Female Apostles or Female Apostates?

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Peter Kirk

For me this was the misprint of the week, at least: I was reading a print copy of The Week, a weekly news magazine, and found in it a review of the book Octavia, Daughter of God, which sounds like an interesting story of an early 20th century cult in Bedford, England. Actually I can’t help wondering if this Panacea Society has now become the Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley: a matriarchal community of pedantic ex-Anglicans obsessed with doilies, and still in Bedfordshire. Or is the author Jane Shaw, a British Anglican priest who is now Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, the real Archdruid Eileen?

The review mentions how the cult’s founder, who called herself Octavia, started by recruiting “twelve female apostates”. Really? Well, these twelve were very likely apostates from the true Christian faith. But I don’t think that is what the reviewer intended. Indeed there is another review of this same book online from the Literary Review, which is extremely similar to the one in The Week but not identical – it lacks the mention of doilies. And the wording in the Literary Review is

soon Octavia had recruited twelve female apostles and many more resident members, establishing a religion with its very own Garden of Eden in the streets of Bedford.

So, female apostles, or female apostates? Or does some sub-editor not know the difference?

Someone else who might not know the difference is David Devenish, whose book Fathering Leaders, Motivating Mission is being promoted through a series of extracts on Adrian Warnock’s blog. In the extracts Devenish answers the question “Are there apostles today?”, and in one of the posts he lists among biblical apostles “Andronicus and Junias”. He repeats the name “Junias” in a later post, showing that this is not just a typo. But he shows no sign of being aware that scholars now agree that this name found in Romans 16:7 is in fact a female one, “Junia”, as in NIV 2011 and explained in a note on the verse in the NET Bible. If Devenish accepts Andronicus as an apostle (which the NET Bible does not), then he needs to accept that the woman Junia was also an apostle.

Devenish argues that there are apostles today, and I agree with him. But can there be women among them? I don’t see why not. Even if the positive example of Junia is discounted, I can see no scriptural argument against them – after all, their ministry is not one of teaching or of leading churches.

But, as I discussed last week in my post Addicted to Arguing? How to persuade others, the best way to make my point on a matter like this is to tell stories. And I have one to tell here. Recently I met an American lady who calls herself an apostle, indeed uses that as a title, Dr Rebecca Murray. Her web page says that

As a Pastor to Pastors, she operates in the apostolic and prophetic realms.

She is also co-pastor of a church in Virginia, USA. And she is a wonderful lady with a huge vision and the gifting to make it a reality. If anyone doubts whether female apostles exist today, they should meet Apostle Rebecca.

All will be saved, not just the elect

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Peter Kirk

Calvinists teach that God has divided all the people of the world into “the elect” who will be saved and others who will not. All have sinned; God will have mercy only on “the elect” and condemn the others to the eternal punishment their sins deserve.

One of the main Bible passages used to support this idea is Romans 9-11. But in fact here Paul is teaching something quite different: in the end both “the elect” and the others, those who are “hardened”, will be saved – at least among the ethnic Israelites whom he has in view here. This becomes clear when one reads this section of Romans carefully, as I did when preparing my post Restoring the Kingdom to Israel.

Paul starts this section by making a distinction among the descendants of Abraham between “the children of promise”, the true Israel chosen by God, and the descendants of Ishmael and Esau who were not chosen (9:6-13). I don’t see this passage as about eternal salvation at all, but about being called for God’s purposes. More to the point, it is not really about believing and unbelieving Jews in Paul’s time, although it is building the background for Paul’s discussion of this matter.

Paul first brings up the idea that only some Israelites will be saved with a quotation from Isaiah (9:27-28). He moves into explaining how Gentiles and Jews are saved on the same basis, their confession of faith (10:12-13). Then he comes back to the question of whether God has rejected his original chosen people – to which his answer is an unambiguous “By no means!” (11:1, NIV). He teaches that

at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. ⁶ And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

⁷ What then? What the people of Israel sought so earnestly they did not obtain. The elect among them did, but the others were hardened …

Romans 11:5-7 (NIV 2011)

Now at first sight this looks like strong support for the Calvinist position, that God has chosen by grace an elect remnant, and “the others”, like Pharaoh (9:17-18), are hardened beyond recovery and so bound for eternal punishment. However, Paul is quick to reject this understanding. After quoting the Hebrew Bible to show that “the others” have stumbled, he writes:

Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. ¹² But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring!

