CIVIL RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION: All things Christianity

[T.Lex]

Lex, take note that not all Baptist are alike (you should have figured that out by now). Independent Baptist tend to be one of the more conservative (probably along with Primitive and others). Myself, I'm a Regular Baptist, which means I align close with Calvinist views of soteriology. Take a look at Wikipedia's sections on Baptist - it's pretty thorough.

I think almost all Baptist would say no. However, that doesn't always preclude women from other roles such as an assistant pastor (e.g. children's pastor).

Earlier you asked about leaders - like one leader, i.e. the Pope. This is where the protestant concept of Priesthood of Believers comes in. We believe that each of us can connect with God on our own and don't need an intermediary or intercessor besides Christ. Couple that with Sola Scriptura and we now have all the tools we need to correctly interpret scripture and doctrine just as well as any other man. We argue that's there's no power given to the Pope (a sinful man like everyone else) or anyone else that isn't given to each of us. Besides a tenuous scripture passage in which Jesus is speaking to Peter, there's nothing to support apostolic accession, but there's lots of passages to support the priesthood of believers.

So, that raises the question, "why so many denominations and disagreement?" My answer is this: We are the finite trying to comprehend the infinite and understand things that are currently shrouded in mystery and we are sinful and that sin clouds our judgement. We get caught up in trying to figure it all out - is man comprised of body, mind and spirit or is he just body and spirit? (yes, that's something I've actually debated) The true answer should be, "what does it matter? Why do I need to know?"

Hopefully I cleared one thing while muddying the water in lots of other things.

The part that drives me nuts is thinking about if I were outside of the church looking in. Good grief there's how many denominations?! Why would anyone want to be a part of that. I've been to many different churches and I regularly listen to preachers outside of any Baptist banner (including Calvinists). I would have no problem fellowshipping with any of you. Heck even my family gatherings there are Assemblies of God, Reformed Prebysterian, different Baptists, Catholics. I have no problem conversing with any of them about spiritual matters.

Both of these posts are, to me, examples of why I think God's plan is to make Himself available to everyone. We are all different. Motivated differently, interpret things differently, need different things spiritually (not in a hierarchy of needs way).

As a Catholic, even internally we have Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, etc. They are not "wrong" but they emphasize different aspects of Christ. I see denominations as the same concept, writ large.

Which, as a Catholic, is probably a wee little bit blasphemous.

 

[JettaKnight]

The part that drives me nuts is thinking about if I were outside of the church looking in. Good grief there's how many denominations?! Why would anyone want to be a part of that. I've been to many different churches and I regularly listen to preachers outside of any Baptist banner (including Calvinists). I would have no problem fellowshipping with any of you. Heck even my family gatherings there are Assemblies of God, Reformed Prebysterian, different Baptists, Catholics. I have no problem conversing with any of them about spiritual matters.

Hence the modern appeal of non-denominational churches; many go a step farther and remove the word "church" from their name (i.e. replace it will neutral words like "gathering").

Any group that is as old, as large, and as geographically and ethnically diverse as the church is will have just as many variants. That's just the reality of human nature.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Hence the modern appeal of non-denominational churches; many go a step farther and remove the word "church" from their name (i.e. replace it will neutral words like "gathering").

Any group that is as old, as large, and as geographically and ethnically diverse as the church is will have just as many variants. That's just the reality of human nature.

I don't know. I guess in my mind there's only one Christ and one Scripture. Literal translation and literal interpretation unless explicitly stated differently in scripture. I understand there are many different ethnicities and diversities in communities. God be praised for that, but doctrinally, there's truth and there's not truth. Perversion of doctrine is so rampant. The fall is all incompacing. It permeates even the most sacred institutions.

 

[ATM]

Perversion of truth is rampant, and many of these perversions are adopted as doctrine.

One facet of truth, alone, can be a perversion where it denies other true facets or perspectives.

I believe this accounts for the majority of divisions which have occurred.

 

[foszoe]

ChristianPatriot, do you identify as Landmark Baptist or consider the book Trail of Blood as a historical account of you church?

 

[ChristianPatriot]

ChristianPatriot, do you identify as Landmark Baptist or consider the book Trail of Blood as a historical account of you church?

No on the Landmark Baptist. We're not the only denomination with the truth. I don't know enough about the Trail of Blood to give you an answer on that. Sorry

 

[ChristianPatriot]

From what quick little googling I've done, I will say that it appears that the Trail of Blood pamphlet wasn't meant to be the be-all end-all of church history. More or less a general record of persecution back to Christ. There has always been a New Testament church that held to the finished canon of scripture since the time of Christ. Whether it was Baptists or Waldensians or Donatists or whatever.

 

[JettaKnight]

ChristianPatriot, do you identify as Landmark Baptist or consider the book Trail of Blood as a historical account of you church?

