TIME names "New Calvinism" 3rd Most Powerful Idea Changing the World

TIME Magazine ^ | March 12, 2009 | David Van Biema

[CondoleezzaProtege]

John Calvin's 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination's logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.

Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don't have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by "glorifying" him. In the 1700s, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards invested Calvinism with a rapturous near mysticism. Yet it was soon overtaken in the U.S. by movements like Methodism that were more impressed with human will. Calvinist-descended liberal bodies like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) discovered other emphases, while Evangelicalism's loss of appetite for rigid doctrine — and the triumph of that friendly, fuzzy Jesus — seemed to relegate hard-core Reformed preaching (Reformed operates as a loose synonym for Calvinist) to a few crotchety Southern churches.

No more. Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don't operate quite on a Rick Warren scale. But, notes Ted Olsen, a managing editor at Christianity Today, "everyone knows where the energy and the passion are in the Evangelical world" — with the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle's pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinist-flavored ESV Study Bible sold out its first printing, and Reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christendom's hottest links.

[Religion Moderator]

I shall try to be very clear.

Free Republic is pro-God.

This is the Religion Forum on Free Republic.

To the same extent a liberal would be a troll on the News/Activism Forum, an atheist would be a troll on the Religion Forum.

But we cut the atheists some slack on the RF because the debate seems to be interesting to other Freepers. Also, there are many "preachers" on the RF and the atheists give them someone to preach "to."

I have however banned some atheists who went from thread-to-thread trolling for a fight because this is a religion forum and that behavior is trouble-making.

That said, making the thread "about" an individual Freeper is indeed a form of "making it a personal."

However, your posts on this thread have made yourself a target just as much as a certain "prophet" has made himself a target by speaking for God in first person.

Just like a "caucus" cannot be used as "cover" to slam other Freepers' beliefs, the RF guideline to not make the thread "about" a particular Freeper cannot be used as "cover" to slam other Freepers' beliefs.

So I instructed the other poster that, to avoid the heat, he should post his prophecies under a "caucus" or "devotional" label. He declined preferring to be a target and have open discussion.

And I instruct you to do the same. Post your views under a "caucus" label to avoid the heat. Our first caucus, by the way, was an atheist caucus.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Well jeepers, kosta, this thread has been "about you" for the past several hundred posts, and that didn't happen by accident.

LOLOL.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

"He (Thomas) got what he asked for."

An actual, physical encounter with the risen Jesus.

Is that what it would take for you to believe without reservation, Kosta?

[Mr Rogers]

"He determines whom to regenerate by the Holy Spirit whose leading will then enable that man to believe in Jesus Christ to the saving of his soul."

"...these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

Believe to life, or life to believe?

[kosta50]

Not on purpose perhaps, but clearly you are sowing seeds of doubt

Well, for starters God is not a "what". Nature is a "what". God is a "who"

Well, for starters I disagree. By dogma, the Trinitarian God is Divine Nature, or Essence in which Christians recognize three personal divine hypostatic realities, each being equally God or divine. Three in one, not one divided into three.

But, that being so, every 'who' is also something that makes him what he is. So, instead of "what is God" substitute "what is divine?"

so if you are looking for evidence of God, and you are not willing to look for the supernatural outside...

First why would I be looking for evidence of God. I am merely asking what is God. How can I look for evidence of something if I don't know what it is?!?

Second, what is supernatural?

So I will ask you a question. What evidence, if any, would you accept to prove to you that God exists?

First I need to know what is God. I can't consider evidence if I don't know what it is I am looking for.

In reviewing your posts, you seem to cast doubt on the eyewitness testimony of Christ's miracles and his resurrection

Because it's a single biased source which a somewhat shady past with an agenda. Becuase there is a conflict of interest, an attempt of monopoly on truth.

[kosta50]

But there is more evidence for these events than there is for just about any other events in history.

Apples and oranges. The Bible is a single source that describes "supernatural" events that cannot be corroborated but must be believed or else you are not "saved." What kind of evidence is that?  Besides I don't have to believe uncorroborated historical narratives in order to be "saved." No one in the real world, expect you to believe hearsay, and magical anecdotal tales as absolute truth except in scriptures (not just Christians ones).

Not only do you have the eyewitness accounts, but you have the testimony of the people who knew the gospel writers intimately and who testified to the veracity of the gospel accounts.

We don't know that. How do you know that they are eyewitness accounts? Eyewitness accounts written decades after the fact?  

