John Mark Hicks

As an addendum to my series on Calvinism and Arminianism I want to connect this discussion to the conversions of Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell.  Both first approached God through the lens of Calvinist theology and preaching.  Neither could find assurance through that preaching because they were not certain of God’s love for them. […]

In my first post in the series on Arminianism and Calvinism, I suggested that at the heart of Calvinist theology is the desire to preserve the glory of God as the sole cause of salvation and that the heart of Arminian theology is the desire to preserve the faithfulness of God to his own relentless […]

There is considerable confusion in terminology when talking about current views of assurance on the theological scene.  In this post I want to clarify at least one significant difference. Calvinists and Arminians agree on a signifcant point:  all the elect will persevere in faith.  Those who do not persevere in faith are not elect.  They […]

All who persevere in faith are elect. Both Calvinists and Arminians can agree with the above statement. For the Calvinist, those who do not persevere in faith, though they at one time seemingly had faith, never possessed authentic faith in the first place (e.g., Calvin’s own example is Simon Magus in Acts 8). For the Arminian, those […]

The often acrimonious debates between contemporary Arminians and Calvinists are not new.  The history of this discussion dates back 1600 years and has been continuous within Christian circles.  It can be tracked, in part, with the following discussions: Augustine vs. Pelagius (early 5th century) Gottschalk vs. Rabanus (late 9th century) Bradwardine vs. Ockham (mid 14th […]

There has been significant interest over the past decade in a resurgent Calvinism (or Reformed Theology).  Some call it a “New Calvinism” (as per Collin Hansen’s book Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists). The popularity of John Piper as well as the renewal of Calvinism among the Southern Baptists (specifically Southern Baptist Theological […]