Posted on 12/10/2012 9:27:44 AM PST by Laissez-faire capitalist
...gambling, rock music, etc, etc?
Now, this thread isn't about debating what is sin and what isn't or what constitutes sin or doesn't. Please don't hijack this thread over the issues that I listed. Thank you.
This thread is about our changing culture - and let's face it, more and more denominations/churches are ever so slowly moving towards tolerance and/or acceptance of homosexual marriage. The rest in the list (following gay marriage) that I included in the thread were put there to show that if you look back far enough at various denomination's church bylaws some churches were once against this or that - but no longer are. Just like they once were adamantly against homosexuality/homosexual marriage, but are slowly drifting away from that.
Which makes me wonder and posit the following question:
Those (the various ministers who were the crafters of church bylaws and voted on them) believed that they were following God's will in the crafting of their church/denomination bylaws. And they believed that they had it right (or scripturally correct) be it in the early 1800's, early 1850's, late 1800's, early 1900's mid 1900's, etc.
So, if a church/denomination "took a stand" against drinking and smoking or gambling, etc, etc in the 1800's in its bylaws but now has since changed the bylaws on these, did those back in the 1800's really hear from God when they crafted those bylaws? If not, then how can those today who change the church bylaws on these things be certain that they aren't making a mistake by changing the church/denomination's bylaws as they are just as fallible as those who lived back then?
Which leads to churches and the slow change in many denominations taking place over gay marriage....
Where are we as a society headed? What bylaw(s) is/are absolutely correct and never need to be changed?
A lot of “Christians” have looked EVIL in the face, and embraced it.
Not to take away from the original post...but THAT is a stretch. I neither drink, nor condone it, but I DO cook with it. Unholy and unclean? No.
Churches getting comfortable with and condoning sin, such as murder and homosexuality, which are EXPLICITLY condemned in the Bible, are falling in line with what Jesus (indirectly as there was no church yet)Peter, and Paul said would happen.
we are not to appeal to those people to get them to enter the building. The Holy Spirit will draw the true believers to Him.
Amen! Going to be weird when “coming out from among them” means leaving a congregation because they embrace evil. Real Christians will again have to go “underground.”
I agree, Wasichu. The alcohol apologist Christians I debate are always telling me that drinking to excess - to the point of intoxication - is the sin.
It's funny, though. I can never find any pro-alcohol Christians who DON'T drink the point of intoxication.
1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom:
2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;
4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
The prohibitions in place in the 1800s were driven by the same intent that we saw with the Pharisees in Scripture. If you can put a wall around God's law, it will prevent people from breaking the actual law. For example if you don't drink, you won't get drunk and that will cut down on fighting, adultery, etc.
Throw in the temperance movement, driven by many churches, whose desire was to clean up America, and you have the drive to demonize alcohol.
That being said, the move to do away with Biblical prohibitions against homosexuality in the church stem from a low view of scripture.
As an example, we were asked to look over a PCUSA church's website for a friend and see if there were any issues. Here is what we read:
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are God’s uniquely revealed and written Word, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and are authoritative in all areas of faith and life. We seek to understand and follow God’s Word—both Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, and the Scriptures, the written Word of God—by always interpreting any one part of Scripture in terms of the Scriptural witness as a whole, and with an appreciation of the social and cultural realities of the times during which God’s word was written and compiled. (emphasis mine)
Note the bold segment. Everything that in that well written paragraph was undermined by the bold portion. They see Scripture as being written during a less enlightened era. They don't see man's sin as never changing. In that one segment they can undermine God's law in any way they desire.
Not being a church goer, I don’t know which is more important. I guess if the church wants to pay it’s bills, then it has to generate revenue. Like the govt, I don’t know how they would do that with out people giving them money.
...follow the $$$$!
What exactly is heretical disaster and how would anyone even know it happened?
Music is not bad, I mean David even stripped down to a loin cloth and danced in the streets.
Most of the people I know who don’t like dancing, don’t like because they think it will lead to fornication.
In the very olden days when the waltz came about it was scandalous that people touched hands.
My foster dad always said, that if you like to dance dance, but it is why you dance that maybe the problem, but if someone around you becomes judgmental and angry because you dance - stop because you are instrumental in their sin, as in stumbling.
I guess that could the same for everything.
Sin in its simplest terms is anything that separates you from God Almighty.
I have been at church where people dance to the Lord, they are worshiping with fervor but have coronaries if people go to a dance.
There are somethings which are clearly spelled out as sin in the Bible, the others we must use wisdom.
(Oh, I do have a funny joke about dancing and a particular denomination but if you are of that denomination you might not laugh and I know there are those on FR who are also of that denomination.....yet I really would like to tell it)- yes I’ll slap myself.
eye roll
The Bible is clear - drinking is allowed drunkenness is not
People who use your argument have other issues with fermented ‘wine’, if you don’t like it don’t drink.
End times apostacy.
Uh, the subject of this essay is a pretty good example. Or do you agree with homosexuality not a sin?
this is the kind of thinking folks get (i.e. two kinds of ‘wine’) when you rely on the ‘holy spirit’ and me and my bible, to get you through....
But the churches that are moving toward accepting homosexuality as normal, and approving gay marriage, are definitely in conflict with the Bible. THAT is the difference.
I am not Catholic so I do not have any idea why this was a rule.
Why did (and apparently changing) the communion on an empty stomach as sinful?
BINGO!
Disaster seems like an incredible stretch if this is an example.
I do not believe that sin exists.
There is really only ONE reason these days for drinking alcohol - for the effect it gives. Otherwise, any other non-alcoholic beverage would do (there are near-perfect non-alcoholic stand ins for the wine or beer lovers.)
As I posted earlier, I have yet to know an alcohol defending Christian who doesn't get intoxicated. Their defense is an excuse to do so. (Of course, the alcohol Christian gets to define "intoxicated" while in the intoxicated state they're trying to monitor.)
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