Hi Lynn,
In the other thread, Kayla was offering what she believed in after studying and hearing about what Calvinism believes.
So she posts an article written by Dave Hunt in her thread. He's a respected man of God by many and his ministry is in apologetics with the Arminian view of theology.
All that happened that caused the barrage of names, accusations, etc was that she told P4T that he didn't believe in free grace.
So she left off the word theology. It was inferred by the article how Calvinism is wrong, how man is saved by free grace or free will.
When Kayla spoke that........all I can say is that you'd think that kids had entered the room throwing tantrums. I nor Kayla was saying that you don't believe in free grace in other areas of life. The topic was salvation and that Calvinism isn't the correct view, but that free will is or free grace.
To chide her or anyone for saying that the Calvinist doesn't believe in free grace was childish, disrespectful, disingenuous among other things.
You (those involved) all jumped on her right from the start because she made the mistake of not adding theology to the phrase or saying free will instead of free grace, when all the time the topic of discussion was obvious.
I also want to add, Lynn, that no one was telling you personally what you believe. It was about Calvinist's theology. If the shoe fit wear it, if it didn't, don't wear it. And tell us it doesn't fit before you begin calling someone a liar.
Because if the shoe doesn't fit you, it does and will fit other Calvinists. Which is something I brought up to you. There are differing views on Calvinism and different camps that would disagree with one another.
The Calvinist church I belonged to was hyper calvinism so it would be even worse than what some of you probably believe here in this thread.
For one, it gives God pleasure for some to be damned. The non-elect elevates God's sovereignty some how and brings Him glory.
These poor souls don't even know if they're truly saved (one of the elect).
I heard on the radio about three years ago that we can't do anything good as believers. We can't even pray a good prayer. We're still so depraved and yet the bible says we're a new creation, the old has passed and the new has come.
Anyway, so the article(s) were not received well by the Calvinists. And rightly so. The point is that what was said about Calvinists in the articles might apply to you and might not given that there are different schools of thought in the Calvinist camp. Same as Arminians, you'll find different beliefs there as well.
So generally speaking, the article covered God's sovereignty, how one is saved and how Dave's view is in disagreement with Calvinism. So if the article doesn't resemble you, why get so upset? Instead of saying Kayla was putting words in your mouth, she wasn't.
She posted an article and if you didn't agree with it, just say so. Good grief, would that have been so difficult? And whatever you disagreed with, couldn't you have just said what you believed?
Isn't it time to get over it, apologize and love and forgive one another?
But I got what you mean.
