[For personal reference, in case I ever wonder why I am not an ‘Arminian’. Admittedly, some of the comments responding to the video on Youtube and elsewhere might cause me to question why I should ever want to consider myself Reformed…]
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Alastair's Adversaria 
Or even Christian for that matter… That is pure cheese! Wasn’t it Voltaire who said that the only argument against determinism was to repeatedly beat the determinist until he or she aknowledged the freedom of the beater to stop… this is kind of the same in a morbid sort of way – response should be… “Ok I believe in Free Will – you have the Free Will to SHUT UP!!!!”
Wow.
I can’t agree with you more about both the horror of the song and the comments about it.
Lord, have mercy on us, the
Reformedproud.That kid actually believes he is God.
I hadn’t heard it myself before, but on it’s own merits (amd within its own genre) I thought the tune was lovely 🙂
As a christian I cringe, not only because it was so awfully bad, but also because I used to actually believe that stuff.
As a pastor, I weep because most of the Christian church seems to be caught up in the deception (my reference point is the church in Australia).
I forgot to mention that I like Rush’s version of the song much better.
I once stood up at an IV meeting and cited Rush’s “Free Will” as a great pro-sovereignty song, because, since “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice” shows that God’s absolute determination of our wills doesn’t override the phenomenon of our ability to make choices. Thinking it did override it would be counterevidenced by the line’s claim.
Anyway, I hadn’t absorbed all the lyrics at that point…. and I was 19.
Y’know, we all love C. S. Lewis, but he says the “only freely offered love is worth the price” thing or close to it all the time.
Play Free Bird!
I freely chose to listen to it all … I think I made the wrong choice. I’m now on a wrong path forever, and it’s all my fault. What should I do now? 🙂
Yikes. Though the scariest thing about that video is not the awful theology, but the back-to-the-1950s clothes and haircuts. Do you think they sell “What Would Eisenhower Do?” wristbands in the church foyer?
Anyway, I don’t think that song is Arminian. It’s not that good – it shoots straight past Arminianism into the waiting arms of Pelagius.
Here, by contrast, is a song by an Arminian:
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night.
Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
Though I am constitutionally incapable of quoting those words without following it up with John “Rabbi” Duncan’s immortal observation on them: “Ah, where’s your Arminianism now, friend?”