{"id":1283,"date":"2009-01-14T21:03:58","date_gmt":"2009-01-15T05:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=1283"},"modified":"2009-01-14T21:29:16","modified_gmt":"2009-01-15T05:29:16","slug":"brother-can-you-spare-a-bit-of-arminianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/brother-can-you-spare-a-bit-of-arminianism\/","title":{"rendered":"Brother can you spare a bit of Arminianism?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somewhat related to Heather’s post, God’s Problem<\/a>, see this fascinating New York Times Magazine <\/em>piece on neo-Calvinism, Who Would Jesus Smack Down?<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Mars Hill \u2014 with its conservative social teachings embedded in guitar solos and drum riffs, its megachurch presence in the heart of bohemian skepticism \u2014 thrives on paradox. Critics on the left and right alike predict that this delicate balance of opposites cannot last. Some are skeptical of a church so bent on staying perpetually \u201chip\u201d: members have only recently begun to marry and have children, but surely those children will grow up, grow too cool for their cool church and rebel. Others say that Driscoll\u2019s ego and taste for controversy will be Mars Hill\u2019s Achilles\u2019 heel. Lately he has made a concerted effort to tone down his language, and he insists that he has delegated much authority, but the heart of his message has not changed. Driscoll is still the one who gazes down upon Mars Hill\u2019s seven congregations most Sundays, his sermons broadcast from the main campus to jumbo-size projection screens around the city. At one suburban campus that I visited, a huge yellow cross dominated center stage \u2014 until the projection screen unfurled and Driscoll\u2019s face blocked the cross from view. Driscoll\u2019s New Calvinism underscores a curious fact: the doctrine of total human depravity has always had a funny way of emboldening, rather than humbling, its adherents.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The author here points to the strange outcomes of the doctrine of Predestination<\/a>. For a psychological explanation for why Calvinism can seem counterintuitive, read Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn’t<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somewhat related to Heather’s post, God’s Problem, see this fascinating New York Times Magazine piece on neo-Calvinism, Who Would Jesus Smack Down?: Mars Hill \u2014 with its conservative social teachings embedded in guitar solos and drum riffs, its megachurch presence … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[173,75,174,175,39],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1289,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions\/1289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}