Muslim scriptures fair no better: Allah dictates the entire Koran to an illiterate Bedouin who memorizes it perfectly and then dictates it to a scribe piecemeal later on! Yeah, and I have a great lot for sale in the Everglades...

Now if you are not willing to believe the eyewitness accounts because somehow they might be biased, then how can you believe anything?

Because the eyewitness accounts are not always truthful. Look at the 1917 Fatima "miracle of the Sun" witnessed by 70,000 people! In absence of opposing views, the veracity of any document is compromised, because it "authenticates" itself. There is a conflict of interest.

The difference also is I don't have to believe it; there are no fundamental existential conditions attached to me believing anything. But they are every much attached when it comes to God.

[kosta50]

Do you cast doubt upon your own experience?

Very much so. Our memory is very unreliable and refuses to yield even when presented with undeniable evidence to the contrary. Some time ago, I illustrated the case of a British reporter in Northern Ireland in the '70's who recounted a decade or so later vividly remembering a British soldier in a red beret aiming his rifle at him.

It just so happens that someone snapped a photograph of that horrifying moment, showing that the soldier had a helmet and not a red beret. The reporter was amazed that – even after seeing the photograph – his mind was still "remembering" the red beret vividly.

Are you an eyewitness to your own birth?

I am not. 

You were there, 

Just being there is not enough to be an eyewitness. 

but then again you still have to take the word of others that you were born where you were and when you were.

Yes.

Do you doubt the birth certificate that you have? Do you doubt your mother's testimony of when you were born?

Neither doubt it nor believe it. Could I have been swapped by mistake? Definitely! Could my mother have adopted me and never told me that she is not my natural mother? Definitely!

If not, then why are you so skeptical of the eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus?

I have no Jesus agenda.  I distrust all "supernatural" claims. My distrust is proportional to how extraordinary a claim is in proportion to the evidence offered in support of it. If it is magical I treat it as magic.

[kosta50]

Did not the authors of those gospel accounts give their lives in defense of their testimony?  

Do you have extra biblical evidence of that? No you don't. Again, everything begins and ends in the Bible, and Bible related legends, a priori assumed to be true. How do we "know" that Stephen allegedly prayed to Jesus? Easy, the Bible says so! Of course it does.

How do we "know" that Paul was in Rome? The legend says so. How do we "know" Peter was crucified upside down? How do we "know" Joseph Smith found hieroglyphic tablets? How do we "know" God parted the red Sea? How do we know The Koran is Allah's own word without any errors? How do we "know" Ahura Mazda will defeat Ahriman? Let me guess...

The legend says so. It's all legend and hearsay. We have "eyewitness" accounts written decades after the fact, in copies written and rewritten hundreds of times by hand without any outside corroboration of alleged "supernatural" events.

If the Fatima "miracle" in 1917 occurred before photography, say 100 years earlier, we would have religions zealots "testifying" that the miracle did happen because it was "witnessed" by 70,000 people! And by now it would be a legend accepted as truth (well, it actually is in some circles). Who can argue with that? Well, in this case it was film.

Thankfully, some pointed their cameras to the sun and recorded no miracle. I guess the diehards will argue that it did happen but that the cameras lacked the "spiritual eyes" needed to see the "invisible." Who knows, he may even successfully be practicing law somewhere...

[kosta50]

This is the Religion Forum. Why are you here?

Curiosity. To learn. Ask. Is it a caucus?

Why are you here?

[kosta50]

And you claim you are not here to sow seeds of doubt?

No, but you seem to be mindreading. What's wrong with doubt? I simply asked a question if xzins knew that God is a Spirit because the Bible says so or does one know what even without the Bible?

[the_conscience]

The answer to your other questions is no and no.

That's great! Now that you rejected Arminianism on the grounds that it's fatalistic in that Arminianism teaches that there is a force greater than God and that God and Man operate within the universe of that force, then it should be evident that only the Reformed doctrine teaching that man's actions are truly free and that his actions will always result in consequences is the only non-fatalistic doctrine in all of Christianity.

So the answer to your question is yes.

[kosta50]

You insist on your place with the Orthodox Church

I explained already: I was baptized Orthodx and at one time believed.

So, I think you post here because you like the debate to some degree, but also because you like the attention.

I am curious. I can't help if my questions attract responses. I have more on my plate than I prefer. One or two debaters is one thing, a dozen is too much to give everyone a fair answer.

But if I see something I disagree with or have questions about, I will not pass it up. It's not attention-seeking. But your conslusions are mindreading and making it personal.

