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.