Something to consider

[Sandy]

http://johnpavlovitz.com/2016/07/21/25- ... npavlovitz

The evangelical community has its claws out and is circling the wagons in its defense of the orange haired buffoon in the White House. He has managed to hook in some well known leaders, though I wonder how much real respect some of his assortment of supporters, like Kenneth Copeland and Pat Robertson, really have. Franklin Graham certainly gets attention, but there seems to be a propensity in the Christian community for quick, convenient "conversion experiences" and it certainly solved a lot of moral dilemmas for a lot of Christians when Trump had his sudden conversion experience right before the ballots were to be cast in the GOP convention. Of course, his abominable, crude, unChristlike behavior has been completely excused because he's just a "baby Christian." Maybe that helps people justify his total lack of morality and any semblance of values. But it seems to me that his list of supportive leaders are mainly opportunists, and not just when it comes to Trump.

This North Carolina pastor may well be cashing in, too, on a created niche. But we'll see.

[Tim Bonney]

I see it partially as the worst excesses of Calvinism come home to roost.

When you believe that a single event in your life "saves" you and then you can live like the devil the rest of your life because you are "once saved, always saved" the it leads to bizarre understandings of the Christian faith where your actually Christian journey and behavior means nothing.

[William Thornton]

[Tim Bonney]

William, you are missing the point.

First, it isn't a characterization of my former religion. I was never a Calvinist and most Southern Baptists aren't (unless everyone has changed their minds awfully fast recently.) American Baptists also aren't Calvinists usually. The recent Calvinists movements with Mohler and crowd were long after my exit from the SBC.

I'm not talk about anything that was ever taught by trained pastors in the SBC or ABC when I was there. I'm talking about a bad theological outlook adopted kind of casually by many lay people that I saw in the church and that, yep, I see in Methodist churches too.

I joined the church, walked the aisle, made a profession of faith, got confirmed, got baptized, whatever, and now I can live my life however I want because I made a deal with God when I was 12 years old.

That attitude is pretty common in churches. Many people think they are Christian because their name is on a church role. And the original idea for all of that comes out of a bad Calvinist interpretation of salvation, church membership, whatever. Election means I'm safe (or not) and it doesn't matter how I live my life. They say they "believe in Jesus" but it doesn't matter a d&mn as to how they live their life.

That's what I've gotten from a lot of people over the years, particularly the large percentage of non-attending nominal Christians.

I see this attitude when President Trump gets angry that people question his Christianity when he apparently was never more than a nominal church attender who got baptized a Presbyterian but has lived most of his life as a playboy.

(And by the way, Methodists don't believe you can lose your salvation like losing a quarter out of your pocket. Or by simple personal failure and sin. We just don't believe your freedom disappears after you become a Christian and that, yes, you can decide to stop being a Christian if you really want to.)

[Rvaughn]

[Dave Roberts]

So much of what I see in Christianity today reminds me of the description I heard regarding a Texas river: "It's a mile wide and an inch deep." Sadly, that seems enough to make many folks content. Reminds me of an old sermon at a Christian Life Commission Seminar: "Three Dollars Worth of God, Please."

[Sandy]

I don't see Timothy as blaming Calvinism. He says "a bad interpretation of Calvinism." And in many cases, that's a correct characterization.

I'd probably put a little different interpretation on the spiritual aspect of salvation, or losing it, than most Methodists would, but when it comes to living a transformed life, having the mind of Christ, and understanding the difference between conviction that truly comes from the spirit, or living by a set of rules based on someone else's faith experience and practice, or the world's lack of understanding of values-based life, I think the Methodists, and most others in the Wesleyan tradition, gain a healthier spiritual outcome because they don't teach that salvation is a singular event that gives you a spiritual fire insurance policy, but a lifelong experience that requires spiritual discipline. "Once saved always saved" is not a great way to articulate the theological principle of eternal security.

The transformational experience of salvation is far more than just bowing a head, praying a prayer and, presto! Saved! A model which, if done in a political context carries the endorsement of Evangelical Christians, many of whom are ready to shred a fellow believer and question their salvation because of who they voted for or supported, but who will loudly and vociferously defend a convenience conversion on the grounds that you can't judge someone else's experience.

I work in a community among students in a Christian school where I'd say close to half of the students come from a pretty staunch Calvinist church, either Reformed Presbyterian, Evangelical Presbyterian or PCA, or GARBC. And while they believe in limited atonement, I don't see any evidence that they take for granted their predestined salvation, but teach that Christian maturity is a means of honoring God and appreciating his gift. So the kind of attitude that Timothy is addressing is definitely from a "bad" interpretation of Calvinism, at least from my observation.

