Reformed Theology

General Christian Theology
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Josh
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Re: Reformed Theology

Post by Josh »

Neto wrote: I graduated from a C&MA college (St Paul Bible college, now Crown College), and one of the courses I took there used a Reformed counselling book that stated that "If you are giving counsel to an unbeliever, you cannot tell them that Christ died for them, because you don't know that." But our professor (an active C&M A minister) pointed it out on the first day of class, saying that the rest of the book had good teaching, that we just needed to be on guard against the false doctrine.

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

I count a few people as brothers who are Calvinists. Their doctrine stands in the way of following God, though. It's no different than someone who is a Mormon. (I know some great people who are Mormons.)
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cmbl
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Re: Reformed Theology

Post by cmbl »

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.
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Josh
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Re: Reformed Theology

Post by Josh »

Right, cmbl. Mormons produce a lot of really great material too. But I think it would present a danger to start using their Sunday school material.
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JimFoxvog
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Re: Reformed Theology

Post by JimFoxvog »

For others like me less educated in theological systems, TULIP mean
Total Depravity
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement
Irresistible Grace
Preservation of the Saints
-- from http://www.prca.org/pamphlets/pamphlet_41.html where it spells it out in more detail.
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Neto
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Re: Reformed Theology

Post by Neto »

Josh wrote:
Neto wrote: I graduated from a C&MA college (St Paul Bible college, now Crown College), and one of the courses I took there used a Reformed counselling book that stated that "If you are giving counsel to an unbeliever, you cannot tell them that Christ died for them, because you don't know that." But our professor (an active C&M A minister) pointed it out on the first day of class, saying that the rest of the book had good teaching, that we just needed to be on guard against the false doctrine.

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

I count a few people as brothers who are Calvinists. Their doctrine stands in the way of following God, though. It's no different than someone who is a Mormon. (I know some great people who are Mormons.)
I think it comes from certain people in the congregation who are fairly influential, who have 'tasted the coolaid' at Moody radio, and other such sources. (I do listen to Moody Radio myself, but I've also been told that I am always picking apart sermons & books. I can't help it. That's just the way I am, sweating the little stuff. But I am convinced that the 'little stuff' leads to 'big stuff', so I keep picking away. I have tried to think back as to how I became a Biblicist, and the earliest event I can think of is while I was a Bible Institute Freshman a close friend told me she couldn't come to that Bible school because she spoke in tongues. She gave me a book by Francis Hunter, which I soon realized did not closely follow Scripture. The pastor at the MB - Mennonite Brethren - congregation I was attending there in that city often preached that 'tongues is of the devil', so I turned to the only reliable source I knew of, the Scriptures themselves. I read all of the passages that dealt with the question over & over, till I began to see through the haze. So that has been my approach ever since, and it has earned me some interesting comments over the years, especially from one of my theology professors in Bible college.)
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Sudsy
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Re: Reformed Theology

Post by Sudsy »

Judas Maccabeus wrote: Reformed theology is a logical system, not a Biblical one, it is based on the absolute sovereignty of God in all things, other things Like Unconditional Election and Limited Atonement proceed from this rather than from Biblical sources. Many advocates of these views would disagree with my take on it, but I feel I am on solid ground here.
I would have to disagree with the highlighted. The bible is the primary source that is used for this theology. It is just the interpretation of what certain scriptures mean and how they relate to other scriptures that we disagree with.

For instance, they believe man has been so adversely affected by the fall, that he would never chose God in his life - Total Disability. And therefore, unless God first changes his heart (regeneration) man would never be able to chose God. We, like John Wesley, believe that man still retains an ability to chose and can upon hearing the Gospel and God convicting man of his sin, can chose to believe it or not. And yet we both believe man cannot save himself and salvation is of the Lord. This view of how total unable man is to make a choice or not is the key start point to how the rest of TULIP comes together. Both of these views have scriptures used to support them.

If you look up the debates between James White and Dave Hunt on youtube, one gets a clearer view of how scriptures are used to support these theologies.

It is amazing to me how much grace we have been given to have such different views of how God goes about saving people. God knows the struggle we have to comprehend His ways and is gracious enough to still include us from either view into His family.
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betterpromises2
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Re: Reformed Theology

Post by betterpromises2 »

I was a Calvinist for a number of years, attended Calvinist churches, went to Calvinist conferences. I often heard things like "the number of hairs on your head is a specific number that God has ordained it to be so" and "nothing happens without God's sovereignty- if you put on blue socks it's because God ordained you to put on blue socks today" etc etc etc. And these were not extreme Calvinists, just your run of the mill Calvinists.

A big (and I mean BIG) problem with that belief that God ordains everything and we make not choices (it only seems that way to us) is that in order to be consistent they have to admit that Adam sinned because God caused him to sin (- it wasn't really his choice, it only seemed that way to Adam). But of course the Bible says that God is not the author of sin. But that is what the Calvinists I knew believed, and I knew a lot of them over many years.
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Bootstrap
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Re: Reformed Theology

Post by Bootstrap »

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.
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joshuabgood
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Re: Reformed Theology

Post by joshuabgood »

BMA, of which I am a part, is heavily influenced by reformed theology primarily because of two things in my view: 1) for years now conservative mennonites, of which we are comprised, have bought into penal substitutionary atonement as the essence of the gospel. More than one piece of TULIP means heavily on this understanding. 2) A few of the most influential voices in our conference are heavily reformed, and they have reformed others.


There are pockets of difference in BMA though...
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Re: Reformed Theology

Post by cmbl »

joshuabgood wrote:BMA, of which I am a part, is heavily influenced by reformed theology primarily because of two things in my view: 1) for years now conservative mennonites, of which we are comprised, have bought into penal substitutionary atonement as the essence of the gospel. More than one piece of TULIP means heavily on this understanding. 2) A few of the most influential voices in our conference are heavily reformed, and they have reformed others.


There are pockets of difference in BMA though...
No need to respond if you think this too prying, but I'm curious how Mennonite Calvinism works. Would it be like the Sword and Trumpet Sunday School lesson I read that said that we needed to accept salvation by faith only? Is eternal security still taught against, but they just talk a lot about God's "sovereignty" and man's "depravity"? Is some amorphous "hyper-Calvinism" denounced while vanilla Calvinism is subtly accepted?
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