HOW CALVINISTS SPREAD THANKSGIVING CHEER Charity and predestination go hand in hand.

Next Thursday, as the rest of us tuck into our turkey feasts, hundreds of needy families in Southern California will open "Boxes of Love." Delivered by several churches led by Pacific Crossroads in Santa Monica, Calif., the boxes contain ingredients for a Thanksgiving meal for six. They allow impoverished families to skip food lines and neighborhood pantries and enjoy the holiday in their own homes.

What's unusual about the Pacific Crossroads congregation—and what underpins efforts such as Boxes of Love—is its theologically conservative raison d'être. A member church of the Presbyterian Church in America, Pacific Crossroads is committed to Reformation doctrines such as total depravity (every person is born sinful) and limited atonement (salvation is available only to the elect). These beliefs are typically regarded as ugly and inhumane by American culturati. Yet the church's pastor, Rankin Wilbourne, is happy to pepper his sermons with references to Bono and "Jersey Shore," and the church has grown to around 1,500 members from 500 in three years.

Rev. Wilbourne and his staff created an umbrella agency called Hope for LA in 2008. Since then it has partnered with 18 other programs around Los Angeles, some with religious affiliations and some without. Through Hope for LA, Pacific Crossroads members can choose volunteer opportunities that best suit their interests and strengths. One such ministry is Boxes of Love.

"We got the idea from Here's Life Inner City, a ministry of Campus Crusade," says the director of Hope for LA, David Kleinknecht, about the origins of Boxes of Love. "And as the economy went south and they had to cut back in L.A., we took on the coordination of mobilizing well-resourced churches to fill boxes and delivering them with the help of inner-city churches." No coincidence: The founder of Here's Life Inner City was...

I think what surprises me about this article is the idea that the action taken is uncommon, and that non-Calvinists don’t give to the needy.

Calvin and his secret police in Geneva was never about helping the poor. Everything went to serve his hunger for power and his paranoia.

Oh well. Guess God in his sovereign will blinded them to the Baptists and Catholics who help the poor.

Baptists tend to be very generous and to have set up many social service organizations.

Question: if you go to a Presbyterian hospital, does the ER doctor have to diagnose you? Or do you just find out if you are predestined to receive the correct treatment?

One day a Catholic a Baptist and a Calvinist decided to go fishing. They got in their boat and pushed there way over to the middle of the lake. The Catholic said, 'I forgot my hat' so he got up, got out of the boat and walked across the water. He came back and the Baptist said, 'I forgot the fishing bait' so he got up, got out of the boat and walked across the water. He came back and the Calvinist said, 'I forgot the beer' so he got up, got out of the boat and then he sank. About that time the Baptist said, 'Do you think it's time to tell him were the stepping stones are?'

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