I don't go into your motives or your life or character. But I could. And I guess on this forum it's okay.

[xzins]

I simply asked a question if xzins knew that God is a Spirit because the Bible says so or does one know what even without the Bible?

I remember your asking who/what God is, and I remember my replying with "God is Spirit...", but I missed your follow-on question. It's a natural response to my answer, so I'm sorry I missed it.

I think nature itself teaches that God is not of this dimension. Spirit is the word for the God-dimension.

How do I know that it intersects this dimension? There are many answers to include prophecy, divine intervention, biblical record, etc., but one of the interesting ones I ran across about a decade ago was a bit of research in which folks had been asked if they'd experienced an unusual event that they could only explain as God. It was a huge percent. I'm going to have to look it up again. I used it in a program I presented at Kansas State entitled "The Spiritual Dimension of Family Living." I've probably got it lying around in some dusty file box someplace.

[P-Marlowe]

Why are you here?

The Religion forum to me is a place to meet and confer with people who have spiritual minds and who are seeking spiritual truths; to discuss theology and the implications of our theological positions and beliefs; to have an online fellowship of like-minded believers who will give us support and prayer in times of need; and to discuss the spiritual implications of politics and world events and to engage each other in spirited dialog to test our faith and strengthen it through steel on steel discussions and to engage each other in the study of God's word and the history of our spiritual heritage.

Among other things.

Basically I suppose I was just predestined to post here.

[kosta50]

IIRC, At least one of the narratives about the events was written quite close to the events

They tell me you were there...

[P-Marlowe]

Now that you rejected Arminianism on the grounds that it's fatalistic

LOL!

I reject Arminainsism for the same reason I reject Calvinism. I don't think you can put God in a box. Both systems tend to define God in a way that somehow confines God and limits his sovereignty and hence in my opinion both Calvinism and Arminianism are true in what they assert, but are both wrong and effectively inconsistent in what they deny.

So the answer to your question is yes.

I asked four questions so if your answer is "yes" then I must assume we had the following coversation:

PM: Is the future fixed? 

tc: yes

PM: Can you do anything which God has not foreordained from before the creation?

tc: yes

PM: Has not God declared the end from the beginning?

tc: yes

PM: Which one of us is the Calvinist here?

tc: yes

Ok, here's my followup question:

What can you possibly do which God has not foreordained from before the creation?

[kosta50]

And I instruct you to do the same. Post your views under a "caucus" label to avoid the heat. Our first caucus, by the way, was an atheist caucus.

Take you RM. I will stop posting on this thread. Then they can go back to arguing with each other. My intention was never to slap other Freepers' beliefs. I always remind them that I respect everyone's beliefs. But when stated as facts, I ask for proof. That seems to infuriate some.

That's not my intention. I ask questions to get answers, not to start a fight. Obviously some can't handle the heat. So, those who can and want to continue the discussion can contact me via PM. Thank you again.

[betty boop]

I've probably got it lying around in some dusty file box someplace.

Oh, I hope you will find it xzins! It would be interesting to "compare notes" on experiences of such "unusual events." I've had a few such "unusual events" myself....

[xzins]

Obviously some can't handle the heat

IIRC, you're the one who pinged the RM over speculation/mind-reading.

[betty boop]

Kosta thinks he is being an objective analyst but in reality his method of examining the evidence is entirely subjective. He seems to have made up his own rules for examining the evidence. He refuses to look at anything other than natural empirical evidence in order to believe in the supernatural and then when confronted with the evidence, i.e., the eyewitness testimony of people who literally gave their lives in defense of their testimony, he shrugs it off as being "biased".

I don't think kosta's looking for "natural empirical evidence in order to believe in the supernatural." He's willing to admit only "evidence" that conforms to his presupposition that there is no such thing as the supernatural.

He's got some kind of doctrinal filter at work. All nonconforming evidence be damned a priori. Especially direct experiential evidence and testimony of same. All witnesses are suspect because of kosta's impossible criteria, which they cannot possibly satisify. He keeps moving the goalpost anyway. So what is the "measure" here? It can only be — kosta. I.e., something that exists only in kosta's mind.... That is, in a most relentlessly subjective (non)standard. His method tears him out of the community of Being. So his subjective maunderings are IMHO doubly suspect.

Meanwhile, it seems to me kosta is here not to argue in good faith, but to propagandize in a vague sort of way, and to agitate against the Living God. JMHO FWIW.