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Early Church Errors Repeating?
The Berean Call ^ | Dave Hunt

Posted on 12/04/2012 6:46:21 PM PST by fwdude

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To: danielmryan
But I do have to credit the fellow for warning against postmillenialism. Postmillenialism, once secularized, became Progressivism - and we know what that's led to.

I'm currently reading Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. (First book I ordered after the election. Seemed appropriate.) It's very interesting to me, you many manifestations of the leftist/progressive impulse have a religious component.


41 posted on 12/05/2012 11:12:16 AM PST by Lee N. Field ("And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" Gal 3:29)
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To: one Lord one faith one baptism
i’m sorry, but i thought conservatives treasured the truth, and leftists like the DUmmies untruths.

You should know better than that, after mucking through the Michael Rood thread.

42 posted on 12/05/2012 11:16:47 AM PST by Lee N. Field ("And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" Gal 3:29)
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To: Boogieman
Since the rapture isn’t an article of faith pertaining to salvation,

Depends who you talk to. There's at least one member of FR's Dispensational Chorus who holds that if you don't toe the line on the whole dispensational package, you're a "scripture twister" and an obvious heretic.

43 posted on 12/05/2012 11:30:22 AM PST by Lee N. Field ("And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" Gal 3:29)
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To: one Lord one faith one baptism
maybe old dave is senile, could that account for the stunning stupidity of this section of the book?

According to Amazon.com, that book was published in 1993. Some other explanation is necessary.

That those who embrace the Manifest Sons teaching have been left behind will not trouble them at all. Indeed, it will prove that they are the faithful ones.

I find this interesting. He's speaking specifically against the Latter Rain heresy, now making a resurgence in certain circles.

44 posted on 12/05/2012 11:40:25 AM PST by Lee N. Field ("And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" Gal 3:29)
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To: one Lord one faith one baptism; Boogieman; Lee N. Field

from the book by LaHaye & Jenkins
- The Truth Behind Left Behind

Rapture

John 14:1-3
Romans 8:19
1 Cor 1:7-8 15:51-53 16:22
Phil 3:20-21 4:5
Col 3:4
1 Thes 1:10 2:19 4:13-18 5:9, 23
2 Thes 2:1, 3
1 Tim 6:14
2 Tim 4:1, 8
Titus 2:13
Hebrews 9:28
James 5:7-9
1 Peter 1:7, 13 5:4
1 John 2:28 - 3:2
Jude 1:21
Rev 2:15 3:10

Second Coming

Daniel 1:44-45 7:9-14 12:1-3
Zech 12:10 14:1-15
Matt 13:41 24:27-31 26:64
Mark 13:14-27 14:62
Luke 17:20-37 21:25-28
Acts 1:9-11 3:19-21
1 Thes 3:13
2 Thes 1:6-10 2:8
1 Peter 4:12-13
2 Peter 3:1-14
Jude 1:14-15
Rev 1:7 19:11 - 20:6 22:7, 12, 20
Malachi 4:2


45 posted on 12/05/2012 12:05:51 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: Lee N. Field
That's a book I should read too. Your eyes will certainly be opened...
46 posted on 12/05/2012 1:54:13 PM PST by danielmryan
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To: Lee N. Field

I have the book, but haven’t gotten too far into it. Goldberg’s style is a little stilted, IMO. And he said some thing that was derogatory to moral conservatives shortly after I purchased it and that probably had something to do with my loss of interest.

But I’ll give it another shot.


47 posted on 12/05/2012 2:23:30 PM PST by fwdude ( You cannot compromise with that which you must defeat.)
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To: BrandtMichaels

That list is hilarious. It lists 1 Thes 3:13 as being about the Second Coming, because it reads:

“the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints”

However, it then says 1 Thes 4:15, which mentions:

“we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord”

just one chapter later, is magically not about the Second Coming, but about the rapture. So, according to this source, there are two “comings of the Lord”, both of them described as THE coming, but they are completely separate events, even though they’re described in close succession with no differentiation or distinction.

This is, simply, “magical” Scriptural interpretation. The words in the Book have no set meaning to these people, they just magically assign whatever meaning is convenient at the moment, regardless of context, prior usage, contradictions, or any other reasonable considerations.


48 posted on 12/05/2012 2:52:06 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman; BrandtMichaels; one Lord one faith one baptism
So, according to this source, there are two “comings of the Lord”, both of them described as THE coming, but they are completely separate events, even though they’re described in close succession with no differentiation or distinction.

