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Bootstrap wrote:This may be a little like discussing what Mennonites believe about the exception clause. We don't all believe the same thing. Neither do the Reformed.

I know people in the Reformed tradition who very much believe that people make real choices. They just believe that God knows which choices they will make, and that these two things do not contradict each other.

cmbl wrote:

Bootstrap wrote:This may be a little like discussing what Mennonites believe about the exception clause. We don't all believe the same thing. Neither do the Reformed.

I know people in the Reformed tradition who very much believe that people make real choices. They just believe that God knows which choices they will make, and that these two things do not contradict each other.

(emphasis mine)
Many many Christians outside Reformed tradition believe that God has foreknowledge (the statement I bolded).
I think that Reformed theology necessarily goes further than that, and says that God has foreordained all that shall come to pass. I consider fore-ordination a stronger claim than foreknowledge.

If I may be so bold, I suspect that you find yourself in a corner of the Reformed tradition sufficiently "liberal" to not be sticklers about Reformed theology.

cmbl wrote:If I may be so bold, I suspect that you find yourself in a corner of the Reformed tradition sufficiently "liberal" to not be sticklers about Reformed theology.

I know people in the Reformed tradition who very much believe that people make real choices. They just believe that God knows which choices they will make, and that these two things do not contradict each other.

cmbl wrote:

Neto wrote: Our congregation is now planning to use SS material from David C. Cook. I wasn't sure what their theological bent was, so did a bit of research on it. Apparently they heavily back Calvinism. What to do?

Josh wrote: I'm puzzled by the drift by BMA type of churches into Calvinism. I have no idea why it is happening.

I admit that this is speculative, but couldn't it be from being in Neto's church's position and deciding to "eat the meat and throw away the bones?" Over time, some of the bones are transmuted into meat.

Perhaps that's how it's happening, not why.

Bootstrap wrote:

cmbl wrote:If I may be so bold, I suspect that you find yourself in a corner of the Reformed tradition sufficiently "liberal" to not be sticklers about Reformed theology.

My current church is hardly liberal, but it is much more along the lines of Karl Barth than John Calvin. If you heard the sermon given recently on Church and State, you might have thought you were in a Mennonite church. You would probably be quite at home with our understanding of gay marriage and the authority of the Bible.

But when I was part of University Reformed Church in the 1970s, I really did encounter quite a few people who considered themselves hardcore Calvinists but did not think that God's sovereignty meant we don't make real choices. This was Michigan, full of card carrying Five Point Calvinists, and many of them would agree with this:

I know people in the Reformed tradition who very much believe that people make real choices. They just believe that God knows which choices they will make, and that these two things do not contradict each other.

Bootstrap wrote:Hmmmm ... if anyone has figured out all the details of how God's sovereignty and man's free will work together, please let me know. So far, I'm still leaving that all up to God.

Judas Maccabeus wrote:Also, I don't know if BMAs use of the "Danvers Statement" is a symptom or a cause, but the vast majority of the board of CBMW are from institutions or groups that are clearly reformed. Piper, Mohler, Mahaney, Patterson, Knight,Jones Hunt,Heimbach, Grudem, Ware, Duncan, the gangs all here. Presbyterian, SBC, Sovereign Grace, and Piper / Grudem.

I would personally feel that the 1963 confession is fine, but I am not BMA, and have no insight as to why they went this path. Does anyone here?

ohio jones wrote:

Judas Maccabeus wrote:Also, I don't know if BMAs use of the "Danvers Statement" is a symptom or a cause, but the vast majority of the board of CBMW are from institutions or groups that are clearly reformed. Piper, Mohler, Mahaney, Patterson, Knight,Jones Hunt,Heimbach, Grudem, Ware, Duncan, the gangs all here. Presbyterian, SBC, Sovereign Grace, and Piper / Grudem.

I would personally feel that the 1963 confession is fine, but I am not BMA, and have no insight as to why they went this path. Does anyone here?

When BMA began, many of the leaders came from CMC, which at the time recognized the Danvers Statement (it has since been replaced by our own Statement of Practice). So it may have been carried over from that.