Is Calvinism a false denomination?

[K Watt]

What is meant by draw?

Attract

 

[Hammster]

Attract

Are you sure that’s what the Greek word means?

 

[K Watt]

Are you sure that’s what the Greek word means?

Jesus spoke Aramaic.

 

[Hammster]

Jesus spoke Aramaic.

It was written in Greek.

 

[solid_core]

You don’t have to.

OK, whenever you will say you want a quote or source I will say I will not dig around to find it.

 

[Hammster]

OK, whenever you will say you want a quote or source I will say I will not dig around to find it.

Okay.

 

[FredVB]

Calvinists believe in a "Wicked, cruel and unjust God."

We do not. We believe the exact opposite. If we believed in a wicked, cruel and unjust God that god would not be the God of the Bible. If anything, Reformed Theology accelerates the grace of God. Look at it this way. If you lived your entire life in ignorance of God not knowing that from the moment you were born (and before that) God was watching over you, eagerly awaiting your birth and had chosen you to be his Child from before he made anything? (Galatians 1:5, Isaiah 44:24, Ephesians 1:4 & tons of more verses). During that time, he made sure you grew up just the way he wanted you to, cried when you cried (Matthew 5:4) just... all out grace throughout your entire life. And then at just the right moment in your life, you hear the gospel. You think about it for a few days but you're like "There's no way that can possibly be true, there's no way it's that easy" and then finally at just the right moment a few days later God completely opens your heart and you just find yourself on your knees pleading with God for forgiveness and to wipe out your sins and from that day foreward you crucify your old self along with Christ. That was my personal conversion experience and if you're completely honest with yourself, yours.

True, there's the issue of the unsaved and how we as humans think that it's "unfair" for God to choose some for hell when he "wanted the whole world to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9). God DOES want the whole world to come to repentance. But, God knows that he desires something that is impossible. God waits for the perfect moment in a persons life to completely open their heart so they come to him in perfect repentance, the way he desires them to. There's a reason Christ hasn't come back yet. And it's not so that more people can freely accept the gospel. It's so that everybody who is written in his book of life will be saved, then he will come with fire and fury. (I didn't forget about the 144,000 Jews that will be saved at the end. But, they're saved and spared on Earth while the tribulation is going on.)

Yes, it seems unfair that God chose some for hell. But who are we to tell God how to be God? To me, this whole free will thing is something that mankind has just come up with to somehow make the reality of hell more bareable. The Bible says time and time again that God chose his sheep from before the foundation of the world, that means YOU were chosen if God gave you faith. And if he didn't, you never know when someone will come to you with the gospel at just the right second and God opens your heart. It can happen at ANY time of your life, even on your very deathbed. As Peter says, God is patient with all of us and comes to us at just the right time in our lives.

I do not call Calvinism itself a cult, though I am getting tempted to call more of Christianity cultic with departing from ways of Jesus in modern Christian movements and beliefs, mixed with the surrounding culture of the world and with involvement in politics.

But your post contradicts itself there. God chooses some for hell? It is not relevant if it is not right to tell God what to do. It is contradicting that God is so loving and with all God's grace, that which I actually do believe. There is human accountability, which that position puts on God instead, having God make some people go to hell. If it is not human accountability that turns aways from opportunity for redemption, it would be God's responsibility for that which contradicts God's goodness claimed even here. That we cannot understand God so well, which is true, doesn't change that we can see goodness, which is not that which chooses God's creatures for hell ultimately with no other opportunity ever for them.

 

[The Liturgist]

That’s not actually true. One, it’s not a denomination. Two, the term was actually a prerogative at first, and it unfortunately stuck and has led to false assumptions like the one you made here.

Indeed, I can’t say what I feel about “Calvinism” but the Presbyterian Church in America and the CCCC (traditional Congregationalists who bailed out of what became the United Church of Christ, something I also recently did) I really like. I also have a strong interest in the historic Church of Scotland, particularly the impact of the Liturgical Movement and Mercersburg Theology, and so-called “Scoto-Catholicism” which advocated rich liturgical services with Calvinist theology. There is a remnant group, I think they’re called the Church Service Society. Fascinating stuff.

I am planning a pilgrimage to Boston to visit the historic churches, mostly Congregational at one time, a few Presbyterian and the famously Anglican Old North Church, some fallen into Unitarianism, but on that trip I will be worshipping at the Park Street Church, a CCCC parish which I love so much, its in my avatar.

 

[BobRyan]

1. Calvinists only believe a few people will be saved and many people will go to hell.

Completely 100% wrong. We believe the exact opposite .

Matt 7
13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
..
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’