That's standard pop dispensationalism. The first second coming isn't really considered a second coming, more of a "touch and go".

What I have noticed is that dispensationalists I have interacted with tend to conflate dispensational distinctive teachings with what scripture says, as though not recognizing that there are any interpretive process.

BrandtMichaels, do you think anyone is denying any of those passages, because we don't think they teach what LaHaye, Hal Lindsay, Chuck Missler, et al say they do?

"You keep using that verse, but I do not think it means what you think it means."

49 posted on 12/05/2012 3:36:44 PM PST by Lee N. Field ("And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" Gal 3:29)
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To: danielmryan

Your argument seems to be, if the Church never got in bed with the pagans and the princes and empires, then Christians’ lives would have been harder, and that would be a bad thing.

Yet, we have Christ’s teaching in John 15:

“18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.”

So, if anything, the fact that Christian’s lives got easier, and they ceased being persecuted by the powers of the world would be a sign that those Christians were not keeping Christ’s sayings. Otherwise, they would have continued to be persecuted as He was. Instead, the world began to love them, because they had become worldly.

I don’t believe that such continued persecution would have stamped out Christianity either. I see Christianity more like quicksand, in that struggling against it is counterproductive. Persecution just provides more opportunities for the true power of faith in Christ to be displayed to the world.


50 posted on 12/05/2012 4:19:15 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman
Your argument seems to be, if the Church never got in bed with the pagans and the princes and empires, then Christians’ lives would have been harder, and that would be a bad thing.

My point is: had someone like Constantine not done what he did, Christianity would have spread to a far lesser extent than it has. Europe (and by extension, North America) would have been largely pagan. Odds are, neither of us would have been born Christian in such an event: both of us would have been born pagan. America would not have been a "Christian nation."

The only alternative, if Christians kept growing at a rapid clip in the dying days of the Roman Empire, would have been another Emperor doing essentially the same thing that Constantine did. Or, perhaps, a Dark Ages king - and we would have ended up with something similar to the Roman Catholic Church anyway. Constantine's strategic-political genius was to recognize that Christians were sufficiently numerous to swing a crucial battle in his favour. His edict of toleration and subsequent patronage of Christianity can be seen as payback for their help at a crucial time.

And, it must be said, his edict and patronage were welcomed by the Christians. No hatred of the world made them ever spurn his favours; they accepted them with little or no qualm. In fact, they welcomed his help in putting down doctrines like Arianism that were deemed heretical. None of the Church fathers had any problems with Constantine's patronage. Augustine certainly didn't.

My argument, though, is historical: it doesn't pertain to matters of faith per se. But, it does pertain to the nature of civilization - the extent of Christianization - after the fall of Rome.

But in matter of faith, the number of believers is (of course) irrelevant. Crucial to faith is the state of one's soul, of one's fidelity to the words of God and to Christ. Nose-counting is secondary, I know that.

51 posted on 12/05/2012 6:54:46 PM PST by danielmryan
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To: danielmryan

Alright, I see what you mean, from a historical perspective. From the perspective of the faith, though, I really do think it was a two edged sword.

“No hatred of the world made them ever spurn his favours; they accepted them with little or no qualm. In fact, they welcomed his help in putting down doctrines like Arianism that were deemed heretical.”

Certainly they did, which really highlights to me the dangers they invited by opening the door to worldliness. It wasn’t long before the secular kings and emperors were doing the “dirty work”, while the Church pleaded innocence, washing its hands like Pilate. “We didn’t burn heretics at the stake, it was those pesky Kings!” is still the first defense raised to anyone who points out that murder in the name of Christ, and the Church, was practiced historically.


52 posted on 12/05/2012 7:41:14 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman
It wasn’t long before the secular kings and emperors were doing the “dirty work”, while the Church pleaded innocence, washing its hands like Pilate. “We didn’t burn heretics at the stake, it was those pesky Kings!” is still the first defense raised to anyone who points out that murder in the name of Christ, and the Church, was practiced historically.

Technically, that defense is true. And here's a funny twist: the truth of that technicality is precisely the reason why Martin Luther died of a stroke in his home town. None of those "pesky Kings" overseeing where he was would light the fire.

