Posted on 09/29/2006 6:30:20 AM PDT by xzins
There are more calminians, DrE, than anything else.
More's the pity.
I'm taking the calminian statement back. I think there are more Catholics than anything else.
Postmillennialism is a real dirty word among us Asian Christians. It is ranked alongside Catholics, apostasy, ecumenism, and John Spong LOL. There is no postmillennialist among Asian Christians except the pro-gay rights, pro-liberal politics, and pro-Taiwanese Independence Presbyterian Church of Taiwan (akin to the PCUSA).
All other churches, even many of the "mainline Protestants" are solidly pre-trib - heck, I attended a Methodist secondary school and they preached the rapture, and a famous Chinese Presbyterian pastor based in Taiwan openly preached about the rapture just a couple of years ago. The current arguments concerning Bible prophecy is whether the Euroepan Union or the UN (or their successors) is the last "10-nation Kingdom" within the dispensational framework.
I'm curious where these folks are coming from.
Are the ex-muslims, formerly unchurched, is it a really high birthrate? I imagine Mongolians are former Buddhists.
Asian Christian scenes tend to be more like "youth movements" than "old granddaddy social club gatherings". We aren't quite old enough to have significant numbers of "second-generation" Christians (i.e. those who was born and grew up in Christian families) yet. Overwhelming number of them become Christians during their high school or university times after evangelism, etc. In Hong Kong for instance, the median age of Christians would be around 26. They are overwhelmingly evangelical, with Baptist and C&MA leading the scene, while the offshoots of mainline Protestants operate many schools but not many church members.
Many people now think that the coming of Communism among many East Asian countries had an unintentionally good side-efefct concerning Christian gospel: because Communism is hostile to traditional culture and they have imposed secular atheism upon the folk-Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist people, those who were born after 1949 had no memories of traditional Chinese culture and folk religion, and grew up nominally secular humanist. This has removed a lot of the deep superstitions that acted as significant roadblocks to effective preaching of the gospels.
As a result, when the gospel comes, it actually spread like wildfire among the disaffected Chinese.
That sounds like what I'm reading from other sources about China.
It's also somewhat reflective of the developments in Mexico and South America - "folk catholicism" there (and I say this as a Catholic) is often more like paganism than anything else. Evangelical Christianity is taking off because many of the people had experienced either Statism or animism-with-a-Catholic-veneer, but not genuine Christianity of any kind.
Wow! That's amazing, but it's also perfectly understandable, under the circumstances. The African-American slave experience has influenced mainstream American Christianity in a similar way, among the generality of Christians who do not study theology with a historical perspective.
Calvinists forgive because they know ultimately they're powerless to change people's minds.
= = = =
I thought Hollanders forgave because Hollanders
have NO CHOICE about it! ! !
LOL.
Calvinists forgive because they know ultimately they're powerless to change people's minds.
= = = =
Pondering this some more . . .
Seems to me . . .
Robotic forgiveness, cannot be authentic forgiveness.
If I have no choice whether I forgive, or not, then, it can't be authentic forgiveness.
It certainly can't be meaningful forgiveness. And, if it can't be meaningful, then it can't be authentic, useful, efficacious, real.
Robotic anything is nothing more than pin balls bouncing around an automated pin ball machine.
That's a far cry from the FORGIVENESS Jesus modeled and calls us to.
Forgiveness which costs us nothing is not worthy the word. Christ's forgiveness cost Him His all.
Ours ought to at least cost us some empathy and probably, in most cases, some humility/pride.
I think "Forgiveness" is one of God's most hallowed words. It grieves my spirit to see it demeaned, belittled and trashed into a robotic nothing--a hollow, meaningless, contentless, pseudo-label on an impossible, nothing action.
GODLY Forgiveness . . . counts the costs--on both sides; empathizes; is thoughtful; seeks the route, manner and result of Love; is an independent authentic, relatively free choice. Nothing less is worthy the name.
Otherwise, there is no existential interpersonal 'contract,' as it were, between individuals, between individuals and God. It would merely be nameless meaningless cogs in a meaningless machine. Not what Christ died for. Not the Forgiveness He modeled.
Not the quality and level of forgiveness He calls us to.
"I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God of that which costs me nothing."
~King David, 2 Samuel 24:24
Praise The Lord for HIS faithfulness, even through flawed finger tapping.
Your kind and humbling words edify me yet again.
Thanks.
I guess it depends on the denomination/church. Some denominations are sending much more that that, some less.
Thanks for the ping!
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