No on the Landmark Baptist. We're not the only denomination with the truth. I don't know enough about the Trail of Blood to give you an answer on that. Sorry

Did Foszoe just 'out baptist' us baptist?

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Did Foszoe just 'out baptist' us baptist?

He does that from time to time

 

[T.Lex]

Did Foszoe just 'out baptist' us baptist?

He does that from time to time

Welcome to my world.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Much appreciated

Ok. I found the papers I was looking for. It is VERY lengthy. I will do my best to give the reader's digest version. It's really hard because the details matter. I don't know, it may be a couple pages worth of posts. Bear with me.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Within 100 years of Christ's death, the canon of scripture was complete. The Council of Carthage in 397 A.D. "officially" recognized what Christians had been using since the first century as scripture. Early on in the 2nd century, major heresies were being taught: Marcionism, Gnosticism, and Montanism to name a few (google is your friend). Men were already corrupting scripture. The "lost gospels" were written between 150-400 A.D., but the true church always rejected them. The Apocrypha was written between 400ish B.C. and the time of Christ. The Jews never acknowledged them as scripture because of doctrinal differences with authoritative scripture.

Ok, so, the Apostle John dies in 100 A.D., the same year attributed to the birth of Justin Martyr. Justin was originally a pagan raised by pagan parents but later in life embraced Christianity. Even as a Christian teacher, he was a pagan philosopher. He was mixing paganism and Christianity. His teachings were passed down to Tatian. Along with the heresies he learned from Justin, he embraced Gnosticism. He wrote "Harmony of the Gospels", or Diatrssaron. They were badly corrupted gospels. Tatian's most famous student was Clement of Alexandria, which moves us into the 3rd Century (still no Catholic Church). Clement founded a school at Alexandria and declared he "would not hand down Christianity teachings, pure and unmixed, but rather clothed with precepts of pagan philosophy." Clement's most famous student was Origen. Origen committed himself to turning all of the Bible events into allegories saying himself: "The Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written". Origen also studied under Annonius Saccas, a founder of Neo-Platonism (again, google). Keep in mind, this whole time these men are teaching under the banner of Christianity, but it was a corrupted and false Christianity.

This is brings us to the 4th Century and Constantine. On October 28, 312 A.D., Constantine led his men to battle Maxentius. It is said that Constantine and his soldiers saw a glittering cross in the sky with the words "BY THIS CONQUER" written above it. That night, it is also said, Christ appeared to Constantine directing him to make a banner after the same pattern. As Emperor of Rome, Constantine was heavily involved in paganism as Pontifex Maximus (the high priest of the heathen). He wanted to embrace paganism and "Christ". He took a place as "the head of the church" feeling God had placed him as such. Now we see the union of the false Church and the State. At this time in history, there were many "branches" of Christianity with different beliefs. This was all causing major disputes in the Empire. So Constantine called the first Ecumenical (unity of all "Christian" churches) Council, the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325. The 300 something bishops in the council were pushed to vote on the major disputes. Nicene Christianity slowly becomes the dominant religion and cultural. Theodosius made Nicene Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire by his death in A.D. 395. Damasus is elected Bishop of Rome on October 10, 366 and he fought for the other cities to recognize the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. In December, 384, Siricius claimed permanent authority of the Rome through threats in order to gain more and more power. Siricius was the first to name himself Peter's heir. 440 AD, Leo I becomes Bishop of Rome. More and more power moves towards Rome and away from Constantine. September 13, 590, Gregory the Great is named Bishop of Rome. He named himself "Pope" and the "Head of the Universal Church" (Catholic means universal). Finally, Boniface III becomes pope on February 19, 607, and the Roman papacy (authority of the pope) was universally accepted.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Meanwhile, there are still churches holding to the uncorrupted Textus Receptus, and being slaughtered for it. The Syrian Church, The Waldensian Church of Northern Italy, the Gallic Church in southern France, Celtic Church in Scotland and Ireland, Greek Catholic Church, and others. Which is why we still have a preserved Word today.

 

[foszoe]

Thank you very much for taking the time to both find your notes and relay them to us. Would you mind letting us know a little about their background? By that I mean they read like notes that I would take in a class and I am curious about their origin, whether it is notes taken during a Bible Study at church, a class at high school or college, self-study, and, if possible, any books you can remember them using as source material.

