Free Republic

Romans 9:15-24 15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. 17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. 18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog “Hobbes and Bacon” is a “Calvin and Hobbes” tribute that takes place 26 years later “Hobbes and Bacon” is a “Calvin and Hobbes” tribute that takes place 26 years later. I had nothing to with creating these cartoons – I am merely posting them here so that you can see them. There are four – and only four – but that’s enough to get the message across. You can see larger versions of the images by clicking twice on each image:Part 1: http://www.pantsareoverrated.com/archive/2011/05/10/hobbes-and-bacon/Part 2: http://www.pantsareoverrated.com/archive/2011/05/12/hobbes-and-bacon-002/Part 3: http://www.pantsareoverrated.com/archive/2011/10/11/hobbes-and-bacon-03-2/Part 4: http://www.pantsareoverrated.com/archive/2011/10/13/hobbes-and-bacon-04-2/

More than a thousand attendees are expected to gather for a four-day conference to celebrate John Calvin's 500th birthday, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service. As America prepares to celebrate Independence Day this July 4, Vision Forum Ministries will be hosting the national celebration to honor the 500th birthday of John Calvin, a man who many scholars recognize as America's "Founding Father." The event -- The Reformation 500 Celebration -- will take place July 1-4 at the Park Plaza Hotel in downtown Boston, according to a media release about the event. "Long before America declared its independence, John...

Q1: “What is your only comfort in life and in death? A1: That I am not my own…”

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...

It is a reckless analyst who risks reopening sixteenth-century disputes between Roman Catholics and the Protestant Reformers. I do so in the interest of a greater good, but my purpose is not to say who was right or who was wrong. I would simply like to explore why the Protestant churches maintained unity with the Catholic Church on the contraception question for four centuries, only to abandon this unity during the first half of the twentieth century. I write as a historian, not an advocate. (I am a “cradle Lutheran.”) Orders & Disorders To understand the change in Protestant thought...

Until the Anglican Lambeth Conference of 1930 no Christian denomination had ever said that contraception could ever be objectively right. The Washington Post, in an editorial on March 22, 1931, said of the Federal Council of Churches' endorsement of Lambeth: “It is impossible to reconcile the doctrine of the divine institution of marriage with any modernistic plan for the mechanical regulation of or suppression of human life. The Church must either reject the plain teachings of the Bible or reject schemes for the ‘ scientific’ production of human souls. Carried to its logical conclusion, the committee’s report, if carried into...

VATICAN CITY (AFP) — The Vatican newspaper Friday praised influential French Protestant John Calvin, a critic of the Roman Catholic Church, hailing him an "extraordinary" figure. The Osservatore Romano, on the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth, said it recognised the theologian as a Christian who had a major impact on European life. "Considering the strength of arguments against him, we think it necessary to point out that Calvin is a Christian," the daily paper said of the man who played a major role in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The paper ranked Calvin alongside 18th century French philosopher...

"Het Mekka van Calvijn" (Calvin's Mecca) is the name of the work created by the Moroccan artist Aziz Bekkaoui. It is a cube measuring 4 by 4 by 4 metres, consisting entirely of reflective glass. The cube apparently refers to the Kaaba, the sacred central building in the courtyard of the Great Mosque in the Islamic place of pilgrimage, Mecca in Saudi Arabia....

Unconditional election The doctrine of unconditional election means God does not base his choice (election) of certain individuals on anything other than his own good will [13]. God chooses whomever he pleases and passes over the rest. The ones God chooses will desire to come to him, will accept his offer of salvation, and will do so precisely because he has chosen them. To show that God positively chooses, rather than merely foresees, those who will come to him, Calvinists cite passages such as Romans 9:15-18, which says, "[The Lord] says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I...

Geneva was a church-city-state of 15,000 people, and the church constitution now recognized "pastors, doctors, elders and deacons," but the supreme power was given to the magistrate, John Calvin. In November 1552, the Council declared Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion to be a "holy doctrine which no man might speak against." Thus the State issued dogmatic decrees, the force of which had been anticipated earlier, as when Jacques Gruet, a known opponent of Calvin, was arrested, tortured for a month and beheaded on July 26, 1547, for placing a letter in Calvin's pulpit calling him a hypocrite. Gruet's book...

