An amazing story

The red print IS the Admins. They crossed out a few sentences of perfectly reasonable argument plus one sentence where I told Brennakimi off for her rudeness.What aren't you getting?Go read Brennakimi's Message 46 to see who's insulting whom.

Correct but my point still stands

You are off topic

Both Message 60 and Message 62 are off topic for this thread.If you have comments on moderation, take them to the appropriate thread (as listed below).

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deletedThis message has been edited by Faith, 01-05-2006 06:31 PM

no. a true calvinist would say that she could be saved and still be an atheist. a true calvanist would say she has fallen away and needs church discipline to see the error of her ways. but a true calvanist would not make a judgement on her actual state of salvation because calvinists know that salvation is a matter between god and an individual... and not a matter for the church-or our dear friend faith-to decide.i've been studying deep calvinist doctrine for 15 years. i started going to adult bible study with my parents when i was 7. i have discussed these things with church elders.this is why i asked faith what kind of church she goes to. a calvinist is a follower of reformed doctrine which i've been part of my entire life. i've always asked big, hard questions.the thing is you're both misunderstanding perseverence of the saints. it means you're always saved. it doesn't mean you're always good or always in church or always singing or always praying or even always a believer.
god made a promise that whoever believed in his son WOULD NOT DIE BUT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE. he sealed it with his son's blood. man didn't kill jesus; GOD'S WILL FOR SALVATION KILLED JESUS. like abraham almost slit his son's throat to bleed him dry for sacrifice to god, so too god bled jesus for us on the cross. that's the deal. sorry it's graphic, but that's the nature of blood sacrifice. and who is god? GOD IS KEPT PROMISES. man will fall but god keeps his promises. once you have believed, truly believed, god keeps his promise and clenses your eternal soul with his son's blood spilled out without measure or ceasing. we are commanded to respond thus and we are compelled to respond thus. but just because we may fail and fall and turn away, does not release god from his blood covenant and allow him to 'un-wash' us. this is a very important and very basic understanding of who god is. HE KEEPS PROMISES. if the blood is not sufficient for all and sufficient for all sin-even the sin of turning away and denying the lord-then the blood is not sufficient and the covenant a sham. just like some can't believe in god if he didn't create the world in 7 days, i can't believe god if he lies about his promises and has an insufficient sacrifice.and that is what a calvinist believes.

I'm not sure what constitutes a mythical "true calvinist". My comment was about what most actual Calvinists would say. Her break with Christianity looks pretty complete and rather final. It goes a lot further than simple backsliding, or ceasing involvement in the Church. She is actively atheist. It would be difficult for any actual Calvinists to consider that she is still a saved Christian. It is far easier to conclude that they were mistaken in their prior belief that she was saved. I studied it for many years too.What was being discussed was not Calvinist doctrine, but behavior of typical Calvinist people. You asked it in such a way that it sounded like "You're wrong, now tell me your Church so I can gloat over it". You probably didn't intend to come across that way. See above. I was commenting on likely behavior, not on doctrine. I think Faith was doing the same.

My judgment was probably skewed because of my irritation with her longwindedness. It seemed like a lot of posturing to me. But that's an unfair statement because in any discussion of oneself it is difficult not to posture. It occurs to me now that a spiritual autobiography must be very difficult to write. She did a good job, all in all. And obviously she's intelligent.Having said that, my impression after reading it--or part of it--was that she enjoys soul-searching far too much to give it up. Before too long, a still, small voice will start talking to her again. This is not to say that she is insincere, or no more than anyone else.

By the way, she mentions Karen Armstrong's spiritual autobiography. I don't know if you are familiar with her or not. She is a historian of religion. But in that book we see Karen Armstrong, an ex-nun, working her way back toward some sort of religious belief toward the end. Very good book.

No, I'm not familiar with Karen Armstrong, but looked her up at Amazon. An early autobiography and a more recent one are listed, The Spiral Staircase the recent one. Which did you read? I get the impression she has arrived in the end at one of those vague New Agey religiosities that take bits from all the religions. Or make that a question: Is that the case?I just can't see the Laura of this thread returning to Christ. Falling into sin, having doubts, even leaving the church altogether for years, becoming an atheist out of just not seeing the point any more -- all that I think you can return from. But I don't see how you can return from the all-out assault she has been mounting against her former beliefs.I COULD see her going New Age religion though, I suppose, which is what it sounds like Karen Armstrong has done. Perhaps incorporating a "Christ" redesigned to eliminate any contradictions with other belief systems. Wait and see. To me that's no better than atheism.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-05-2006 11:01 PM

likely behavior means nothing. when you name a doctrine, the reasonable assumption is that you are using the doctrine as your measure.

Actually her religion was assaulting her. I felt terrible for that poor woman.... Although to be clear, it was mainly because that church she was in was a very unhealthy (possibly even evil) cult. I think that was most of her problem (as opposed to the chrisitian religion in general)

Thanks very much for your post, which I agree with except for the following: Yes, but to me a Calvinist behaves according to Calvinist doctrine. I imbibe the stuff every week at my church and on local Christian radio as well, since it's heavily oriented to the Reformed perspective. I read Calvin's Institutes about fifteen years ago, I've read many of the Puritans, and Jonathan Edwards and Spurgeon and others who are Calvinists. So I'm not just talking out of my hat.

Calvary Chapels are no evil cult. They are basically a charismatic group that grew out of Chuck Smith's original Pentecostalism, and grew by leaps and bounds in the 70s as Smith reached out to the hippies and became the main center of the Jesus Freak movement, baptizing thousands in the Pacific Ocean. Today there are dozens of Calvary Chapels pastored by those ex-hippies, and while they leave something to be desired in my estimation, I have to say their focus is pretty solidly Biblical.I can fault them in some ways. They have a rather too casual approach to worship services with an emphasis on contemporary songs, and despite their Biblical focus they may not get the Bible across well enough to their congregations. It appears that Laura didn't get much from the Bible itself. She caricatures the submissive wife for instance, and quotes the Bible without realizing she's quoting it.She says that she had many questions when she was younger that nobody answered to her satisfaction and I think that should have been taken note of by someone along the way. She definitely needed better answers, but also the church leaders need to be more aware of spiritual struggles of the children in the church than it sounds like happened in her church.I can certainly agree that her situation wasn't handled well. The talking behind her back would certainly have been alienating. The lack of formal structure in Calvary Chapels may account for some of the problem -- an informal marriage counseling ministry, no clear sense of which authority is responsible for what or accountable to whom. Besides that, her husband was very young, as she was, and thrown by her questioning of really very basic tenets of the faith. It must have shaken him to the core, and he just wasn't able to cope with it. They needed more help than they got.But in the end I think the truth is that she never was really saved despite her complete immersion in the life of the church, and those around her didn't know how to deal with the way it finally came out. That is fascinating to me, though, that one CAN be that immersed and not really be a believer. But I don't see how she could have been and ask the questions she ended up asking, the way she asked them, and the way she finally answered them.Jesus said that the wheat will grow up alongside the tares, and tares are simply a weed that looks a lot like wheat but isn't. I may have learned from this just HOW much it looks like it.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-05-2006 11:58 PM

So sometimes God answers prayers with a yes, sometimes with a no, and sometimes with a delayed answer?

Are you saved, Faith?