Religion
In reply to the discussion: Evangelicals Find Themselves in the Midst of a Calvinist Revival [View all]LuvNewcastle
(16,894 posts)They raised me as a Baptist, but now they're Presbyterians. It's been going on for the ten years or so. I think it's pretty damn silly to be a Calvinist Evangelical (I don't think my parents qualify as Evangelicals anymore). If you believe in predestination, then 'saving souls' is impossible. Since God has already chosen who is saved and who is damned before a person's birth, damned people can't become saved no matter how much they try. All the preaching in the world can only make people who are already saved come to the realization that they are saved. Got to have some way to get more people in the church and bring in those dollars, I suppose.
Calvinists call themselves 'the elect,' because God has supposedly elected them to be his. They believe they're 'God's Chosen People,' in other words. Anyone who subscribes to the belief that God loves them more than other people is pretty fucked up, in my opinion. I don't think I can express how disgusted I am that my parents hold to such a belief. If anything comes from Satan, it's an attitude like that.