One day, I was in a discussion with a group of people about different theologies within the scope of Christianity. Within this group, we discussed everything from Pentecostals, Charismatics, the holiness movement, Johnathan Edwards, fundamentalism and so forth. It was during this discussion that one of the participants brought up the subject of Calvinism. Being curious, I asked for a brief synopsis of what Calvinism was. I was referred to numerous webpages that had a bunch of very boring and drawn out theological explanations about the principles of Calvinism. As I was reading through these numerous paragraphs, I finally came to the conclusion that this is stuff that only theology students could really comprehend.

It was after reading through all of this exegesis that this concept of Calvinism was reduced to five basic tenets that theologians referred to as 'five-point Calvinism'. As I read the five points, I realized that these five points were constructed as to where the first letters of these main points formed an acronym consisting of the word 'TULIP'. For example, TULIP, in reference to Calvinism, is defined as:

• T = Total Depravity. According to Calvinism, sin has extended to every part of man's personality -- his thinking, his emotions, and his will.
• U = Unconditional Election. According to Calvinism, God chose those whom he was pleased to bring to; a knowledge of himself, not based upon any merit shown by the object of his grace and not based upon his looking forward to discover who would "accept" the offer of the gospel.
• L = Limited Atonement. According to Calvinism, Christ died, indeed, for many people, but not all
• I = Irresistible Grace. According to Calvinism, this is the certain response by the 'elect' (based on the "U" in "TULIP") to the inward call of the Holy Spirit, when the outward call is given by the evangelist or minister of the Word of God. Christ, himself, teaches that all whom God has elected will come to a knowledge of him. Men come to Christ in salvation when the Father calls them, and the very Spirit of God leads God's beloved to repentance.
• P = Perseverance of the Saints. According to Calvinism, perseverance of the saints is a doctrine stating that the saints (those whom God has saved, a.k.a. 'elected') will remain in God's hand until they are glorified and brought to abide with him in heaven.

In fact, many Calvinist theologians created an acronym of the word 'DAISY' in reference to refuting the Arminianism (a.k.a. freewill) theology propagated by Jacobus Arminius. DAISY, in reference to a defense of Calvinism and a mockery of Arminianism, is defined as:

• D = Dead but Somehow Alive. According to Calvinism, Arminians teach a 'heresy' that each individual is not born inherently sinful, but becomes an enemy of God sometime after a "mythical age of accountability" when he consciously decides to rebel against divine authority. Man is nevertheless supposedly able to later respond to the call of the Gospel and to choose to believe in Christ of his own free will.
• A = Abolition of True Grace. According to Calvinism, Arminians teach a 'heresy' that God will never force anyone to come to Him against their will, but will gently reward for the righteous act of believing on the part of the sinner rather than the outpouring of the unconditional grace of God and punish the ones who reject God.
• I = Impotent Savior. According to Calvinism, Arminians teach a 'heresy' that salvation is a possibility for all men and that the Son of God, in dying on the cross, invited all, but saved none. Calvinists believes that 'salvation for all' denigrates His Blood to a means to and end, rather than the end itself.
• S = Sovereignty of the Sinner. According to Calvinism, Arminians teach a 'heresy' that the plans and desires of God may be thwarted and altered by the whims and freewill choices of mankind to the point that any man can reject God's gift of eternal life no matter how fervently God may attempt to bestow it upon the objects of His affection. Since the desires of fallen man can obviously take precedence over the decrees of their Creator, God becomes the servant of man rather than vice versa, and is merely a passive observer of worldly events, rather than the active Director thereof.
• Y = Yielding Eternal Uncertainty. According to Calvinism, Arminians teach a 'heresy' that genuine salvation is not eternally secure and can be lost through the freewill choice of man by freewill choice of sinning, a sin committed that was not confessed at the time of death, or God suddenly deciding that He does not want you in heaven any longer.

The purpose of representing Arminianism as a "daisy" theology has been to imply that Arminian theology has no security in the "sovereign" action of God's love, so the adherents of Arminian theology are insecurely picking the petals off of the daisy one at a time, saying, "He loves me. He loves me not," never finding assurance of God's action or of a relationship with God in Jesus Christ. Many Calvinists actually teach that since we love and admire Tulips instead of treating the Tulip as a 'throw-away' flower like a daisy, that by basic human reasoning God loves tulips (and Calvinism tulip theology) better than the daisy (and Daisy Arminianism theology).

The purpose of the explanation of those two acronyms in this particular article is not to debate the pros and cons of Calvinism versus Arminianism. The purpose of the explanation is to demonstrate how the key points of a theology can be made into an acronym for easy remembrance. An acronym is defined as "A word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as WAC for Women's Army Corps, or by combining initial letters or parts of a series of words, such as RADAR for radio detecting and ranging." Acronyms help people remember names of companies and / or key concepts. I remember in elementary school learning geography of the United States that there were five great lakes. I was taught that the easy way to remember the names of the Great Lakes was to think of the word "HOMES" and equate the first name of each five lake to each letter of "HOMES" (H = Huron, O = Ontario, M = Michigan, E = Erie, S = Superior). I will remember the names of those lakes even though to this day. However, on a side note, I have a hard time placing the names of the lakes to the actual lake on a United States map. Throughout this rest of the article, I will use two acronyms to discuss not only the good things that came out of the Pentecostal / Charismatic movement, but also the extreme errors that have manifested throughout the years of the Pentecostal / Charismatic movement.

Please Click here for part two of this article.