Civil Religious Discussions : all things Christianity II

[historian]

Prologue: I intended this to be brief but by the time I got done, I realize it got much longer. I do not mean any offense to historian or anyone else. I may edit it a few times for clarity or in the interest of charity after posting. Espeically since once it scrolls off my small screen, I can't remember what I typed You have been warned.

First of all, I won’t take offense from an idol worshiping pagan!

Even though I THINK I understand your sentiment, I think it is somewhat anachronistic. I am not sure it's as cut and dry as that.

The entire old testament is the story of God and His people, even though his people weren't always doing what he wanted, they were still his people.

When Christ walked the earth, he did so as a Jew. Even at his time, there was not one Jewish monolithic expression. There were Zealots, Essenes, Pharisees, Saduccees, etc. I would say they were still his people.

After Ascension and Pentecost, there weren't suddenly Jews and Christians either. The first Christians would have considered themselves Jews. They were just Jews that believed the prophecies of the Messiah had been fulfilled. So, I would say we can lump in the first Christians with the Jews above. That is almost certainly the view of the civil authority at the time. Roman authorities made no distinction between Jews and Christians. Christians were just another Jewish sect.

As scripture says, there must be schisms and it will always be so. I speak as an Orthodox Christian but believe I can lump in Roman Catholic belief here also. There are too many Orthodox and Latins that get hung up on being the one Church. Now I certainly believe there is one True Church, but there was no time in the history of the Church were there was only one Church. From the beginning, there were various groups of Christians. Over time, a consensus develops on what the teaching of the One True Church is and that continues to this day. Latins and Orthodox both would hold that was happening before Paul ever penned his Thessalonian letters and it was this coalescence that gave the Sola Scriptura variety Christians their Bible,

Yes, Pastor Jim’s!

but I do not write this in the spirit of a polemic.

Could have fooled me

So how do we, today, try to understand where we are now? I hold the position that there are heresies and there are heretics and that there is a difference. Again I am going to overgeneralize some for the sake of "brevity"

First rule. God is the judge of the individual person, not any of us.
Heresy means simply choice. Schism means division. In common terms a heresy is a wrong belief. A heretic is one who CHOOSES to believe wrongly


So to lay the groundwork, I would say when you say people, I would say that means a group, a Qahal, an Ecclesia that holds the correct dogmas.

Yes

However there can be individuals within that group that don't adhere to the dogmas proclaimed by that group. This is one traditional understanding of the parables of the wheat and tares for example, where the Church is made up of wheat (sheep) and tares(goats). However these tares don't schism, they just mostly keep to themselves etc.

Now anyone can believe a heresy. That alone however does not make them a heretic. There must be a conscious choice to believe something contrary to a known teaching of the Church. If this person, once made aware of the error, unites themselves to the Church, they were never a heretic.

Now if a person remains obstinate in their teaching, they are excommunicated or placed outside the visible Church.

If that person than chooses not only to believe the heresy but starts a new community that teaches the heresy then we have schism. Those would be the ones that are actively leading others away from the Church.

I don’t know. If you believe a heresy, that tends to make you a heretic. If you know the truth and refuse to live by it, you are. A heretic.

So if I, as an Orthodox Christian, and meaning no offense while still being true to my beliefs, had to say anything about Christianity today, I would say the Roman Catholic church is schismatic and heretical in its teaching. I would say Protestant churches are Heterodox. When it comes to the people in those churches, I would say most are neither schismatic or heretical because they have never made a deliberate choice in either division or heresy.

So to come full circle, I hold the leadership responsible, who should know better, for leading their flock away from Him, not the flock. Those who are teaching heresy and lead others into error will be held accountable. The folks in the pews, after several centuries of developing their own traditions, are mostly ignorant of Church History through no fault of their own. So when I discuss these things here with y'all, I don't consider you heretics or schismatics. I just consider you ignorant . I would expect you view me similarly or worse which I am fine with too. Everything I say could be wrong, its up to you to fact check me
After all that is how the one True Church has ironed out dogma and doctrine from the beginning. Disagreements arise, they are discussed, and, if necessary, right teachings are affirmed wrong teachings are declared.

I agree. I know that Lutherans hold the true faith and all y’all are heretics, but…

However, I think of this in terms of Lewis and Mere Christianity. What is true and right is the center of church. There may be some areas where we disagree (true presence in the bread and wine, the efficacy of baptism, etc.), but in the center are the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed, which order the church in a true and right direction.

I would add to that the inerrancy of scripture is now a fourth thing that has emerged in the 20th century (as it was assumed before then). This fourth measure eliminates most of my above mentioned denominations as they have no solid resting place on which to place their faith. I’m hopeful that our RC friends will come around to the primacy of scripture, but the Council of Trent foreclosed that pretty well (schismatics that they are!).

