Mark Driscoll: Making Calvinism "Cool"

[DasFapital]

If you're from the Seattle area you may be familiar with this guy. He owns a franchise of calvinist churches known as Mars Hill, meant to appeal to teens and young adults. His sermons can be at times entertainingly stupid as below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgT8G_EaDZw&feature=related

[GiantMonkeyMan]

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This is what I think of everytime I hear someone talk about making religion 'cool'.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I didn't get far past all the "we choose to go to Hell" bullshit, then I rapidly lost interest. Fucking anti-human piece of shit.

Anyway, I thought Calvinism had the tenet that some (most?) people are pre-destined by God to be sent to Hell? How the fuck is that reconciled with any notion of "choice"?

[Offbeat]

Calvinism: the theory that God loves us so much he decides which of us are going to burn in Hell for all eternity before we're even born, and we have no freewill to change our loving creator's decision.

[eyeheartlenin]

May it always be remembered that Calvin was the person who initiated the complaint against the Unitarian Michael Servetus, who, unfortunately, was passing through Geneva. Without Calvin's action, Servetus would probably have left Geneva without incident. After Calvin acted, Servetus was executed (while Calvin watched) because his religious beliefs did not correspond to Trinitarian Christianity.

It's really a mystery to me why anyone would want to be a Calvinist; as shown by the legal murder of Michael Servetus in Geneva, over a theological difference!, Calvin was a monster.

[eric922]

May it always be remembered that Calvin was the person who initiated the complaint against the Unitarian Michael Servetus, who, unfortunately, was passing through Geneva. Without Calvin's action, Servetus would probably have left Geneva without incident. After Calvin acted, Servetus was executed (while Calvin watched) because his religious beliefs did not correspond to Trinitarian Christianity.

It's really a mystery to me why anyone would want to be a Calvinist; as shown by the legal murder of Michael Servetus in Geneva, over a theological difference!, Calvin was a monster.

Calvinism really is one of the most reactionary trends in Christianity. I believe he was the one who started this nonsense that wealth was a sign of God's favor or at least was an big proponent of it. It probably goes back way further than him, but the whole 'Protestant work ethic" seems rooted in Calvinist thought.

[DasFapital]

Driscoll is far from the worst modern Calvinist though. If you really want to cringe read some of the stuff by Douglas Wilson, Idaho's #1 fan of the Confederacy. He claims Southern slavery fostered good relations between the races and says the Confederate States of America was one of the greatest Christian societies to have ever existed.