Labels

My blog empire has long discussed labels - "fascist," "Communist," "baby seal clubber," take your pick. We use labels against people, we use labels for people, and we use labels to categorize people. This is nothing new.

Let's look at Jerry Falwell the Arminian:

Would you consider former SBC president, Adrian Rogers, as being an Arminian? Certainly not, yet functionally, he was one....Classical Arminianism is precisely what Adrian Rogers teaches, though he may not adopt its name, and I feel that he truly exemplifies the SBC, along with Johnny Hunt, Jerry Vines and Paige Patterson. Each of these individuals would not dare profess the "Arminian" label, yet each teaches just that, especially considering that Classical Arminianism was NOT a movement of Conditional Security (refer to the Remonstrance), and which DID affirm Total Depravity and the necessity of Prevenient Grace, in contrast to Calvinistic Irresistible Grace....

[T]ell me which category you find Jerry Falwell, Ergun Caner, Charles Stanley and Hank Hanegraaf....None of them would confess to being "Arminian," and yet the Gadfly accurately diagnoses them as functionally "Arminian." That's precisely why I listed the SBC as an Arminian denomination.

But when you use labels, make sure that you use them correctly:

I may not agree with most of Falwell's theology (he was clearly an Armenian, and I am clearly a Calvinist)....

Boy, Im glad that my posts contain no erors and are allways of the highest qualtiy.

Oh, and when you use labels, make sure that your audience knows what you're talking about. I sent the quote above to a literate, reasonable co-worker and got the following response:

??? I wonder what was intended?

She's a very intelligent and learned woman, but has never had occasion to concern herself with Arminian/Calvinist debates. Good for her.

P.S. At least I wasn't using any of my favorite acronyms (example: "I need a POR for the SEPG to change the relevant KPAs in the SPP to clarify the relationship of the NSDB vs. the CCB for sev 5s in an SEI-CMMI kind of way.").

arminianism

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