wrdsandwrks

Great looking family! Looks like they would keep you busy. Does your hubby have red hair too? Looks like it in the pic but I can't tell for sure.

I like the fun and games! But I especially like what you said over there: Made me think of the the Revolutionary war slogan: "No king but king Jesus."

Dooj, sounds like the kitchen is in excellent hands... Here's a start: 1. Seek God for His will regarding the future of the organization. Declare a time of prayer and fasting to seek His face and His direction 2. Lead a series of repentance and cleansing meetings where anyone past and present TWI,can come to repent from hardhartedness, exclusivity, rejecting Jesus, hurting families, destroying young girls lives, etc. I think its called identificational repentance. (If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and trun from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. I Chron. 7:20) 3. Find all the money, any hidden Swiss bank accounts stashed away, find out the net worth of all the property, equipment etc. 4. Sell the New Knoxville property or sell most of it and give the house and original farm back to the Weirwille family heirs. 5. Set up a fund from the collected worth of the bank accounts, properties to provide monetary compensation to victims of sexual and other abuses of the past TWI leadership. Appoint a committee of compassionate individuals to review all the cases and decide on the amounts to be allocated to each. 6. Provide counselling to all remaining staff, provide job training opportunities, severance, retirement packages etc. 7. Invite all past and current TWI members who want to have a say in the future of the organization to series of planning meetings to determine the mission, objectives plan for the new organization. From these meetings decide the future direction of the organization. If deemed useful and feasible, move a downsized staff to Gunnison to operate a new HQ for the purpose of blessing and supporting the body of Christ, or sell Gunnison and move it somewhere else, or not... 8. Send apologies to every person involved in TWI-1, TWI-2, TWI-3 for every wrong done by the leadership. more?

Too bad he didn't insist on enough life jackets and rowboats for all the passengers and crew - it would've saved him from your grandma.

Talk about marvelous! This is great stuff. I've been thinking what you wrote since last night. All lines converge at the cross. Goodness and severity, free-will and election, justice and mercy... Thanks AD. AD, love to hear more of your thoughts on salvation and Anthony Buzzard. I looked at his website and found some of his book titles intriguing, especially Our Fathers Who Aren't in Heaven: The Forgotten Christianity of Jesus the Jew and The Law, the Sabbath and the New Covenant. Have you read these? And Sky, Thanks so much for starting this thread. It's been a great blessing and I've been learning from all you guys.

Thanks Eyes for the nomination! I'm honored to be in the same list with these great women. I don't know if I could nominate anyone here for Prez. I'd feel like I was nominating someone to be captain of the Titanic.

I agree I respect your opinion, and appreciate the opportunity to discuss it. I think part of the problem is we have no objective definition of a cult. I was thinking about it this morning and I came up with this, again, my own subjective opinion on this and I don't expect you to change your opinion. My eight-year old daughter has friends of many different faiths, Baptists, Presbyterians, Jewish, Mormans, non churchgoers etc. Sometimes she'll have sleepovers on Sat. nights and ask if her friends can come to church with us (we go to a Four-square Gospel church) and sometimes she'll be at friend's house and they'll ask if she can go to church with them. I have no problem with her going to a Baptist or Presbyterian kids church service, Awana, VBS, etc. in fact she's been to both of them. Now I don't agree with all the Baptist's teach, or the Presbyterian's teach but I don't have a problem with her going there. I guess we have enough common ground there and I don't want her to be exclusive about her beliefs. She hasn't been asked to a synagogue service, but I'd be happy to let her go. But if her Mormon friend invited her, or if she had a Jehovah's Witness friend I don't think that I in good conscience would allow her to attend. Spiritually, I don't think it would be the right place for her to be.

Hi Sky, I hear what you're saying here, it's just that in my experience I haven't seen the Calvinistic doctrine play out this way, in other words I haven't heard of any Presbyterians running around saying that you can sleep around... Have you? The Puritans were Calvinists and they were pretty strait-laced, if anything tending more to legalism than license.

I'm going to pick on Abi because she is so sweet. :) I picture Abi as a really cute innocent but wise looking little girl with light reddish hair wise, intelligent looking eys and a mischevous grin. LOL (I really like your avatar, it says a lot about you and at least what I imagine is that it says you're striving for childish innocence. Great picture btw, it really does communicate.) (edited to add content. I think I hit the reply button twice before I started typing.)

