I gotta admit, I usually like Piper’s sermons, but his open acceptance of Fundamentalism stunned me. All I could conclude was that he was calling some other group Fundamentalists. Christian Fundamentalists are the biggest class of moral relativists that I have ever seen. They are always shifting around their so-called moral absolutes. They lie all the time, slander, resort to name calling, engage in racist practice, encourage rabble rousing when displeased, and their very structure is disobedient to Scripture. Fundamentalism houses heresies, crimes, swindling, and abuse. I really did wonder who in the world Piper was describing: NOT Jack Hyles, Jerry Falwell, Curtis Hudson, or anybody with the initials B.J or the last name of Horton.

Can someone please address the strange phenomena of “men” being called to “lead” everything in some churches EXCEPT children’s ministry? WHY aren’t MEN teaching children? And I’ll even go further as to ask why more “men” aren’t teachers in women’s ministries?

Would being involved in such endeavors be considered a waste of a seminary education and degree?!

hmm…

Stan,

I remember going out to lunch with Dee to celebrate a 10,000 web count. Thanks for noticing.

I’m still not sure what we’re counting, but the number does keep jumping, and we’re glad that somebody out there is reading what two ordinary middle-aged wives and mothers have to say about topics concerning the Christian faith.

Wow, condemning three more children to live in that household. That would make some wonder about God’s wisdom and mercy, and whether it reaches to whether fertilization takes place for some couples at the cost of exposing children to THAT.

“You had five children and became exhausted. So you secretly started birth control and hope you can fly under the radar.”

I don’t think from my extensive experience with Calvinists of all stripes from the PCUSA and CRC to the RPCNA in person and reading on line that this can be considered a very good generalization. In my experience in Calvinist churches I’ve only met two families that were adamantly opposed to any form of birth control and both of those were more influenced by their homeschooling connections than anything. There were only a handful beyond that opposed to even hormonal forms of birth control.

Watcher

I am talking about the newCalvinists and if you don’t think big families are encouraged and birth control discouraged, then you haven’t been reading their blogs.

These are really good.

Thought I would join the fun and come up with a list for Moderate Baptists.

You might be a Moderate Baptist if:

• You think “Being Baptist” is a cool and catchy term.
• You believe that Christian groups should not have doctrinal statements because everyone in the group should be free to believe what they want, but you believe that members of those groups MUST have the same belief about First Amendment jurisprudence.
• You think an interfaith worship service is very honoring to God, but that the Gospel Coalition or Together for the Gospel cannot be.
• You still believe that Jimmy Carter was the greatest President ever.
• You hold out hope that Billy Graham will one day affirm the CBF.
• You eschew Fundamentalist ways, but will fight to the death against public arenas selling beer, the adoption of a lottery or the construction of a horse racing track.
• You think “Evangelical” is a Yankee word.
• You see the pro-life position on abortion as the “Catholic” position.
• You swear undying loyalty to SBC missionaries on the field, but only until you no longer control the FMB Board of Trustees.
• “Dialogue” means anything but making clear statements about an issue.
• You believe the Bible and the Koran are different books with a common word.
• You have never met and cannot name an educated conservative.
• You really believe that the SBC was on the cusp of reaching the entire world and all the galaxies for Jesus until Adrian Rogers came along.
• You believe Paul Pressler is trying to take over the United States.
• You think that Bill Moyers is a great Baptist Christian.
• You think women pastors are great, but not at your church.
• You believe that representatives of the Playboy Foundation and Jesse Jackson are really good speakers for SBC denominational events on sexuality and race, respectively.
• You think that trying to pass laws about abortion, home school, traditional marriage are unchristian because Jesus did not talk about these things and it is forcing religious views on others. But you believe that Jesus gave clear teaching about tax policy and economic theories, and you believe it is important to force these views on society and demonize those who disagree as “not like Jesus.”
• You now claim that you are not a Moderate.

Great blog here:
http://www.theologyforwomen.org/2009/11/pugnacious-elders.html

Thought you’d enjoy it.

