My man Mitch!
My man Mitt!
Posted on 01/23/2012 11:48:30 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The president of the influential Christian organisation Family Leader has said Republican candidate Mitt Romney "will not be the eventual nominee" despite leading the polls for the nomination.
Bob Vander Plaats told the International Business Times UK that 75-80 percent of Republicans across the US do not want Romney. "The only reason why he is ahead is because there hasn't been a real alternative," said Plaats. "But now it looks like Gingrich is going to be that person."
Plaats, who initially endorsed former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, carries significant political clout within the Republican Party.
He said: "When I endorsed Santorum in December he was on five percent. He ended up winning the Iowa caucus."
But with Santorum now looking shakier and Gingrich rising in the polls, Plaats said he would now endorse his close friend for the nomination.
"I would full-heartedly endorse Gingrich," he said. "He has been a good and loyal friend to me throughout the years."
Plaats saw the ABC interview with Gingrich's ex-wife as a "hit piece" by the network and rigorously defended Gingrich
"For the people of faith, we base it on the centrepiece of forgiveness," said Plaats. "We've all fallen and none of us are perfect.
"Our faith is concerned not where you start but where you end up. Newt has been very transparent that he has fallen on his knees before God, asked for his forgiveness."
Plaats claimed that his endorsement and that of others within the Christian faith would "not just win the nominee for the party, but for President of the United Sates".
It ain't easy; bein' green!
There was credible evidence BVP tried to get Santorum help him raise ONE MILLION DOLLARS in order to help him promote Santorum.
I know these people, I know their history. BVP has run for governor three times and has been rejected by Republicans in Iowa each time.
This guy lucked out that Santorum just happened to rise at the time he did. Then it looked as though BVP was responsible for Santorum's win in Iowa, when in fact, I allege it was in spite of the fact VP endorsed him. With BVP, everything is about BVP.
The very fact that BVP is willing to do this shows the character of the man.
Amen
A big offering is his desire
If BVP is so powerful, why is Santorum not continuing with the momentum. BVP is a phony.
You got that right. I am sick that so many people can be so gullible.
My pastor is from Pella, for whatever it's worth; his father owns Eagle Electric. You just showed your ability to play “Dutch bingo” — i.e., figuring out how to make an ecclesiastical or family connection between two Dutch Reformed people!
The “tres dias” or “Cursillo” movement's primary manifestation within Reformed circles has been the “Reformed Marriage Encounter” and I'm guessing that's what your father was involved in. Reformed Marriage Encounter is not an organization with which I have much firsthand knowledge and I don't want to say things if I'm not pretty sure of my facts. I just don't know the group very well and know about it mostly by reading articles on it; my impression is they're well-meaning people trying to take a successful Roman Catholic method of strengthening marriages and adapt it to a Reformed understanding of church life. In the modern world, anyone trying to strengthen marriage and family deserves our respect regardless of whether we agree on details or methods.
The United Reformed Churches in North America (the main conservative Christian Reformed secession group) is the denomination in which our pastor was raised and with which our local church was originally affiliated until we decided we needed to be in a more culturally Southern denomination to function effectively in the Missouri Ozarks. We're now in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church since a number of us were concerned about problems and trends in the Presbyterian Church in America, the main Southern Presbyterian denomination.
You may already know this, but there are two main Dutch Reformed denominations, the Christian Reformed Church and Reformed Church in America, both of roughly similar size in the 300,000-member range; the third largest but much smaller group is the United Reformed Churches in North America with about a tenth of that membership. There are numerous smaller bodies of which the more significant are the Canadian and American Reformed Churches, Netherlands Reformed Congregations, Protestant Reformed Churches, Heritage Reformed Congregations, and Free Reformed Churches in North America. Several of those groups have memberships which are mostly or almost entirely Canadian.
To the best of my knowledge Bob Vander Plaats is a member of a large and fairly conservative Reformed Church in America congregation, but I'm having trouble verifying that on the internet. The last time I talked to him in person was about a decade ago and I haven't had a reason to be in contact with him since leaving Iowa. He would not remember me though it is likely he would recognize my work as the reporter who spent a great deal of time covering an ultra-liberal RCA pastor who was eventually deposed for gross sexual misconduct after becoming a prominent supporter of gay marriage and denying salvation through Christ alone. Let's just say the RCA has serious and major problems which are often a major embarrassment to its evangelicals in more conservative places like Iowa, but the Christian Reformed Church is headed in the same direction, unfortunately, which is what generated the URC secession in the 1990s.
For whatever it's worth, you may want to ask your friend about the situation at the United Reformed congregation in Pella. There's a back-story behind the reason I'm pointing out how severely the Dutch Reformed have dealt with marriage problems; though it's one that is irrelevant to this issue on Free Republic, you may be interested. Total depravity is not a minor doctrine, its consequences are not limited to liberals, and it's one we all need to remember in our own lives lest we fall.
