Posted on 02/23/2010 9:25:41 AM PST by stfassisi
>> Sounds like you think that you are already there vis a vis your claimed personal revelation from God
I am a born again follower of Christ, and thus have a relationship with Him. To the extent that you believe that qualifies as a “front row seat”, then maybe so. However, a personal relationship with God is not a result of personal perfection or achievement. Salvation is available to all by Grace alone.
>> I am interested in the form and the process that you claim results in the personal relationship. You have claimed that God reveals things to you. How, specifically?
Through prayer, scriptural study, and His presence in my life. I think I’ve been as clear as I can. How do you believe God reveals Himself to the Vatican? How did they get a front row seat that remains unavailable to rank-and-file Catholics? The relationship that you believe the Pope has with God is available to each and every person on this earth. That is the best explanation I can offer.
>> [...] please illuminate those of us who are not blessed with this level of revelation from God.
I am apparently and unfortunately unqualified to offer such illumination — there are multitudes of Baptist pastors that are much more eloquent than I on such subjects.
Ultimately, illumnation will come only from God Himself. Pastors and faithful followers can only point you in the right direction.
SnakeDoc
What you claim and what is true may be considerably divergent. I do not believe that you have a front row seat; I do believe that you believe you have one.
Through prayer, scriptural study, and His presence in my life. I think I’ve been as clear as I can.
You are still circumspect. What do you claim is His presence in your life and how does He communicate with you?
The relationship that you believe the Pope has with God is available to each and every person on this earth. That is the best explanation I can offer.
It's a lousy one. For one thing, you have not explained any of your claims. For another thing, you have no idea of what I believe that the Pope's relationship with God is.
Ultimately, illumnation will come only from God Himself. Pastors and faithful followers can only point you in the right direction.
More Gnosticism. That was condemned by the Church in the first Century and rightly so. I must thank you though, for being forthright in that admission.
I have explained myself to the best of my ability. If you are truly curious, which I sincerely doubt, I would urge you to seek out people more qualified than I. Some suggestions —
- Dr. Edwin Young is the pastor of Second Baptist Church in Houston, the Bible-based Christian mega-church I attend.
- John MacArthur is a renown evangelical theologian.
- Mark Driscoll is a pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle (I think). Driscoll is a Calvinist pastor, and has his errant moments, but speaks to a unique audience (20-30 y.o. males) that is often overlooked by the church.
You may not agree with me, or these pastors and theologians, but at least you’ll come away with a better understanding than you have at the moment.
I am unfamiliar with gnosticism.
SnakeDoc
Other people are better qualified than you to explain what your faith is? I thought that that was a major beef of the Reformation - that Luther's every milkmaid could then become her own Pope and discard the teachings of any church. But at any rate, if you cannot explain your faith, then one wonders just how strong it is, or even how close it is to Christianity.
You may not agree with me, or these pastors and theologians, but at least you’ll come away with a better understanding than you have at the moment.
These three pastors all have a sufficiently divergent theology that I do not have any greater understanding of your faith than I did several posts ago.
I am unfamiliar with gnosticism.
Perhaps you don't know the name, but your posts certainly are full of the practices.
>> Other people are better qualified than you to explain what your faith is?
My failure to explain is less attributable to my lack of understanding than to my inability to get it across to you. This may very well be due to your overarching aim to ignore, belittle and discredit Baptists and/or Protestants generally, rather than engage in honest inquiry. I was being gracious in continuing take the blame for your lack of understanding.
>> I thought that that was a major beef of the Reformation - that Luther’s every milkmaid could then become her own Pope and discard the teachings of any church.
We discarded the teachings of the Catholic church as the contrivances of men, not the Word of God. They are. We hold fast to the divinely-inspired teachings of Scripture, not the words and edicts of corrupt men.
>> These three pastors all have a sufficiently divergent theology that I do not have any greater understanding of your faith than I did several posts ago.
These pastors disagree on some peripheral points, but their theology is not significantly divergent. Again, your aim is clearly to belittle Protestant Christianity. I see little purpose in continuing this conversation.
>> But at any rate, if you cannot explain your faith, then one wonders just how strong it is, or even how close it is to Christianity.
Luckily for me, I need not prove myself to you.
SnakeDoc
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
Due to the nature of the article, it was always personal. The conversation is over anyway. My apologies.
SnakeDoc
“I am interested in the form and the process that you claim results in the personal relationship. You have claimed that God reveals things to you. How, specifically?”
1 - By scripture. “11Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” - 1 Cor 10
The examples in the Old Testament and New were meant to teach us and guide us. No, God doesn’t normally direct one in what shirt to buy, but he does give a huge amount of guidance on a variety of areas. I just left the Baptist Church I’ve been part of for 4 years, because I didn’t want to be unequally yoked with Calvinists whose ideas about God & evangelism and missions is so different from my own.
Before I ever went on a date, I knew any girl I would get serious about would have to be a Christian, for the same reason.
2 - The Holy Spirit. Sorry dude, but I can’t give you detailed instructions on listening to the Holy Spirit. I dated my wife for 3 weeks prior to proposing...a bit different, and I don’t really recommend doing so, but I was convinced our marriage was God’s leading - and I still believe it 23 years later. I’m not saying God normally acts via that, but it happens.