Citation Squirrel

I actually believe in the “us” part of it. We are all Christians, at least in my book. Now there are some out there who would question the salvation of those who do not believe in 5 points of Calvinism, those who imbibe alcohol, or those who do subscribe to the 5 points. I don’t.

Ten months after his father’s death, John Piper wrote a post marking his dad’s 89th birthday. It’s interesting to read what John Piper had to say about his own upbringing.

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/a-birthday-gift-to-my-father-on-his-89th-birthday

“My father was a card-carrying fundamentalist, with a twist. He was irrepressibly happy in the grace of God. I suspect there are a lot of fundamentalists out there like that. For all I know, I may be one. So here is a taste of what I grew up with, which may be why abstaining from dancing, smoking, drinking, movie-going, and card-playing never felt like big sacrifice.”

Dee:

That’s good.

I can identify with so many of the ones above. My experiences growing up in churches included exposure to mainline Pres, Episcopal, Methodist, Southern Methodist, Southern Baptist, Independent Baptist. There is so much truth in all of this.

“My father was a card-carrying fundamentalist, with a twist. He was irrepressibly happy in the grace of God. I suspect there are a lot of fundamentalists out there like that. For all I know, I may be one. So here is a taste of what I grew up with, which may be why abstaining from dancing, smoking, drinking, movie-going, and card-playing never felt like big sacrifice.”

I think maybe we are missing the point here. Sounds like this man was a wonderful man that rested in the Grace of God, but chose not to do some things. What is wrong with that?

I don’t smoke – yuck
I don’t drink – don’t care for the taste
I don’t dance – I’m really bad at it
I don’t play cards – at least not very often.

The point is not what we do or don’t do, but what is our attitude toward others? Are we judgemental with those that do? Do we question the salvation of those that live life differently? Just because Piper’s father lived his life a certain way, doesn’t mean he was a hypocritical, judgemental person. In fact Piper seems to say the opposite with his post. Which means that although he might have been a fundamentalist, he doesn’t seem to fit the mold of those that are being “exposed” on this post.

I could use that same list for my grandfather, but he was a wonderful man who led many to faith in Christ and was a great influence in my life spiritually.

It is not fair to throw everyone in the same “pot” just because they believe similar things.

Piper’s preaching almost ended my daughter’s faith, because she said she could not serve the kind of god Piper described at a college retreat (at Glorietta!!!). Luckily we knew a theologian that attended her church and told her to go talk to him.

Keep in mind that Calvinists believe that God is sovereign over everything, EXCEPT his own sovereignty, which, of course, is moderated by his love for us.

As a parent, I restrained my sovereignty over my children so that they would learn to make good decisions, develop a moral sense, and develop a more mature approach to life. I let them make decisions and helped them to understand how the consequences related to their decisions. Before he was 4, my son basically said to me that he would rather be spanked, like other boys, than to have to explain his options and the consequences of them. Both children are extremely competent decision makers as young adults, as well as ethically and morally sophisticated in their decision processes. My children have also chosen to love their parents.

I believe that God withholds his sovereignty over us to allow us to make choices and to chose to love and serve him. Calvinists do not believe that is possible, that everything is predetermined. I believe what God foreordained was the means of our salvation, not everything that happens. I cannot serve a Calvinist god, but I believe that God is more loving and forgiving and allows for choice.

Truly one of the funniest bits of religious humor/snark I’ve read in a long time. Or maybe ever.

You did not get it quite right about the bubble feeding. And the whales don’t come that far out of the water. 🙂

Here’s a great description of bubble net feeding. Truly fascinating!

http://www.alaskawhalefoundation.org/bubbleNetFeeding

I’m still not sure what we’re counting, but the number does keep jumping, and we’re glad that somebody out there is reading what two ordinary middle-aged wives and mothers have to say about topics concerning the Christian faith.

The number counts by one every time a page on the site is displayed. Click refresh and you’ll bump the counter by 1. Post a comment and you’ll bump it by 1. Go back to the previous page viewed then forward to the one you just left and you’ll bump it by 2. But 1 million is still a lot of pages. Plus it was restarted when it was about 40K.

