Orwell wrote:
greenblue wrote:
To deny that a deconverted wasn't really a Christian or a devoted Christian seems nonsense, I understand that inside a christian doctrine, ANYONE can fall for WHATEVER reason, therefore no one can guarantee your salvation, I, at least, learned as a Christian, that salvation wasn't never a guarantee. I was a conservative christian, and probably that has a lot to do with my apparent "deconversion".
Well, one of the five points of Calvinism is "Perseverance of the Saints," or "once saved, always saved."
Orwell, taken at face value this is what I believe. I didn't know it was Calvinism (I don't claim to adhere to one theologian or another, though I LOVE the
STRIDENT approach of van Til--but somehow non-traditional approaches all seem to make better sense to me).
I'm sure it's been said before, but honestly I've come to this conclusion on my own. Someone who claims to be a Christian but does not act Christ-like has a strong likelihood of not actually believing ("faith without works is dead," James, I think). You CAN be saved and not have works (Paul, though most often in the context of "works of the law" in reference to legalism). Someone who feels he has "lost" his faith, because of the once-saved principle, probably never had a real faith in the first place.
I guess I can also see a situation in which an immature Christian could "lose faith" through various life circumstances, become embittered, go through a process of blaming God, and in the end find himself reconciled with God. In that case, a person never truly abandoned their faith. Many Christians I know are perfect pillars of society as long as things go their way. When times are tough, they fall apart and crumble under the weight of life. When my wife and I describe to other church members everything that happened to us over the last 3 years, they are absolutely stunned because they can't imagine losing EVERYTHING and still survive with their families and sanity still intact. The kind of situation we've found ourselves in is exactly the stuff divorces are made of because people too often just give up in the face of any kind of struggle, especially when life can be as cruel as it has with us. A lot of people, I think, actually envy us because of the kind of faith we've developed through the whole ordeal. If anyone asks how we've made it, we simply say we owe it to a faith in someone who is bigger than any bad situation and who remains in control. If God directs our path, there is no need to worry about what could happen.
I don't mean to imply that we're lazy and are merely aimlessly floating down the stream of life into the ocean of eternity. We're hard workers. But we've also learned that all the hard work in the world (you don't work, you don't eat) doesn't make a bit of difference in the bigger picture. Faith first. After that, we just do the best we can.
03 Jun 2010, 6:55 am