As to Landmarkism and the Trail of Blood, I used to participate in an online forum called American Catholic Truth Society some 20 years ago as I began to leave agnosticism behind and explore Orthodoxy for the first time and Catholicism for the second. There was a Protestant Lady, Sandra, there whose viewpoints were similar to yours which prompted the question. I went there last night looking for my "notes" or conversations with here, alas, the earliest posts were 2003. Perhaps they archived them somewhere. My primary focus at the time was, having rejected Catholicism some 10 years or so prior, I still believed firmly that the Church could not have ceased to exist. Sandra provided a Protestant viewpoint of a church claiming to be from Apostolic Origins that made me consider her point of view. Ultimately, I ended up Orthodox, as you folks all know. The primary reason I could not agree with Sandra was not historical sources, although I did take issue with several points. The sticking point was actually a commonality with most, if not all,Protestants excepting Lutheranism. The Lack of a Sacramental Worldview. Many Protestants are Creationists and are willing to say God can be found in his Creation along with the Psalmist, however, they are also are offshoots of Roman Catholicism. The Latin's scholastic approach to sacramental living forced enumerating the sacrements to 7 and going off into the weeds of how, when, where and why they are valid and licit etc. The Protestants, in their protesting, become militant about how far they will push that encounter of God that can come through his creation. The OT is fine, but John 6 takes it too far.

The tree in my backyard is sacramental because when I pray underneath it, admiring its canopy, I encounter God and grace through that tree.

The bread and wine are the body and blood because the Bible says so, how? Because the Bible says so. Unfortunately for Protestantism, they weren't pushing back against that concept, they were pushing back against transubstantiation. In doing so, they feel compelled to define another concept to believe in, so they invent consubstantiation. But they can't even agree on that so they fracture further.

Sometimes the Orthodox out Protestant the Protestants because we reject both transubstantiation and consubstantiation and accept the Bible at its word. It's because the Bible says so.


I do still have paper copies of several of our exchanges in the "vault" somewhere but I am not sure which box they are in.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Last year our Pastor did a nearly year long study of the history of the Bible, with emphasis on the KJV. So a year's worth of hour long Wednesday night studies. As you know, I'm sure, it's nearly impossible to to go through church history without running into the RCC. That post was a very brief overview of about a month's worth of those studies. I'll inquire about his resources.

 

[hog slayer]

You two are knocking this thing out of the park! I've just begun classes with liberty university and am studying origins of the bible and nothing as deep as this conversation...yet.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

You two are knocking this thing out of the park! I've just begun classes with liberty university and am studying origins of the bible and nothing as deep as this conversation...yet.

It's a fascinating study. I agree with Voddie Baucham on the issue, he says it is the single most important thing a Christian can have knowledge about. Anybody can say I believe xyz because the Bible says so, but why should we believe the Bible?

 

[ChristianPatriot]

"The Glorious History of the King James Bible"-David Cloud
"Forever Settled: A survey of the documents and history of the Bible"-Dr. Jack Moorman
"A More Sure Word: Which Bible Can You Trust?"- R.B. Ouellette
"The Faithful Baptist Witness"- Phil Stringer
"A History of The Baptists Volumes 1 and 2"-John T Christian
"History of Baptists"- G.H. Orchard

As with anything, none of them are perfect books (there's only one of those). I may also have some doctrinal differences with some of the authors, but nevertheless, good resources.

 

[foszoe]

"The Glorious History of the King James Bible"-David Cloud
"Forever Settled: A survey of the documents and history of the Bible"-Dr. Jack Moorman
"A More Sure Word: Which Bible Can You Trust?"- R.B. Ouellette
"The Faithful Baptist Witness"- Phil Stringer
"A History of The Baptists Volumes 1 and 2"-John T Christian
"History of Baptists"- G.H. Orchard

As with anything, none of them are perfect books (there's only one of those). I may also have some doctrinal differences with some of the authors, but nevertheless, good resources.

Thanks!

Ouellette has sermons given online at Landmark churches, Stringer is used as a textbook at Landmark schools, Orchard text appears on Landmark church websites.

Cloud vehemently denies being Landmark but it appears he is asked often enough.

Please understand I am not trying to pin a label but get an understanding of where you are coming from.

Moorman and Orchard are available online so that gives me some reading to peruse.

I would be curious to hear if your pastor has heard of the Landmark Baptists and how he would differentiate from them

 

[ChristianPatriot]

A copy and paste of his text response the other day

The doctrine of "Baptists" can be traced back to Christ, of course. If it couldn't be traced back to Him then what are we following? So yes the doctrine can be traced through different historical groups such as the Waldensians,etc. The doctrines of Christ are found in Scripture so if you have a church following those Biblical doctrines than that church is in the lineage of the first century church whether Baptist or not. The Trail of Blood is, for the most part, a historical account of those who died for the faith opposing the RCC back to Christ essentially, so yes there is a "trail of blood" but maybe the pamphlet itself has inconsistencies, not sure? But landmarkism does get into Baptist Bride stuff of which I do oppose.
So, yes there is a "trail of blood" back to Christ and New Testament martyrs...not 100% about the accuracy of the book though. And no landmarkism, by definition, is not Biblical. Does that answer it?