In the process of digging into the politics of Vander Plaats’ move toward a Gingrich endorsement, I've run into a lot of articles by Iowa pastors expressing serious concerns. I'm not going to post those online since a lot of them can fairly be accused of “bashing Gingrich.”
I have no interest in bashing Gingrich or doing anything that could cause me to be accused of that. My point is that Vander Plaats has some tough work ahead of him, but he also has the credibility to do the job if anyone can.
My point was that if he had such passionate views about gay marriage, why did he belong to a denomination that was in full approval of gay marriage and as a matter of fact they had full fellowship with the totally apostate, ELCA.
It is possible he has changed denominations since then but I know what I was saying was the truth.
I can live with Gingrich or Santorum; we need the best candidate we can get and those are the two men left in the race who are consistently pro-life. I have my preferences but either is better than Mitt Romney with his history of flip-flopping, and both are tremendously better than Barack Obama.
The RCA cannot fairly be called ultra-liberal. It's also still fighting the gay marriage issue; that's far from a settled matter in the RCA and there's a major difference between where the RCA stands and where the PCUSA and similar groups stand. I think there's still a good chance the RCA evangelicals will win on this, though I was more confident of that a decade ago before a key RCA evangelical leader who had close ties with Dr. D. James Kennedy was forced to leave the ministry due to major public sin, and a number of other conservative leaders left the RCA for other reasons.
The RCA has a huge split between its east coast regional synods, all of which are rapidly losing members, and its Midwestern churches which tend to be more evangelical than Reformed but are generally quite strongly opposed to liberalism. Since money talks, the denominational leadership, which **IS** quite liberal, is more or less forced to listen to evangelicals who have far more power in the RCA than they have in the PC(USA) or similar mainline denominations. That's quite different from a lot of other mainline denominations where the evangelicals are ignored because they don't have enough votes to matter.
So yes, feel free to criticize the RCA on doctrinal integrity. I'll join you; I'm a confessional Calvinist and the RCA's conservatives are broadly evangelical, not confessionally Reformed. But it's not fair to say the RCA is ultra-liberal.
I call all of these groups ultra-liberal—there can be no other description. I left the ELCA 20 years ago because they had already become apostate. http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Office-of-the-Presiding-Bishop/Ecumenical-and-Inter-Religious-Relations/Full-Communion-Partners/Reformed-Church-in-America.aspx
My position has nothing to do with Gingrich—it is BVP who is my focus. I would not want his endorsement.
VanderPlaats is the white Al Sharpton.
I even saw Cavuto on FOX, the day after the caucus giving credit for Santorum's showing in Iowa to BVP. I wanted to gag.
It got worse, a few days later, I was watching DONALD TRUMP on FOX and he even brought up BVP. Trump said that BVP is a "great guy" and deserves more credit than he's getting for Santorum's showing.
I have no clue why Trump would be the least big interested in BVP but somehow, I doubt they are personal friends so how would Trump know if VP is a great guy, or not?
Well, Ma'am; folks are REALLY not gullible; they just are a hungerin' for the TRUTH!!
I do not understand the relationship between the conversation and the photo but many people are not hungerin’ for the truth. They want affirmation of their preconceived ideas—even if they’re wrong.
You'll get no argument from me about the problems of the CRC and even more so the RCA. I am far to the right, theologically speaking, of both denominations. Using Lutheran equivalent categories you may be more familiar with, I'm much closer to the Wisconsin Synod than the Missouri Synod, and certainly am not anywhere near the ELCA.
I think we're disagreeing about definitions of words, not the underlying realities behind them. I prefer to reserve terms like “ultra-liberal” for the Unitarians, the United Church of Christ, and similar bodies. I take my definition of “Liberalism” from J. Gresham Machen’s “Christianity and Liberalism,” and that type of classical liberalism does not yet control the RCA.
We're off-track, however; this is a thread about Bob Vander Plaats and Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, not the RCA or CRC. It sounds like you're aware of some issues involving Bob Vander Plaats that have not yet come out publicly. I know the Dutch Reformed world well enough to know that if he has serious dirt, it will get exposed very publicly if he does something that fellow Christian conservatives believe is beyond acceptable limits. The Dutch keep lots of stuff hidden in their communities, but they also know everyone else’s dirt very well and will expose it if necessary.
Has JimRob ruled on Mitch yet?
I know I am in the minority here, but I really like him. Not sure if I am allowed to publicly support him on here though.
Anybody know for sure? I love FR and want to make sure I don't inadvertently break any rules.
Don’t be supportive of Romney on FR, and don’t jab at Newt. Formal declarations from forum owner.
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