Posted on 03/08/2006 7:22:57 PM PST by churchillbuff
Howard Storm, a former atheist whose brush with death turned him into a Protestant minister, says that he now believes in purgatory.
"It only makes sense," he says, "but I have trouble discussing this with my fellow ministers."
Featured here a couple months ago and also on MSNBC during Easter Week -- where he told his incredible story to a national audience -- Reverend Storm, considered by experts as one of the most convincing near-death cases, recounted his "dying" in Paris in 1985 from a perforated duodenum and after leaving his body finding himself with a group of hideous beings who attacked him as they led him to a foggy zone that descended toward "hell."
Storm says he was saved by Jesus after desperately pleading to God. After an extensive hospitalization he recovered -- and learned that a nun who had once been a student of his had been praying for him for years.
Storm credits that with saving him; after the episode he left his job as an professor at Northern Kentucky University and entered a seminary, becoming a minister.
He is now with the Zion United Church of Christ in Norwood, Ohio (near Cincinnati), and while some churches in that denomination can be ultra-liberal, he openly preaches against abortion and the New Age.
Still, we try to be careful with these cases, and we always issue the disclaimer that we can't endorse every view of such experiencers -- some of whom tend at times to put their own (and sometimes a nearly New Age) spin on what occurred. Like any form of mysticism, it is to be carefully discerned.
This is true in the case of Reverend Storm -- who himself acknowledges that some of his views have shifted since he became an active Christian ( including a few expressed in a book which was written before his faith was fully formed). These episodes are told through the filter of a person's framework.
But he is a man who exudes love (the single most important element of Christianity); many believe his experience was real; and he says he now believes not only in heaven and hell but also a state in-between where souls are "purged."
After his horrifying brush with death the concept of purgation was explained to him by a priest, says Reverend Storm, and "just rang so clear to me in my experience."
He says that when he "died" he was taken through a "foggy" region strikingly similar to what has been described in mystical literature [see An Unpublished Manuscript on Purgatory] -- and also similar to descriptions by modern visionaries who have told of a great "gray" area between hell and heaven.
Although a devout Protestant, Storm says that he considers Catholicism "the Mother Church" and is even interested in the Catholic apparition site of Medjugorje. He says God doesn't want division and that the main reason why he was on the road to hell was lack of love, pride, and disbelief.
It would also include self-love, but that is hardly grounds for a divorce.
SD
I agree with you that God is calling us (as His Church) ... to the fullest expression of love ... for Him and for our fellow man.
Yet that love can be lived out in its fullness ... and it can be summarized in a brief statement such as Vicomte13 suggests.
Neither type of expression invalidates the other.
As you have suggested, the tpye of love God desires to share with us ... can be compared to that which a faithful husband and wife share.
And yes, ... that love is expressed in its fullness as the two come to know and cherish one another more and more through the years ... and in sharing every facet of themselves with the other.
But that love is also quite nicely summarized during the wedding ceremony with the simple phrase ... "I do."
It is upon such a simple declaration of love ... that the two ... are joined ... as one.
If "porneia" (i.e. sexual immorality) is a broader term ... then it includes adultery, rather than excludes it.
It would also include self-love, but that is hardly grounds for a divorce.
Not all agree that 'self-love' is always sexually immoral.
Certainly God has made no statement regarding this.
The arguments of men have never saved anyone. Being saved is purely a matter of the heart, not intellect. Proper doctrine is important later. But doctrine never softened a hard heart or shut a proud mouth, so that the sinful might be humbled before God, prepared then, for the good word of the saving grace of the Lord.
The video below explains what I mean. Please take the time from your arguments and review it. It will give you much better insights into how salvation works and how to bring others to the saving grace of the Lord, through the convicting power of the law of the Ten Commandments, that God has written in the hearts of all men. Just as the Lord did. The video is called "Hell's best secret". You have only a few minutes to lose and an eternity to gain. I beg you.
http://www.livingwaters.com/listenwatch.shtml
There is also this to consider: marriage among the 1st Century Palestinian Jews was a two-step process.
First, the couple was "betrothed," and the betrothal was normally for about one year. It roughly corresponded to our modern concept of "engagement," but there was more to it. It was employed as a custom for several reasons, notable among them was to provide time for the bride's family to amass a dowry, and for the groom (often still rather young himself) to establish himself in an occupation capable of supporting a family and household. The betrothal, however, had these unique features: the couple was considered already "married" in a legal sense when it came to inheritance rights, and the betrothal was pretty binding: a divorce would be necessary to break it (witness Joseph's dilemma when he first heard about Mary being pregnant, and he obviously knew he wasn't the father. He decided to "divorce her quietly."
