click the names below:
David Kendall, Matt Thomas,
or David Roller (above)
You probably aren’t Armenian ... unless you’re from the Eurasian country that was the first to become known as a “Christian” country back in 301. I was not personally there, but that’s what the history books say.
But, maybe you are Armanian, named after good ol’ Giorgio Armani, the Italian clothing designer. Armani suits have been synonymous with pricey suits (an internet shopping trip suggests $1,300 as a base price).
I do hope you are Arminian. You are one if you think people choose God. The Arminians are cool guys, and I don’t just say that because I am one. They’re cool because they can also be called “Remonstrants”. We Arminians are the guys who argue against, or remonstrate the notion that God so strongly imposes His will on people, that people can’t decide whether to follow Him or not. We Free Methodists think God so values people that He vested us with the power to choose Him. Or not.
Arminians are named after Jacobus Arminius, the Dutch guy who emphasized God’s desire that people choose Him. I think it also had to do with supralapsarianism and sublapsarianism but I’ve been out of seminary so long that I, thankfully, have no idea what that argument was about. Arminius died at 49 years of age; pretty young. Maybe it was all that remonstrating.
The only thing I’m getting at is that Arminians are cool because we believe God so loved everybody that He gifted us with the ability to choose — to choose Jesus. People don’t come pre-sorted in “saved” and “wretched lost” boxes. We all came in the “wretched lost” box and we can all move into Jesus’ saving embrace. Doesn’t that make even more delightful this task of sharing Jesus? It really matters.
So go out and remonstrate like crazy!