The Arminian Doctrine of Infant Damnation Having noticed one objection to the doctrine of predestination, we proceed to a second, viz. "It leads to the idea of infant damnation;" "brings with it the repulsive and shocking opinion of the eternal punishment of infants;" "causes not only children not a span long, but the parents also, to pass through the fires of hell."The above are samples of the manner in which this charge is reiterated by every controversial Arminian author that has come under our notice. The reader will be surprised to learn that the "shocking and re-pulsive doctrine" here objected...

" John Calvin…is looked upon now, of course, a theologian only, but he was really one of the greatest of gospel preachers. When Calvin opened the Book and took a text, you might be sure that he was about to preach "Through grace are ye saved, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." CH SPURGEON (14:216) Like his dear Lord Jesus, John Calvin has often been wounded in the house of his friends. Some Christians - who should rejoice in his ministry - practically hate him as much as Rome ever did. All manner of...

What are we to think of Calvin? Rev . Fr. Philippe Marcille The influence of John Calvin (1509-1564) has been immense, perhaps even more so than that of Luther. Certainly, without the bellowing revolutionary Luther, Calvin would not have been able to do anything; yet without Calvin, the revolt would not have had the political impact that it did in France and especially the United States. Origins He was born in Picardy, France, in 1509. His parents were well-to-do people. A very gifted student, he received a benefice from the Church and continued his studies at Paris. He was not...

Calvinism [Part IV of IV] Two important practical consequences may be drawn from this entire view: first, that conversion takes place in a moment -- and so all evangelical Protestants believe; and, second, that baptism ought not to be administered to infants, seeing they cannot have the faith which justifies. This latter inference produced the sect of Anabaptists against whom Calvin thunders as he does, against other "frenzied" persons, in vehement tones. Infant baptism was admitted, but its value, as that of every ordinance, varied with the predestination to life or to death of the recipient. To Calvinists the...

This is a guest post by Dr. David Anders. David and his wife completed their undergraduate degrees at Wheaton College in 1992. He subsequently earned an M.A. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1995, and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 2002, in Reformation history and historical theology.  He was received into the Catholic Church in 2003. He will be on EWTN Live on June 23rd, 7:00 pm Central (8 EST), and may be discussing some of the material from this article.Portrait of Young John Calvin Unknown Flemish artist Espace Ami Lullin of the Bibliothèque de GenèveI once...

Calvinism [Part III] We come on these lines to the famous distinction which separates the true Church that of the predestined, from the seeming or visible, where all baptized persons meet. This falls in with Calvin's whole theory, but is never to be mistaken for the view held by Roman authorities, that some may pertain to the soul of the Church who are not members of its body. Always pursuing his idea, the absolute predestinarian finds among Christians, all of whom have heard the Gospel and received the sacraments, only a few entitled to life everlasting. These obtain the...

Calvinism [Part II] Another way to define the Reformed theology would be to contrast its view of God's eternal decrees with that taken in the Catholic Church, notably by Jesuit authors such as Molina. To Calvin the ordinances of Deity seemed absolute, i.e. not in any way regardful of the creature's acts, which they predetermined either right or wrong; and thus reprobation -- the supreme issue between all parties -- followed upon God's unconditioned fiat, no account being had in the decree itself of man's merits or demerits. For God chose some to glory and others to shame everlasting...

Calvinism No better account of this remarkable (though now largely obsolete) system has been drawn out than Möhler's in his "Symbolism or Doctrinal Differences." The "Institutes of the Christian Religion," in which Calvin depicted his own mind, were never superseded by creed or formulary, though the writer subscribed, in 1540, at Worms to the Confession of Augsburg, i.e. the second revised edition. To take his bearings in theology we must remember that he succeeded Luther in point of time and was committed to a struggle with Zwingli's disciples at Zurich and elsewhere, known as Sacramentarians, but who tended more...