Classical Protestant Resurgence: how the PCA got its mojo back

The Aquila Report ^ | 24 May 2010 | Chris Hutchinson

[OrthodoxKirkPresbyterian]

books that introduce children to Christ are always good

[Pining_4_TX]

There is also the OPC (Orthodox Presbyterian Church) that is not mentioned in the article. Look up J. Gresham Machen some time. The OPC split from the PCUS (I think that’s what it was called back then) in 1936.

[Cronos]

Friend of mine was a PCA member some years ago. The church came to him with his "suggested" contribution for the year. He asked when was it the church began to charge members for their membership. The rep told him: "This is a business."

Typical

Bankruptcy

And wasn't the Crystal Chapel also called out for this?

[Cronos]

And that makes the entire PCA guilty!

Yes, as per your own previous posts where a slip-up by someone in a Church is justification to say that the entire Church is guilty. Congratulations

[Cronos]

I can tell from your posts you have a lot of misconceptions/have been exposed to some bad teaching.

Evidently he's been exposed to Calvinism... Calvinism says That's Christianity. That's Calvinism"

and they keep saying that

c. "If you do not know the Five Points of Calvinism, you do not know the gospel, but some perversion of it..." Fred Phelps, "The Five Points of Calvinism, The Berea Baptist Banner, Feb 5, 1990.

d. "I do not ask whether you believe Calvinism. It is possible you may not. But I believe you will before you enter heaven. I am persuaded that as God may have washed your hearts, He will wash your brains before you enter heaven." C.H. Spurgeon, Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon, n.d., American Baptist Society.

e. "We believe with the great Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, that Calvinism is just another name for Christianity." John H. Gerstner, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism, 1991.

f. "We hold and assert again and again that the truth which Calvin preached was the very truth which the apostle Paul had long before written in his inspired epistles, and which is most clearly revealed in the discourses of our blessed Lord Himself." C.H. Spurgeon, Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon

g. "Calvinism is evangelicalism in its purest and only stable expression." B.B. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, ed. Samuel G. Craig, 1956.

h. "Calvinism is the Gospel and to teach Calvinism is in fact to preach the Gospel." Arthur C. Custance, The Sovereignty of Grace, 1979.

[Cronos]

Too bad the article is a work of fiction

That is true. The PCA is 300,000 in membership

2011 Church Membership: Southern Baptists Decline; Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons Increase

And PCA statistics provide a blurry snapshot says that Total membership in 2009 – 346,408, an increase of 5,556.

5,500 more....

in contrast the PCUSA has 2,000,000 members --> 7 times larger as you point out.

If the PCA adds in 5,500 members each year, they will reach 1 million members in 118 years

You can't go by the same growth percentage as growth tapers as size increases. But even taking that fallacious number, it will be 40 years. That's not counting the number of splits it will have before then.

[Cronos]

It may interest you to know that Jesus was a bartender at a Jewish wedding

Is this standard teaching at the PCA? Because there are folks among the non-orthodoxy crowd who say

Da ya go displaying your ignorance over the biblical use of the word “wine.” Justify your drunkeness via Jesus and the wedding! No, Jesus never drank strong drink and He didn’t create 150 gallons of rotten juice to throw a drunken party. Jesus Christ never created anything tainted, and fermented juice is tainted. What He created was good and pure — not purtrid and corrupt! It’s down right blasphemous to suggest such a thing.

[Cronos]

Gamecock: We know that the elect are out there.

Mr. Piper: So the rest of us need not bother with church

ROTFLOL!! Seńor Piper, you heet it on the head! The followers of Calvin say that there be elect (i.e. Brahmin robots chosen to go to heaven and programmed to do good) and the non-elect (untouchable robots chosen to go to hell and programmed to do so by Calvingod) -- and at the end whatever the nonelect do, calvingod laughs and sends them to heck

[Cronos]

you would find Jainism fascinating — have you read about it’s philosophy? It holds to pretty much the same world view as in your posts.

[Cronos]

That’s not correct — Piper has not indicated that he is a Marxist. If we wish to teach him, it is better not to make aspersions.

[Cronos]

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 1(ranked 9 last year), 2,844,952 members, down 3.28 percent.

Let's see, the PCUSA was down 3.28% i.e. it lost 90,000 members, but the PCA only gained 5,500 members, so that means that 84,500 Presbyterians left Presbyterianism for good.

[Lexinom]

My paternal grandfather believed likewise.

I'll offer you a slightly different perspective. The church abrogates the demand for socialism. The church provides for her own in their hour of need. If someone is unable to give, the deacons will approach that person not to chastise but to see if maybe they need assistance. Speaking from experience: our own church, in our own hour of need, wrote us a check for $500.00. There was no grilling involved. This is exactly what a church is supposed to do.

You might argue this is socialistic ("from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs") but consider that in an ecclesiastical - not political - context, it in fact undermines and reduces the demand for political socialism by easing the burden of society's neediest members.

Your sentiments are bolstered, of course, by slick-tongued charlatans posing as preachers who demand moral rectitude of others and forgiveness for themselves, but you paint the entire church with this brush to the detriment of your own credibility.

[Brass Lamp]

How does this believe in predestination tie in evangelizing?

Shh! Your intruding logic interferes with the delivery of the message. You know, the one meant to convince us to choose to believe that we can't choose to believe.

I suppose that somewhere, out there, there may a Calvinist who possesses enough faith in his spin-off religion to NOT try to convince people that there's no convincing people.

[HossB86]

Sounds like prayer is MUCH needed for a hard heart.

Hoss

[HossB86]

Don't know what you are talking about.. but the reason I post is so religious posters know they can't just post here without someone questioning them. nuff said.

Actually, no -- you're just posting to contradict, not argue, or "prove" anything. Buy that's good--the longer you're here, the more chance we have to reason with you and share with you the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

Claiming there is no God does not invalidate Him. Besides...what if you're wrong?

Hoss

[Hacksaw]

You are entitled to your opinion, but you do not have to make false blanket statements that most Freepers would find insulting.

Blanket false statements are made all the time on the religion forum.

[HossB86]

Great! Mr.P goes to bed and another disrupter takes his place.

Well, the Devil stays busy, going to and fro, seeking whom he can devour, right?

Hoss

[Hacksaw]

God either hates people or does not exist, take your pick.

Nah. My God is a loving God, not the Jovian god of the bornigans.

[Gamecock]

[dangus]

The PCA is a Christian church. The PCUSA is not any more. The PCUSA can be friendlier to the Catholic Church, but only to the subversives within the Catholic Church, not to the real Christians. And this is why I don’t get why the Calvinists are so bent on attacking the Catholic Church: they keep presenting the miscreants and heretics as if they represent the real Catholic church.

When the Catholic Freepers aren’t defending the real Catholic church from Calvinist attacks, they’re (righteously) ferocious about cleaning up the liturgical abuse, the misdirection away from spiritual matters to corporeal matters, the Kumbaya Kommunists (I just made that up. You like?)

The Calvinist theological attacks have a good side: the Catholic counter-arguments help us Catholics learn from one another. But the scandal-mongering probably convince most people that both sides are a bunch of miscreants. If someone is belligerent enough, and simultaneously attacks the Catholic Church while arguing that the Catholic Church teaches salvation through works, the average person will walk away thinking that person is a jerk and that the Catholic Church teaches salvation through do-gooderism... and if he’s friendly enough to Catholicism, might just start believing in salvation through do-gooderism!