Romans 11:11-12 (NIV 2011)

Paul explains his enigmatic hint about their “full inclusion” (Greek pleroma, “fullness”) a few verses later:

Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, ²⁶ and in this way all Israel will be saved.

Romans 11:25-26 (NIV 2011)

Thus he makes it clear that, at some future time, the hardening of “the others”, the Israelites who have stumbled, will be reversed, so that these people, as well as “the elect” in Israel, will be saved.

Now when Paul says “all Israel will be saved”, I don’t think we need to assume he means every individual. This is not universalism of the kind that Rob Bell was unjustly accused of. More likely “all” here means large numbers from all groups, including “the others” as well as “the elect”. Does it mean that Jews who died as unbelievers will have another chance to believe after death? Possibly. But what is very clear is that exclusion from the original group of “the elect” does not imply eternal damnation.

Calvinists like to quote this verse from early in Paul’s argument, as if it proves their point that God hardens the hearts of some people so that they will not be saved:

God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

Romans 9:18 (NIV 2011)

But, after showing that hardening does not imply eternal damnation, Paul ends his argument with the other side of the same picture:

God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

Romans 11:32 (NIV 2011)

So what does it mean to be among “the elect”? As I quoted Chris Wright in my March post Election: not to be saved but to save others:

If we are to speak of being chosen, of being among God’s elect, it is to say that, like Abraham, we are chosen for the sake of God’s plan that the nations of the world come to enjoy the blessing of Abraham.

In other words, when Paul writes of the elect in Israel, they are those Jews like himself who were chosen by God to bear witness to the Gentiles. And when he writes of God’s elect or chosen people without specifying Jews (8:33, 1 Corinthians 1:27-28, Ephesians 1:4, Colossians 3:12 etc), he is referring to all who are called to bring God’s message of salvation to the world. Now by that he intends all Christian believers. But, as is clear from the example of the Jews, that by no means implies that others will not subsequently believe and be saved.

Restoring the Kingdom to Israel: when and where?

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Peter Kirk

In my previous post Restoring the Kingdom to Israel I agreed with George Athas, at least in part, that the kingdom of God was restored to Israel through believing Israelites, but argued that the Apostle Paul also envisaged a future time when “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26, NIV), referring not just to those already believers but also to the “others” who had been hardened. I would suggest that this is when the kingdom will be fully restored to Israel. But I left open two important questions: when will this happen, and will it do so in any particular geographical location?

Now I am certainly not going to make Harold Camping‘s mistake and name any definite day or even year when Israel will be saved. After all, in just this context Jesus said “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority” (Acts 1:7, NIV). But I think we can get some idea of the timing by comparing Bible passages.

Paul writes that “all Israel will be saved” only after “the full number of the Gentiles has come in” (Romans 11:25,26, NIV). Now some, “partial preterists” like my friend Martin Trench as well as “full preterists”, argue that almost all biblical prophecy was fulfilled before or at the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. But I don’t think I could accept that this prophecy about Israel was fulfilled so early, unless it is understood as only about the believing Jews which, as I have argued, contradicts Paul’s clear line of argument.

Jesus also spoke of “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24). This seems to refer to the period after the destruction of Jerusalem but before the return of Jesus. Many have argued that the word “until” in this verse implies that Jerusalem will be restored at the end of these times, but I understand that the Greek here is inconclusive. Nevertheless it seems reasonable to identify these “times of the Gentiles” with Paul’s period until “the full number of the Gentiles has come in”, and this would imply that only at the end of this period “all Israel will be saved”.

So far, at any time in history, only a small proportion of the Jewish people have ever believed in Jesus. So we have to see the fulfilment of this prophecy as at some time in the future. As for how far in the future, we have no way to tell. But we can get on with evangelising and praying for the Jews, in appropriate ways which do not expect them to abandon their culture but only to adjust their faith.

