Net Finney Guards Families Against the Harmful Effects of Calvinism

THis is so funny!

Few satire could be done without being mean spirited and in a healthy manner

But this one is a good example: http://tominthebox.blogspot.com/2007/01/net-finney-guards-families-against.html

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Gary DeMar has a good article on his website at American Vision:

http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive2007/01-29-07.asp

Let’s Demand That Money Grow on Trees!
by Gary DeMar

Its a good article about how liberal San Francisco can be and basic economics to why Government forced program to ‘help’ the poor end up hurting the poor; it also discuss about American Politician policy of appeasement to the majority at the expense of someone else’s hard earned dollars

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The Myth of the Open-Minded Skeptic

http://www.erikwait.com/index.cgi?location=2&action=display_one&story_id=183

This is a good article by Erik Wait, who wrote this in a very easy to understand language that is a good example of the application of PResuppositional Apologetic’s doctrine against religious neutrality

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THEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE/APOLOGETICAL-EVANGELISM LUNCH REPORT

At the school I go to, I get people telling me that the best apologetics guy doing Campus Ministry is this particular minister.  The guy, being a Lutheran is heavily into Evidential Apologetics with Classical leaning and set up a table regularly in a busy campus walkway.

Today was a reminder for me of Van Til’s and Bahnsen’s teaching that how you do apologetics and evangelism is influenced by your theology.  As I walked back from class, I sat in real quick for this young minister’s table while he was using the restroom.  One of his students came by and sat with me, and as soon as the young pastor came back, he immediately went on the offense to attack Calvinism and what I believed.  I didn’t want to open up this Pandora’s box, but since he initiated it, I thought, hey, let’s deal with the issue then.  Somehow, the conversation turned real quick about the issue of how are we saved, for the guy believed that we are all saved already to begin with, and therefore everyone is saved, and before you know it, the table was now turned back to him when I started asking him if everyone who are ‘saved’ but ‘didn’t know it’ are given promises from Scripture (such as God’s work of sanctification of those who are saved, not being able to lose your salvation, etc) which he answers “yes!” but second guest and stutter with an inaudible ‘no’.  Its funny how some people get, when the conversation began with them being aggressively against you and put you on the defense and then suddenly YOU ARE NOW ON THE OFFENSE and people become, well, Pathetic. They can’t take what they dish out.

The pastor avoided answering my question (“Where in the bible does it teach that?”), did not address the logical conclusion of his view (“people have salvation in hell” as he admitted, this guy is crazy isn’t he?) , and kept on using sunday school slogan (“Its all about Jesus man!”).

Its funny how the guys trumphs reason so much being the evidentalist that he is, and when pressed with the Bible and strong chain reasoning of his premises, he invokes so much irrationalism by committing the logical fallacy of appeal to emotions.

Well, the two guys definitely was on me, and the student who was listening, being a philosophy major, struck me as really arrogant.  I always have this sense, honestly put, that Christian undergraduate student majoring in philosophy with classical/evidental apologetical outlook are really naiive. THe demeanor in the conversation oozes out with it.  They have a little taste of the issue but thinks they know it all already.

An agnostic walked by and the Pastor tried witnessing to him.  Though the pastor disdain how I used the Way of the Master, Presuppositionalism and how I conduct my evangelism and apologetics within the framework of my Calvinism since to him, “Its all about Jesus!” (I agree to some extent- but what about the Holy Spirt convicting people, etc?), he ironically didn’t even focus on Jesus but began a long naiive pseudo-intellectual sounding Evidentialist choppy presentation!  And when pressed for those ‘evidences’ for the resurrection, you would think an evidentialist would live up to his name, but I had to discuss the primary documents and fill in for them!

I watched quietly, and cringed; the philosophy student who was angry with me earlier (mind you, I’m a fellow brother in the Lord), was catering so much to the nonbeliever in his conduct! The pastor talked about evidence this and that, and never present anything! And the champion of “Just Jesus” didn’t even mentioned Jesus!

After a few minutes of watching the easy friendly massacre by the Agnostic, and the believers left without words to say, I thought I used Presuppositional Apologetics applied to the agnostics’ unbelief.  In the sight of the Lord, I believe that the agnostic’s worldview was reduced to absurdity (empiricism, historical skepticism, inability to account for logic, experimentalism, etc).

Another nonChristian was listening intently as well.

After it was over, the nonChristian girl was still there.  I had to go back to my place.  I shook hand with the Pastor, and his disciple, the philosophy student.  He had to criticize me and was still rather upset at me.

THen pointing to the nonChristian girl still listening, he said, ” I’m just sorry she has to be subjected to your rudeness”.

But she actually listened to the whole dialogue I had with the Agnostic, and she was smiling. Praise God the gospel was shared! 

So, with Chrisitans like these, who needs an enemy?