Don’t forget about supporting Israel in almost everything. That might go in both the fundamentalist and evangelical categories. The Calvinists criticize Israel in almost every decision so they can differentiate themselves from the fundamentalists. I remember I saw something a decade ago on the news in which I thought Israel had reacted too harshly to a situation (my memory is failing what it was specifically). Thanks to my fundamentalist upbringing, I immediately started to condemn myself for “not supporting Israel”, began to question my salvation and if I was going to hell, and wondered if the satanic liberal media had brainwashed me. Luckily, I don’t have those meltdowns anymore, and try think through any issue related to Israel without having a knee-jerk reaction for or against Israel like 90% of Americans do.

Stan, I support Israel because they are democratic surrounded by dictators. Also, name me one Arab/Muslim country that has Jews elected to it’s governing body. (I know, few have real elections) The Knesset has had Arab/Muslims for many years.

Arce, thanks for your response. You’ve got to be careful when stereotyping us Calvinists. Most modern-day Arminians believe in what is philosophically called libertarian free will – that you are not truly free unless at the last second you could always choose to do whatever is the opposite of what you end up deciding to do. Calvinists fall into two camps on the idea of the freedom of the will. The first are the hard determinists who basically think that God has predestined everything and that’s that. There are secular humanists who think that everything is predestined too, only they usually think genes and the laws of nature are the cause. I’ve heard it argued that Jonathan Edwards fell into the hard determinist camp, although from my reading of him I’d have trouble believing it. I also don’t believe that a hard deterministic view of God’s foreordination is biblical.

Calvinists like myself are philosophically known as compatabilists. Basically we read the Bible and we see that it says that God foreordained everything (Eph. 1:11, Isa. 46:9-11, Ex. 4:21, etc.). We also read the Bible and see people very truly acting with free agency – that is that as whole people they make their own choices based on their intellect, emotional response to facts, and the way their intellect and emotions influence their wills (Ex. 7:13, Deut. 30:19, Mark 16:16, etc.). The Bible doesn’t tell us how these two things co-exist, and although I know philosophers who are compatabilists have all sorts of theoretical possible explanations the best theologians I know refuse to go beyond what the Bible says.

I had lots of classmates in my college theology and philosophy classes with Calvinist professors (I had classes with non-Calvinist professors too, for the record) who said they couldn’t worship the god they believed the Calvinists described. The thing is, we Calvinists aren’t trying to make up a false god. We’re trying to believe in the God we find in Scripture.

That’s just the thing – there is choice. Biblically there has to be.

And God is also sovereign. Biblically he has to be.

Lydia-
I support Israel the majority of the time, but I no longer feel I need to support them 100% of the time.

Lydia & Arce,
How would you define free will? Until one starts seriously digging into the subject, one often doesn’t realize how important that definition is.

It’s part of why I prefer the term free agency.

Not sure why Dutch people would tell you that Christians wear long stockings and skirts. I lived in Holland for four years over 20 years ago and that was not my experience at all. Lots of Christians in normal clothes. Dutch people have very good dry senses of humor and they might have been using that on you. I went to my first Sandi Patti concert in Holland and lots of nice Christians there in normal clothes. Went to an English speaking Baptist church and lots of nice Dutch Christians there in normal clothes. Used to hang out at Tyndale Theological Seminary and lots of nice Dutch Christians there in normal clothes.

Holland did have a very conservative group of Christians whom I believed wouldn’t even drive a car on Sunday. They would only ride their bikes to church and yes the women wore long skirts. They were some sort of fundamental Dutch Reformed Church group. That is probably who the Dutch tourists were referencing.

