Oh, the ways this could go wrong!

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So apparently, China is starting a new program - a social scorecard , a rating system for all its citizens where your score determines what kind of things you have access to.  

 Yeah ... I don't see how this could go wrong at all, do you!?! 

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When Calvinists say "But predestination!" (tiny, bare-bones version)

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[Here's the tiniest version of my "But predestination!" post.  The short version with more memes and quotes and information can be  found here , and t he longest version (a series of posts full of many more Calvinist comments, my Calvinist ex-pastor's sermons, and my replies to them, written for my own amusement and for my ex-church) can be found by  starting here .  But this tiny version includes only the most basic parts you need to know, with a few memes and quotes thrown in to spice it up and prove my points.  (I know this could be much tinier, but Calvinism has so many bunny trails, so many interlocking ideas, that it's hard to address one part without addressing more.  So this is as comprehensively tiny as I dared to make it.) ] At the heart of Calvinism is predestination and God's sovereignty (among other things, like "total depravity"), which according to Calvinism essentially amounts to:  "God preplans and controls everything, even sin ...
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A Place For Us All!

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  A fantastic song from a fantastic movie ( Jesus Revolution  - a favorite!):  Living Water  by Anne Wilson  As she rightly sings, "He paid  every  sinner's price!" And so "every outcast, every wrong-way, runaway rebel" - no matter who you are or where you've been - can come on down to the Living Water and find hope, healing, and eternal life in Jesus.   No one is hopeless.  No one is too far gone.  No one is destined for hell.   There's a place for us all in God's family.  All of us are able to and welcome to freely accept the gift of eternal life, paid for by Jesus's death for us all.   “For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.    For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."    ( John 3:16-17 ) "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who w...
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A Crash Course in Calvinism (Calvinist Quotes)

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Here is the second half of  the letter  I wrote to pastors who I don't think are Calvinists but who quote from Calvinists a lot.  (I added a few extra quotes and notes that I didn't include in the letter I mailed to them.  When do I ever make anything shorter !?!): FYI, Here are some direct quotes from Calvinists, so that you can see what Calvinism really is in their own words, so that you can see that I’m not exaggerating or misunderstanding them  [my comments in brackets and italics] : John Calvin,  from  Institutes of the Christian Religion,  book 1, chapter 16 :  “Hence we maintain that, by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and  wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined…  Men  do nothing save at the secret instigation of God , and do not discuss and deliberate on anything but what he has previously  decreed  with himse...
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"But predestination!" (16B: sin, evil, suffering)

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In this series, I'm examining some things that Calvinists (especially my ex-pastor) say about predestination.   Here's the posts in the whole series:  the pastor's sermons  ("When Calvinists say 'But predestination!'"), and my comments  1-4 (election)  and  5-6 (Romans and sovereignty)  and  7-9 (depravity, Book of Life, predestine)  and  10-11 (shaming tactics, Feb. 2015)  and  12-14 (dead, regeneration, born again)  and  15 (total depravity, manipulation)   and  16A (God's Will, babies)  and  16B (sin, evil, suffering)  and  17 (double-speak and the gospel) . For the shorter "for everyone" version which has a lot less quotes and a lot less of my thoughts,  click here . Sixteen B (I broke #16 up into two halves, so picking up where we left off in the last post...) And now, moving on from the bulk of my comments to the bulk of the Calvinist quotes, showing you Calvinism in its ...
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Calvinism: Using unclear to interpret clear

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I just found and watched this video against Calvinism yesterday (I have no idea who this pastor is or what else he teaches, but this video was good and on-track, very simplified):  Trojan Horses in the Church Today, part 1: Calvinism I particularly like something he says near the beginning which neatly sums up the fundamental problem of Calvinism: "Calvinism is a man-made philosophy that is contradictory to Scripture.  It is built on the classic error - now listen carefully to this - of interpreting clear passages of Scripture by unclear passages of Scripture.  That is a violation of the ABC's of Bible interpretation.  One of the most basic rules of [Bible] interpretation is you interpret unclear passages by clear ones.  Not the other way around.  But Calvinism is  built on  the idea of interpreting clear, simple passages by unclear ones.  Therefore, if you start with the unclear and you start with a false idea, then you start looking at the ...
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List of Calvinist Preachers, Authors, Theologians, Websites, etc.

