lirazel | just because i'm interested...

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just because i'm interested...

So I know that the big movement amongst young Christians right now is the Reformed tradition, which, being Arminian, I find really interesting. And just because I'm wondering, I was hoping those of you on my flist (and random lurkers!) who identify as Christian would mind telling me how you feel about the whole Free Will vs. Predestination thing.

If I haven't made it abundantly clear at this point, I'm Arminian, and frankly, Calvinism really scares me. But! I am all about grace, so I'm definitely not looking to start any arguments or judge anybody or anything. I'm just really, really interested as to where you fall, theology-wise.

So! Christian friends of mine! Take a poll, please!

[Poll #1771737]

And btw, this poll is pretty much just about how you feel about the nature of salvation. For instance, I don't assume that all of you who pick Arminianism will be dispensationalists or anything like that. Basically what this comes down to is your feelings on the whole TULIP thing. I'm not going to assume anything further about your wider theological thoughts. I'm using these labels because they're straightforward.

The point of this was not to prompt one of those late-night-college conversations where we're all just trying to win points. I'm just interested, so never fear: everyone will play nice! My flist is excellent.

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What's an Arminian? What's a dispensationalist? What's the Arminian view of Free Will vs. Presdestination, and what's the whole TULIP thing?

I realize I could probably Google and find out, but I'd rather hear it from you if you wouldn't mind explaining. I know very little about any religion at all and your post made me curious.

Okay, to vastly over-simplify, Arminians think that salvation is freely offered by God to everyone (literally: everyone) through Christ because of Jesus' sacrifice. Anyone is free to accept or reject that free offering of grace. Calvinists, on the other hand, think that only a certain amount of people were pre-destined to be called and that if you're called, you have no choice--sooner or later you will accept grace.

TULIP is an acronym summing up the Calvinist viewpoint:

Total depravity (the nature of man)
Unconditional election (the saved were chosen by God before time)
Limited atonement (only the sins of the chosen were atoned for via Christ's sacrifice)
Irresistible grace (if you're one of the ones God chose, you can't reject grace)
Perserverence of saints (saints meaning Christians--those who are called can never fall away from God; if you fall away you were never among the chosen in the first place)

It all comes down to how you read certain scriptures and how you view God as relating to humans. Make any sense?

Yes, that makes sense! Thanks for taking a stab at explaining; I know religion is complex.

I always knew there'd be a day in my life when I regretted skipping out on confirmation classes. That day has come. I have no idea what any of this means, except "Calvinism." But I'm fascinated, none-the-less!

TULIPS! ARMENIANS! THE KARDASHIANS! JESUS CHRISTO! So many things I know nothing about.

Catholic confirmation? I actually don't know what the Catholic view on it is, but I think it's somewhere outside of the dichotomy, honestly. Like, Catholics wouldn't define themselves as either one or the other. Dunno!

I went into a little bit more detail upthread, so maybe that'll help?

HAHAHA! I know NOTHING about the Kardashians except that during lunch today some people were talking about how one of them had a wedding? And I was like, "Am I supposed to know anything about this at all?"

I actually was sort of quasi-Lutheran (Lutheran-meets-UCC) at the time that I was supposed to go through confirmation. But my parents were Catholic... so, that was still an influence. My religious upbringing is fairly tangled.

hahaha! I was kidding about the Kardashians, because I think they're of Armenian descent--so I was just teasing because I had no idea what Arminian meant.

*goes to read your explanation*

Interesting!

Oh, okay! I thought you were just throwing out totally, totally random stuff, so that one flew over my head. Now I'm giggling though!

I actually don't know what the Catholic view on it is, but I think it's somewhere outside of the dichotomy, honestly. Like, Catholics wouldn't define themselves as either one or the other.

I am the WORST CATHOLIC EVER and thus in no way qualified to answer this, but I think, yeah, that's basically it. It's more toward the free will side of things in that anyone can choose to become Catholic and thereby be saved. But that still isn't a guarantee you'll go to heaven, because you can LOSE that grace if you fuck up. Most Protestants would say it's not really a free offering of grace if you still have to do x, y, and z to be worthy of heaven (see also: Martin Luther). ~~But y'all are going to hell anyway for not being Catholics.~~

Really this was a tie between I have no idea what you're talking about. I just love Jesus, okay? and I'm Christian but not Protestant, so my understanding is more complicated. I think the technical term for my beliefs is neocharismatic apostolic. I am Team Free Will though. I think that God knows everything that's going to happen, but that he gave us free will for a reason; predestination doesn't ring true to me, not when I believe in a merciful, loving God. We're all given the chance for salvation; it's up to us whether we choose to take it or not.

And, wow, this is a serious discussion for lj! ♥

I grew up really low-church evangelical (but firmly Arminian), but I'm now going to an Anglican church. I don't so much put a lot of stock in denominations, but I love to talk about theological differences.

I think that God knows everything that's going to happen, but that he gave us free will for a reason; predestination doesn't ring true to me, not when I believe in a merciful, loving God. We're all given the chance for salvation; it's up to us whether we choose to take it or not.

My thoughts exactly!

Ha! It is a bit heavy, isn't it? I was just with some people from my flist last weekend and we went to church together and did some talking about God-ly things, so I knew there were a few people who might be interested in the discussion. I just get curious!

I don't put much stock in denominations either! People are always asking me what I am but I had to google my church to tell you that one ;)

My basic theology comes down to: Jesus is the son of God and he died to save me because he loves me that freaking much.

