Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Williamo1

The real issue

Is Wikipedia interested in the WHOLE truth? Or covering up what has happened as is happening? My comments of hyper-calvinsim were initially taken off because I was told they were not proven. Neither is most of the rest of the page, but I did go and get some quotes from well-known preachers and theologians to prove that I was stating the TRUTH. I do not know Jim Ellis personally, but I known of him and he would essentially agree with what I wrote. So I had the comments verified and that was still not good enough for the censors who wanted the comments removed. Here is what I said and what should be re-posted as being ACCURATE, RELEVANT, CURRENT, IMPORTANT to an understanding of the subject. If a term is commonly mis-used, is that not very important to note in an encylopedic article on the subject? —This unsigned comment was added by Williamo1 (talk • contribs) .

Misuse Of The Term Hyper-Calvinism

According to William Oosterman, many today misuse these terms. Having debated these doctrines in various circles and taught historic Calvinism in many countries, he has personally observed the misuse and misunderstanding surrounding these historic terms. Some Christians have been taught to label anyone who believes in the historic Calvinist position a hyper-calvinist. In many evangelical circles today, if you believe in the final preservation of the saints, the fifth of the five points of calvinist theology, you are a true Calvinist. If you believe any of the other four points you are automatically denounced as a hyper-calvinist. This is a serious misrepresentation, at times by those who should know better, of the historic usage of these terms. Brandan Kraft in Confession of a Hyper-Calvinist [1] describes how he has been mislabelled and accused falsely on many occasions. Such well known preachers as J. R. Rice are an example of this. Rice wrote “So any person who is not Armenian in faith but rather believes in eternal security of the believer is likely to describe himself as a Calvinist.” You see he is saying that if you believe the last of the five points, the Preservation Of The Saints, you will describe yourself as a Calvinist. Rice goes on to say “Or where Calvinism has not been carried to its more unscriptural, unevangelistic, arrogant extreme, one might probably call himself a "moderate" Calvinist. Most of those who might be called Calvinists do not believe in a limited atonement, for example, nor do they believe that some are foreordained by unconditioned election to go to Hell and so could not be saved, that salvation was never provided for nor offered for them.” Again Rice claims the name “Calvinist” for those who, like himself, reject four of the five points. He labels as hyper-Calvinist all those who truly believe the doctrines Calvin taught. He even say MOST of those who might be called Calvinists do not believe in limited atonement, point three. Many more examples of such misuse could be cited. According to Rev. Wm. Oosterman, the explanation is that historically Arminianism was a kind of negative or dirty word in many circles, while the term Calvinism had a certain respect. Today many evangelicals like to take the label Calvinism as their own, while refusing to accept the historic five points that go along with it.

The other issues should be discussed on an other page, not this one.

Other issues

I think other things done by Williamo1 (William Oosterman) are actually more signficant than what's mentioned regarding Hyper-Calvinism. He's threatened a user with legal action [2] [3].

He engages in "near vandalism" by putting editorial comments/arguements into the article itself. [4] [5].

He made an auto-bio of himself [6], which is basically using Wikipedia as his personal web host.

He's also been using certain articles (Roy Gordon Lawrence, William Oosterman, Citywide Church) as an opportunity to bash ex-members of Citywide Church. Obviously his POV pushing at hyper-calvanism is a problem, but I think his use of Wikipedia for a purely personal agenda is even more concerning. --Rob 17:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

So add that to the RfC. JoshuaZ 17:46, 23 March 2006 (UTC)