Televangelist Rev. D. James Kennedy dies

MiamiHerald ^ | 09/05/2007 | ELINOR J. BRECHER

[George W. Bush]

Some great biographical details here that I didn't know (meeting his wife in the Arthur Murray studio, the antipathy of sodomites toward him, his influence among Dominionists and conservative Presby folk, etc.)

He did well for his ministry and for the cause of Christ overall. He didn't have the kinds of embarrassments we've seen with Falwell and Robertson, let alone Jim Bakker and Haggerty and others.

And he was a good Calvinist to boot!

[Vinnie]

A truly great man. Sad to hear this.

[Jack Black]

Calvinist? I thought he was a Presbyterian ...

[Larry Lucido]

I recall several in the Dallas area alone while I lived there in the 80s and 90s that numbered 10 to 20 thousand. Not making a statement about big churches, just commenting on the overuse of the term “fastest growing.” Only one church can be “fastest growing” at a time, and if it is the “fastest growing” for three decades straight, it should be pretty good sized by the end (unless they all exited out another door or unless no one else hardly grew at all).

[CitadelArmyJag]

I hope that his Truth That Transforms radio series remains available to download at the website -I would sure miss hearing his voice and message.

RIP to a great Christian Patriot

[George W. Bush]

“Controversial” for these Leftist MSM dweebs is code for “Christian who reads the Bible as it was written”!

They can't handle plain text. It excludes emanations, penumbras from a Constitution and the blessings of God for their sodomy-loving ways.

[Guenevere]

(in a nutshell)----John Calvin was a French Reformed theologian....(during the Reformation/Martin Luther)

He was a central developer of Reformed thinking during this time.

A Reformed Presbyterian is Calvinist in theology.

I belong to the Reformed Presbyterian Church (like D.James Kennedy) ...the Presbyterian Church, PCA.

The PCA was started when she broke away from mainline USA Presbyterian due to apostasy in the church...
..this was in the 70's.

There's much more...but maybe I answered your question.

[Guenevere]

also....there are 5 points of Calvinism

1-Total Depravity

2-Unconditional election

3-Limited atonement

4-Irresistable Grace

5-Perseverance of the Saints.

[Ramius]

a world-class, 6,500-pipe organ...

WOW. Holey moley I'll bet that thing really cranks.

[bannie]

I like this man.

Our loss and Heaven’s gain.

[PAR35]

Presbyterians trace their theological tree from the Scriptures to Augustine to Calvin to Knox to the Westminster Assembly of Divines. The Dutch Reformed branch off at Calvin and go through the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort.

So it is proper to refer to both those who have remained true to the Three Forms of Unity and those that subscribe to the Westminster Standards as Reformed or Calvinist in theology. They find common theology in the Institutes of the Christian Religion (Calvin’s best known work).

[Jack Black]

Hmm, 5 Points of Calvanism also sounds like the Democratic platform for 2008:

1-Total Depravity
Democrats strongly support depravity in all its forms.

2-Unconditional election
Democrats deserve to win election, unconditionally. Continue recounting until the desired result is achieved. Add ‘found votes’ as needed.

3-Limited atonement
In the rare event a Dem is caught doing something wrong, say like having $100,000 in marked bills from a foreign bribe found in your freezer ... make a small apology for “the appearance of impropriety” and move on (.org!)

4-Irresistable Grace
Don’t worry about the specifics of programs, taxes and all that stuff. Focus on give-aways (grace). Dumb donkey voters can never get enough of something-for-nothing.

5-Perseverance of the Saints.
Never allow real history to be told. Edward R. Murrow was a great journalist, even if technically he was wrong about everything having to do with the hated Sen. McCarthy. JFK was a full blown saint, even if we now know he liked to mess around with drugs and prostitutues. FDR was a mircale worker who saved us from everything bad and allowed poor people to breath without paying for air for the first time in the USA.

.... Sorry, I know this was a serious post. I went an read the Wikipedia entry on Calvanism .. which is how I remember it from college class more or less.

So, don’t take offense at my little attempt at humor.

Do Presby’s consider themselves ‘Calvinist’? I have been attending a Presby church for 4 years once in a while with my daughter (who plays in their band) and I’ve never heard this term used.

What is the point of outreach if God has decided who to save? I think the Catholic doctrine makes more sense. (Human choice, starting with the Adam and Eve episode and continuing through to this day..)

[PAR35]

You may be thinking of Prestonwood Baptist, which while now much larger than Coral Ridge, had a later start. If you select the right set of years, you might be able to call it the fastest growing for that time period. Prestonwood started in 1977, with the 80s being its decade for tremendous growth.

Lover’s Lane Methodist and Highland Park Methodist would have been in that size range in the 80s and 90s, but I don’t believe either of them had a spurt like Coral Ridge. UP Baptist. First Baptist was larger in that era, but had already begun to shrink. (Remember, also, that by the early 80s Dallas was beginning to hit hard times from the oil slump, followed by the bank crisis, so many of the churches plateaued in that era.

Peachtree Presbyterian in Atlanta also hit high numbers, but like many of the Dallas churches, it had a higher base when it started growing.

[PAR35]

Do Presby’s consider themselves ‘Calvinist’?

It depends on the Presbyterian - some aren't even Christian any more. Freep mail me the name of the church, and I'll be happy to research it for you.

What is the point of outreach if God has decided who to save?

Because scripture commands it. He is also generous enough to allow us to share in His victory, even though He does all the work.

[yorkie]

He sure was one of the good guys, IMHO.

I am very familiar with his outreach program, “Evangelism Explosion”.