But does any of this relate to any specific place? In the New Testament there seems to be only that one ambiguous hint that the literal Jerusalem will be restored – and this could refer more to the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:22, Revelation 21:10). Nevertheless it is hardly surprising that some people quickly took the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and its capture of the whole of Jerusalem in 1967, as the fulfilment of this prophecy.

In my previous post I agreed with George Athas in rejecting the identification of the state of Israel with the restored kingdom. But that does not imply that the Jewish state is a mere accident of history. God “made all the nations … and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands” (Acts 17:26, NIV), and that includes Israel. This is not a justification for aggression by Israel towards its neighbours, or for treating non-Israelites within its borders in ways which contravene God’s law (Deuteronomy 10:18-19 – a lesson also for conservative Americans). Indeed it is in no way an endorsement of the policies of the state.

Nevertheless the fact is that under God’s sovereignty the majority of the land of Israel is under Jewish control. And this is in accordance with God’s solemn oath to give this land to the descendants of Israel for ever, “for a thousand generations” (Psalm 105:8-11). If, as some argue, God annulled this promise in A.D. 70, less than a hundred generations after Abraham, then how can he be trusted to keep any of his promises? As one who believes that the Bible, the Old Testament as well as the New, is the authoritative word of God, I have to accept that he fulfils the promises he made under both covenants. Just as Ishmael was not God’s chosen one but God was still faithful to his promises to him (Genesis 16:10-12), so also the Israelites may no longer be God’s chosen people but God will still fulfil his promises to them.

This does not necessarily imply that the land of Israel has any further part in what is not the main strand of salvation history, the story of Jesus and the church. But neither does it imply that that land will be out of the picture. When Jesus returns, will he do so to any specific geographic location? If so, then surely it will be to Jerusalem. And how wonderful it will be when he is welcomed there by a believing Jewish nation, reconciled through the Messiah with believing Palestinians and living in peace in the Promised Land.

Restoring the Kingdom to Israel

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Peter Kirk

As Christians, should we expect the Kingdom of God to be restored to Israel? And if so, what would it mean? The last question that the apostles asked Jesus before his Ascension was about this:

Then they gathered around [Jesus] and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

⁷ He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Acts 1:6-8 (NIV 2011)

George Athas has posted an interesting series asking what the apostles meant by “restore the kingdom to Israel”, and more to the point what Jesus meant in his answer to their question. In part 1 he skilfully demolishes the argument that the modern state of Israel is this restoration of the kingdom. In part 2 he is equally deft in dismissing the “replacement theology” by which the church has entirely replaced Israel. Then in part 3 he puts forward a middle way in his own understanding of what the book of Acts, and the New Testament more broadly, teaches on this matter.

George links restoring the kingdom to the apostolic witness “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”. This makes a lot of sense of the book from which these words are taken:

in the first eight chapters of Acts, we witness the reunification of Israel under its Davidic king. What the prophets of old had looked forward to now becomes reality as Jews and Samaritans both put their faith in Jesus as ruler, saviour, and Messiah, for the forgiveness of their sins (Acts 5.31, 42). Here, then, is the beginning of Israel’s restoration. … Only once the restoration of Israel under its rightful king, Jesus, is truly underway do we then observe the gospel going out to the Gentiles.

But I find a problem with George’s argument when he moves on from Acts to Romans. He may be right that in Romans 9

Paul views only those in Israel who have believed (or will believe) in Jesus as members of the true Israel.

But this doesn’t really make sense of Romans 11. In verse 7 Paul distinguishes “the elect” within Israel from “the others” who are “hardened”. From verses 8 to 24 he talks about these “others”, and contrasts them with Gentile believers. In verses 25 and 26 he refers again to the “others” when he proclaims the end of the “hardening in part”, at which point “all Israel will be saved”. Clearly the “all” here is meant to include the “others”, as well as “the elect” who have been saved all along.

Verse 23 implies that at this time the “others” will believe in Jesus, and it is only on this basis that they will be grafted back into the olive tree. So it is true that only those in Israel who believe in Jesus are members of the true Israel. But this chapter makes it clear that God has not simply rejected those of Israelite descent who do not believe.