If this is the ‘best” of Christian apologetics in this reputable school, and this guy is teaching all these guys this ‘kind’ of apologetics, that’s really a sad state of Christian apologetics then.

But God is merciful….

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Urantia Paper, and an example of Christian Counter-Cult Resources

One of the oppourtunity for Christians involved with Counter-Cult Apologetics through the Internet is the fact that by putting the information out there in the World Wide Web, this allow those in the Cults or Christians needing resources to have WORLD WIDE ACCESS to a specific and sometimes very narrow issue or little known, small and non-mainstream cult

Such an example would be of that of the Urantia Book and the religious groups that revolves around it

The link below is a link to a website that tackles on the Urantia Paper from a Christian perspective

http://ubhoax.org/default.php

If you click on either “Religion” or “Science”, it will give you some polemics against this ‘scripture’

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Plantinga for the rest of us…a link

http://chaosandoldnight.wordpress.com/2006/12/15/plantinga-for-the-rest-of-us-part-1/

While I have spent most of my time studying Van Til’s student’s work,

Eventually I desire to study about Plantinga

The blog entry linked would be part one of a series by John Fraiser, who graduated from a seminary whose President is one of my favorite Preacher in the annual Shephards’ Conference

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Conference for Children Ministry

Children Desiring God and Bethlem Baptist Church are hosting a conference for leaders of Children’s minstries:

“We have planned a number of seminars designed to provide practical help and encouragement that we trust will benefit parents, teachers, leaders, and all who are invested in ministry to children.”

For full details, check out their website, which includes a PDF brochure and mp3/video by John Piper.

April 26th to 28th, 2007 – Children Desiring God 2007 Conference
Topic: Standing on the Truth: How Great a Salvation
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Speakers: John Piper, Wayne Grudem, C.J. Mahaney, David Michael, and “a number of gifted seminar leaders”

Seminars on date of posting:

• Vision-Driven Children’s Ministry Leadership
• Recruiting & Retaining Volunteers
• Partnering with Parents
• Nursery Ministry & Teaching Toddlers
• Preparing & Teaching Preschool Lessons
• Introduction to CDG Curriculum & Sequence
• Lesson Preparation & Presentation
• Preparing & Leading Application Time
• Leading Children in Worship
• Teaching Youth: Watch Out for Your Method
• Presenting the Gospel to Children
• Theology of Salvation Q&A
• Preparing Children to Hear the Gospel

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Teaching Imputation to Children

Yesterday, DesiringGod.org had an article by John Piper titled, “Teaching Doctrine to a Six-Year-Old.” The article was about teaching the meaning of imputation to Piper’s daughter, Talitha, using a story.

What I really like about John Piper is that he desires to teach the deep and important doctrines of the bible to children, which I noticed listening to some of his sermons on Romans.

This is reflected in Children Desiring God’s, “Philosophy and Distinctives“:

“Depth

We believe that children can handle deep truth at a young age. We want to fill them with solid Bible truth that will give them a foundation to fall back on when they go through deep waters. For this reason, the curriculum continually refers children to the Word of God; Bibles are an essential tool for children studying Children Desiring God curriculum. We believe that the Bible must be taught in depth, yet in a child-friendly, interesting manner. For this reason, much attention has been devoted to the development of creative presentation of essential Bible truths.”

Children Desiring God’s website is mainly a portal to purchase the resources developed and used at Bethelem Baptist Church.

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More about ‘Snap Preview Anywhere’

If you haven’t noticed, when you hover over external links (links going to outsite sites), it will show a preview of the page in a little popup.

WordPress has been beta testing this feature, giving it to all wordpress blogs. Previously, only 10% of the blogs have the feature.

Snap comes from Idealab, based in Pasadena, California.

Disabling Snap

If you dislike the Snap popups on your wordpress blog, you disable snap by unchecking the box on the dashboard under presentation/extras.

A internet surfer can also disable Snap in their browser by clicking here, creating a cookie to disable the feature. If you delete the cookie, the Snap Preview will reactivate.

Other Info for Snap Users

By default, Snap Preview Anywhere only gives previews of external links, but you can enable it for internal links by inserting the code from here. Keep in mind, only WordPress users that can modify the code can do this. (Thus this blog cannot.)

Snap supports TypePad, WordPress, and Blogger.com and includes instructions on how to install the feature on your blog.

Snap can be modified to only preview or exclude designated links as well. For more information view their FAQ.

Snap uses Javascript and creates a snapshot image of a link when triggered by hovering over the hyperlink.

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Baby Laughter (not holy or unholy)

If you like babies, you’ll like this video from YouTube’s blog. It was included as one out of ten best clips of 2006:

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YouTube Outreach Oppurtunities

I was watching the YouTube staff 2006 highlights. One of the top YouTube vidoes was about YouTubers, featuring clips of other YouTubers. I got the sense that YouTube has grown a large and diverse community of people that record blog-like video clips.