It's always fascinating! I've had to do a lot more theological research in the past few years as a youth leader at my church and it always interests me, I just hate when people use it as a tool.

Ha! Yeah, people tend to expect you to label yourself via denominations, but I'm like, "I'm a Christian? The end?" Because I approach it the same way you do!

I love talking about theology (I have a cousin who went to seminary, and I love to look through all her big textbooks!), but I totally agree when people use it in a particular way it can become so destructive.

We shall just be Christians, then. Yay us! ;)

I once sat through a talk that gave me a headache so bad it took hours to go away, but otherwise I love theology. It's completely fascinating.

Huh! 18 years of religious education and this is the first time I'd ever heard the term Arminian .

"goes off to burn Lutheran card... not that I didn't already do that..."

The word isn't one that would be used a lot, honestly--it's more of a theological term than it is one that individuals would probably use to describe themselves. Whereas Calvinists describe themselves with that word (or by calling themselves Reformed, either one), I'd venture to say that most Arminians don't even know that that's what they are? I just use the word because it's a nice, neat label.

And actually, now that I think about it, Lutherans are somewhere in between? I think they're more complicated, so I should have rephrased the bit about being Protestant above. Oh, well! Too late now!

And actually, now that I think about it, Lutherans are somewhere in between?

Generally speaking, I'd say so as well.

What is a Christian, and what is an Arminian? Is this like that tea party thing that is in the news a lot, or that Scientology thing in Hollywood? Do you think they serve hot chocolate at this thing? I might go for the hot chocolate if they do. I mean it is chocolate, hot, and drinkable so what's not to love?

By the way, I chose "This isn't a debate I'm interested in/I honestly don't care" and would also like to tick "I have no idea what you're talking about. I just love hot chocolate, okay?"

Well, I would be willing to make you some hot chocolate if you're ever in the area, so there's that!

Heh. My dad's family were members of the Wee Free Kirk back in Scotland (or the way he tells it, the church of NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO HAVE ANY FUN EVER) which is how we ended up in Canada- my grandmother wanted to marry a Catholic man, my great-granddad said "HELL TO THE NO" so she moved to Canada to spite him. And then she married my granddad who was Presbyterian (which, so were the WFKs, but not in the same way) and also a Freemason. On my mom's side, my granddad goes to an Anglican church, though his family were originally German- I guess they converted at some point- and my grandmother was Baptist, but I don't know enough about her family history to trace their religious path- just that she was French (her surname was Dumas) and there was also some English mixed in there. So basically, we're a religious patchwork quilt of a family.

. . . and then I turned out to be a godless pagan anyway. :P I mean, if I were Christian, I'd probably Arminian because I hate the idea of arbitrarily denying Heaven to people, but that's also a reason I ended up not connecting with Christianity in my teens- I tried, but the idea of having to answer for everything to a higher power bugged me, so I figured that particular religion wasn't a good fit.

That is quite a patchwork! There are some cool stories, there! I especially like the one about how your grandmother ended up in Canada!

Yeah, and then my dad got sent to live with his grandfather in Scotland for a summer, and the old man was walking along the street with him one day and pointed out the guy who Grandma Shaw had almost married. He was an interesting guy.

You have books you could write!

I know nothing about Arminianism or TULIP or what, but in general, yay free will?

In other words: I would like to join the hot chocolate party!

Yay free will! is pretty much my philosophy on life!

Yay hot chocolate, too!

I had to look this up on Wikipedia, lol. It falls into that period of Christian theology in between Catherine of Siena and Dietrich Bonhoeffer that I'm just not that familiar with. But yes, I'm definitely in the Arminian camp, though I would not have described it that way previously. More like Team Free Will.

The 16th Century is really dominating the Christian discussion in American from what I can tell right now? Which is weird because it's not the era I'm most focused on? And I usually describe myself as Team Free Will, too, but I've been reading through like half the entries on Rachel Held Evans' website, and there's this whole conversation going on that I wasn't aware of, so I was like, I WANT TO GET IN ON THIS!

Btw: Catherine of Siena and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are AWESOME. AND I'VE SEEN HER HEAD!

You're reading RHE? Isn't she great!

*loves RHE*

I know little about the theology, but I did read your post and think "Arminian? Seriously? That's kind of cool, I thought they were all killed off by Cromwell and the Long Parliament back in the 1640s, because everyone though that Archbishop Laud's Arminianism was just a codeword for crypto-Catholicism."
:-)

(Also, not a Christian so didn't tick any of your options in the poll.)

Nope! People probably just stopped using the word--it honestly isn't used a ton except by Calvinists to talk about the rest of us, which is pretty funny to me.

None of these words were familiar, so I looked them up and discovered I'm an Arminian! And here I thought I was a Lutheran with some United Methodist scattered about. Cool.

Well, you can still be Luthern and United Methodist. The Arminian/Calvinist divide is more along the lines of...if you're pre-, post-, or a-millenial. I'm both (at the moment) a post-evangelical-Anglican and Arminian. :D

Oh I know. Just my poor attempt at religious humor. :D

*Atheist whistle of complete ignorance of every single concept you have mentioned in this post*. I mean, I read Arminian originally as Armenian and I was like, "Oh I didn't know you were Armenian!" *headdesk*. I was raised Lutheran, but I'm not sure how that fits into the Protestant spectrum. For what it's worth I'm Team Free Will.

Definitely Arminian. (The boyfriend is a Calvinist, though.)

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just because i'm interested...

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hey look at that! a buffy icon!

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