This thread has very quickly gone from Dan to Beersheba and back again. May I offer a few random observations?

1. The orginal post pointed out a bizarre teaching (or, to be charitable, a bizarre implication) in Calvinist thinking: that one must be regenerated by the Holy Spirit before one can receive Christ. Traditional Anglican (hereafter TA) was absolutely correct in noting this, and noting it with disapproval. It's a rather subtle point: I was a conservative Presbyterian for the first 13 years of my Christian life, and I never heard this stupid idea expressed, even in my training classes as a deacon. (I know the various Presbyterian groups like I know the little corpuscles floating through my bloodstream: as a young man, and a new Christian, I was "present ath the creation" of the Presbyterian Church in America, out of the old PCUS. My former spouse was a graduate of Covenant College, then a Reformed Presbyterian school; her father had attended the Reformed Episcopal school in Philadelphia.) Anyway, I didn't even know of this theological grotequerie until I heard Ruckman discuss it, many years later.

2. If TA says he's not a Five-Point Calvinist, then he simply isn't. To try to pigeonhole his beliefs by examining his denomination (assuming one understands the denomination's positions in the first place) is simply unfair. I'm an independent Baptist: that doesn't mean that I believe in faith-promise giving or Bob Jones University!

3. By virtue of spending quite a few years with the Lord's people, I happen to be personally acquainted with both Lawrence Vance and R.C. Sproul. Vance is a friend, Sproul an acquaintance: I sat down and discussed theology with Sproul when he spoke at my church, back in my Presbyterian days. Sproul is a lovely man, a valiant warrior for God, and utterly unreliable as a theologian (once you get past the fundamentals). Vance's book, recommended by Diligent, is the best I've read on the subject.

4. My grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher, back in the days when the Southern Baptists were orthodox. He always referred to Presbyterians as "Baptists who've moved to town!" He had a point: saved Baptists and saved Presbyterians (or saved REs) are united by far more than divides them.

5. Did I ever mention that I once had a cat named Elvis?