Lydia, as far as I know in the case of free will vs. free agency the debate is framed by the issue of what’s called libertarian free will. Libertarian free will, as far as I’ve always seen it defined, says that my will is free from all constraints of human nature and other influences. The decision has to be entirely uncaused. If you consider yourself as a human being that’s a bit much to claim. For example say I’m given the choice of having green beans or peas as my vegetable with dinner. I have only recently come to ever decide to take the peas. Up until maybe 4 years ago there would have been no chance of taking the peas. The texture makes me gag. That fact caused me to reject peas whenever it was politely possible to do so. A few years ago I realized that it’s good to vary one’s diet. Peas still make me gag, but the additional fact that I try to eat a wide range of foods causes me to will to eat peas. I as an agent make these decisions. That means my emotions and intellect play a huge role in influencing the abstract part of me considered as my will.

It’s important to compatibalists because once you realize that your emotions and intellect influence your will it’s easier to begin to grasp how God might will sovereignly and yet people might also will freely and both can be true. So a Calvinist believes that since the fall all peoples’ wills are bent by sin. Actually, so did Jacob Arminius. He parted ways with Calvin by believing in a concept known as prevenient grace, whereby God provided grace to sinners to accept his offer of salvation, but sinners could resist. Calvinists of course believe that God’s provided grace is irresistible. The divide between Arminius and Calvin is smaller than a lot of people on both sides seem to think, sometimes.

Those who call “any believer not a Calvinist” an Arminian are being reductionistic. The Catholics who consider themselves Thomists, for example, would disagree. So would anyone following in Pelagius’s steps. I’ve met too many people in different places on the spectrum of the doctrines of grace to believe it’s nearly so simplistic.

I’ve always understood total depravity as a doctrine not to mean that all people are thoroughly bad, but to mean that all people are unable to respond to God as they ought intellectually, emotionally, and volitionally. Common grace is still in effect – people are still checked by conscience. I couldn’t help but agree with my brother in college when he pointed out with disgust that many of the Mormons we went to high school with were much better people, from a human perspective, than the “Christians” we were surrounded by in college. The atheist in question may be a stoic with the moral character of a Marcus Aurelius who seeks virtue for virtue’s sake and feels a great sense of pride in his or her own accomplishment of self-mastery. The atheist may even overcome the hatred by learning to see the person with more compassion. And so the atheist does the right thing. What the atheist fails to do is acknowledge God in it all and choose to honor God by mastering him or herself and learning to love because Christ first loved us. And that is where the atheist goes wrong (although I’m sure Karlton would strongly disagree with me on that).

Onto your second question. For some reason I’ve noticed that those who do not identify as Calvinists like to talk about election from God’s perspective and ask us poor humans who do identify as Calvinists to do the same. The problem is that I am not God and therefore by definition I don’t know “the secret things of God.” That means that I don’t have access to the master list. All I have are Scripture’s teachings. And Scripture teaches pretty strongly that an unrepentant heart is a pretty strong contraindication that one is not saved, whether or not one has a “John Calvin is my Homeboy” t-shirt. And so if someone were to die unrepentant of secret sin, having nursed it throughout their lives, and then that fact came to light, you’d find a lot of people across the theological spectrum questioning that person’s salvation. To a Calvinist that would include questioning his or her election. But I also do know that God’s grace is abundant and abounding and his ways mysterious and I can’t cover all the corner cases. I do know that it would be a grave sin and no one who loves God ought to stubbornly grieve the Spirit like that. I also know that “there but for the grace of God go I.”

Since my previous post, I have received and read Watcher’s last post. Again, another Calvinist definition of the other side, defining “free will” in an extreme way. Sorry Watcher. I believe in free will and do not agree with your defnintion.
I have the freedom to define my belief in free will the way I choose. You can define it any way you choose. But I will respond to my definition of it and use my definition of it and we may end up talking past each other as a result. But I will not accommodate my discussion to your definition. Sorry, friend. I do not agree to let anyone else define the terms of debate; I do not succumb to your rhetorical devices.

Arce, you don’t have to agree with my definition. If we establish a common one, then we can discuss, if you so choose.

