The Unique Purpose of this Forum

[Robert R. Higby]

I think that a good discussion topic is: "Why does this forum exist and what unique purpose does it serve?" Many want to turn this forum into nothing but a copycat of every other board out there where the arguments are endless. We are not interested in that here. It is certainly true that we admire others who are devoted to some of the major issues that are not our 'long suit': we honor and admire their courage and commitment to Christ! But major debate on those matters are not why WE are here. Here are some of the things that we are not committed to arguing through in a lot of detail:

1. Apologetics or the defense of Christianity against other religions.
2. The Trinity and Deity of Christ.
3. The five points of Calvinism, especially Definite Atonement.
4. The age-old arguments over whether sacramental regeneration is true.
5. The infallibility of scripture.

This is certainly NOT because we do not care about these issues! We are willing to engage in brief dialog on them for sure. But for us these issues are SETTLED by a heritage of past and present men of God who brilliantly argued the truth of them by the power of the Holy Spirit! We do not need to go over all this ground again. If someone wants to go back to ground zero and demand that the evidence for these things be presented all over, ignoring the abundant testimony of past men of God, then the place for that is a different board!

Here at 5solas we are concerned with the REAL issues of our time that have not been settled; those matters where men and women are running scared. They have become accustomed to the comforts of christenDUMB and its rule over the conscience. The church world maintains its rule over the minds and hearts of men, not by the gospel truth that it proclaims (which is very great in many cases), but by the proclamation of stupid dogma and practice that is added to the gospel. So it has been for over 1900 years. It is this 'reign of stupid dogma' that we want to expose here at 5solas. Tyrannical leaders control men and women by persuading them to believe and support ideas and practices that are inspired only by demons. They do this while proclaiming enough gospel truth to decieve the masses into believing that they are ordained of God. THIS is what needs to be exposed and debated more than anything else in this fateful hour of God's ordained history of mankind!

Comments?

[Brandan Kraft]

Thank you Bob. You've put into words what I've been trying to communicate to people such as 'Spanky' yesterday who is opposed to all points of Calvinism. We will not allow those not of our mindset to mold this board toward their own personal agenda.

On 5solas, you will find discussions of topics that cannot be found anywhere on any board whatsoever. As far as I know, we are the only Sovereign Grace Forum that has discussed these topics in as much depth as we have:

Duty-Faith
Common Grace
The Free offer of the Gospel
The Canonicity of James
The Fall of Adam and Christ's elect
Supralapsarianism
Justification from Eternity
The obedience of Christ
The nature of Christ's substitution
God's Sovereignty in Hardening Reprobate Hearts
The origin of Evil
The forming and determining of the Canon
The book of James
The problems with Progressive Sanctification

Our next studies, we will be focusing on the Dead Sea Scrolls along with other pertinent issues that you cannot find elsewhere on the Internet today. If you care to debate the long and tireless arguments with those who are battling it out over "total depravity", there are many other places you can go for such conversation. We have an agenda at 5solas, and Bob pretty much outlined it perfectly.

Brandan