True Church Conference is hosted by: Anchored in Truth Ministries
The Quagmire of Hyper-Calvinism
A quagmire is a difficult, precarious, entrapping position. How could the church of the Lord Jesus Christ find itself in such a place? By misusing the most glorious truths in the Bible, the Doctrines of Grace.
Finding Balance
In recent years there has been a genuine awakening to the Doctrines of Grace, but will our abhorrence of manmade “systems” of theology cause us to err in equal degree? Will we overcorrect and find ourselves on the slippery slope of hyper-Calvinism? May it never be!
Light and Heat
Nothing kills a church faster than a lost passion for evangelism and missions. The Gospel message is the light and heat of the local church. It’s our only hope and our only message! We must fight all temptation to be slack in sharing the Gospel to ALL men in ALL nations.
Cold, Dead, and Fatalistic
We need to be stirred to be evangelistic, and we certainly can’t allow our knowledge of God’s sovereignty in salvation to be an excuse for fatalism. What an abuse of His glorious truths…the very truths that should make us want to tell everyone about Christ.
Theology and Methodology
Faithful men of God will share biblical principles, historical perspectives, and practical applications. Michael Haykin, Barry King, Conrad Mbewe, David Miller, and Jonathan Sims join Jeff Noblit in stirring church leaders to strike a biblical balance between divine sovereignty and the mandate of evangelism.
Biblically Healthy Churches
The True Church Conference is an annual conference striving not to build great churches, but true churches. The conference is held in the “laboratory” of the local church, Grace Life Church of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Join us February 18-21!
Anchored in Truth
Anchored in Truth Ministries invites you to join pastors, church leaders, and laymen contending for the church in areas of foundational importance.
Comments (11) »
1. Reg Schofield
October 26, 2009
3:51 PM
The Calvinist I have known over the years , I have yet to meet a “hyper”. Granted some have been accused of being a hyper but in general there is so much confusion of what those who hold to Calvinism believe that once you can explain what you believe , those charges fall away.
The conference would probably be a great primer for those who are new in understanding the doctrines of grace. Better yet , it would be better if those who accuse all Calvinist of being against evangelism attend so at least their misconceptions would be enlightened.
2. Tim Challies
October 26, 2009
4:24 PM
The Calvinist I have known over the years , I have yet to meet a “hyper”.
I haven’t ever met a hyper face-to-face (I’ve come across plenty on the internet). But I also don’t know too many Calvinists who haven’t, at one time or another, been accused of being hyper-Calvinists!
3. Chris
October 26, 2009
4:31 PM
I deplore hyper-Calvinistic teaching and speak against it at every opportunity.
Unfortunately, if I want to see what I truly believe I must look at my works. When was the last time I shared the Gospel with someone one-on-one? When was the last time I “went out?” When was the last time I truly prayed for someone’s salvation?
The day we stop answering these questions with “today” or even stop asking these questions is the day we become (in practice) hyper-Calvinists.
4. Jordon Willard
October 26, 2009
4:36 PM
I visited the True Church Conference this past year (2009) to hear about “The Wonderful Grace of Repentance.” By far the best conference I’ve ever been to. As God continues to reveal the Doctrines of Grace to His children, there is a danger that some of us will plunge full force into hyper-calvinism and avoid the Biblical mandate of evangelism. I am praying God will use this conference to serve as a tool to warn reformed Christians from such plunging and encourage them to be filled with a knowledge-governed zeal to evangelize the lost for His glory and for the benefit of His people. I will definitely miss hearing Paul Washer preach this year. May Christ be glorified in His church, which He purchased with His own precious blood!
5. Reg Schofield
October 26, 2009
6:08 PM
Tim - No question there are many lurking on the net . Just as with many other theological misfits . Most of the people I know who are Calvinist were introduced to the doctrines of grace by RC Sproul,J.I Packer and more recently by Piper,Carson or James White.
Sounds like a good conference .
6. Jeri
October 26, 2009
11:50 PM
Very interesting and timely information for my husband and me… we are just finishing “Spurgeon V. Hyper-Calvinism” by Iain Murray and have learned a lot from it. Thanks Tim and Anchored in Truth, we’ll try again to get to one of their great conferences (just a hop skip and a jump from where we live!)
7. DR
October 26, 2009
11:56 PM
Boy I wish the phrase “True Church” would be dropped from our evangelical vocabulary. I grew up in a reformed presbyterian church and we thought we were the only true church until I was old enough to be exposed to believers from the ‘apostate’ churches out there (anglican and baptists and charismatic churches of various colours) who also called themselves “True Churches”.
Ask the pope - the only true church is the RC …. say no more…..
8. Adiel O. Corchado
October 26, 2009
11:58 PM
Many doctrinally sound Calvinists by confession are hyperCalvinists in practice. Sad but true.
9. DR
October 27, 2009
1:01 AM
Adiel - you are dead right. As a good friend who holds to the doctrines of grace once said to me - let the arminians do the converting (ie presenting the gospel) and hand them over to the reformed guys to correct their doctrine.
(Ask a calvinist why does he pray? Does God actually act upon the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man? Or is prayer just to teach the one praying to look to God for His predetermined will?)
Calvinism pushed to the extreme will lead to christian fatalism.
10. Jeri
October 27, 2009
2:11 PM
DR,
It’s funny you mention asking a Calvinist “why does he pray?” because that’s the very question I have thought about in regards to arminianism… what does one think about asking God to save someone if you believe the decision ultimately lies within an unregenerate heart?
11. Tony Byrne
November 6, 2009
1:49 PM
While so many Calvinists refer to and recommend Iain Murray’s book, they seem to totally miss one of the key issues Murray talks about. Here is how Murray once summarized his book:
In Iain Murray’s correspondence with David Engelsma (a Hoeksemian hyper-Calvinist in the Protestant Reformed Church) on the free offer of the gospel, he wrote that
With these comments in view, look at what he says in the book itself:
In the footnote (#1) on page 90, Murray says:
For Iain Murray, “the most serious difference of all between evangelical Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism” (p. 88) involves the denial of 1) God’s love for all and 2) the denial of the free offer, and the central component in the denial of the free offer is the issue of God’s desire for the salvation of all men in the revealed will. When one turns on the lights with these two important and interrelated topics in the Calvinistic house, alot more hyper-Calvinistic cockroaches appear. This is why they are not mentioned too frequently [understatement] among Calvinists.
Grace to you,
Tony