But I didn’t set that particular definition and Calvinists didn’t either. Philosophers did (those two preceeding words contain a link). In fact I first learned it in a philosophy class and have only ever read it in philosophy textbooks. Here is an interesting quote from that link that shows what modern philosophers think about libertarian free will as defined in that summary:

A recent trend is to suppose that agent causation accounts capture, as well as possible, our prereflective idea of responsible, free action. But the failure of philosophers to work the account out in a fully satisfactory and intelligible form reveals that the very idea of free will (and so of responsibility) is incoherent (Strawson 1986) or at least inconsistent with a world very much like our own (Pereboom 2001). Smilansky (2000) takes a more complicated position, on which there are two ‘levels’ on which we may assess freedom, ‘compatibilist’ and ‘ultimate’. On the ultimate level of evaluation, free will is indeed incoherent. (Strawson, Pereboom, and Smilansky all provide concise defenses of their positions in Kane 2002.)

But I’m willing to accommodate my terms to how they’re being used in a given debate.

“It’s important to compatibalists because once you realize that your emotions and intellect influence your will it’s easier to begin to grasp how God might will sovereignly and yet people might also will freely and both can be true. So a Calvinist believes that since the fall all peoples’ wills are bent by sin.”

Here we go…”compatibalists”….

But you beg the question…most Free Will people believe that people’s “wills” are bent by sin.

” Actually, so did Jacob Arminius. He parted ways with Calvin by believing in a concept known as prevenient grace, whereby God provided grace to sinners to accept his offer of salvation, but sinners could resist. Calvinists of course believe that God’s provided grace is irresistible. ”

1 Tim 4:1: “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.”

2 Peter 2:20-22: “If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: ‘A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.'”

Heb 6:4-6: “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace

Heb 10:26-28: “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.”

1 Cor 15:1-2: “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.”

This is why I asked if Calvinists have the ability to “choose” to study God’s Word or pray. I do believe that God gives us grace to believe. He “opened” Lydia’s heart.

“And Scripture teaches pretty strongly that an unrepentant heart is a pretty strong contraindication that one is not saved, whether or not one has a “John Calvin is my Homeboy” t-shirt. ”

The problem is you are describing Calvin! Not only was he not repentent about having Servetus arrested when he came to hear Calvin preach but Calvin lamented in a letter to a friend after the burning that many people were turning against him because of it! He was whining. He was totally unrepentent and the smartest theologian in the world was not smart enough to know that burning someone (or beheading him as he suggested because the “state” beheads, the church “burns” and he wanted the state to be responsbile) for disagreeing with your doctrine is not of Christ. In fact, if you follow the timeline, Calvin was very put out with Servetus for daring to “edit” part of his writings and sending them to him. So when he showed up in Geneva at his church to hear him preach, Calvin took the opportunity to have him arrested.

yet, you want me to believe he is one of the elect, no matter what he did as a leader of the church in Geneva. besides, a brilliant theologian would know a “state church” is not of Christ. I guess infant baptism is ok since there is no free will. :o)

I chalk up much of the free will-determinism discussion to personality, and I think that the big shift into Calvinism has come about as a reaction to anti-intellectualism in previous decades.

(For the record, I grew up Dispensationalist/Arminian and have shifted over into Calvinism, but I am not in line with the Calvinistas. From what I can discern, they follow Covenant Theology. My teachings from the Assemblies of God had a Lutheran flavor as opposed to Calvin, and I find myself most consistent with New Covenant Theology since leaving Dispensationalism ideology.)

As I’ve transitioned through and have learned about all of these theologies, I believe that certain theologies appeals to certain people. The attorney, Calvin, appeals to more Left Brained people (who prefer the strong logic), though it also provides the illusion of intellectualism for those who are wounded and cannot process their pain. They use intellectualism to hide from it.

It also seems to me that more Right Brained personalities tend to prefer Dispensationalism, because they don’t share the type of forensic approach that Calvin had.

