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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Destroying Calvinism in 28 Easy Steps (tiny version)

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Here is the tiniest-I-could-make-it version of "Fending Off Calvinism (a.k.a. Destroying Calvinism in 28 Easy Steps)"  (from my other blog) - which itself is the second half of a post called "Calvinism's Systematic Theology (and how to fend it off)" - about the fundamental errors of Calvinism that trap well-meaning Christians into a very bad, very deceptive, very tricksy theology.  I cut out as much as I could here, so check out the longer posts in the links above if you want a fuller picture and more information.   [Despite the title of this post, I know there's nothing easy about defeating or debating Calvinism.  It's such a tangled web of errors, with a cult-like vice-grip on people's minds, that it can't be defeated with just a few verses or rebuttals.  Its errors are so complex, interconnected, and deep-rooted that it needs to be completely dismantled idea by idea, wrong definition by wrong definition, misinterpreted verse by misinterpreted...
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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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Alana L.: 4i (Why me?)

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This series is  loosely   based on this 14-minute video from Alana L.:   5 Signs Your Loved One is Becoming a Calvinist   Point #4:   I.  Alana notes that Calvinists will often ask "What makes me so special?  Why did I choose God but my friend or neighbor did not?  Obviously that means God chose me.  Because why would I choose God, and not them?" My note:  Alana notes that this is to shape the mind to "irresistible grace," to make us more amenable to the idea that God draws some but not others, which is the only explanation in Calvinism for why some believe and some don't.   I believe Calvinists have been brainwashed into thinking that if given a true free-will choice,  everyone  in the world would choose eternal life over eternal death.   No one  would voluntarily choose hell.  They assume that  if all people were really given the offer to be saved then  all people  would definitely...
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Things My Calvinist Pastor Said #2: You're Like a "Dead Body"

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[This "Things My Calvinist Pastor Said" series is a breakdown on this much longer post:  "We Left Our Church Because of Calvinism,"  which was written last year but updated July 2020.  All memes were created with  imgflip .   And these are not exact quotes, but they are summaries of what he said (exact quotes from his sermons can be found here ).] 2.   "We are as dead inside as physical dead bodies, unable to do anything.  Like a dead body that just lays there - all dead - we can't even think about, want, or seek God on our own unless God makes us do it, unless the Holy Spirit first regenerates our hearts and opens our eyes."   Calvinists call it "total depravity," but to them it's really "total inability."   [It's much more convincing and deceptive to call mankind "depraved" instead of "unable," because all Christians are willing to admit to the depravity of man.  But if Calvinists called it what they re...
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My Problem With Calvinism Is Not Really About Free-Will, But It's About ...

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  I was thinking last night about how Calvinists think that free-will is the big reason other people don't want to believe in Calvinism, as in "Well, you don't like the idea of not being in control of your own choices, and so that's why you won't accept Calvinism."   They use this to  shame anti-Calvinists, such as when my Calvi-pastor at our ex-church would say these things in sermons: "Most Americans have a hard time accepting God's sovereignty [a Calvinist's definition of it!].  They don't like the idea of someone being in authority over them.  They like to think they are in control of themselves, self-sufficient, standing on their own two feet.  And so they won't humble themselves before Him.  They  resist the idea of God being in control over them, of His sovereignty, because they like their free-will too much." But you know what? It's not about free-will.   My biggest grievance against Calvinism is not about a desire to have...
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Spiritual Warfare: Resources

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I'm not done with the Spiritual Warfare series yet.  Not even close.  (I totally intended it to be short and sweet, but ... oh well).  But I figured I'd share some resources now, in the middle of it.   I told a friend (whose young child recently experienced a probable demonic attack in the middle of the night: The child woke up screaming and thrashing around wildly, screaming that she couldn't control her body, and she continued doing this for an hour.  Nothing could sooth or stop her until the mom commanded demons to leave in Jesus's name, which caused the girl to calm down immediately and fall asleep.  The girl couldn't remember any of this in the morning.)... anyway, I told my friend that it can be overwhelming to search "Spiritual Warfare" online (or in books) because you get all sorts of different websites, and you're not sure who you can trust.  And so I thought I'd share some resources I like.  (Just because I recommend something doesn...
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Deciphering a Calvinist Church's Statement of Faith

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(This is taken from How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist , with some additions at the bottom.  Remember that this is only my opinion, my assessment, and my suggestions, based of what I've learned about Calvinism so far.) A church's Statement of Faith tells you a lot about the theology of that church.  But some Calvinist churches are careful to hide their Calvinist views because they know it's controversial and might scare people off.  So they might be very careful with their wording and will not clearly identify themselves as "Calvinist" or "Reformed."  Sometimes it takes reading between the lines - being able to identify the "covert Calvinism" - to know if the church is Calvinist or not.  1.   First off, pay attention for one or more of these kinds of words and phrases:  election, predestination, decree, ordains or fore-ordains, sovereignty or sovereign control, "doctrines of grace," covenant theology, reforme...
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"But predestination!" (#15: total depravity, manipulation)

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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 .     Fifteenth: Switching tracks: I think a Calvinist's over-emphasis on total depravity - their insistence that we realize how terribly wretched we are before we can be saved - hurts more than helps in...
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Links to "Some Carman Songs for Halloween" and Posts on Spiritual Warfare

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For some "fun" songs from my younger years: "Some Carman Songs for Halloween" And here is a bunch of links about Spiritual Warfare, from my post called "War Rooms, Praying Scripture, and Spiritual Warfare": I strongly believe that there are angels and demons.  That prayer matters.  That there is a spiritual battle going on around us all the time ... and that we need to get involved in it, actively and consciously.  (Something I haven't been doing lately.)   Regardless of if we want it or not, we are constantly facing spiritual battles.  But if we don't acknowledge them - if we stick our head in the sand and refuse to get involved, to put on our spiritual armor, to use the spiritual weapons that are available to us - we open ourselves up to deceptions, to defeat, to being very vulnerable to the strategies and attacks of the evil one. What I have done here is compile a list of posts on spiritual warfare, on praying Scripture, and on creating a War Ro...
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