So George Athas is somewhat confused when he writes:

we should not be expecting a mass conversion of Jews to Christianity marking the last days of history as we know it. Paul was not envisioning such a thing in Romans 11.26. … Paul was not predicting a sudden eschatological conversion of Jews against all previous expectations, but was rather advocating some good old evangelism.

It seems very clear to me that Paul was expecting a large scale turning to Jesus among the “others”, ethnic Jews who had at first rejected him. This was in the future for Paul, which doesn’t necessarily mean in the future for us. He probably wasn’t expecting anything miraculous here. More likely he saw this happening through “good old evangelism” among Jews, although not necessarily by “conversion … to Christianity” as commonly understood. And “all” may be hyperbole for the great majority from all groups. But God has not forgotten those ethnic Jews who have rejected the gospel, as Paul makes clear:

As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, ²⁹ for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.

Romans 11:28-29 (NIV 2011)

Yes, God’s call to the physical descendants of Jacob is irrevocable. It has been transcended by the wider Christian call to all nations. But that ethnic group has not been rejected or replaced. And in the end God’s promises to his original chosen people will be fulfilled.

Thanks to Tim Bulkeley for the links to George Athas’ posts.

UPDATE: I have addressed some questions left unanswered here in a follow-up post Restoring the Kingdom to Israel: when and where?

Taking over mountains from the grass roots

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Peter Kirk

The Guardian, the UK’s top left-leaning newspaper, has an excellent article today Could this be the church to calm our secularist outrage?, written by the sceptical agnostic (his words) John Harris, and an accompanying video. The article and the video feature Frontline Church in Liverpool, 15 miles from my home, and its project among prostitutes in the area: not open evangelism but “a weekly operation in which a handful of volunteers take food, tea and condoms to the city’s sex workers.” The agnostic reporter is clearly impressed, and muses on the response to this, or lack of it, from militant secularists.

What the church is doing is impressive. But I want to look more at what the church is saying – at least at the words of its pastor Nic Harding, who is seen preaching in the video. In fact he writes about his struggle preparing this sermon in a post on his own blog. Following this in the video, John Harris interviews him.

Here is the video, followed by a partial transcript:

(04:09) Harding (preaching): Our calling is out there … Social justice, education, health care, politics, government: these are all areas that God says “Who is willing to claim that mountain?” … How can we make a difference? How can we challenge the prevailing attitudes of money being the bottom line for everything? How can we add value to what we do? How can we touch the lives of people, even though we are dealing with products or commodities or services? …

(04:56) Harris: If the people here took over all those mountains and ran the show, what would society look like? …

(08:39) Harris: You see I think about these things politically, about the ideal way the society should go. I think in terms of it being more equal, less individualistic. You know, the structures of society should change. Are we talking about the same thing?

Harding: I think we probably are. But we probably are approaching it from a different starting point. Because politics tends to look at things from a top down model. It tends to see … You start to change society by changing how you run society from the top, from political systems, whether it be capitalism or socialism, whatever it might be. Whereas Christianity starts at grass roots. It starts with individuals’ lives changing. It starts with families, broken families coming together and reconciling. It starts with children being raised by parents who care about what happens to them. It starts with parent governors in schools making a difference in their local school. It starts with people who go into work with a different attitude and mindset. It’s a bottom up thing.

Harris: But you know where you’re going? Because if you ask me I will tell you. I would like a society where the rich are less rich and the poor are less poor. How would you feel about that?

Harding: I think a society where people are generous with what they have got would be fantastic, where people are willing to share their goods, their possessions, their time, their energy – not in an enforced way, because I think once you enforce it you take the whole spirit out of it, but on a completely free will basis, because people’s hearts have been changed.

In the sermon extract, Harding seems to be alluding to the Seven Mountains Mandate popularised by Lance Wallnau among others, which encourages Christians to seek

to gain influence over the “mountains” of government, church, education, family, media, arts, and business.

