Jeremy Riddle's "Sweetly Broken"

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A song that was faith-changing for me, very near and dear to my heart: Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle  

(However, I won't buy any of his new albums because he got involved with Bethel Church, in Redding, California, and they are messed up!) 

Most Popular Posts of the Week:

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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God's Greatest Priority (and why there's a hell)

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Calvinists believe that God's greatest priority - His primary reason for making people - is to get more glory for Himself, and that He gets it through ordaining sin and predestining people to hell.  They think that this is why people are in hell: for God's glory, that He gets glory when He shows off His justice by punishing sin and evil.  And so He needed sin and evil and non-elect people to punish or else He couldn't fully display all His attributes to get praise and glory for them.   [But remember that - in Calvinism - people don't actually get to choose whether or not they want to believe in Jesus.  God decides for them.  He decides who won't believe and prevents them from being able to believe, and then He punishes them for not believing, even though they never had the chance or ability to believe, by God's decree.  This is a  far different  kind of "justice" than punishing people who actually deserve it, who had a choice.  In fact, ...
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The Early Church and God's Gender

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I said in the last post that there was one article on a Christian News website that bothered me enough to remove the link to that website.  But then I re-added the link, and decided to simply write about the bothersome article here. The article is entitled "What The Early Church Thought About God's Gender."   In this article, the author is trying to make a case for God/Jesus being feminine, more feminine than the Word really portrays them.   I have no problem with saying that God/Jesus has a feminine side - a gentle, loving, nurturing side, like all people do to some degree.  Or with saying that since God created man and woman in His image then it must mean that feminine and masculine characteristics come from Him and are evident in His nature.  It's just that men got the more masculine traits and women got the more feminine, and that men and women together in marriage give us a more complete picture of the total nature of God. That's all fine.  But w...
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A Coronavirus "Plandemic"? A 26-minute video you need to see

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Everyone should watch this 26-minute video: Plandemic Part 1 by Dr. Mikovits .  (FYI: I watched this video yesterday on a different YouTube link.  It had something like a million views.  And it's already been removed today.  Big surprise!  This is why I watched it right away and wrote up a short summary of my thoughts on it.  Because I figured it would be silenced!  So watch it soon, before this is removed too.) A friend found it yesterday and shared it with me.   While it’s scary stuff, it didn’t shock me because it coincides with what I’ve already thought about this whole virus situation, among other things: ... That there’s something fishy about it and it’s not natural … ... That there are unhealthy and dangerous connections between Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci and government health agencies (CDC, FDA, WHO, etc.), among others … ... That there are shady coronavirus reporting practices in the hospitals, such as financial incentives for doctors ...
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Hypocritical Liberals! A Fundamental Problem in America

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So ... when it comes to prayer in schools, we have to abide by the "separation of church and state" thing:  "Kentucky School Removes 'Prayer Locker' After Anti-Religion Group Complains"   (So it doesn't matter if the students wanted it or were helped by it, does it!?!  All that matters is that the anti-religion group gets their way!)   When someone chooses, out of love and compassion, to give their Bible to a hurting person who's at the end of their rope, the liberals cry "Separation of church and state!":  "Left-Wing Group Files Complaint Against Christian Judge Who Hugged, Gave Bible To Remorseful Killer"   (So it's not enough that the Left-Wingers lack compassion and love and would rather see broken people stay broken, but now they have to force others to be just like them too!  To stop others from showing compassion and love and from helping hurting people! ) Christians want to help tutor struggling students?  ...
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Problems in John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion

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I have been studying and confronting the problems of Calvinism for a little while now.  (In fact, I have a whole other blog about it: The Anti-Calvinist Rant. )  But now I want to go right to the source, to John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion .  This is a long, rambling, confusing book about Calvin's theological views, written when he was about 27 years old.  And I think it's full of problems.  (O f course, there will be some correct things in there, some wise things.  But don't let that blind you to his errors.) I am going to do my best to, well, understand his writing, for starters.  It's really confusing writing.  It sounds more like philosophical ramblings than inspired doctrine.  And I am going to do my best to point out some of what I think are Calvin's biggest theological blunders, the things that make his theology wrong from the very start. I'm not going to look at everything, just mainly at his teachings of prede...
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This One's For You! (A Christmas Sermon)

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Did you ever listen to a sermon where you felt as if God was saying "This one's for you"?  I've never looked up Willow Creek sermons before, but for some reason I decided to watch one yesterday.  And you know what?  This one was meant for me.  It really hit me in the heart.  Watch it; it's good.  In fact, I couldn't stop thinking about it all day and into the night.  (Skip to the 35-minute mark to start the sermon.) "Christmas at the movies: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (December 18, 2022)" (Willow Creek Huntley YouTube channel) Merry Christmas, Everyone! [FYI: I've written before about how I disagree with woman being head pastors.  And it seems that, at Willow, the head pastor is a man but there are several teaching pastors under him, including women.  To me, that's a gray area.  And I'm not sure yet what I think of it.  But  since it doesn't break my hardline, definitive "no woman head pastor" rule , I've decided to ...
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Update to "Letter To Our Elders," About Teaching Predestination in the Kids' Classes

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I added this update to the post  "Letter To Our Elders Regarding Calvinism That's Growing In Our Church,"  but I wanted to put it in it's own post too.  Just because.   (FYI, Our ex-church is an Evangelical Free Church, and these churches are being taken over by Calvinism all over the place.  Nearly 40% of EVFree churches are Calvinist, and I believe that number will grow.  See  this post  for more on that.)    In that letter, I didn't have any real requests for the elders other than that they try to reel in the pastor about how dogmatic he is about his Calvinism ... and that they did not teach predestination (the Calvinist version) in the kids' classes without at least notifying the parents or asking their permission first.  Because this is a highly debatable issue.  And so the parents should be able to decide what they want their kids to hear about it, especially since it strongly affects people's faith and view of God....
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Hardest Spiritual Lesson #7: Accepting Love and Forgiveness

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Another lesson that's really hard for many of us:  Letting Yourself Be Loved or Forgiven (note: there's a bonus section at the end of this post). Not everyone will face this lesson, but those with broken pasts will know what I’m talking about.    One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn in my spiritual life (and in my earthly life) is to let myself be loved by someone ... by Someone.   I come from a very dysfunctional home.    Three dads by the time I was 8.    And then another dad (after a  very messy  divorce) when I was in my late-20's/early-30’s.    I didn’t grow up with my bio-dad or his family.    I didn’t even really meet them until my teens.    And then after that, I’d see them about once or twice a year, sometimes less.    I never really felt like I belonged to a dad or had a place in my extended families (or that my mom was an emotionally-safe person, so I never went to her for enco...
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