This Week in Calvinism - November 28, 2014

• Leave it to Roger Olson to find a nonsensical link between Stephen King's latest horror novel and Calvinism. For Olson, Calvinism is the ultimate horror story.
  
  
• And whatever you do, don't accuse Roger Olson of setting up and knocking down "strawman" arguments. Such tactics are beneath him.
  
  
• Desiring God has released a new edition of Pilgrim's Progress. Download it today for free.
  
  
• For Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Tim Challies lists some great deals for Christian readers.

This Week in Calvinism - November 21, 2014

• Calvinism vs. Arminianism vs. Vaderism?
  
  
• If unconditional election is true, then that means God is guilty of favoritism, therefore unconditional election is wrong.
  
  
• Ben Franklin's Calvinist sister.
  
  
• John Piper preaches in Houston, Texas, on "Gospel-Centered History and Gospel-Centered Living."

The Bible doesn't make BuzzFeed's list of books that could make the world a better place

I don't spend a lot of time on BuzzFeed, but every once in a while a link will catch my attention. Like "21 Books That Could Make The World A Better Place." Here are the books that made the list:

1. Reason for Hope by Jane Goodall
   
2. Sold by Patricia McCormick
   
3. Night by Elie Wiesel
   
4. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
   
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
   
6. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
   
7. The Big Necessity by Rose George
   
8. Room by Emma Donoghue
   
9. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
   
10. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
    
11. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
    
12. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
    
13. If I Just Had Two Wings by Virginia Frances Schwartz
    
14. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
    
15. Quiet by Susan Cain
    
16. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
    
17. How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff
    
18. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
    
19. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
    
20. The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
    
21. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Naturally, the only book that actually could make the world a better place didn't make the list.

Interactive timeline on the inerrancy of scripture

From Moses to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. View the interactive timeline here.

This Week in Calvinism - November 14, 2014

• Now this is a new one. Steve Tassi believes the parable of the good Samaritan refutes Calvinism. He writes, "Jesus clearly makes the moral argument, that you are committing an immoral act when you do not help someone or simply pass by one who is unable to help themselves." Tassi goes on to argue that since Calvinists believe God passes by totally depraved sinners who cannot help themselves, then God is immoral by his own standards, and Calvinism can't be biblical. Surprisingly, Tassi is not a universalist.
  
  
• The Seeking Disciple is an honest Arminian who is consistent in his theology when he preaches to the lost. He wants Calvinists to do the same. He writes, "[Calvinists] simply end by pleading with the lost to come to faith in Christ and be saved when in fact they should be preaching, 'Those of you who are regenerated, come to faith in Christ as proof of your divine election.'"
  
  
• Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, misses Mark Driscoll: "Maybe he will eventually reemerge chastened and wiser. Unapologetic, polemical, muscular Christianity is needed in every age to challenge sleeping, self-satisfied, apathetic religion." Did we not have muscular Christians before Driscoll?
  
  
• You are not your own.
  
  
• Nine steps to putting that sin to death.
  
  
• Here's the trailer for Doug Wilson's upcoming book, Rules for Reformers.

A dangerous religion

This Week in Calvinism - November 7, 2014

• Regarding Oliver Crisp's book, Deviant Calvinism: Broadening Reformed Theology, Guillaume Bignon concludes, "[I]f the Westminster Confession of faith is the standard by which we measure whether a view qualifies as reformed, we must conclude that the hybrid view contemplated (though likely not believed) by Oliver Crisp is still too deviant to be Calvinist."
  
  
• Over the years, Roger Olson has said some foolish things. His recent comments on capitalism are no exception. Comments like, "Capitalism is a thoroughly secular economic system where participation requires thinking, deciding, and acting as if God does not exist." Olson concludes:

  All I want to say here is that when Christians support and engage in modern, free market capitalism, as it exists in America, they ought to feel it as a crisis within themselves and not comfortably internalize its methodologically atheistic foundations and impulses. Beyond that, insofar as it's possible, they ought to support cooperative businesses and government regulations that soften the "blows" to the weak built into capitalism.

  I am not at all surprised at Dr. Olson's economic ignorance. What surprises me is that he didn't take the opportunity to get in a dig against Calvinism.
  
  
• Calvinism is refuted by all those Old Testament references to "freewill offerings"? Um... okay.
  
  
• "Nicene Nerd" Caleb Smith seeks to explain how "Evangelical Calvinism" differs from classical "TULIP Calvinism."
  
  
• According to T. C. Moore, "New Calvinism makes God into God's own enemy."
  
  
• An Arminian asks, "If God has indeed causally determined 'every thought, word, and deed in all of history,' wouldn't that reduce the inspiration of Scripture to a redundant doctrine?" No, it wouldn't, but since when do Calvinists hold to strict causal determinism? Ever heard of compatibilism?
  
  
• God is merciful not to tell us everything.