Granted it seems like a technicality, but there's nuance in there that explains a lot about the development of liberty - not to mention about Europe and North America. There's a real case to be made that the Reformation was God's punishment on the Roman Catholic Church for it becoming too worldly in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

53 posted on 12/05/2012 8:46:21 PM PST by danielmryan
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To: danielmryan

That’s an interesting way to look at it. If it was a chastisement, I don’t know that its had too much of an effect. I mean, on the one hand, they did become less worldly, although not necessarily by choice. On the other hand, they don’t show much contrition about having been worldly in the first place, so the lesson may have fallen on deaf ears.


54 posted on 12/05/2012 9:06:28 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman
That’s an interesting way to look at it. If it was a chastisement, I don’t know that its had too much of an effect. I mean, on the one hand, they did become less worldly, although not necessarily by choice. On the other hand, they don’t show much contrition about having been worldly in the first place, so the lesson may have fallen on deaf ears.

If you see it as playing out through centuries, it makes sense. Over the course of the last 500 years, the Vatican has lost virtually all of its political power. Nowadays, the worldly Vatican is little more than an autonomous city-state that's routinely blown off by government leaders. If you've been following the abortion issue, you know how little political power the Vatican has now.

Some time ago, I read the book The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. It deals with the Roman Catholic Church as a secular organization - like a government. From their angle, the Roman Catholic Church was a vitally useful institution for preserving and extending civilization and wealth in the Dark and Middle Ages, but it became increasingly dysfunctional as the Middle Ages turned into the Renaissance.

What makes their thesis tantalizing is that they say the same dysfunctionality has currently infected the nation-state. This book was published in 1997, so it's pre-9/11, and I have certain doubts about its prognostication [mainly because of nuclear weapons], but it's still an interesting and even infectious read. Andrew Wile of the Daily Bell keeps referring to the "Internet Reformation": that same book is where he got his meme from.

55 posted on 12/05/2012 10:03:32 PM PST by danielmryan
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To: danielmryan

Thanks for the book recommendation, I’ll try to check it out.

As for the demise of the nation-state, in favor of something less centralized, I don’t think that is ever going to happen, and not just because of nuclear weapons. Man’s direction from the beginning has been to try to complete the Tower of Babel, because we never learned that lesson either. We’ll never be satisfied to go back to living as tribes, villages, or self-governed provinces. It’s more likely that we will keep going in the other direction, and keep trying to subordinate the nations to international government.


56 posted on 12/05/2012 10:56:17 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Cronos

This post is very late, but thank you so much for detailing those truths, badly needed


57 posted on 12/24/2012 4:44:59 AM PST by Mount Athos (A Giant luxury mega-mansion for Gore, a Government Green EcoShack made of poo for you)
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To: Boogieman; danielmryan
you can contrast the lives of Christians in the Western part of the Empire with those in the East and worse with those further east

The Church of the East centered in Iraq (part of the Sassanid Empire) once spread as far east as China (some Mongol tribes like the Naiman were Assyrian Christian), but that was destroyed slowly and surely, slaughtered by various forces

Christianity in the Roman Empire became an attraction for Germanics, Slavs, Baltics, Vikings, Magyar etc. to convert to.

The fact of Constantine's change of heart and 92 years later for Christianity becoming the religion of the Empire played an important role in Christianity as we know it today becoming what it is today and not like Mandaeism

58 posted on 12/25/2012 1:49:05 AM PST by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
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To: Boogieman; danielmryan
The only alternative, if Christians kept growing at a rapid clip in the dying days of the Roman Empire, would have been another Emperor doing essentially the same thing that Constantine did.

And that's what the Zoroastrian Sassanids did -- they crushed Manichaenism and after Christianity was adopted by Rome, crushed Christians until the Church of Assyria separated from orthodoxy

Were it not for the Arab invasions, Zoroastrianism would have been a dominant religion -- spreading over all of Greater Iran including Central Asia, the Persian Gulf and into the Indian continent

The beauty of the Roman Catholic Church was that it was not headed by the Emperor - daniel, if a dark ages king had set something up, he would have set himself up as head of the church -- as many pagan rulers did and as, strangely did Henry 8 and then many of the north Germanic and Scandanavian princelings/kings.

59 posted on 12/25/2012 1:53:06 AM PST by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
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To: Boogieman; danielmryan

from a perspective of faith it was not a double-edged sword. Christianity already had the hierarchical structure - if you look at the Church of the East, under the Parthian then Sassanid kings, you’ll find the same ecclesiastical, bishops structure. And this was under Zoroastrian kings who were very zealous of their monotheistic religion


60 posted on 12/25/2012 1:55:00 AM PST by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
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