I also believe that failure to respect other believers and to tolerate the discomfort of differences on these intramural concepts within the pale of Christian thought that accounts for the divisions that we see in the Church as discussed in this article. When we get more focused on defending our particular take and understanding than on Christ, Him crucified and the essentials of the faith, we become neotribal. It is that which threatens to tear the church apart. Neotribal separatists and those who wish to take dominion and purify the church seem to so easily lose sight of the essential doctrine and love that should bind us together. They exist in both camps.

God graciously allows us to comprehend Him from many vantages and in many ways. As we mature as believers, some of these details get refined and change. Some will transition from one group to another, as life and experience tend to change our perspectives. Yet, the essentials of the faith in Jesus and His Sacrifice endure — or at least they should. But many are taught that one perspective or the other is evil, and rather than love and work toward unity, they work to purify and rid the Church of the other. They seek uniformity instead. They fall into the trap of more primitive defense mechanisms of seeing everything in absolute or black and white terms. This all or nothing approach might seem to make the work of discernment easier, but the distinctions remain and the consequences of reducing everything to too much simplicity brings division.

In contending for one’s own perspective as valid, we can start contending it as absolute truth. And no man in this flesh has it.

Lydia, I will admit to not having studied the Calvin/Servatius controversy myself. The only time I’ve heard of it was from my pastor who was pretty adamantly and self-professedly defending Calvin in that instance, so not an unbiased source. I also don’t know that I feel a strong need to defend Calvin. My beliefs about God’s sovereignty, man’s fallenness, and all the rest aren’t determined by Calvin but by Scripture. And yes, we Calvinists study Scripture and pray.

As to Greek philosophy affecting the church I heard much about that problem in college and also from Mike Horton (note: he’s a Calvinist). I don’t think it’s good. That doesn’t mean everything Augustine taught was wrong, though. But certainly some of it was. And same with Origen and others of his predecessors.

Cindy K, your observations on left brained v. right brained fit mine, also.

elastigirl,

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I believe the underlying motive of all this Calvinist terminology is to make those who hold to the “Doctrines of Grace” appear more theological savvy than they really are. C.J. Mahaney is the first one who comes to mind. He loves to quote Spurgeon and the others, ad nauseum!

I believe it’s just a smokescreen. Give me transparency!!!

@ Dee re. “Tales of Alaska”: Oh, I hear you! I have an internet pal who grew up in a fundie “Baptist” church in the Netherlands. Will have to ask if they wore “longstockings” in that particular church – and i won’t be at all surprised to find out that they did and/or still do.

Now… your raft was actually attacked by a bear?! I’m glad everyone made it out of there OK!

Lydia, couldn’t agree more about those 3 point sermons, each point starting with a same-letter word or else all rhyming words. Ee gads. So embarrassing. So, yes I LOVE meaty, intelligent food for thought. But about something that actually matters. That fortifies and strengthens and heals and frees someone.

Since I made my recent comment above I’ve been challenging it myself, acknowledging the value in understanding where my knowledge and conclusions have come from — not in a vacuum, but information I inherited, heard, remembered, read in various places…. and where did that come from? There is value in knowing & understanding these things.

At the same time, I see that one can analyze and scrutinize and categorize and systematize (sorry about the rhymes) the data in the bible and its relevant history for many lifetimes over and never get to the bottom of it all — never fully plumb the depths & crack the case.

Sort of like an optical illusion that my children aren’t able to see and which took me a few tries to see — except on a much larger more complex scale, which no one can fully see & understand in all its potential focus.

But we think we can and “WE WILL, and actually WE’VE DONE IT!” “No you haven’t!” “Yes we have, and you better watch out!” “I disagree.” “Our system is the only one that makes complete sense.” “Not to us.“ “Well, our team is bigger than yours.” “Yes, but my team is nicer.” “Well,…..God likes our team better!” “But He agrees with us.”

It’s all rather interesting, maybe even fascinating. But there comes a point when it becomes data for its own sake. (Or, perhaps data for “my sake ”? For “my team’s sake”?) A pastime. An obsession? And it seems to me that it’s more about all that we CAN’T be and all that we’re NOT, instead of all that we can be and all that we are. We can spend huge portions of our lives arguing about what we can’t do and what we’re not (or what you can’t do and what you’re not).

