As I argue in my Freed from the Shopkeeper's Prison paper/presentation, if you believe that your activity can increase the number of people in heaven on the last day, then you really cannot have hobbies. Only people who believe that God does the saving and has His elect firmly in His hand can have hobbies. Because if you could be out there saving souls, how can you justify ever not doing that? If the choice is a game of golf or door-to-door evangelism - how could you ever go golfing? For those of us who believe that God has His elect, though, we can sit around drinking good Wittenberg beer, fulfill our vocations joyfully, and go fishing without any qualms.

Rome solves this problem with monasticism. You really should keep the evangelical counsels and do God-stuff all the time, but we know that's hard. So you can be saved even if you are not living a really good and perfect Christian life. But some people should live that life and you would be better off is you did, so go to your local nunnery recruiting station today!

I WANT YOU FOR MONASTICISM!

But, of course, Arminians and functional Arminians still want hobbies. So they have to justify them as somehow connected to the God-stuff. If you thought monasticism was wacky, just look at the knots the  Arminians have to tie themselves in to make room for simple pleasures like

sporting events

 (I am not making this up):

FCA Basketball Alliance Mission Statement

“To unite Christians who love basketball and equip them to minister to the basketball community in Nebraska.”

What is the FCA Basketball Alliance?

We believe that the game of basketball was created by God and for God.  We as the Alliance desire to utilize the game of basketball to proclaim the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.

We believe that basketball is a modern day parable to help train people that there are two ways of doing sports: God’s Way v. Man’s Way.  Through this Alliance we would desire the entire state of Nebraska to come to an understanding of Doing Basketball God’s Way.

Well, as for me, I'm going back to my Wittenberg beer. . .

+HRC