Now according to Joel Watts these seven mountains are the same as the ones in Revelation 17:9, over which the Beast reigns. I’m sure this point has not escaped Wallnau and friends. Joel writes:

Stay with me for a minute –

Wallnau identified seven mountains and one to rule over them.

John writes of seven mountains/hills with one to rule over them.

Anyone? Anyone at all see anything wrong with this whatsoever?

No, Joel, nothing wrong. Wallnau and John agree that the enemy temporarily rules over the seven mountains. Wallnau teaches that Christians should bring them under the rule of Jesus, the kingdom of God. John also teaches, in verse 14 of the same chapter, how Jesus and his armies will defeat the enemy and conquer the mountains. Where is the difference?

Joel also considers that the Seven Mountain Strategy is all about “Dominionism”. Well, as Wikipedia says,

The use and application of this terminology is a matter of controversy.

Nic Harding certainly isn’t talking about Dominion Theology as described in this Wikipedia article, and I’m pretty sure Lance Wallnau isn’t either. Neither of them envisage setting up a kind of Christian Sharia Law to replace secular law. There also seem to be quite a few differences from Wikipedia’s “Dominionism as a broader movement”. There may indeed be influences from Kuyper and Schaeffer, but not from Rushdoony. Harding is explicit that what Christians should do must be “on a completely free will basis, because people’s hearts have been changed”. Society is to be transformed according to Christian principles not by imposition from the top but by Christians working up from the grass roots.

Is this something from the right or from the left? If this is “Dominionism” from the Christian right, why is it so appealing to the Marx-quoting agnostic from the left-wing Guardian? Militant secularists may rage, but the label doesn’t matter. What does matter is that people that the world, and the secular government, ignore or reject are being accepted and provided for by Christians. This is the love which can turn the world upside down.

Thanks to Phil Ritchie and the Evangelical Alliance for their links to this article.

Harold Camping silenced

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Peter Kirk

Harold Camping, the infamous preacher of the Rapture, has suffered a stroke which has affected his speech, according to the Christian Post (thanks to Joel for the link) and the Daily Mail. It seems that he has not exactly been struck dumb (UK) or mute (US), just that his speech “appears to be slurred”. So this may not mean a complete and immediate end to his radio ministry. But perhaps it should serve as a warning to him that at 89 it is time for him to take things easy, if he is to survive even until his predicted date for the end of the world, 21st October.

Did God have a hand in this? Did he strike Camping dumb, like Zechariah father of John the Baptist (Luke 1:20)? Well, it is clearly part of the divine design that the human body is frail and prone to sickness after nearly 90 years. Camping has very likely been under more stress in the last few weeks than is good for him, especially at his age. It would be wrong to suggest that this was a direct divine punishment for Camping’s false preaching, arrogant claims to know what God has not revealed, and more general heresy. But maybe this stroke will make him reflect more deeply on his life and on who is in control of it.

I pray for a quick recovery for Harold Camping. I pray also for a genuine repentance and a return to the true gospel message with which he started.

Rob Bell: I'm not a universalist

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Peter Kirk

Some words of Rob Bell:

I believe in heaven, and I believe in hell. …

I’m not a universalist, because I believe God’s love is so great God lets you decide. …

I believe it’s best to only discuss books you’ve actually read.

Taken from this YouTube video:

As I haven’t read Love Wins, I will not discuss it here.

Thanks for the video link to Phil Ritchie, who is now Team Rector of the parish whose electoral roll I have been on for more than 30 years, and is based at the church building where I was married in 2009.

The Perils of Rapture Theology

Posted on June 4, 2011 by Peter Kirk

Kyle Roberts and Adam Rao have written about A Teachable Moment: The Perils of Rapture Theology. Like the article I wrote about in my post The Rapture and the Spirit of the Antichrist, this is a good and timely contribution to the current debate about the Rapture. Roberts and Rao quote N.T. Wright on this subject, as I did in my own Rapture non-post-mortem post. Here are their conclusions:

American Christianity will always be infatuated by and prone to predictions about the coming end. The recent media preoccupation with the doomsday, rapture theology of a well-meaning but deeply mistaken radio broadcaster is just the latest example. Christian leaders have a responsibility to remind people that we cannot know the “day or hour” and that it is counter-productive to speculate about it. They should also emphasize, however, that Christians should not seek to escape the world, but to embrace and engage it instead.