Hi Seth, That's a good and fair question. It's not too far of stretch for me to imagine this because at one point in my life I was a committed atheist. Thank you for asking this question, I had to stop and really think back because I hadn't thought about this for years. At the time I wasn't much older than my son. I had my favorite Shakespeare quote posted on the wall of my room where I could look at it every day, it was a perfect statement of my worldview: To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Really, I hadn't thought about this for years and years, but I remember staring at this post on my wall and thinking about how all the people in this world are nothing more than rats scurrying around like parasites on this earth and how it would be better for all involved if they had never evolved. I wanted to die. I went from being a straight A+ student in High School to being expelled for drug use. I had an abusive boyfriend and I had no idea how to stand up to him or to get out of the relationship. My mother had cancer and I had no idea what to do about it. My brother was suffering from schizophrenia and all I could do to help him was to "drop acid" with him. Trust me it didn't help. I started selling drugs to my friends, neighbors were telling my parents that there were narcotics agents watching my house. I had a friend who was teaching me the best way to shoplift. I sold a stolen bicycle to a friend, her parents called the cops. While my mom was recovering from surgery she had to come out of bed and talk to the police detectives who were investigating a bicycle theft ring. I could go on but I'm getting sick just thinking about how awful that time in my life was. Shortly after the bicycle thing I got born again and my life changed drastically. I can truly cry tears of thankfulness right now because God didn't leave me alone in my despair, but He so graciously reached down and brought me up and out of every wrong thing, and put me on a path of life. My life became an adventure and worth living. I no longer felt like a parasite with no purpose. I got out of that abusive relationship. I quit drugs and stealing. I'm certainly not saying that all atheists are drug users, law-breakers, depressed etc. Don't even mean to imply it, because I don't believe that, but you asked my to imagine what my life would be like as an atheist. That's the way it was. I can't even imagine where I would be today if God hadn't graciously touched me and rescued when He did. I came to my atheistic beliefs through reading. I was a prolific reader and I started reading philosophy. I read Wm. James, Castaneda, Darwin, Alduous Huxley... I think this is why I reacted so strongly when I saw The Atheist Bible being promoted as a graduation gift. Don't tell me that atheists aren't proseletyzing. I WAS REALLY thankful that I have the gift of faith to give to my son. If that offends people well so be it. Again Seth, thanks for the question. It really did make me think.

Great Post Rainbow! Spoken like a true and beautiful Rainbow.

Sky, thinking about the original question, "Is Calvinism a cult?", my opinion would be no. (Of course I'm still not sure what the definition of a cult is.) But Calvinism is a mainstream Christian belief system, with many adherents, both in the past and present, who have contributed/are contributing to the body of Christ in many different positive ways. One thing to consider is that Calvinism is not a monlithic, one-size fits all belief system, under one leader. There are various incarnations of Calvinism, various churches that consider themselves Calvinistic, with many different voices to represent it. You say that "You could easily envision people who dont have any moral fortitude doing any thing they want". Do you have any examples of this? In the little that I've observed about Calvinism, if there's any going overboard with it, it would be on the side of fatalism, not license. I'm not promoting Calvinism, I just don't think it's a cult.

I would play but I can't have more than 2 drinks. (You know, Corps limit) But I will be 10 minutes early (Corps time) to the party.

Did Rosie steal it? Maybe she's more powerful than we think?

I was in a Barnes and Noble store with my (15 year old) son last June and we were both browsing. He came over to me and said, “Mom, look, there’s the Atheist’s Bible on a table labeled “Gifts for grads””. I said something like, “What a great graduation gift for some young person just starting out on the road to where?, Here’s something to help you along. By the way, there’s no God, nothing to live for, no absolutes to help you make decisions about what’s right and wrong, no hope for the world. Oh yeah, “Have a nice life.” What a great gift.” Not trying to put anyone down here, I’m just thankful that I have something better than that to give to my son.

I like Chuck Colson too. I'm not sure I get what you're saying here? Can you give a link Colson's statements? Are they about Descartes or philosophy in general? Boethius was a Christian martyr so he was speaking from a Christian perspective about free-will vs. predestination. I liked his analogy about the man sitting in a chair. The opinion that he is sitting does not cause him to sit. "But it is not because the opinion is true, that the man sits, rather, the opinion is true because it is preceded by the man's act of sitting." Of course what is left unsaid here is that since God exists in a dimension outside of time, where He is the "man's act of sitting" is foreknown (it could actually be said to have already happened in eternity). But did God "cause" the man to sit in the chair because He knew in advance that he would choose to sit down? Actually when I think about it this is one place where PFAL seems to me to have taught a proper perspective. Behold the goodness and severity of God. You know, I'd like to think that everyone gets saved. What I do know is that God is completely good and completely just and I'm glad He's God and I'm not. I'm also glad that He gave us truths in the Bible and the Holy Spirit to help us understand it and a mind to think about it all. I know so much less now than I did when I had pat answers to everything, but I have such a better relationship with the One who knows it all... Here are some C.S. Lewis quotes that make me think:

Is that the Calvinistic version of those programs? Oh sorry, wrong thread. (You know, reformed theology, bad joke, I know, but I've been reading about Calvinism for the other thread and the word REFORMED just jumped out at me. Would I have stayed? Hard to say, so many ifs. So many other things wrong... My prayer and heart's desire is to be where God wants me.

AMAZING!