The second step in the process was the actual wedding, which was an elaborate affair often taking up to a week, filled with ceremonies and festivities. The marriage proceeded at that point in ways we are culturally familiar with.
So, what has all this to do with the "porneia" controversy? Well, first, we can notice that the qualifier "porneia" only exists in Matthew's version of the Gospel, originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic for a Jewish-Christian audience. They would have been familiar with the cultural implications of their marriage process, and porneia may have come into obvious play for them because of this. Porneia can mean fornication, but it usually doesn't mean flat-out adultery. The confusion can be remedied when one considers that Jesus likely was talking about Jewish weddings to His Jewish listeners, and what He had in mind was "divorce" during the betrothal period, NOT after the actual wedding.
The parallel passages to Matthew's two uses of "porneia" (Matthew 5:32 and 19:9) can be found in Mark 10:11 and Luke 16:18. *Neither* of these passages mentions the exception of "porneia." Why? Because these two Gospels were not written for a primarily Jewish audience, the cultural situation of a two-stage marriage did not exist in thier audiences' cultres, and it was not necessary to include.
Taking all of this and wrapping it together, it seems clear enough to me that the allowed exception of "porneia" is referring to fornication (or a sort of technical adultery, since the parties are semi-married as we would think of it) committed by one of the parties in a Jewish betrothal. It has no application to any culture outside of that, and definitely no application to any Christian culture outside of the Jewish-Christians of the first Century. This is why the Catholic Church doesn't even allow the "porneia exception" as grounds for divorce. It looks to the text of Mark and Luke as normative, since the Church recognizes the irrelevancy of circumstances allowing the exception in Matthew's Gospel.
Bottom line: The porneia exception has no bearing on Christian marriages. Consummated marriages cannot be broken through divorce. Jesus meant what He said.
I've tried to provide a different take on this issue in post 285, if you'd like to take a look.
>> Martin Luther is a small matter in the overall picture of the Christian, not the Catholic, church <<
I was merely addressing his lies, which you bought into, not making an ad-hominem attack. If I were making ad-hominem, I would have noted how he promoted adultery, etc. Since those doctrines are not followed anymore, they are irrelevant.
But Jesus is the Truth, and He guaranteed that the Holy Spirit would lead His Church into all the Truth. Truth cannot be divided, else it is falsehood in whole or in part. Many of the things you mention *are* important, as they pertain to basic issues such as how one is saved. It is impossible, as well as illogical, to believe that such central issues "do not matter" to the Holy Spirit.
Jesus prayed for unity of belief and practice only hours before His torture and crucifixion. Given that He was God as well as Man, He knew what would shortly happen to Him. That would certainly preoccupy *me*, if I were in His shoes! Nevertheless, He maintained sufficient presence of mind to entreat His Father for unity in His Church at just this moment of excruciating anticipation. I submit that this provides much evidence that our orthodoxy and orthopraxis *are* very important in the mind of God.
St. Paul and other NT writers make many appeals to their hearers that they be united in doctrine. The issue of orthodoxy seems to have been important to them, as well. And we all believe that they were writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit!
The mandate to the Church to transform the social climate is nearly destroyed - gutted - by our lack of unity and consistency. No pagan, no agnostic, no Jew, no Muslim, no anybody is likely to pay much attention to us when we rail on against the perversion, immorality and ego-massaging "spirituality" going on all around us, even while we cannot even agree among ourselves what aspects of society are wrong or why they are wrong!
Why should outsiders take any stock in us? Look at things from their perspective. To them, "Christianity" is all of a piece, the distinctions we recognize are meaningless to them. So, what they hear is a maelstrom of conflicting, contradictory voices telling them that this or that is wrong or not wrong, this or that is right or not right. They can hardly decide just on this basis, and the lack of general credibility and sense of hypocrisy generated from this mash of conflicting voices only adds to their disinclination to take Christianity seriously! Our *mandate* from Christ to preach the Gospel to every creature is thereby nearly destroyed.
Yet, you seem to say that unity of belief and practice is not important.
>> The Church assembled the Bible all right, but it wasn't the Catholic Church, for there was no such thing for three hundred years. <<
You are flat-out wrong.
