Does this confession fit?

This is taken from “Mennonite Church USA:

We believe that, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God offers salvation from sin and a new way of life to all people. We receive God’s salvation when we repent of sin and accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. In Christ, we are reconciled with God and brought into the reconciling community of God’s people. We place our faith in God that, by the same power that raised Christ from the dead, we may be saved from sin to follow Christ in this life and to know the fullness of salvation in the age to come.

From the beginning, God has acted with grace and mercy to bring about salvation–through signs and wonders, by delivering God’s people, and by making a covenant with Israel.1 God so loved the world that, in the fullness of time, God sent his Son, whose faithfulness unto death on the cross has provided the way of salvation for all people.2 By his blood shed for us, Christ inaugurated the new covenant.3 He heals us, forgives our sins, and delivers us from the bondage of evil and from those who do evil against us.4 By his death and resurrection, he breaks the powers of sin and death,5 cancels our debt of sin,6 and opens the way to new life.7 We are saved by God’s grace, not by our own merits.8

When we hear the good news of the love of God, the Holy Spirit moves us to accept the gift of salvation. God brings us into right relationship without coercion. Our response includes yielding to God’s grace, placing full trust in God alone, repenting of sin, turning from evil, joining the fellowship of the redeemed, and showing forth the obedience of faith in word and deed.9 When we who once were God’s enemies are reconciled with God through Christ, we also experience reconciliation with others, especially within the church.10 In baptism we publicly testify to our salvation and pledge allegiance to the one true God and to the people of God, the church. As we experience grace and the new birth, we are adopted into the family of God and become more and more transformed into the image of Christ.11 We thus respond in faith to Christ and seek to walk faithfully in the way of Christ.

We believe that the salvation we already experience is but a foretaste of the salvation yet to come, when Christ will vanquish sin and death, and the redeemed will live in eternal communion with God. (Article 8. Salvation - Mennonite Church USA)​

Does this express a more Calvinistic or Arminian view of salvation?

The first part seems certainly Arminian, however the third is certainly Calvinistic.

The second paragraph is everyone’s view - well those who submit to Scripture teaching.

Your thoughts?

 

First, I did not nor do I condone the document. It was offered for the purpose of enlightenment into a Baptist group started by the Anabaptist Swiss (“re-baptize). A former catholic monk named Menno Simons formalized their teaching and hence the name Mennonites.

Second, this IS Calvinistic thinking. It does NOT present any innate “freedom of the will” nor innate capacity to inspire God to look to see if enough faith has been generated to credit us with Salvation.

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Quoting from part of the Op which draws directly from the Mennonite Church, USA web page cited below:

When we hear the good news of the love of God, the Holy Spirit moves us to accept the gift of salvation. God brings us into right relationship without coercion. Our response includes yielding to God’s grace, placing full trust in God alone, repenting of sin, turning from evil, joining the fellowship of the redeemed, and showing forth the obedience of faith in word and deed.9 When we who once were God’s enemies are reconciled with God through Christ, we also experience reconciliation with others, especially within the church.10 In baptism we publicly testify to our salvation and pledge allegiance to the one true God and to the people of God, the church. As we experience grace and the new birth, we are adopted into the family of God and become more and more transformed into the image of Christ.11 We thus respond in faith to Christ and seek to walk faithfully in the way of Christ.
(Article 8. Salvation - Mennonite Church USA)​

Perhaps you mis understand irresistible grace. God does not coerce, His Grace takes no such measures, nor are such measures needed by God. That is what non-Calvinists must adhere and practice.

Most Calvinistic thinking in this matter agrees that “the goodness of God leads us to repent,” not His wrath. That “Godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation” and such sorrow is brought by God not by human conjuring, for the person, saved or not, living and abiding in the worldly soulishness of ungodliness does not “receive anything of (from) the Holy Spirit.”

Typically the Calvinist holds to the work of God implanting faith causes that person to declare salvation. (For with the heart... with the mouth...).

If then you have agreement with these things, you are more a Calvinistic thinker then perhaps you are aware.

 

Never said there was a “tulip” nor agreement with the hard extreme “tulip” teachings.

I merely ask a question gave what I seemed to see, and ask for others thoughts ABOUT THE DOCUMENT.

You made as if it were something expressing my own views.

 

One does not have to use the word “irresistible” when discussing the manner of the effects of God’s Grace.

Too often I have seen those looking for certain “code words” which aren’t included, result in rejecting a statement.

However, I am also in agreement with your post.

I focused upon the two words, “our response,” as an indication that all that followed was responding to that first authorized by God. That all that followed was conditioned upon God first doing what God can only do in the matter of redemption.

In that light, does not the statement generally would fit your presentation?

“Our response” includes repentance, belief, trust, turning from sin, assembling, ...

 

Well, they are Baptist in background.

Like Luther, Calvin, and others that came out of the catholic foundation, there is (as a pendulum) certain items that may seem to swing away from certain teachings, and others that do not. I don’t doubt Menos writings will reflect this swinging, also.

The group is also typical of Baptist’s in that most members don’t concern themselves with nuances of doctrinal views and statements. They are content in traditions.

One item that stood out to me was the lack of any indication of some “free will” to attain salvation in the statement on the OP.

Rather, the active response to the work only God can do.

However, the earlier paragraphs read like a Methodist or Pentecostal.

 

I was reflecting upon your own agreement with what was offered in the OP, and your response.

I’m sorry you do not recognize the typical “pray this prayer after me” technics used in many presentations of the gospel, the bait and switch stories which are followed by grand appeals of many such presentations, of the history of Hyles, Norris, Sunday, Moody, Finley, ... in which coercion and traditions of coercion were frequently used.

Coercion is the life blood of the modern worship with all the smoke machines, lighting, rhythmic repetitious embellishments.

Calvinistic folks don’t need and usually don’t use coercion.

Rather they make the sincere appeal to all. They present the gospel knowing that those whom the Father has and does give to the Son will hear and respond.

It is this in which caught my eye. The latter part of the OP quote.

The use of the two words, “our response” may or may not be an indication of at least part agreement with the Grace of God that instills the faith and salvation into the believer whose response will be repentance, proclamation of belief, joining an assembly, ...

 

so was I, even taught such, and as a professional was schooled in such.

Sadly, what some consider "free" will, is nothing more than choosing from the options available to a fallen person from a fallen world that even groans under its present condemnation. (Romans)

Free will extends to making "good choices" but not to that which attains righteousness, nor righteous choices.

 

I would agree, the first paragraphs are certainly bent in that fashion.

However, the last two seem to be a more calvinistic bent.

The last two paragraphs remark that the believer is responding and not the catalyst to the action of the Father is what caught my attention.