyone who opposed his theology and even his whims and fancies."

If you think you can stomach it, you can read all nine pages of this nonsense here.