Posted on 05/08/2014 8:00:19 AM PDT by fwdude
...if it makes you feel good, keep believing that...doesn’t make it true, however...
I take it you are referring to the schism.
In reply, Luther was an Augustinian monk. He did not intend to leave Catholicism, but to reform it; however, he was pushed out by the RCC due to the perceived strength of his supporters against the HRE hierarchy.
As you must have read, there was a great deal of corruption at the time, involving but not limited to the sale of indulgences. It may be useful to compare that historic fact in light of the present corruption by a few depraved RCC priests toward children, which has been acknowleged, and steps taken to self-correct it; however, that portion of corruption does not reflect on the faith itself or the tenets of the faith. At the time of Luther, I suggest it was a similar situation -- some corruption, but not total corruption. Unlike today, opposition to corruption in the RCC was reacted against rather than responded to at that time.
So, in terms of learning from history, the schism has done both faith traditions a favor. The RCC is now more aware of an obligation to re-examine its culture and administrative aspects when something goes wrong, due in no small part to the Reformation and the 30-years wars that resulted. And the reform tradition is learning to its horror that the lack of a magisterium and active authority keeping the tenets of the faith on target contributes to its own kind of theological corruption.
Personally, I hold out hope for the reunification of the major streams of Christianity: Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Reformed and Evangelical. It is more productive to me to work towards the unity Christ desired of us by researching the actual theology than it is to blindly defend the tradition I "belong" to and cast suspicion on other believers.
These people are not only perverting the Gospel of Christ, but they are, by their teaching and example, offending the little children in their congregations. Lest they repent, there will be a very dark place in Hell reserved for them.
Jesus did not pull his punches on those who would harm the children in their influence. Their future is bleak.
These things have a way of fixing themselves.
They can appoint a gay pastor to my Methodist Church but I am free to comment as I see fit. He wouldn’t last long under that scenario. The weight of guilt is too great.
Christians will send missionaries to Godless heathen Hellholes to preach to the lost but they won’t stay in a local church to try and save it.
My comment on a Methodist blog about this bishop and his lesbian underling:
New York bishop McLee has made a declaratory judgment that the Methodist Book of Discipline is not to be followed. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Therefore, we all are free to ignore what we wish to ignore. A little of it, a lot of it, all of it. Pick what you want. The Bishop says we can. We all get to do what’s right in our own eyes.
Among the things I’ll pick is if I dole out support: time, talents, cash, service….
But when Pastors and Bishops like these send missionaries out to heathan Hellholes, their converts will be in a worse spiritual position than if they had never heard this perverted gospel at all.
Can a corrupt tree bear good fruit?
Very good points.
I hear many churchgoers demanding adherence to the Scriptures in the area of sexual perversion, but in other areas seem unconcerned about what God expects. They demand Hollywood accurately represent the story of Noah, and stick to the facts without substituting manmade ideas, but they won’t demand the same from the pulpit.
And so they get perverts in the pulpit - and then complain about it. But it’s as Hosea said: “like people, like priest”.
He gets away with it because there are many bishops, but there is no bishop above any other bishop to bring him to account. They are each independent and unaccountable.
That is something that many tried to address last time, but an archbishop can be a problem, too, so they saw the downside of that and rejected it.
I tend to favor it. I think it will force Methodism to fish or cut bait. We’ll get a bad one who’ll make it obvious that Christians should leave, or we’ll get a good one who’ll clean up the place.
One positive is that we know the regions with nutcases in charge. We can point that out.
These people don’t send out missionaries who proclaim Christ. They tend to send out water engineers or inoculation experts, and then they call that mission work.
Clean water and vaccines aren’t a bad thing, but a Christian with dysentery is still going to heaven. An animist with a clean bowel isn’t.
They may not have any converts. But you have a church full of obviously interested people just down the road.
The majority of my friends who left my UMC went to a church that does almost no outreach. They send their kids to our church for VBS and big youth events.
We are a conservative UMC. We only had one liberal Sunday School class and it folded.
Whenever I see a rainbow, I thank the Lord for offering such a reminder that we will not be destroyed by another great flood. Then I try to figure out his next methodology of the destruction of the human race.....
Fire.
I was raised Presbyerian. If we wanted to hire a gay pastor, Louisville can just learn to like it. That’s why it passed in the PCUSA.
The UMC cannot afford to have Bishops ignoring Discipline. What are they going to do when a youth pastor baptizes someone? I personally know someone who was booted from the UMC pulpit for saying he was gay (evidence seems to point otherwise to me). The UMC was not built for chaos.
If they appoint us a gay pastor in June, I’m not running....except my mouth.
> You can be sure that any church group/denomination which
> drops the biblical requirement for male-only ordination has
> removed the bottom from the pit. It’s a certainty.
Deserves to be repeated and bumped to the top.
umc has had syncretism and unionism in it with other denominations like ELCA, PC-USA in sharing pastors and pulpits for about 20 years or more. they have moved this way ever since and it’s no surprise this is going on in their denomination.
Actually, Wesleyan churches are the overriding classification of all groups historically affiliated with the holiness movement initiated by the Charles and John Wesley. Methodism, especially United Methodism, is but a subset of that designation.
So true. And, much of this problem arises from the "organizational" mentality that folks have been sold. The big company makes the decisions, the big company will decide who speaks, what they say, and what you sheeple must believe. Rather than encourage the gatherings to grow up in their understandings of Scripture and Christ, and clean out the groups themselves, they are taught that the "organization" knows best and will appoint the leaders. This is unbiblical nonsense.
When the United Methodist denomination removes the allowance of openly ordaining women, against scriptural prescription, then let’s talk.
Yes, I agree with that. The UMC is one of the offshoots of the ministry of the Wesleys.
ordaining women
Pesonally, I think that female deacons are biblical.
The issue is female elders. I think proving female elders from the bible is impossible.
So, I'm interested in which gifts of the Spirit (from 1 Co 12-14 and Rom 12 are given to women) are given to women and which aren't.
Also, from the bible I'm interested in when women are not allowed to pray and when they are.
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