As for the people, there is a willing ignorance (especially now in America of all places) for those in those faiths. There are some things that I wish we had that the RCC has (an actual community of faithful people who are bound to each other), but there isn’t as high of a switching cost as we used to have. It isn’t like leaving the Amish or Hutterite communities.

Just some random thoughts I had to pull my iPad out for to respond.

 

[foszoe]

I don’t know. If you believe a heresy, that tends to make you a heretic. If you know the truth and refuse to live by it, you are. A heretic.

As for the people, there is a willing ignorance (especially now in America of all places) for those in those faiths.

I try to be charitable with the term heretic. Other Orthodox, not so much

I'm not sure I accept invincible ignorance as an excuse either though

 

[historian]

 

[foszoe]

View attachment 372321

Maybe one day, Martinizers will rise above Luther and attain the heights of Chemnitz. Some Lutherans are already abandoning the filioque! Until then, Lutheran claims to Sola Scriptura are highly suspect!

Among the Reformers, few understood the “long and acrimonious” debate “between the later Greek theologians and the Latin Church” better than Martin Chemnitz.13 Chemnitz knew the fathers well, and he believed that there was a consensus patrum on the procession of the Holy Spirit, although the Greek and Latin fathers often used different prepositions to describe the reality. He wrote:

Both parties confessed that the Spirit is of the Son as well as of the Father; but the Greeks said that He is “from the Father through the Son,” and the Latins said “from the Father and the Son.” They each had reasons for speaking the way they did.… Therefore, the Greeks said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from [ek, ex] the Father through [dia] the Son, so that the property of each nature (or person) is preserved. Nor did the Latins take offense at this formula for describing the matter. For Jerome and Augustine both say that the Holy Spirit properly and principally proceeds from the Father, and they explain this by saying that the Son in being begotten of the Father receives that which proceeds from the Father, namely, the Holy Spirit.14

Eventually “when major distractions arose, the Greeks spoke anathemas against those who confessed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son … and the Latins in turn condemned those who say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.”15 However, Chemnitz was unwilling to write the debate off as “some inane argument over words,” since for him it concerned the very truth of the gospel.16 Believing somewhat erroneously that the issue had been settled at Florence, Chemnitz defended the traditional Western belief rather than “destroy the consubstantiality of the Father and Son;” unafraid to “speak the language of the Church” simply to “avoid unpleasant and dangerous arguments.”17
Of particular interest is Chemnitz’s understanding of the vocabulary of the debate. Because he knew Greek, Chemnitz was well aware of the difference between ἐκπορεύεσθαι and other verbs used in the Scriptures to describe the coming of Christ or the Spirit (e.g., ἐξῆλθεν in John 13:3, or ἐπελεύσεται in Luke 1:35). He recognized that although many of these terms were often translated by the same Latin word (procedere/processi), in Greek “the word ἐκπορεύεσθαι is reserved for, and peculiar to, the eternal procession when it is used with reference to the Holy Spirit.”18 This distinction, he argued, is important in differentiating the unique procession of the Spirit from the begottenness of the Son, who also comes forth from the Father, but not by means of procession proper (i.e., ἐκπορεύεσθαι). Although Chemnitz accepted the uniqueness of ἐκπορεύεσθαι in denoting the procession, he refused to sacrifice the Latin teaching despite the fact that the Scriptures nowhere spoke of the Spirit’s ἐκπορεύεσθαι from the Son. Both in his Loci Theologici, and then later in the Formula of Concord, Chemnitz simply repeated the traditional Latin teaching that “the Holy Spirit proceeds from him (Christ) as well as from the Father and therefore he is and remains, to all eternity, his and the Father’s own Spirit.”19


13 Martin Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, vol 1, trans. J. A. O. Preus (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1989), 142.

14 Ibid., 143.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid., 144.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 Martin Chemnitz, Jacob Andreae, and David Chytraeus, “Formula of Concord: Solid Declaration” in The Book of Concord, 605.

Siecienski, A. Edward. 2010. The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy. New York: Oxford University Press.

 

[JettaKnight]

I was chewing on this last night as I thought about the Democrat VP Pick. He went after those who claimed to be His people. They weren't, but they spoke in His name and for Him, leading people away from Him. We are way too nice to condemn those who use His name in vain. We accept the UMC, PCUSA, ELCA, UCC, etc., and we don't even get righteously angry at those who applaud, from a pulpit, things that God calls abominations, child sacrifice, and worship of idols.

Jeremiah 8:11 comes to mind on this.

Well, I certainly don't accept mainstream denominations.
And as shown in the UMC schism, a whole lot of their own membership don't accept the BS the leadership is shoveling from the pulpit.

 

[foszoe]

Well, I certainly don't accept mainstream denominations.
And as shown in the UMC schism, a whole lot of their own membership don't accept the BS the leadership is shoveling from the pulpit.

