Dan Chapa

Understanding statistics and Calvinism are two good but painful things to do in Baptist life.  There have been a bunch of recent studies among pastors on Calvinism and here are some key data points.   Among SBC pastors, 5-Point Calvinism has grown 10% per year from 2006 to 2012. ( 2006 LifeWay Study ) ( 2012 LifeWay Study ) This is in stark contrast to the 2010 BARNA study which shows Calvinism is not growing amoung Protestants.   In other words, while Calvinism is not growing in other Protestant churches, it is growing in the SBC.  The reason Calvinism is growing in the SBC is shown by the 2007 NAMB study - SBC seminaries are cranking out 5-Point Calvinists at a growing rate.    Additionally, SBC Pastors are more likely to hold to double-predestination and limited atonement compared to protestant churches generally.  ( 2011 LifeWay General Protestant Study )  ( 2012 SBC Specific LifeWay Stud...

I recently reviewed what the Church Fathers had to say on the atonement and was pleasantly surprised by what I learned. They often said things that support my understanding of the atonement - penal substitution. Penal substitution is the idea that sin we broke God's law, His justice demanded that we be punished, and Christ satisfied God's justice by a substitutionary penalty. Sometimes this idea is fairly explicit in the Fathers. In particular, I found Eusebius' statement that in OT sacrifices, animals were slain in the place of men, prefiguring what Christ would do, as a very powerful affirmation of penal substitution. Clearly, the OT sacrifices were offered to God, not Satan, so if you view the sacrifices as penal substitutions, you are basically there. The other person that stood out to me was Theodore Abucara, who plainly taught penal substitution. While he was pre-reformation, he is probably too late to be considered a church father. Beyond Eusebius and Abucara, the ...

Is it her people, her leadership, her beliefs?  The term catholic usually means universal, so one would think it's her 1 billion plus people spread throughout the world.  However, I recently pointed out that an overwhelming majority of Catholics use birth control.  ( link )  Does this mean the Catholic Church is OK with birth control?  Matthew Bellisario responded by pointing me to an earlier post he had written where he claimed all Christians up till the 1930's rejected birth control.  All Christians up until the 1930s interpreted this text as referring to Onan's punishment of death [Genesis 38 7:9] by his act of “coitus interruptus.” ( link ) I responded by quoting Jovinianus' alternative explanation in the 4th century ( link ). Matthew then made an interesting move; backing away from his claim of 'all Christians' to 'every Christian group'.  every Christian group before the 1930 interpreted this passage the way I am interp...

Turretinfan's recent post on the separation of Church and State reminded me of this quote from John Calvin: Compel them to come in. This expression means, that the master of the house would give orders to make use, as it were, of violence for compelling the attendance of the poor, and to leave out none of the lowest dregs of the people. By these words Christ declares that he would rake together all the offscourings of the world, rather than he would ever admit such ungrateful persons to his table. The allusion appears to be to the manner in which the Gospel invites us; for the grace of God is not merely offered to us, but doctrine is accompanied by exhortations fitted to arouse our minds. This is a display of the astonishing goodness of God, who, after freely inviting us, and perceiving that we give ourselves up to sleep, addresses our slothfulness by earnest entreaties, and not only arouses us by exhortations, but even compels us by threatenings to draw near to him. At the same...

Billy and Roy were discussing altar calls so I thought I would throw my 2 cents in. Some Calvinists object to altar calls. I can understand objections based on fears of easy-believism or false conversions. This is a serious objection because altar calls have been terribly abused; but altar calls can be and in my experience usually are done right. I could understand objections based on the regulative principles of worship. Just as a preacher wiping his nose when he sneezes during a sermon is not formally worship, so also altar calls may happen in church but not be considered formal worship. I could understand objections based on the idea that preaching is the only means God appointed to save through. Altar calls simply open the door for one-on-one evangelism and sinner’s prayers are simply concise gospel presentations. All these objections are understandable even though I ultimately disagree with them. But I am not OK with objections to altar calls based on soteriology. Fatalism ign...

second half A PROLOG, B GOD, C CREATION, D PROVIDENCE, E PREDESTINATION, F THE LAW, G THE GOSPEL, H SOTERIOLOGY, H.1 Conditional Election, H.2 Depravity, H.3 Christ's death, H.4 Resistible Grace, H.5 Perseverance, I THE CHURCH, W HISTORY, X DEBATES, Y COWBOYS, Z ABOUT ME