A Little Kindling, my gift to you

I’m touched and heartened that all your lovely liberals are reading this blog. And I’m sorry I haven’t responded but I’ve been having a very restful and needed Sabbath from the Internet over the weekend.

I have three points to make in response to all the comments, and then you can carry on arguing and considering whether I am merely an idiot, or possibly a nasty person or awfully wonderful.

Also, no more anonymous comments on this subject (Matt, you can just keep signing your name. The rest of you, if you comment anonymously without adding a name, I’ll take the trouble to learn how to delete you). On all other subjects (like food) feel free to continue anonymously.

Points I wish to Make and Stick By
(even at the potential risk of snarkyness)
1. Calvanism as it really is (and not how all of you are making it out to be) is Not Bad. Its a perfectly reasonable and rational theological picture of God and Humanity. ‘Total Depravity’ does not mean that the image of God is completely obscured and marred. God created human beings and called them good. The depravity comes in our orientation away from God and towards ourselves, resulting from the fall, so much so that each faculty is marred. Every faculty is wounded by sin, but the total person still bears the image of God. Total doesn’t mean ‘utter’ it means ‘comprehensive’. I believe very strongly that if we human beings are honest with ourselves, we will find that we are not totally or comprehensively good. Furthermore, this lack of goodness (just for kicks, call it depravity, haha) is not overcomeable by ourselves. We cannot fix our sickened faculties on our own. Indeed, we cannot even desire to be good without the gracious intervention of God into our lives giving us the desire to seek him and desire to be good in a true sense (but I’ll still hang out and be friends with you Arminians). So, obviously, my outrageous challange to your Pelagian Presiding Bishop is to honestly and sincerely look into my blog and tell me with a straight face that you’re good, all your faculties, all the time, without the MDGoals to help you out.
2. I would then further challenge you Lovely Liberal Revisionists to say what you have faith In. It’s all very well to say, blithely and happily, ‘I have faith in God and Jesus makes me happy’, or something, but what do you mean by Jesus? Because I would seriously venture that we don’t agree even remotely on who Jesus, or God, is or what he has done and why.
And
3. I’m not ignorant of that of which I write. I am daily offering pastoral care and discipleship to people who have looked honestly inside of themselves and found that they don’t have enough, they are not good, they are very far gone in sin. And without the supernatural intervention of God into their lives through the power of the Holy Spirit to apply the work of Jesus Christ in the forgiveness of their sins, the cleansing from all unrighteousness and the ongoing work of sanctification, they would be in the pit of hell, now, even before having to die literally. And just telling them to ‘have faith’ or ‘be healed’ or ‘work or a greener earth’ without preaching the Gospel, that is the atoning work of Jesus on the cross, would be cruel, a waste of their time, and dishonest.

So, heh, I stick by my original questions and I’m still waiting for a calm, charitable answer. (Big shout out to Matt for defending me so gallantly and brilliantly all weekend. Thank you.)