Nathan White made me aware of the confirmation of this debate several weeks ago, and I was wondering about what happened since I had not heard anything about the debate. Well, yesterday, James White finally announced on his blog that the debate is set. Here are the details:
What: “Baptists and Calvinism”
When: Monday, October 16, 2006 @ 7:00 p.m.
Where: The new Thomas Road Baptist Church, Lynchburg, Virginia
Who: Defending Calvinism (James White and Tom Ascol); Against Calvinism (Emir and Ergun Caner)
Now, I have only one problem with this? What is the deal with Monday? This makes it very difficult for people who live outside of VA to attend, unless of course the week is Fall Break. I was told that the debate was to take place sooner (as in a couple of months), but maybe this will give the Caner brothers more time to do their homework and read outside of Dave Hunt and Norman Geisler. While I hope that the debate will be a little more substantive and less ridiculous as the notorious blogpost, I also hope that the debate will not be turned into a “not-a-debate discussion” as we have already seen. Personally, I am not a fan of debating, but it is time that the malignment and slander of Calvinstic Baptists to fall and the Scriptures actually get addressed. We’ll just have to see. 🙂
There’s nothing to debate. The whosoever will gospel and the lottery commission gospel are clearly not the same gospel. The lottery commission version isn’t even gospel or good news at all but is bad news. “Our god held a lottery and you lost.” Oh lovely great news! It follows, therefore, that there is no reason to continue fellowship with Calvinists unless you serve unrighteous mammon rather than Christ. If Caner is too weak to withdraw fellowship from all Calvinists he shows he worships the “almighty dollar.”