Intelligent Quote of the Day: Brett

My friend Felix has a feature on his blog called "Intelligent Quote of the Day." I also have an intelligent quote for you: this is under BryanL's post, Changing Your Mind, and it's by Brett:

"I used to be a cessationist until I witness healings taking place and saw the gifts worked out. So the experience changed my stance. I used to be a Calvinist until I had people in my life who had horrific tragedies, and until I had somebody from the other side explain their perspective to me, and I changed my mind. I just couldn’t accept the 'It’s all for God’s glory and good pleasure' crap that I always heard [John] Piper say. It was just too barbaric and my conscience would not allow me to believe that it was as simple as this.

"I would like to say, though, that I think when you’ve been on one side of the coin and you switch to the other, chances are you’re probably not going to switch back. I was once a Calvinist, and I honestly do not ever see myself ever going back. Scripture is just too gray and my experience will not allow me to, even if someone I respected changed their views on it.

"But, my opinion still stands, an extremely respected individual and one you look at as a leader changed his mind about a doctrine you believe in, and personal experience are two key factors. Evidence (scriptural/exegetical) is another one, but I don’t believe it’s as strong as the first two. For me personally, at the bottom of my list is historical theology. This is the first on many people’s lists (they act like the church fathers already have everything figured out so we should just believe them, and none of them are really consistent with this but they talk like they are). I frankly could care less what the most important (or popular) church history fathers said about something. I actually think the extreme zeal many in my life have had towards historical theology has led me to disrespect it greatly. There is too much darkness and sin behind the curtains (Augustine was a jerk, Luther was a jerk, Calvin was the biggest jerk of all…why would I want to get all my theology from jerks?)"