Though I maybe kind of slow noticing (since apparently the Times did a feature about YouTubers), but this is another venue of outreach to non-believers in the areas of debate, evangelism, apologetics, or even theology (if talking to other Christians). If no Christians has realized this yet, I hope this post may spur some Christians to outreach to the YouTube community.

I sense a real oppurtunity for Christians to make waves. There are many Christian blogs now, however I haven’t come across any prominent Christian YouTubers. I really think the first few Christian YouTubers that attempt to reach out, respond to other YouTube videos, and debate in apologetics and doctrine will be prominent. Right now, Christian blogs such as this one are attempting to carve itself an audience, because of the massive amount of blogs available to read by online surfers.

YouTube is a golden oppurtunity to gather an audience.

All you need is a good internet connection and a webcam.

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Resolved Conference Registration Closed

The Resolved Conference has closed registration for the February 16 to 19, 2007 Conference in Long Beach, CA.

The Resolved Conference is based off the 70 Resolutions Johnathan Edwards made for himself when he was 19 years old. You can find the 70 Resolutions listed as #10 bullet from my post or just click here to go directly to the 70 Resolutions.

Upon reading, the following resolutions stuck out to me:

• 3. Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.
• 8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. July 30.
• 11. Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances do not hinder.
• 24. Resolved, whenever I do any conspicuously evil action, to trace it back, till I come to the original cause; and then, both carefully endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my might against the original of it.
• 37. Resolved, to inquire every night, as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent,- what sin I have committed,-and wherein I have denied myself;-also at the end of every week, month and year. Dec. 22 and 26, 1722.
• 38. Resolved, never to speak anything that is ridiculous, sportive, or matter of laughter on the Lord’ s day. Sabbath evening, Dec. 23, 1722.
• 41. Resolved, to ask myself, at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly, in any respect, have done better. Jan. 11, 1723.
• 62. Resolved, never to do anything but duty, and then according to Ephesians 6:6-8, to do it willingly and cheerfully as unto the Lord, and not to man:‹knowing that whatever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord.Š June 25 and July 13, 1723.
• 65. Resolved, very much to exercise myself in this, all my life long, viz. with the greatest openness, of which I am capable of, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and every thing, and every circumstance; according to Dr. Manton’ s 27th Sermon on Psalm 119. July 26, and Aug.10 1723.

I was curious to see if anyone had a copy of Dr. Manton’s sermon listened to by Johnathan Edwards mentioned in resolution 65. I couldn’t find any but I did find a website that had a diary of Johnathan Edwards when he listened to the sermon. It must’ve affected him a lot, because he mentions it twice in two seperate diary entries: July 20th and July 26th.

Resolution 11 really struck a chord in me, because I recently told a friend that I seemed good at finding questions, but no answers and that finding answers take a long time. Perhaps I should strengthen my efforts to find answers.

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2007 Desiring God Conferences

On Thursday, I listened to DesiringGod.org’s podcast for January 1st to 3rd. They announced the upcoming conferences for 2007:

February 5th to 7th, 2007 – Annual Pastor’s Conference
Topic: Holiness of God
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Speakers: R. C. Sproul, Thabiti Anyabwile, William Mackenzie, John Piper

April 21st, 2007 – Regional Conference
Topic: Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ
Location: Portland, Orgeon @ Good Sheperd Community Church
Speaker: John Piper

Septemeber 28th to 30th, 2007 – Desiring God National Conference
Topic: Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Speakers: John MacArthur, Jerry Bridges, Randy Alcorn, Helen Roseveare, and John Piper

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Password Security

When making a new password, you can use SecurityStats.com for guidelines and to “test” your password.

Use a mix of upper case and lower case letters, symbols, letters, and numbers. Don’t use a word in the dictionary. (Password crackers sometimes use word lists from a dictionary)

Don’t use a password you use for other accounts.

For wordpress, I would recommend you avoid using your accountname as your nickname. My friend told me his ex-girlfriend hijacked his email, blog, and AIM screenname. Don’t share your password with anyone… especially your girlfriend. -.-

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Poor Scholarship On Calvinism

Two Takes on Calvinism from A History Textbook and Sociology Textbook

Yesterday, while talking about apologetics, a fellow sister in Christ told me she didn’t like to talk about stuff she didn’t know. Sound advice.

Someone once said, “It is better to stay silent and let people think you are an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

Who said that? The first website I went to said Mark Twain. According to wikiquote (a handy encyclopedia of quotes), Mark Twain was not the original author but rather Abraham Lincoln was the original author!

Unfortunately, the authors of my sociology book and history book never came across the quote by Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain. Both textbooks define predestination correctly, but then depict Calvinist beliefs wrong.

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