re: United Methodist Church special session this week

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This has always been the calvinistic disconnect for me. Is God "rewarding" an individual "choice" or is that reward already bestowed upon all and waiting on the willing to accept? I've always thought the leap from mere acceptance to "works-based" was pretty large.

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It depends what the cause of the choice was. For the Calvinist, the cause was regeneration by the Spirit which makes a totally depraved sinner willing and able to "choose", or rather, to believe.

For the Arminian, the cause is the free will and free desire of the individual that is somehow more convinced of the truth than the person who doesn't choose/believe.

This question always comes back to the doctrine of total depravity vs. a completely free will. A free will allows an individual to believe or not believe in the Gospel without any intervention by God, giving the credit to that individual if they accept it. Total depravity guarantees that no one will believe unless they are "born again" by the Spirit, which gives them the ability and desire to believe. That view gives God 100% of the credit for salvation.

It's the difference between a man drowning in the ocean and a man who is lying dead at the bottom of the ocean. The man who isn't yet dead can choose to save himself by reaching out to a life raft. The dead man can choose nothing unless he's made alive again. Calvinism teaches that we are the dead guy at the bottom of the ocean needing to be pulled on to dry land and given the breath of life again.