Comments on: Calvinism is Clever, but Would Jesus Recognise it?

By: Most Read Posts in 2012 on Dreaming Beneath the Spires | Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:32:08 +0000

[…] 8 Calvinism is Clever, but is it Christianity? […]

By: Miss Mollie

Miss Mollie — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 02:36:25 +0000

Romans 3, especially verse 10.

By: Anita Mathias

Anita Mathias — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 10:58:52 +0000

Yes, theologies which make people cold, self-righteous, proud, arrogant, sure of themselves and disdainful of others move further and further away from the gentle, humble spirit of Jesus!

Mary McCarthy had a great line, "Religion is only good for good people."

By: rey jacobs

rey jacobs — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 01:52:06 +0000

The gospels present Jesus constantly getting into it with the scribes and Pharisees, you know, the religious leaders. Who are those guys today? The Calvinists I suppose, they're the loudmouthed religious leaders and whenever we (in America anyhow) think of a loudmouthed obnoxious religious leader like a scribe or a Pharisee its the Calvinists to be sure. So, obviously, Jesus was blow holes in their orthodoxy just as he did the Pharisees.

By: Anita Mathias

Anita Mathias — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 21:10:40 +0000

Hi Sipech,
Yes, summaries are necessarily reductive, and show our biases!

LA, Love this paragraph from your comment,
"whether or not being able to *define* God and his plan for our salvation really matters to my faith, or whether allowing him to be mysterious and his ways to be mysterious is good enough for me. I think I like God to be undefined, mysterious and full of love and for me to be flawed, human and struggling but loving as best as I can."

Indeed!

By: Sipech

Sipech — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:38:14 +0000

I think there's good reason that the bible isn't presented as a systematic theology: it's not meant to be one!

Any attempt to summarise it, whether it be in 220 word summaries, creeds, statements of belief, doctrinal bases, etc. is bound to miss something out.

That's not to say that either of the views you show above are wrong; it's just that neither of them are complete.

I think of the bible as a really big picture (probably an oil painting). You might be able to give a rough description, but such summaries are like trying to take a photo with a really low resolution camera.

To get the whole picture, you need the *whole picture* even if you may think some parts aren't as interesting or relevant as others.

By: LA

LA — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:28:16 +0000

Until I started reading this one American blog, I thought that I kinda "knew" the various camps and generally how they differed from one another. But I simply had no earthly clue that there would be such discussion on minutiae. There are 3-point Arminians and 4-point Arminians and the full-blown 5-point Arminians and then then ever-faithful Calvinists, and pelagianism and semi-pelagianists and Weslyans, and every other variation under the sun.

For a while, I posted comments that boiled down to "Isn't it all about loving one another and loving God and the rest is up to God's Grace?" and "we'll find out when we're dead all the answers to our questions, until then, just do our best to follow God's commandments." Boy, did I get flamed. One ungracious reader replied to me "Have you seriously read any part of the actual Bible?" I replied that I had actually read the entire thing several times, especially the part where Jesus says "Love one another...on this one commandment hangs all the law and the prophets." I thought that boiled the whole thing down rather nicely. That spurred on a flurry of replies that created great confusion in me regarding salvation.

Where I landed is that I need to sort out first whether or not being able to *define* God and his plan for our salvation really matters to my faith, or whether allowing him to be mysterious and his ways to be mysterious is good enough for me. I think I like God to be undefined, mysterious and full of love and for me to be flawed, human and struggling but loving as best as I can.

But then there's the geek in me that's always drawn to a good theoretical disagreement :). Lacking directly provable empirical data, however, is a stumbling block for me...so it's back to undefined and mysterious - LOL.

By: Anita Mathias

Anita Mathias — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 08:48:08 +0000

Lol. Bree, it was a serious point I sketched roughly and lightly to get people thinking:-)

By: Bree (Woman Friday)

Bree (Woman Friday) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:57:01 +0000

Cute script, but not entirely honest. If you're boiling both “camps” down to around 220 words, then yes, you're pretty close. However, there's so much more to the Bible than either of these people's 220 words, and I think that must be taken into account. Also, I doubt Calvin would try to call Jesus a theologian, especially to his face. 🙂 On the whole, I think this post really addresses the issue that most Calvinists have: not putting love first. I think many of us (yes, I'm one of them) need to be reminded of this repeatedly.