Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Defeating Calvinistic blogs

The following is a reprint from my personal blog, a post that has become, by far, the most popular one I ever wrote. I have resisted the temptation to go back through and update it, or to add to it. No doubt, we'll soon see in the meta that an Arminian has done a version of this from the other side... And, I've also learned, to my surprise, that I need to actually say that what follows is supposed to be halfway humorous.

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As a public service to all the anti-Calvinistic Christians out there in the blogosphere, I am publishing a selection of pre-written comments that you can leave in reply to Calvinist postings of whatever kind.

Save your brainpower for more important things and just copy this list and have it handy, so that you can cut-and-paste wherever it becomes needful. However, I must be clear that I have not come up with the substance of any of this myself, but have simply collated what I have found in the blog world as people try to argue with the Bible's teaching on the sovereignty of God in salvation.

And don't worry about actually fitting these into the flow or context of whatever debate happens to be going on: I've found them all over, and so must conclude that they are wonderful, powerful arguments wherever they may be placed...so...have a blast!

1. "Y'know, if you Calvinists spent as much time and energy on evangelism as you do on bashing your brothers in Christ who are really out there preaching the gospel, then we might really see revival!"

2. "When's the last time you actually witnessed to someone?"

3. "How many folks have you saved in the last six months?"

4. "Calvinism is one man's theology, one man's system. I prefer to listen to Jesus."

5. "The only JC I follow is not John Calvin, but Jesus Christ."

6. "You guys are so mean. Even if you're right, no one listens because you are snooty and arrogant. Always name-calling."

7. "I'm not Calvinist or Arminian. I'm Baptist."

8. "Calvinism splits churches and puts a screeching halt to evangelism wherever it becomes prominent."

9. "I don't know about all your complex theology. I just believe John 3:16."

10. "I just can't believe that someone will be kept out of heaven, even if they loved Jesus with all their heart, just because they weren't part of the chosen few."

11. "You guys are mean. You think you know everything. You just want everyone to think like you do. You just want to win arguments and have everyone admit you're right. You have no business judging someone's thoughts or motivations."

12. "Calvinism is a virus that kills good churches."

13. "Calvinists are worse than Moslems."

14. "You can bet that anyone who wastes time reading or writing at your blog is being disobedient to the Great Commission."

15. "Why can't you just put aside your differences with Arminians and work together for the greater spread of the Gospel? All this arguing about how a man is saved...let's stop arguing about it and just preach the Gospel. As long as we agree on the important things, like the pre-trib Rapture, why can't we just get along?"

16. "Calvinists hope dead babies go to hell."

17. "Calvinists hope innocent people in Africa who haven't heard of Jesus will go to hell."

18. "Calvinists hope all non-Calvinists go to hell."

19. "Calvinists don't want to preach the Gospel too much, for fear that some people who are destined to go to hell might actually believe and wind up in heaven."

20. "You guys are mean. You think only your interpretation of Scipture is correct. You refuse to submit to the Catholic Magisterium."

21. "You guys are mean. You think only your interpretation of Scripture is correct. Unlike me. I know I'm wrong. But still, you're mean."

22. "Mean people suck."

23. "I know a guy who became a Calvinist. Now, he is mean."

24. "I know a guy who became a Calvinist, and now he doesn't have altar calls at his church."

25. "I know a guy who became a Calvinist, and now he bakes babies into his communion bread."

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Okay, I realize this is not a complete list, but it will certainly suffice for its intended purpose. You will now win every debate on Calvinism you get into. Just use one of the above, as all 25 of them are beyond argument and positively prove that Calvinism is unbiblical. However, if you run into a really smart Calvinist, of which there are a tiny handful, you can completely bamboozle them by combining several of these arguments into one comment. Try also using the same comment over and over again, but just change the wording a little.

No need to thank me. I do what I can.

6 comments:

Gordan said...

Thought I'd attach a funny story, too: Soon after this list was posted at Incrediblog, our own Joshua Hitchcock had an anti-Calvinist commenter actually cut-and-paste a few of these into Josh's meta. From what we could tell, he really was serious.

Machine Gun Kelley said...

Gordan,

I remember when that happened! That was too funny bro!

Machine Gun Kelley said...

Look for some of these to show up in the messages at the John 3:16 conference! :)

Deviant Monk said...

I think #25 is the ringer.

A.M. Mallett said...

Well, your a Calvinist ... what else should be expected?

sally said...

Pretty funny stuff.

I think six is my favorite tactic:

I hate you because you're unloving. Besides that you always call people names you low-life, arrogant, ugly, good-for-nothing, God-hater.

=0)