The first-century Apostle's Creed states that "We believe in... one holy, catholic, and apostolic church." But it's not the word "catholic" which establishes that it refers to the Catholic church; it's the word "apostolic." By that, they meant that the Church consisted of those communities which recognized the authorities of the bishops, who were appointed by the apostles and their successors. Several first-century apologists argued against heresies by pointing not to the biblical canon (since it had not been established), but to the fact that heretics were not speaking with the authority granted to them by the college of bishops.
During the first three centuries, regional gatherings of bishops would regularly convene to discuss doctrinal issues, and their word was authoritative. Not all such gatherings agreed on which books were scriptural, as Martin Luther correctly pointed out when he claimed that seven New Testament books were in less common usage then certain books which were not part of the canon, such as the Didache.
When the Emporer Constantine converted to Christianity, he recognized the potential danger of the power of the Roman government being used as an alternative source of power to the Catholic bishops. Thus, he invited all the bishops of the world to Nicea, centrally located near Rome for convenience, but not IN Rome, for as not to imply that its authority was granted it by the Empire. At that council, it was clarified that the Bishop of Rome spoke for the entirety of the Catholic Church, and any bishop who opposes him is to be regarded as corrupted.
This was merely a formalization, a clarification, of a doctrine which had been held by tradition all along. Long before Constantine, several bishops had written to each other, asserting that they were correct because the Bishop of Rome had agreed with them. Also, the assertions of the Council of Nicea would have been greeted with immediate derision, if it was believed to have been innovating new doctrine. There was none, although many bishops were not able to attend.
The assertion that this Council of Nicea represented a takeover of the church by Rome is not supported by history. Quite the opposite.
Many successive emporers claimed to be Catholic, and tried to force the Bishops of Rome to issue false doctrine. They persistently failed, with one historically debatable exception: that of Honorius. He was thrown into prison, and the emporer produced a letter, claiming that it was written by Honorius, and asserting a very minor theological inaccuracy, which was anathematized by Honorius' successors. (This does not contradict the claim of Papal infallibility since Honorius was not issuing it from the Throne of St. Peter.) Many, many Popes surrendered their lives, refusing to be influenced by Rome.
The Bishop of Rome refused to dwell in Rome, to prevent the appearance that his authority was vested in the Empire. Rather, he dwelled in what became Vatican City, which is not in Rome, but across the Tiber. He is said to be in exile, awaiting the destruction of the Harlot Babylon. The Vatican City to this date, is outside Rome, and, legally, outside even Italy.
"Yet, you seem to say that unity of belief and practice is not important."
I only seem to say that, but that is not what I say.
Or if it is what I have said, it is because I have written in extreme shorthand, in a website-length response, to a specific person raising a specific issue. I told him that I would address what he said when I had the chance, over the weekend, and I will tell you the same thing.
However, for the sake of clarity, I will answer this particular concern. I orthodoxy in faith important? Sure it's important. For one thing, it helps keep the momentum of the faith so that it reaches new ears, and that's important.
But is it ULTIMATELY important, in the final, fatal question of what happens when you die? Probably not very.
The Catholic Church expects that good people of all faiths and unbaptized babies and the like, do, somehow, end up in heaven because God is - in the end, in the final analysis, when all is said and done, ULTIMATELY - a loving and merciful father.
So, do the Hindus have much right, doctrinally, in their religion? No. Do Hindus go to heaven. Probably tens of millions of them do.
That's what I am thinking of when I say ULTIMATELY important.
And I don't think we should lose sight of that fact when we start bickering about orthodoxy. Orthodoxy and correct belief, faith and practice are important for many reasons, and they're important to God. But do only Catholics go to heaven? No. And the Church does not teach that they do.
The Church teaches "No salvation except through the Church". The Church also teaches that good pagans somehow do end up in Heaven, through the grace of the Father. These doctrines are actually NOT in collision, they only SEEM to be, when looked at shorthand.
Some folks want to force the shorthand and say that only Catholics go to heaven. And that is an error for a Catholic to say, because it isn't Church doctrine.
That's really the point I am drilling at.
There are things we argue about. And they're not unimportant. But when looking at ultimate things, first things, God probably takes into heaven a lot of unbaptised people who think that Jesus was a lunatic. They probably figure out they're wrong when they meet Jesus at the instant of death, and although they may be the very latest of the laborers to the field in the parable, they still end up getting the wage.
This doesn't mean we should dismantle the Church or that nothing matters. There are plenty of ways that having the real truth being fully taught in the world matters. For one thing, it actually does help the pagans and the Protestants and the Muslims and Jews in many direct, indirect and mystic ways.
