Comments on: Why Every Politician Should Be a Calvinist

By: David Brainerd

David Brainerd — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 20:43:00 +0000

Calvinists always have to exaggerate everything. Non-Calvinists don’t necessarily say that God can do nothing to change a person’s mind. But if its all up to predestination, praying for God to change someone’s mind is totally pointless because its all already decided. So only the non-Calvinist can make any sense of this type of prayer. Nor is it necessarily true that all non-Calvinists believe in exhaustive foreknowledge. Indeed, even those who claim to, in reality can’t truly believe this, or they wouldn’t be praying for God to change anyone’s mind. In reality, everyone, even the Calvinists, knows on some deep level that exhaustive foreknowledge is bunk, and this shows especially when it comes to how they act with regard to prayer and evangelism. Dogmas like those only affect what people claim in debate, for in reality everyone lives as if they have freewill and as if everyone else does, and they pray as if people have freewill generally but they expect God to exert some control on others in certain ways at certain times. If only people would align their beliefs to the reality of how they actually operate in life, rather than holding mythical beliefs that don’t work in real life (and that they know don’t work in real life) then we could actually have unity. But the devil has an interest in keeping half of christendom procliming a mythical unworkable determinism, and so they will, despite the fact that they know inside that it is a lie, they will conform to the devil’s wishes because they fear human authority, the so-called and self-appointed pastors who claim to be some sort of vicars of Christ but are in reality the devil’s ministers who impose this nonsense.

By: John Hendryx

John Hendryx — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 17:31:00 +0000

David, you are confusing fatalism with personal determinism. A Calvinist prays because he believes God is the one who actually opens people’s blind eyes, unplugs their deaf ears and turns their heart of stone to a heart of flesh and save them. Election by itself, does not save, it has no saving power. Union with Jesus does. Election is the blueprint of what God intends to do in time by the redemptive work of Christ, preached by the church and applied by the Holy Spirit, who joins us to Christ. God ordains the ends and the means (prayer, preaching) to accomplish his goal.

But what purpose would a non-Calvinist have to pray for someone if God can
do nothing to change that person’s naturally hardened will? He could do no more than outwardly
persuade people, just like we do. So if you don’t believe God can actually save and change a person, then prayer would be pointless.

And non-Calvinists believe Jesus has exhaustive foreknowledge. So if Jesus already knows who won’t be saved then that fact is already fixed so why would he spend time trying to do something that he knew with certainty could not possibly take place?

By: Steven Birn

Steven Birn — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:07:00 +0000

Obama doesn’t quite have the faith in human nature you think. He has that faith for the progressive elites he surrounds himself with. But he doesn’t have that view of the rest of us. We have to be coerced into buying health insurance improved by him or coerced into not buying food he doesn’t approve of with confiscatory taxation. His faith isn’t in mankind, it’s in government.

By: Links I like

Links I like — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 09:01:57 +0000

[…] Why Every Politician Should Be a Calvinist […]

By: Obama’s secular-Calvinism, and one Calvinist’s delusion | Nerdy stuff from David Brainerd's brain

Wed, 12 Mar 2014 02:08:51 +0000

[…] Calvinist calling himself David Murray has put up a blog post called Why Every Politician Should Be a Calvinist, in which he argues that the world would be all sunshine and lollipops if Barack Hussein Obama (and […]

By: David Brainerd

David Brainerd — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 02:01:00 +0000

And the claim that “Calvinism produces more prayer” is laughable. How exactly does a belief that God has pre-scripted everything make people pray more? Oh, yeah, IT DOESN’T. Epic fail.

By: David Brainerd

David Brainerd — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 01:59:00 +0000

This is completely backwards. Obama is a Calvinist who thinks everyone is born retarded and has to have him to tell them what to do and his nanny state to give them everything. Calvinism is the source of the problem. And as for his support of homosexuality, there’s your “total depravity” right there, the “born that way, can’t do any better” excuse that Calvinism and Gaydaism both teach.

By: Mark N.

Mark N. — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 15:37:00 +0000

“Calvinism produces more bi-partisanship”

I get the theoretical point you are making here, and would wholeheartedly agree that this *should* be the outcome.

However, how I’m doubtful that Calvinism can produce more bi-partisanship in the big sandbox (public square) until it produces some sort of significant bi-partisanship in the small sandbox (the theologically Reformed community)!

There is just so much bitter partisanship and name calling in our theologically Reformed circles that we should not be surprised that people are receiving our high claims for the potential impact Calvinism would make on the public square with a healthy dose of skepticism.

I’m not at all trying to contradict your point, but merely trying to highlight the work we have to do on the the more local, community level in producing more statesmen rather than bulldogs in our circles. This, I believe, would lead to better results both internally and externally in the public square.

By: Len Scott

Len Scott — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:02:00 +0000

If Calvinism produces more bipartisanship then why not simply change the article to “Why Every Politician Should Be A Christian”? After all, Arminians would agree with everything you say here.