[Rvaughn]

Certainly it can be a bad interpretation of Calvinism, but it is a bad application of whatever is one's belief system -- and bad interpretations of Calvinism hold no copyright on acting badly.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

BTW William, I really wasn't trying to take a shot at Baptists. This group of Baptists are almost the only Baptists I interact with on a regular basis. We have few Baptist in my part of the world, but we have a heck of a lot of Fundy Dutch Reformed Calvinist.

[Rvaughn]

Thanks, Timothy. I stand by what I wrote, in the sense I didn't write anything I don't believe. But it seems I may have taken your mention of "bizarre understandings of the Christian faith where your actual Christian journey and behavior means nothing" out of the context in which you meant it -- seeing that Sandy is speaking in the context of President Trump's so-called conversion experience. So if you're speaking generally of folks like Copeland, Robertson, Graham and Trump, we may be talking about those who would be more influenced by Calvinism than, say, the nominalism of Catholicism, which bad behaviour might be excused by reasons other than "once saved, always saved."

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Jon Estes]

[KeithE]

[Rvaughn]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

I think he may be addressing, with #21, the times at political rallies where violence occurred, egged on by Trump who promised to pay the legal expenses for the guy who slugged the protester being escorted out. Or perhaps his refusal to speak out against the dozens of his supporters, caught on camera, openly advocating armed insurrection if he didn't win.

I can think of dozens of political issues from just about any perspective, which could be supported as a result of someone's faith perspective. The right wing doesn't have much other than being anti-abortion and anti-LGBT rights. Most of their fiscal policy and other social issues can't be justified from a Christian perspective. The left spends its time on leveling the playing field, addressing poverty and disadvantage, and other social issues which can easily be fit into the Christian perspective. Pushing your faith to fit a political perspective and ignoring others has the effect of relegating faith to politics, or trying to prioritize issues on a strictly Christian basis, and that not only is impossible, but it turns Christian faith into a servant of a person's political views.

The moral majority and the Christian right defined exactly why and how Christians should discern their vote, and spent millions of dollars and an inordinate amount of time, especially that of Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, Kenneth Copeland and other so-called leaders convincing Christians in the pew that this was the only Biblical road to take. What kind of trust, or confidence, can there be in church leaders who insist that their interpretation of events is lined up absolutely with scripture, and then turn around and say, "ignore absolutely everything we've ever said before" and completely abandon everything for which they've stood in their blending of politics and their religion, to endorse a candidate who bears no resemblance whatsoever to what they previously claimed was the only Biblical model?

[Tim Bonney]

[Jon Estes]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

I've not been directly involved in convention activity in the SBC for 7 years now, and left about the time the intensity of the Calvinist push was beginning to take hold in the SBC. There's always been a strain of Calvinist thought and influence in the SBC, obviously through Southern Seminary, but because the SBC is a convention that is a confederation of autonomous churches, associations and state conventions that contain elements with origins in all aspects of Baptist theology and doctrine that have been primary influences here. My perception is that its influence is magnified by the presence of individuals who have made their way into the national body's leadership, but that in the pew, it's not that prevalent. In all of its various forms, I would doubt that more than 15% of all Southern Baptists are Calvinists, and down into the core doctrines of Reformed faith, probably fewer than 5%.

I'm not sure how that plays out politically, or with regard to what kind of influence some of the major Christian leaders who sold out their values to support Trump, have among Calvinists or non-Calvinists. Around here, where about half the Protestants are Calvinists of some sort, I don't hear or see a lot of enthusiasm for either "religious celebrities" or faith-based politics. Whether that's just the area, or the influence of Calvinism, I couldn't say. The percentage of people in this county who attend a church of any kind is well under 25%, and at least half of those are Catholic. This is really the only place I've been where there's been that much of a Calvinist influence, so I can't really measure that in terms of its overall impact.

[Tim Bonney]

While the top three denominations in Iowa are the Roman Catholic Church, the ELCA, and the UMC, NW Iowa has a very strong Calvinist presence from the Reformed Church of America and the Christian Reformed Church. The Morningside neighborhood of Sioux City has the distinction of having the highest percentage of people with Dutch ancestry of any other neighborhood in the US.

Oddly, outside of Sioux City, which is very ethnically diverse, much of this area is anti-immigration even though many of the people who are most anti-immigration are grand children or great grandchildren of Dutch immigrants.

[Jon Estes]