Posted on 08/06/2003 7:08:03 AM PDT by Miss Marple
With apologies for posting a vanity, but I wanted to put this theory up for serious discussion.
The gay movement in churches does, indeed force people out (along with other divisive liberal issues). I myself have left my life-long church, the Methodists, because of several doctrinal and political disagreements.
I have noticed that the gays are not lobbying in the Southern Baptists, nor in the Church of Christ, nor in the Assemblies of God. Now, one would on its surface think that it is because those churches are less susceptible to the message of "inclusiveness." That may be true, but there is another underlying reason as well, I think.
The mainline Protestant denominations, as well as the Roman Catholics, own a great deal of real estate and have fairly large bank accounts. The real estate (in Manhattan and Boston and other large cities across this nation) is owned by the denomination, not the individual congregation, and is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. An entire Episcopal congregation who wishes to split from the church and go independent must LEAVE the building, abandoning it to the gay-friendly people. This holds true for the Methodists as well, and I believe for the rest of the mainline denominations and the Roman Catholics.
On the other hand, most Southern Baptist congregations own their property individually. They can withdraw without losing the building, nor would they lose control of their bank accounts.
It seems to me that this is a concerted effort to not only shape public opinion but, more importantly, to control real estate and money. Money is used to sway political beliefs, push certain social issues, and shape public discourse.
If I wanted to control a lot of real estate and church bank accounts, so that the money could go to causes I believed in but were not supported by most of the congregants, I would choose to infiltrate the church with people whose presence would FORCE OUT those who have less radical views, and I would also be forcing them to leave the very expensive real estate, bank accounts, and endowments behind. I could then funnel money to groups like anti-war organizations without any objection.
It seems to me that there is a plan afoot to rob people who have donated their time and treasure (in some families' cases, for generations) to a congregation and church building, and secure the land and money for their own purposes.
In other words, this is about money as much as sex. Otherwise, why wouldn't these people simply start their OWN churches? I have not forgotten how once before we were distracted from the real evil by a story about sex.
They don't want to start their own churches, because they want the land, the buildings, and the money. I think this needs to be looked at with more attention to the financial side.
I also would like to point out that manay mainline churches also control large universities, and this also supports my theory that the issue is financial and political control, not simply sex.
Let us not forget that Satan comes as a thief in the night.
Sexual preference is not listed in any death statistics so I doubt they had the information necessary to reach that conclusion. One independent researcher gave the same data by reading obits and guessing who was gay and who wasn't based on the text of the obit.
There are a tiny handful of people who think themselves Catholic who misinterpret Scripture (outside the church there is no salvation or extra ecclesia nulla salus in Latin) to believe that salvation is available only through the Roman Catholic Church. The particular instigator of that mistaken notion was a Boston Jesuit priest named Leonard Feeney whose heyday was in the 1950s. He was silenced and, I believe, excommunicated but repented before his death and returned to the Roman Catholic Church. The irony, of course, was that he placed himself outside the Roman Catholic Church by insisting that only Catholics could be saved. Though Feeney repented, there are still residual followers and some of the schismatic followers of the late "Traditionalist" Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre also seem to subscribe to that Feeneyite error.
I am not going to address the objections you raise as to "blind obedience" not because I do not respect your sincerity but because we will probably never come to meaningful agreement on it. That there are different denominations of Christians, as recognized by Jesus Christ in the garden, almost necessarily assumes disagreements among them. Let us agree to disagree with respect for one another. We will win no secular issues without each other. As Christians, we will likely win no religious contests as Christians in the greater society without co-operation which does not require us to agree on everything.
We do not believe that mere ordination protects any priest from error but the assumption of the office of the papacy provides a protection of the Holy Spirit that the pope will not preach dogmatic error (on matters of faith and morals) as truth when speaking ex cathedra as pope.
Such pronouncements of extraordinary infallibility have occurred exactly three times: The infallibility of Councils acting with the approval of the pope (Pope Pius IX, 1850s and seems to be little other than a reaffirmation of papal extraordinary infallibility when you brush the foam off the beer); the doctrine that Mary was conceived, alone of all our race (other than the human nature of Jesus Christ) without original sin (Pius IX, circa, 1854) and that, at her death or dormition, Mary was assumed into heaven, body and soul (Pius XII, 1954).
There is an ordinary infallibility which attaches to papal statements of a less formal nature by popes. This is also an exercise of the power of the keys mentioned in the Peter passage in Matthew. The Teaching Magisterium includes all these plus such scholarly works as may be included. Better informed Catholics than I can provide more precise details but much of Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas would seem to qualify along with many of the works of early Church Fathers such as St. Cyprian or pronouncements of doctrinal councils.
By "Christ's Teachings", I assume you mean the specific words of Jesus Christ in Scripture and certainly Catholic beliefs go beyond those words of Jesus Christ but the Catholic belief is that the purpose of the power of the keys given to Peter and passed to each of his successors is to address new situations with old principles.
We may well disagree on such beliefs but, for example, Jesus Christ, to the best of my knowledge, was silent on the matter of abortion as such. Popes have applied the commandment: Thou Shalt not Kill to prohibit abortion. This is not innovation. Like some Reformed Christians, we also look to the passages in Jeremiah in which Jews offered their first-born infants to be burned in the idol of Moloch in the Valley of Hinman while otherwise seeming to be pious and observant. Jeremiah warned that the blood of the innocent cries from the ground to heaven for vengeance. The result of the situation was the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people and the sacking and destruction of the Temple.
As to war or peace, I always strive to respond in the fashion of the post to which I respond and it is entirely obvious that your post was an invitation to peace which is certainly accepted. To explain my seemingly schizophrenic internet personality: I do sometimes attack Reformed Christians IF and only IF they attack the Catholic Church as such or the pope or the teachings of the Church (not merely disagree with but attack). ANYONE posting with respect will receive the same respect from me. If it sometimes seems that I am making a small career of attacking a particular poster, that would be the reason. I think I may have attacked you in the past. I shall assume that our current exchange is more reflective of our respective realities than anything that may have gone before and I apologize for any slight or attack which may have been unjust. Whenever we are on the same side, I hope you will delight in the alliance.
Again, God bless you and yours!
The point is many of the mainline churches like the Epicopal, etc. can be compared to the pot of boiling water & the frog.
Put the frog in tepid water, and it will sit there & slowly boil to death as the heat is gradually turned up.
None of this is a surprise, as you say.
And you're right...he agenda has been there for years...
...but folks kept compromising, delaying action....hoping it would pass over....
..and meanwhile, these 'ideas' were simply 'heated' up bit by bit.
One could almost compare it with the Holocaust.
Many Jews, in the early days, saw the handwriting on the wall, and left for safer places.
Others kept thinking it either wouldn't happen....or when it did, they adjusted themselves and their lives to each added indignity....
..and then it was too late.
Wake up folks!
You can still make a choice!
Hmmm...let me guess. They don't show pork chops...and shrimp is never mentioned....and glasses always break at weddings.....and every ill is cured by chicken soup.
I'm dying to know what is "Jewish" about the dreck coming from Hollywood. All I see is liberal trash.
I suspect and pray that we may meet some day in the hereafter and both gaze in wonderment and surprise at the celestial reality that is revealed to us. And I suspect, we will laugh at the mortal illusions that we both lived under.
I firmly believe that God not only has infinite wisdom, but also a sense of humor. Peace be upon you also, My Brother.
Don't let them win the war of words.
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