But that wasn't what I was talking about.
The thread was about a Near-death experience. When we're talking about death, we're talking about ULTIMATE personal dispositions. And the truth is probably twofold: there are only Christians in heaven, but also that plenty of people who didn't die Christian are in heaven. And what happened to that minister, which is outside of the range of life discussed by the Bible and the traditional doctrines, is very probably the time, place and event for billions of otherwise good souls that lifts the scales and causes the conversion and baptism of faith. It is outside of OUR world and ability to reach, but in that transition state it is not outside of the reach of God and Jesus to reach and suddenly transform. We can't say much about that phase, because THAT'S not in Scripture or the tradition. The only way that we know about it is modern medicine snatching about 20,000 people back from the dead. It's arrogant for us to try to bind God in what God can do for a given soul at the instant of death, and what I am saying is that the apparently conflicting orthodox teachings of "No salvation outside of the Church", and Hindus in heaven is probably tied in the phase of life-to-death that this thread was about.
When we speak of ULTIMATE dispositions of individual souls, which is the only thing I was speaking about, orthodoxy might be a help, but what matters is the goodness of life and goodness of heart of the soul going back to God, regardless of where that soul lived on earth and regardless of what religion it grew up under and believed while alive. In a nutshell, the baptism of faith can occur during the transition to death, and the pain and agony and terror of death may well itself be a massive balloon payment on sin, a rather large chunck of purgatory.
We do not know.
But we have every cause to be optimistic.
Now I will stop.
I will give you and the other fellow a proper response over the weekend.
But the Catholic church does allow for annulment, on the basis that some "marriages", though performed ceremonially on earth, and even perhaps "consummated" .... are not joinings that are sanctionable under God's Law.
I am not a Catholic but certainly know that the granting of annulments has been WIDELY abused by the Catholic church. Nevertheless, the principal upon which annulment is based, is sound to my thinking.
Well, you're partly right about annulments. On the surface, "some" of them deal with things that clearly appear to be not sanctioned under God's law: incest, forcible marriage, etc. But, as far as the Church is concerned, it is more accurate to say that the "marriages" simply never existed under God's law at all, whether the state may sanction them in some cases or whether public perception sanctions others. Examples here would be: two baptized Christians getting married before a JP, the man attempting marriage knowing before the fact that he was incurably impotent, flat-out refusal of one or both parties to "be open to children," etc. The state, or civil society, may not have a problem with some of these scenarios, but the Church's understanding of God's law makes them problematic.
You are right about the current abuse of the annulment process here in America. American Catholics comprise about 6% of the world Catholic population, yet procure about 70% of the annulments! Something is clearly not right here...
Until the last 35 years or so, the Church really only recognized a handful of grounds for issuing a decree of nullity (the technical term for an annulment). Those grounds were force; fraud; incest (to the level of second-cousins); two baptized Christians (not necessarily Catholics, as the Church recognizes the marriage of baptized, non-Catholic Christians as valid *and* sacramental, even if the parties don't!) getting a civil marriage only; impotency before the marriage known to the man but undisclosed to his prospective wife; a prior agreement that the marriage would be considered "only temporary"; and a categorical refusal of one or both parties to be open to children. All of these most Christians would probably agree with. Additionally, the Church has also said that a marriage contracted between two people where at least one of them is Catholic, in ANY non-Catholic setting without a dispensation, is invalid for "lack of proper form." Some people may have a problem with that one, but it's there just the same.
Those are the traditional grounds. A look at them will probably show anyone that, really, very few people are likely to meet the criteria if they are even sort of practicing the Christian faith. Annulments today, however, are often cooked-up by marriage tribunals for *very* flimsy circumstances, usually based on secular psychological theory. To that extent, I personally don't think they're worth the paper they're printed on, though, if the parties undergo the process in good faith, I imagine God doesn't hold them as accountable as He would were they deliberately misleading the marriage tribunal that gave them an annulment.
Fortunately, the earthy-crunchy types who were running the show in recent years are past or approaching retirement, and the newer breed starting to gain seniority is noticeably more orthodox in tendency. Things may be returning to some sense of balance, integrity and fidelity to the Gospel. Soon, American Catholics will start seeing a return to the presupposition that Jesus knew what He meant and meant what He said regarding divorce, and current trendy "go-arounds" on His words will start becoming a thing of the past.
so it is instantaneous?
You haven't really given much thought to eternity, have you?
I repeat, who told you purgatory takes time?
SD
"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40)
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