This Week in Calvinism - July 26, 2013

• Brett Younger, associate professor of preaching at the McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta, tries to be funny while insulting Calvinists. Those whose knowledge of John Calvin is limited to predestination and Servetus might get a chuckle out of it.
  
  
• What about the Calvinist antimission movement?
  
  
• Please. Don't comment on Calvinism if you have no idea what it is.
  
  
• A professing Christian husband married to a Jewish wife writes, "God chose corporate, national Israel, not each individual Israelites (sic). ... I can't seem to find a way to pry the Jewish people or even one single, individual Jewish person out of the covenant promises that started with Abraham, continued into Sinai, and that were renewed for the future in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36." Um...Romans 9?
  
  
• J. I. Packer's conversion.

'Tolerance' in Action

Activists like these do not seek tolerance. They want nothing less than complete acceptance of their lifestyle as well as the elimination of any and all dissenting opinions.

This Week in Calvinism - July 19, 2013

• Is Molinism as depressing as Calvinism? "No," says William Lane Craig.
  
  
• Julie Anne thinks that "Patriarchy is complementarianism PLUS more, just as Neo Calvinism is Calvinism PLUS more."
  
  
• Many people say it is unfair for God to save some and not others. While Jason Dulle believes "there are formidable theological, exegetical, and philosophical problems with Calvinism," he has "come to think that the 'fairness' objection is not a good argument against Calvinism."
  
  
• A friend asks you to pass out evangelistic tracts with an anti-Calvinist message, saying, "Let's go save some Calvinists!" What would you do?
  
  
• Bob Hadley says, "Calvinism teaches that the gospel has NO POWER to save the unregenerate. ... So just like Lazarus who was dead, the gospel has no power to save or give new life in the calvinist (sic) system." I always thought the concept that the God who ordains the end also ordains the means was pretty straightforward. I guess not.
  
  
• Tim Keller and John Piper discuss C. S. Lewis.
  
  
• What is the devotional impact of limited atonement? Richard Phillips writes, "We praise God that we are not required to earn what Christ has done for us, for we never could do so. We receive His death by simple faith alone. Jesus never demands that we earn what He did for us."

This Week in Calvinism - July 12, 2013

• A video has been posted of the SBC 2013 Calvinism Advisory Panel.
  
  
• In a recent interview regarding his position on eternal security, Scot McKnight says, "If some want to counter my views, fine, but the only thing that interests me is if they can show that the audience [of Hebrews] is not genuine believers. If they can, I'll listen but if they want to show how they can explain the text as Calvinists...well, been there and done that."
  
  
• While many evangelicals and Catholics have found common ground, Calvinism continues to divide Protestants.
  
  
• There is a new course on Calvinism from John Piper. You can download the entire seminar in six parts.

This Week in Calvinism - July 5, 2013

• Roger Olson responds to the responses to his response to the SBC committee's report on Calvinism...
  
  
• ...and then feels the need to make one more point.
  
  
• Jason Hiles, one of the men at the center of Louisiana College's Calvinism debate, has been hired as the dean of the college of theology at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix.
  
  
• Speaking of Louisiana College, "Two investigations into charges of misconduct by Louisiana College President Joe Aguillard found a trail of apparently conflicting documents, but neither group investigating Aguillard interviewed all of the key parties."
  
  
• Andrew Fuller's defense of Calvinism.
  
  
• Jason Helopoulos addresses the question: Does Calvinism kill missions? (SPOILER ALERT: No, it doesn't.)
  
  
• If you think 1 Thessalonians 5:9 is the antidote for Calvinism, then you don't know how to read scripture in context. At the very least look at the preceding verse, for crying out loud.
  
  
• Whenever you read a statement like "Calvinism is an abominable theological position," you can safely assume the writer is going to rely on emotion rather than scripture to support his position. Well, what do you know. That's exactly what Bob Hadley did.

How Christians Should Respond to Conspiracy Theories

From the left and from the right, from man-made global warming to the New World Order, we're constantly bombarded by conspiracy theories. Franklin Sanders tells us how Christians should respond:

Nothing comes to us before God determines, or without God determining, but only exactly when God determines. If he sent it, he will turn it. If he sent it, then he has already made us ready to handle it. If he sent it, no matter how painful, how wrong, how tyrannous on the part of evildoers, yet he will cause it to work for good. Therefore Paul can call himself not the prisoner of the Romans, but the prisoner of Christ, because if he was in prison, he was there because God put him there, and would work greater things through him there than in freedom. Besides, we know that evil things will, most certainly, happen to his adopted children because thus he sanctifies us and conforms us to the image of Christ by sharing his sufferings. Now if Christ himself had to learn obedience through suffering, how will we learn it without?

There are no accidents.

The wicked are not in charge.

God works all things together for good to his beloved.