I grew up in an Arminian church, in an Arminian family, in a largely Arminian town. When I "grew up", I married the son of an Arminian preacher and when my sister "grew up" she married an Arminian preacher.
So, the reaction to my conversion to Calvinism was underwhelming. Nobody criticized me, but nobody encouraged me.
Because I live in an area where Calvinist and Arminians work together on many things, when I wrote of my beliefs on-line, the animosity astounded me - on both sides.
When my friend Phil challenged me to take a good look at Calvinism, it took me a year to decide it was time to change churches and longer to choose which reformed denomination. After that, God led me to the “right” church fairly quickly.
I find a great freedom in just saying that God gets to pick – and there’s a lot I don’t know and there’s a lot I don’t have to know!
Gina
I decided to take a little hiatus from blogging for the last couple of weeks. I told my friend Doug that I wasn't going to debate the whole Calvinist/Arminian thing anymore because I was getting really frustrated.
So...anyway I was just minding my own business and reading my bible. I was in the gospel of John when I came across this sentence in Chapter 10: "You do not believe, because you are not my sheep." I read the chapter and reread the chapter trying to find a way for it to mean something else, but I couldn't. It is clear that he did not say, "You are not my sheep because you don't believe."
All of the sudden I am not feeling so confident in my opinion on Calvinism. Hmm...
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