If you haven’t heard his voice, I suggest repenting and asking God to open your eyes & ears and to fill you with the Holy Spirit.
3 - Discipline. Just like I use discipline and reward to communicate with horses and dogs, God uses them to communicate his will to us. He actually treats many unbelievers in like manner, but most are too blind to know it.
Well stated. A better explanation than I could muster, though I seriously doubt it’ll get through. Good luck and Godspeed.
SnakeDoc
To paraphrase Harry Truman; You're not giving them hell, your are just telling the truth and it feels like hell.
Did you know that sexual abuse by Protestant Clergy is five times higher than by Catholic clergy?
The three companies that insure a majority of Protestant churches say they typically receive upward of 260 reports a year of children younger than 18 being sexually abused by members of the clergy, church staff members, volunteers or congregants. Additionally, reports of sexual misconduct by Protestant clergy not involving children far outstrips that by Catholics.
The figures released to The Associated Press offer a glimpse into what has long been a difficult phenomenon to detail, the frequency of sexual abuse in Protestant congregations. Whereas the catholic Church has publicly admitted and addressed the problem the Protestant abusers remain secretive.
Its amazing how they squeel when the shoe is on the other foot.
How do you know what my overarching aim is?
We discarded the teachings of the Catholic church as the contrivances of men, not the Word of God.
That is one of the stated reasons of the Reformation, correct. It is not the predominant one or even a major one that contributed to the success of the Reformation.
These pastors disagree on some peripheral points, but their theology is not significantly divergent. Again, your aim is clearly to belittle Protestant Christianity. I see little purpose in continuing this conversation.
As you wish. I can see little convergence in their theologies, but if you can reconcile them, so be it.
Luckily for me, I need not prove myself to you.
Certainly. But please understand when making unproven statements regarding Christianity, this Christian will consider them fair game for challenging.
:) I think that you know me well enough by now.
3. Not an answer.
“You cited the “there are Protestants who” line as a defense of a baseless Catholic diatribe against all Protestants. The fact that you regard this ridiculous attack on Protestant theology as justifiable due to those comments is the functional equivalent of blaming all Protestants.”
I started writing a response to that, explaining your errors in logic and perception, but I became, literally, nauseous.
What you have written here is not merely inaccurate. It is downright, barking-moonbat nutty.
It is nutty to think that anything I have written can be characterized as a justification for an attack on any Christian denomination.
It is nutty to think that my reference to bad behavior by some protestants was supposed to be a defense of any attack on any Christian denomination.
I’m done with you.
Calling a point of view as deeply embedded in anti-Americanism, anti-Conservatism, anti-capitalism and perhaps even anti-semitism "true" shows poor judgement.
And, as should be obvious to anyone who has paid attention to the posts on this thread, John Rao's perspective is deeply embedded in a mire of anti-Americanism, anti-Conservatism, anti-capitalism and (if we are to believe Cardinal Vlk) anti-semitism.
I assume you are not talking about sexual abuse in Dublin, Ireland. Correct?
“”You’re not giving them hell, your are just telling the truth and it feels like hell.””
Calvin is a forerunner to modern religion against the Church Christ founded .He was similar to Mohammed.
From Hilaire Belloc’s “What was the reformation”
http://www.traditionalcatholic.net/Tradition/Information/What_was_the_Reformation.html
This man was a Frenchman, Jean Cauvin (or Calvin), the son of an ecclesiastical official, steward and lawyer to the See of Noyon. After the excommunication of his father for embezzlement and the confiscation by his Bishop of much of the income which he, Jean Calvin, himself enjoyed, he, John, set to work - and a mighty work it was.
He was already on the revolutionary side in religion; he would perhaps have been in any case a chief figure among those who were for the destruction of the old religion. But whatever his motive, he was certainly the founder of a new religion. For John Calvin it was who set up a counter-Church.
He proved, if ever any man did, the power of logic the triumph of reason, even when abused, and the victory of intelligence over mere instinct and feeling. He framed a complete new theology, strict and consistent, wherein there was no room for priesthood or sacraments; he launched an attack not anti-clerical, not of a negative kind, but positive, just as Mohammed had done nine hundred years before. He was a true heresiarch, and though his effect in the actual imposition of dogma has not had a much longer life than that of Arianism yet the spiritual mood he created has lasted on into our day. All that is lively and effective in the Protestant temper still derives from John Calvin.
Though the iron Calvinist affirmations (the core of which was an admission of evil into the Divine nature by the permission of but One Will in the universe) have rusted away, yet his vision of a Moloch God remains; and the coincident Calvinist devotion to material success, the Calvinist antagonism to poverty and humility, survive in full strength. Usury would not be eating up the modern world but for Calvin nor, but for Calvin, would men debase themselves to accept inevitable doom; nor, but for Calvin, would Communism be with us as it is today, nor, but for Calvin, would Scientific Monism dominate as it (till recently) did the modern world, killing the doctrine of miracle and paralysing Free Will.
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