Meanwhile, all this higher cognitive functioning keeps one circling in the intellectual realm. A world of control. Predictability. Proveability (or at leasts the need for such a world, at the risk of losing to the opponents!). A safe place.

A distraction from simply letting God happen. To us. To others. To others through us.

Dee,

So, you are going to tell me that a country full of 16 million or so people only has fundamental stocking/skirt wearing Christians based on the observations of four Dutch tourists?

I was there two years ago and guess what? My Dutch Christian friends were wearing NORMAL clothes.

I am right with you on the fact that I think wearing ultra conservative clothes does nothing to advance the gospel, however, I am also for telling the truth. The absolute truth is that there are many more Christian groups in the Netherlands who are not fundamentalists. The four years I lived there I only saw one family like that because they would ride by my house every Sunday on their bikes on the way to church. I have no idea why educated well to do tourists would tell you that. I am not denying that they said that, I am telling you that they were wrong.

I live in an area where I see Mennonites all the time. The women wear their hair in long pigtails/ponytails, and they always have on some sort of drab clothing. Probably most people look at them and see weirdos. But I also know that a Mennonite person would give you the shirt off his back, help his neighbor, live a righteous life…who am I to judge them on what they wear? How is it any different for us to put down fundamentalist groups for what they wear then them thinking we are worldly for what we wear? I volunteered at Samaritan’s Purse this past winter to get the shoeboxes out and worked a long side some Mennonite girls. They were a blast and they were hard workers. Who are we to tell them that a personal conviction about clothing is wrong?

One of the problems here is that you are painting the IFB with one broad brush. You can’t do that. They are very varied and different from group to group. I doubt John Piper was talking about the Fred Phelps type. He was talking about your average run of the mill fundamental church whose theology isn’t different from an evangelical but their practice is.

You totally missed the point on #6. What John Piper was referring to was IFB seminaries…John was saying that they don’t care if they go against the flow of evangelical or liberal thought…they stick with their convictions even if it doesn’t bring them scholarly praise or lots of $$$$ writing books for the church at large.

Again, I am not fundamental, I have no desire to be fundamental and I see lots of problems with they way they do/teach things. But they are Christians, they are people just like you and me and making fun of them serves absolutely no purpose.

Let’s stick to the facts and not ridicule.

Numo–

I was not saying that there aren’t some people in Holland who dress that way. Your friend might have. What I was taking issue with was “She told me that, in Holland, the Christians all dress that way and that is how they are identified.”

That is absolutely no more true in Holland then it is here in the US.

I live near a Mennonite congregation and we are friends with many who worship there. They are generous, loving, caring, active in addressing social ills, etc. And their clothing is not extraordinary, tending toward the uncomplicated, everyday clothing I see in the neighborhood, except for the general absence of shorts and halter tops.

There seems to be a misunderstanding by some here that free will folks do not believe in Gods Sovereignty. He was Sovereign when Adam ate with his eyes wide open.

“In fact we were recently discussing with our realtor how we were over “the house that got away.” His comment, as a fellow Presbyterian, was “That’s when it’s good to be a Calvinist, isn’t it?” The point he was trying to make was that there are situations smaller than not getting the house you wanted to buy and also much larger where a deep and rich understanding of how God’s rule of the universe interacts with our daily lives that is amazingly comforting.”

You mean like when babies get cancer? Or a young girl is molested by a pastor? Calvinist make God the author and director of evil.

I always worry when folks make comments like you did above. I believe God can intervene but not that He is directing every single action. If He is, there would be no need for the Cross. I certainly would not ask Him to plant the seeds for harvest. I would pray for rain, though. And understand that it rains on the just and unjust. Some get their reward here. And that is not a good thing.

Watcher,

My bible also teaches that God is love. His sovereignty is limited by his love, his choice to love us and to come and die for us. If he were all sovereign, then there would be a toothless devil and no evil in the world. But his sovereignty is limited, by his choice to create people with the freedom to choose.