Thanks to Eddie Arthur for the link – also for linking to one of my other posts.

The Rapture and the Spirit of the Antichrist

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Peter Kirk

Robert Ricciardelli has posted an important article Identifying the Antichrist by Joseph Mattera. This seems to have been copied from Mattera’s own blog. Mattera is Overseeing Bishop of Resurrection Church in New York.

Mattera starts by clarifying the biblical definition of the antichrist, along the same lines that I took three years ago in my post Antichrists, Beasts, and the Man of Lawlessness (but Mattera might disagree with me about the Man of Lawlessness). Mattera rightly concludes that

The antichrist is a false spirit that brings false doctrine into the church; it is not a single person.

He identifies that false doctrine as Gnosticism, which he describes as

a heretical cult that did much damage to the church in the first few centuries, believed that the flesh was evil and that only the spiritual world was good. They even taught that the god of the Old Testament was evil (the god of the flesh who created the natural world and needed animal sacrifices to be appeased), and that the god of the New Testament was good; that true Christianity was really about attempting to get free from the flesh and to live in the spirit.

This is important because Mattera also argues that

A new kind of Gnosticism has crept into the church during the past 120 years. …

The ironic thing is, those preachers and authors focusing on the “last days,” identifying one man as the antichrist, the rapture, and the mark of the beast, have actually fallen prey to the spirit of antichrist because they take the practical application of the cross of Christ away from the realm of the flesh. … their teaching implies that the cross wasn’t for the reconciliation of the natural created order but just for our eternal spiritual life in heaven.

Mattera even manages to quote Jesus as praying against the Rapture!:

Best-selling books like the Left Behind series by Tim Lahaye are taking kingdom focus off the earth and into the next world, something totally foreign to the teachings of the apostles and Jesus, who actually prayed in John 17:15: “I pray not that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.” Thus, praying against the rapture mentality!

In this article Mattera doesn’t mention the Harold Camping non-rapture debacle. He had given his view of this in an earlier article, before Camping’s date. But the new article is very timely. I’m sure many Christians are reconsidering the doctrine of the Rapture at the moment. This article offers a strong argument that it is fundamentally non-biblical, anti-Christian and wrong.

The Calvin Gene? Harold Camping and I don't have it

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Peter Kirk

Archdruid Eileen writes an interesting, but as usual not too serious, post Calvin Shrine Genes, in which she speculates about genes which might predispose people to belief in God. She marks today as the anniversary of John Calvin’s death by writing:

if your genes decide whether you believe or not – then Calvin was right. And it is down to God whether or not you believe in God. And that strikes me as a bit unfair, although I’m sure Calvinists would be able to explain to me why it’s not. Some argument along the lines of “God’s gaff, God’s rules”, I would have thought.

I can’t help wondering if there is a gene which predisposes people to Calvinism. I suppose people who carried this gene would have a seriously compromised free will, but they would be predestined to believe in the God of Calvin and the other Reformers and so to be saved. Meanwhile the rest of us with an intact free will would be able to decide freely whether to accept or reject the gospel message of salvation.

This Calvin gene would seem to be especially common among certain ethnic groups such as the Dutch, and so their ethnic churches are strongly Calvinistic. But this leads to problems for members of those churches who do not have the gene. Among them, very likely, is Harold Camping, who was once an elder in a Reformed church which, according to Robert Godfrey, “was almost entirely Dutch in background”, but then exercised his free will to go off the theological rails, and very likely to lose his salvation.

Well, I too have left the more or less Calvinistic fold in which I was first established as an evangelical Christian. Probably some of my brothers and sisters from those days, as well as some of my blogging friends today, would say that I too have gone off the theological rails. After all, I have dared to criticise on this blog such giants as John Piper and Wayne Grudem. But through the Holy Spirit I have assurance of my salvation from the only direction that matters.

I’m glad I don’t have the Calvin gene.

Gentle Wisdom

Thoughts on life from Peter Kirk

Category Archives: Theological Issues