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Hi Cheryl 🙂 Last things first.. I posed the issue to my pastor as a question, related to Judas and genuinely expressed confusion on the matter, which I kinda am. So he said he would deal with the the issue during the week. This weekend’s been a bit nuts, with the Annual General Meeting. So I’ll find out what goes from there. Pastor Jim is a good guy. Like you said, it’s more an issue of tradition. :/ Okay, confession time. I have to admit that, when it comes to Calvinists, I view them the same way I used to view JWs. I avoid them like poison Oak. I have to learn how to talk to them with the same love I would share for JWs. But with JW’s, their god is soooo off that it’s like we’re talking about two different people. With the Calvinist, it’s like someone defaming a friend of mine, and I just lash out! i.e. “Who are YOU to say that you are better than anyone else?! How is it LOVE to save only one of your children from a burning building when there are two kids in the house?!” I LOSE it. So it’s good that Tom McGovern is willing to at least hear you out. If you email him, feel free to share those verses of BIBLICAL Election. Esp. Re: Messiah. It dawns on me, though, that there are similarities between Calvinists and JW’s, in their double mindedness. Or, at the VERY least, confused. In the Watchtower, God will save ONLY JW’s. In Calvinism, Christ came to save ONLY the (Calvinist) ‘elect’. There is EXCLUSIVISM in both groups. I mean, any good parent would not play favors. If they buy one child school clothes, they buy both children school clothes. And both in the same store. They don’t go to Old Navy for one child and then a Salvation Army Thrift store for the other. Love of NO kind saves ONE child from drowning while letting the other kid go under. Giving the ‘non elect’ the best job, best house in the best neighborhood isn’t worth a hill of beans when the end result is eternal torment. AT GOD’S HAND. How is that even JUST, let alone LOVING. At the end of my new chapter on Unconditional Election, I wrote, Dear Calvinist; If God does NOT love the whole world, then how do you know He loves YOU? Thanks for listening, Joanna