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I  found a lot more names to add to my list of known Calvinists (found in my various  "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist"  posts).  But instead of adding this huge list to all those posts, I am going to put it here, and I'll just provide a link on those posts to this one.  [FYI: I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.] So here it is, a "master list" of known Calvinists to help you be careful and discerning about who you listen to and where you get your theology from.  There are plenty more Calvinists out there, but these are just the names that I ran across the most.   These are either definite, self-professed Calvinists or "most likely Calvinist," in my estimation.  (I haven't heard of most of them, but it's good to know their theology before I do.)   After finding these names in various places online, I looked up each person to see if they are Calvinist.  If they did not self-identify ...
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Two inspiring testimonies: Jim and Rob

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I found these while looking up videos on forgiveness for the next Spiritual Warfare post I'm writing, but I wanted to share these in their own post: "Jim Carrey: Shocking Faith Testimony 'Suffering leads to salvation'"  (5.5 minutes long) "Comedian Rob Schneider discovers Jesus, forgiveness: 'I needed...to be home"  (17.5 minutes long - Well said, Rob!) And here's a bit more about Rob's journey , including two great comments he posted. It's so wonderful to see hurting people come to Christ!
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Some Problems With Predestination/Calvinism (And What I Think The Bible Really Says)

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(Part of the "Predestination vs. Free-Will" series) Calvinists (those who believe in predestination, that we don’t have a real choice about salvation) – say that we have to evangelize and pray because God told us to and because God knew that this is how the lost would be saved.   This is a pretty flimsy reason for evangelizing, given that (according to Calvinists) no one really has a choice about where their souls end up anyway.   (And actually, they'll say that we do get a choice, that we freely, willingly choose according to our nature.  But what they don't say is that God alone determines our nature, whether we get a new "saved" one or whether we have to keep the old "sinner" nature which can do nothing but sin and reject God.  This is still God determining whether we believe or not, whether we sin or not.  Don't buy into their double-talk.)              If evangelizing didn’t really make a difference, then doing it j...
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Winning the Battle

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(Reposted from my other blog ... because I needed to be reminded of it often.) I have been in a “funk” lately.  I get in them often, comes with being a child from a broken home.  (This is a repost of something I wrote years ago, but it still strongly applies.)   Prayer has felt futile.  I’ve been wanting to pull back from people.  I am struggling to accept certain “life problems” that I wish I didn’t have.  And I constantly deal with feelings of failure and not mattering. I know it’s not proper for a Christian to expose the fact that they are dealing with depression and frustration with God and disappointment with prayer and unhappiness with life.  I know we are supposed to plaster on that “good, happy, Christian smile” and act like we are full of joy and peace and contentment.  (Or are we?)   But this is the truth about how I feel.  And if I can’t be real with God and other Christians (even anonymously on this blog), then who can I be r...
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To All Who Are Ashamed or Hurting ...

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T o anyone who's done anything they are ashamed of and who wonders if there's any hope for them ... Come to Jesus!  Find the forgiveness and grace and healing that only He can give.  Others might turn on you and might never offer forgiveness, compassion, or mercy.   But Jesus is running towards you, asking you to grab His hand, to let Him love you and forgive you and make you new. (And to anyone who's been hurt by others, who's been carrying around deep heart wounds that need healing ...  Come to Jesus!  He's waiting for you, to heal your broken heart, to give you peace and joy and life.) Who else can you turn to? Who else offers healing and hope like that? Who else can fix what's broken  in your life and heart and soul? A taste of what we Christians believe about  God's grace and mercy, forgiveness and love: Forgiven by Crowd...
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