Reformed Theology's View of Sovereignty, Election and Babies As Explained By Gene Cook

It has come to my attention that Gene Cook, Pastor of the Covenant Baptist Church in San Diego, California, has charged both myself (Bruce Reeves) and Dennis Carrow, preacher for the Fairview Park Church of Christ in Little Rock, Arkansas, with misrepresenting what he actually believes and teaches concerning election and babies. It is certainly not my intention to misrepresent anyone’s position. I believe that Mr. Cook is an intelligent and articulate man and is very capable of expressing his position. However, he has communicated over the last several years the consequences of his theology in explicit form. Mr. Cook’s doctrine is not in harmony with the Biblical affirmation of the nature of God. Below you will find quotations from Gene Cook, Jr. which you can read as well as MP3’s so you may listen to him yourself. The truth is in the debate, so feel free to listen to the discussion in its entirety. You may also order it free of any charge from this website in DVD or CD format. Also included is his phone conversation with Dennis Carrow which he recorded and placed on his website. It is worthy of note that the end of the conversation was omitted in which brother Carrow asked to come on to Gene Cook’s radio program to discuss these issues further, but Mr. Cook refused to allow such to take place. I have challenged Mr. Cook to a debate on the Calvinistic view of the Perseverance of the Saints in San Diego, California at the Covenant Baptist Church and he has refused to meet me.

It is concerning to me when someone makes explicit statements but does not accept responsibility for such statements by refusing to retract or repudiate those false concepts and then blames those who simply quote those statements which reveal error. Certainly, all involved would be happy to accept Mr. Cook’s retraction of these unbiblical notions and we pray that such may take place. He has strongly declined to offer any type of retraction of what he has said and continues to falsely accuse those who hold him culpable for his teaching. I would advise Mr. Cook not to say things he does not believe As a reader you will have to be the judge of the meaning his statements convey.

---Bruce Reeves

As a result of Dennis Carrow, preacher for the Fairview Park Church of Christ in Little Rock, Arkansas pressing the Calvinists on Gene Cook’s website (Unchained Radio) his account on the website was removed.

Trey,

You can ban me from this list too, I really do not care. For you guys to speak of those who differ with you doctrinally as those who have "diminished brain cells" and then to tell them to "put that in your crack pipe and smoke it" and yet have the audacity to say someone else is hateful is simply a revelation of your HYPOCRISY. It is the same type of duplicity that would use unconditional election as an affirmative argument in one debate over baptism and then in his next debate over baptism argue that it has nothing to do with the subject. By the way since some need a break down of the point: unconditional election leads to the view of unconditional regeneration (unconditional new birth) which has everything to do with the question of baptism being affirmed as a condition of the new birth.

---Bruce Reeves

-  Listen to Gene Cook's Phone Conversation with Dennis Carrow 

Mr. Cook Says He Does Not Know
If Infants Who Die Go To Heaven or Hell?

“We saw a real cute picture of some babies, and I didn’t get the chart here, but I don’t know ifyou can reference that for me, if not that’s okay, and the question was asked,what sin have these little infants committed, and that’s a real good questionbecause you would think that if they stood any chance of going to hell, and bythe way, let me just make a clarification on that. I believe that elect infants go to heaven, andit could be that all infants are elect, I don’t know. It could be that every last one of themareelect, I don’t know. God hasn’t told me which human beings are elect and which human beingsaren’t. I was asked the question can anon-elect infant. If there is such athing, the answer would be no...” (Gene Cook, Second Affirmative)

Mr. Cook Argues With A Theology That
Affirms That Every Child That Dies Goes To Heaven

“‘Non elect infants who die in their infancy will spend eternity in hell’ – I would answer true to that question, you have to be elect in order to be saved. If this question is false, then we should perform abortion, because abortion is the greatest evangelistic act that has ever taken place since the time that Jesus walked the face of the earth, because everyoneof those children are going straight to heaven according to Mr. Brown’s theology” (David P.Brown &Gene Cook, Jr. Debate, Feb 16, 2000)

Mr. Cook Says Some Babies Are Saved and Some     Babies Are Lost

“You want to talk about babies? Fine. From the very first question I received on Monday night there was a question about elect babies. It is perfectly legitimate for me to not only protect myself from the accusation of worshipping a tyrant God but to defend God’s glory and God’s honor…You have heard over and over again that it is your choice, your choice and what does God say? He says,‘I took two twins from the same father, the same mother, the same womb and before they were ever born God made a choice between them so that His choice would stand, not yours, but His choice…Jacob I have loved and Esau I havehated. Did you get that? Jacob I have loved but Esau I have hated. You say, ‘Well that is unfair? How could God pick between two unborn children? Between two beings that had not done anything good or bad? How could God choose one of them and neglect the other…How could He dothat? That is unfair, that is unjust…’” (Cook-Reeves Debate, Gene Cook’s 4th Negative, June 24, 2005)

Mr. Cook AffirmsADarkView of God
&Accepts the Conclusion of CalvinisticTheology

“So when he (Bruce Reeves) stands over here andsays, ‘His’ (Gene Cook, Jr.) ‘God is a monster, his God is not fair, his God sends little babies to hell, his God spanks babies indefinitely and there is nothing they can do about it,’ he(Bruce Reeves) is really arguing against the God of the Bible. He is really raising up his accusation against not me as his debate opponent but he is raising up his accusation against the God of the Bible and he (Bruce Reeves) is evidencing himself to be what he is –
still an unregenerated enemy of God’s grace.”(Cook-Reeves Debate, Gene Cook’s 4th Negative, June 24, 2005)

Mr. Cook Says That The Scripture Teaches That
God Puts One Baby On The Saved List &
Another Baby On The Lost List

“You just got up and heard Mr. Reeves make the argument that my version of God is a God who puts one baby on the baby list and another baby not on the baby list and I’m going to show you from Romans chapter nine that that’s what the Scripture says”
(Reeves-Cook Debate, Cook’s fourth Negative, June 24, 2005).

Mr. Cook Teaches ThatTheEvil
That The Devil Does Is In Harmony With The
Command of God

“The devil is God’s devil. He does what God allowshim todo, he does what God commands him to do, nomore and no less.”(Reeves-Cook Debate,Quote played by Gene Cook, Reeves third affirmative, June 24, 2005).

Mr. Cook Teaches ThatTheFirst Cause of Evil Is God

“Both evil and good come from God…So what happens when you emphasize the will of man, then evil becomes only associated, there is no sense in which God decrees evil, there is no sense in which God wills evil and so evil is only from the heart of man and from the heart of Satan,… but we recognize as reformed Christians that those are secondary causes, that the first cause of evil is God, Himself...Man does not resist evil when he is fulfilling the decrees of God” (Is God schizophrenic?"The Two Wills of God" Gene Cook - recorded at a home bible study, 08/12/05)

Quote from Bruce Reeves
In the Reeves-CookDebate
(3rdAffirmative)

“This theology is dark and if you want to talk about depravity, it is a depraved doctrine in that it is teaching us that here we have one little baby that is unconditionally non-elect and the other one is elect and one dies and goes to heaven and the other dies and goes to hell…Whatever vicious thing we can imagine, whatever sinful, horrible, unbelievable thing that has every happened he says the devil did it and God commanded him to do it, so actually when the devil was doing that he was fulfilling the will of God. Those are the consequences of this doctrine.”