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-- I like to think Excathedra that I am highly in favor of people finding their own voice. But sometimes people are not what they portray themselves to be and I just try to take this into account when I am thinking about responding to new people. There was one poster a while back who unsoundly accused me of slander in the thread now relocated to the "Soap Opera" section in a thread that I started. And while she may have been in TWI for 30 years that alone is not enough to tell me anything about her intentions. One of the first thing this one did was express to me how unfairly she thought Paw had treated her at her previous GSC foray. And while I can not be sure of her motives, what my own gut warned me of was that I thought this gal was capable of trying to get me to go after Paw and/or GSC for her own reasons....sigh. Excathedra, Is that scenario possible? Well, IMO it is very likely to be considered possible by those of us who have seen the very worst of TWI or Spliter Group manipulation. And if this gal is the one who has got you so worked up about GSC and your place here, I think it very likely that she has already done what my gut was warning me she could do, except now she's manipulated you. I have been openly thankful for your sharing and my desire for people to find their voice. But IMO some TWI'ers already have a voice, and it happens to be dishonest and manipulative. JEFF I try to not say anything to hurt anybody, but sometimes what folks need to hear can be tough. I just hope that I am not as big an idiot as TWI leadership was in exploring how to do that kind of thing correctly.

My-my! What wild flailings at the doctrine of unconditional election. You have struck only a few “hyper-Calvinists” (e.g. some Primitive Baptists), who reputedly held election to work salvation in some manner independent of faith in Christ. The Westminster Confession of Faith, with which all authentic Reformed churches would have significant and fundamental levels of agreement, posits the possibility of elect unbelievers only in the cases of “elect infants, dying in infancy” and “other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.” Following are several chapters from the Westminster Confession of Faith (source: http://opc.org/wcf.html ) where people can read actual statements concerning doctrinal issues that are being misrepresented (I have emphasized some statements): For those wanting to discover the doctrinal characteristics and systematic theological flavor of Reformed theology, I recommend the following: The Westminster Confession of Faith The Belgic Confession The London Baptist Confession of 1689 Also, http://www.monergism.com has many Reformed resources.

God doesn't cause the problems, but He does allow them, because He is God and He is in charge. That is comforting to me, because it assures me that nothing is beyond His control. But He doesn't allow bad stuff just to be mean. When He does, it's for a good reason, but we may not understand the reasons at the time. But many times He allows us to go through things so that we can relate to and encourage others with the same problems, like the doctor that WG mentioned. In TWI we were taught that martyrs died for their faith because they didn't or couldn't believe for deliverance. That contradicts Hebrews 11:39, though, which says, "And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise." They didn't receive the promise in their lifetimes, but were confident that God would keep His promises, even if it meant raising them from the dead. They held fast to the same promise of blessings that were given to Abraham, who also did not receive it in his lifetime. When we see the "big picture" - that this life is just preparation for what's to come - even the worst of life's problems are nothing in light of resurrection and eternal life.