He IS resting in Peace, I feel.

[George W. Bush]

Do Presby’s consider themselves ‘Calvinist’? I have been attending a Presby church for 4 years once in a while with my daughter (who plays in their band) and I’ve never heard this term used.

Real Presbyterians do.

You are aware these Presbyterians descend from the old Puritans who fled England, having executed the first king of Europe for conspiring with the pope and Irish papist hordes to invade his own country and persecute his own subjects for expecting him to respect his own agreement to recognize the sovereignty of Parliament? That the English Calvinists (Puritans and Presbyterians) were incited by the seditious anti-monarchical sentiments of the footnotes in the Geneva bible (see Isaiah 14 for a good example about evil kings)? That the King James Version was produced (but too late) solely to displace the Geneva with only one requirement by King James: that it contain no footnotes of any kind, a pointed reference to the Geneva? That the American revolution was characterized in England by the witticism, soon to be rued, that "cousin America has eloped with a Presbyterian parson"? That every colonel in the Revolutionary Army except one was a Presbyterian elder? That Jefferson's Declaration of Independence is a barely concealed plagiarism of a very seditious document circulated by Presbyterians in 1775 (not so surprising if you know the history about Jefferson and his championing of religious freedom because of the Baptists)?

Anyway, we've had a few threads on the topic over time.

I can hardly overstate the usefulness of this following thread. (Uriel1975 was an earlier screen name for OrthodoxPresbyterian.)

The Root of America -- The Tree of Liberty is watered with the blood of Calvinists [Free Republic]

[George W. Bush]

What is the point of outreach if God has decided who to save? I think the Catholic doctrine makes more sense. (Human choice, starting with the Adam and Eve episode and continuing through to this day..)

I appreciate your humor. In truth, the Dims are Arminian in outlook and Republicans far more philosophically Calvinistic. I think this is a very defensible proposition.

As for a painfully simplistic notion that "God has decided who to save"? Well, to deal with it briefly, I would say that God is eternal, He has an eternal plan which will be fulfilled. And He has utter free will. Man is also granted free will by his Creator (along with certain Unalienable Rights) and therefore Man does only his free will at all times. Unless God's plan may, on rare occasions, require that He overrule that outcome as, for instance, the delivery of Jonah to Ninevah despite his own choice not to go there. Certainly, Jonah possessed free will. But so did God. In a battle between the two, God wins. And all of mankind's free will is perfect and self-chosen. God's will is that none should perish without hope. So God respects our free will but not to the point of allowing our utter destruction. All of our free will is enfolded within God's own masterful free will which shall certainly produce the exact results and the exact number of children of God which He has foreordained. And God has saved every last soul that He could, no matter how some persons like to libel His perfect justice and good intent toward us.

Anyway, those are some tidbits of random confused Calvinist thought. Make of them what you will. In any event, it's not my problem. LOL. More seriously, I do not consider myself or you yourself to be the master of your salvation or anyone else's. Salvation is of God and from God alone. It is not a twelve-step program which you might observe in Arminian churches and it is a truly supernatural event. Calvinists worship an all-powerful, all-sovereign God. Arminians worship a God who crawls before them on hands and knees, begging them to accept salvation until, having finally seen the light, they accept the teensy bit of help from God which will usher them through the Pearly Gates. Now, this is a tendentious rendering but I want to emphasize the absolute sovereignty of God in all matters but especially in salvation which is the hallmark of the Calvinists. Arminians represent the I'm-good-enough-I'm-smart-enough-and-doggone-it-God-likes-me school of theology. Calvinism exalts God utterly. Arminianism, well, doesn't.

As for Catholic doctrine, Calvinists consider Catholics and Arminians to be differing varieties of semi-Pelagianists and the later Arminians.

Much of this fight is not about Calvin who merely wrote a systematic and legalistic defense of the Reformation defending the principles of God's sovereignty. In fact, Calvin and Luther were both reviving the teachings of Augustine on the sovereignty of God. Calvinists in general embrace a large portion of Augustine's writings that Catholicism rejects in their own greatest theologian, the great Augustine.

Sorry to blither at such length but it seems to me that Dr. Kennedy would perhaps be pleased by even such an inept defense of Calvinistic thought for which he was himself such an eloquent champion.

[Larry Lucido]

Yep, I remember those ones now. Seems like there were a couple more in Rowlett or Round Rock - Lakepoint, or Church on the Rock. Never went but I remember the billboards.

[George W. Bush]

Because scripture commands it. He is also generous enough to allow us to share in His victory, even though He does all the work.

So many folks never grasp the many mentions of God glorifying Himself and the importance of it. Nowhere in the text is Man ever glorified, the only exception being the Son Of Man, Christ's preferred title.

Among theologians, the Calvinists get this one 100% right because they grasp God's absolute sovereignty and do not imagine that God's absolute free will is somehow constrained by man's own free will. Meanwhile, the Arminian theologians are too busy worshipping themselves and looking down their noses at God, a puny creature they imagine to be groveling before them.

And here I thought I had become one of those "nice Calvinists". LOL.

[PAR35]

I think Church on the Rock in Rockwall went belly up. They had explosive growth in the 80s, and then I think exploded. I don’t recall what happened to them. Lakepointe Baptist may have bought the facility, but I’m working from memory, not research, here. (Did a quick check. Lake Pointe Baptist did buy the old Church on the Rock facility in 1996 - 5000 seat auditorium. I didn’t remember it being that long ago.)

There’s still a ‘Church on the Rock North’ in Carrollton. It looks like they have about 2000 weekly attendance - not in the majors by Texas standards.