Great quote. I knew I liked Spurgeon. This makes sense to me, the reason that free-will and predestination seem contradictory is that we exist within the boundaries of time and God exists outside of and above time. He sees things, not as we do in a straight timeline, but he sits above time and knows the end from the beginning.

The Puritans I was referring to in the first part of this sentence were the ones who originally settled New England in the 1600s. The Pilgrims who came to Plymouth in 1620 were also Calvinists. The Enlightenment occured in the 18th century. The Pilgrims and Puritans were the original settlers of our country (after the failed Jamestown colony) and certainly had a profound influence on the development of the country. (Not sure why Barton is relevant.)

Okay sky, tell us what you really think! No really, lots of food for thought in your post. I'm going to take some time to think about a reply or replies. I love this kind of discussion, I really appreciate the exchange of ideas. In the meantime, though, I read this yesterday in a book I'm currently reading. It seemed to fit right in with the seeming paradox between free-will and predestination which appears to be at the heart of the Calvinism doctrine: From the Library of C.S. Lewis, Selections from Writers who Influenced His Spiritual Journey by Bell and Dawson (actually the version in the book is from a different (and better IMO) translation from the original Latin. But not wanting to type it all in, this is a version I found online at: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/boethius/boetrans.html From The Consolation of Philosophy by Anicus Boethius (ca. 480-524) (note that Boethius lived centuries before Calvin)

Great discussion here. I want to chime in but I don't know where to start. I admire and/or have learned from several reformed (Calvinistic) writers, R. C. Sproul comes to mind,as well as Stott and Spurgeon. I used to subscribe to World magazine which seems to be written from a mainly reformed perspective, which I greatly enjoyed. We certainly owe much historically in America to the Puritans, who were Calvinists, as well as many of the founding fathers(such as John Adams, I believe). I've read that Presbyterian preachers were responsible in a large part for inspiring the colonists to declare independence from Britain. I personally don't agree with Calvin on many points(not that I've read all his works). I agree with sky4it that some of his doctrines are disturbing. I have a hard time with historical facts concerning his life, such as his role in the burning at the stake of Michael Servetus, a Unitarian, and his dictatorial leadership style. Abi, your posts reminded me of this poem: by Anne Bronte (Charlotte and Emily's sister) entitled: A Word to the calvinists You may rejoice to think yourselves secure, You may be grateful for the gift divine, That grace unsought which made your black hearts pure And fits your earthborn souls in Heaven to shine. But is it sweet to look around and view Thousands excluded from that happiness, Which they deserve at least as much as you, Their faults not greater nor their virtues less? And wherefore should you love your God the more Because to you alone his smiles are given, Because He chose to pass the many o'er And only bring the favoured few to Heaven? And wherefore should your hearts more grateful prove Because for all the Saviour did not die? Is yours the God of justice and of love And are your bosoms warm with charity? Say does your heart expand to all mankind And would you ever to your neighbour do, -- The weak, the strong, the enlightened and the blind -­ As you would have your neighbour do to you? And, when you, looking on your fellow men Behold them doomed to endless misery, How can you talk of joy and rapture then? May God withhold such cruel joy from me! That none deserve eternal bliss I know: Unmerited the grace in mercy given, But none shall sink to everlasting woe That have not well deserved the wrath of Heaven. And, O! there lives within my heart A hope long nursed by me, (And should its cheering ray depart How dark my soul would be) That as in Adam all have died In Christ shall all men live And ever round his throne abide Eternal praise to give; That even the wicked shall at last Be fitted for the skies And when their dreadful doom is past To life and light arise. I ask not how remote the day Nor what the sinner's woe Before their dross is purged away, Enough for me to know That when the cup of wrath is drained, The metal purified, They'll cling to what they once disdained, And live by Him that died.

Loshanta malacha, loshanta malacha, loshanta malacha, loshanta malachasiti. How's that? (LOL, JK) Our family has done that as well, including the Shabbat dinner with the candlelighting and the Hebrew blessings. I especially love the part in the Shabbat ritual where the father of the house lays hands on the children and blesses them: for sons: "May God make you like Mannassah and Ephraim", for daughters: "May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah" and for both: "May God bless you and watch over you. May God shine His face toward you and show you favor. May God be favorably disposed toward you, and may He grant you peace." Here's a link: http://www.aish.com/shabbathowto/fridaynig...he_Children.asp I sometimes wonder if this isn't one of the reasons many Jewish people are prosperous and make such great contributions to our society. We haven't done a Shabbat dinner in a while... No excuses, but my daughter does competitive gymnastics and she's at the gym on Fridays until 8:30, kind of makes it difficult. (We do a Passover Seder every year.) Amen to that and back at you!

Is this tongues? Interpretation?

My favorite "devotional" author is Andrew Murray. Absolute Surrender is a gem. I just finished re-reading his exposition on the book of Hebrews, The Holiest of All.