Yes and I am very sympathetic to John Wesley and those in the Wesleyan tradition Moreno than any other Protestant tradition. Have always been suspicious of the UMC though. I like Wesleyan. Nazerenes, and Holiness traditions.

 

[historian]

Well, I certainly don't accept mainstream denominations.
And as shown in the UMC schism, a whole lot of their own membership don't accept the BS the leadership is shoveling from the pulpit.

I would not even take the Globals. They are also in full disagreement with the inerrancy of God's word.

 

[Magyars]

https://newswithviews.com/driving-a-parked-car/

 

[foszoe]

https://newswithviews.com/driving-a-parked-car/

Freudian slip?

 

[45sRfun]

We are living under a humanistic government which views itself as god, providing all that the people need, welfare, retirement, health care, disaster relief, etc. Biblical government is from the bottom up: family, church, and then a very limited state such as our founders envisioned.

 

[ditcherman]

Freudian slip?

Actually, not, if you think about it.
But probably was.

 

[foszoe]

I would not even take the Globals. They are also in full disagreement with the inerrancy of God's word.

I probably wouldn't have gotten curiosity enough to respond if not for the word "full" since full, to me at least, would mean the term inerrancy has clearly defined boundaries if one can be in full disagreement.

There are varying definitions of inerrancy though, so curious what yours is?

 

[Magyars]

Freudian slip?

View attachment 373498

Maybe, I dunno

 

[foszoe]

 

[Brad69]

What about a preaching that does even teach the biblical truth. They instead focus on if you are successful you are closer to God?

 

[foszoe]

What about a preaching that does even teach the biblical truth. They instead focus on if you are successful you are closer to God?

Without getting into too much, although if you or others want to, we can. I should really ask you how you are defining successful, but I will just jump right in and assume you mean according to secularism. You have money, cars, wealth etc.

That is all backwards. For the Christian, if you are successful, you are closer to God because you are more Christ like. That is the Christian definition of success, is the light of Christ shining through me to others around me?

Historically, for NT Judiasm, they had a view similar to modern day secularism. IF you are successful, then you will have money, oxen, sheep, etc. This was also expressed in early American Puritan culture. The roots of Prosperity Gospel can be found in those expressions. It is basically a view that God's favor or blessing is bestowed in material things.

Personally, I would reject any such views. Early Christians preached Christ Crucified a stumbling block for the Jews (vs material goods) and foolishness (vs love of knowledge) for the Greeks.

Measuring the spiritual life by material yardsticks is an exercise in futility. However, our society is accustomed to doing so as is easily demonstrated by our "shock" when we see a fall from "greatness" by someone materially "blessed". Especially when that someone is a "spiritual" leader.

The ONLY reason God gives you material things is to help others.

 

[DadSmith]

Yes and I am very sympathetic to John Wesley and those in the Wesleyan tradition Moreno than any other Protestant tradition. Have always been suspicious of the UMC though. I like Wesleyan. Nazerenes, and Holiness traditions.

I've been reading John Wesley's writing and find I agree with him a lot.
Yet the Holiness movement today seem to not follow all his teachings. As if they have picked what they like and tossed the rest of his teachings.
Why has the congregations that are supposedly following Wesley's teachings are so far from what he actually taught?

 

[foszoe]

I've been reading John Wesley's writing and find I agree with him a lot.
Yet the Holiness movement today seem to not follow all his teachings. As if they have picked what they like and tossed the rest of his teachings.
Why has the congregations that are supposedly following Wesley's teachings are so far from what he actually taught?

In general, mystery and humility in scripture reading and its interpretation have been replaced by scholasticism and pride. People WANT something new. They WANT the latest and greatest, and they are willing to PAY for it.

Before I say much more, I will say, a lot of the things I will say, I AM GUILTY of and may our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner.

Also, our society has compartmentalized our lives. We see it in how we express our politics. We see it in how we express our religious beliefs. We have public and private selves. If one expresses views on politics in language and images that one would NEVER say or show to anyone in the church sanctuary or the coffee hour after church, there is something fundamentally wrong.

What does that mean concretely? And I speak in generalities.....I will broadly speak of the difference.

For example, how is Mystery vs Scholasticism expressed?

Scholasticism permeates all of the language used when discussing salvation. We use the same terms but what we mean is sometimes unrecognizable to each other. To put this in secular terms for a gun forum. We want our Constitution interpreted as the Founding Fathers intended, but when it comes to our scriptures, American Christianity is largely ignorant of what the early Church Fathers believed about Christianity. I am not even talking about 4th century writings, there are writings of people who KNEW the apostles but no one bothers to read them. Clement's Letters to the Corinthians, Ignatios of Antioch on his way to Rome to martyred, the Didache....these things are all free online but if I asked 100 Christians today if they had heard of them much less read them, I doubt the percentage would be very high. In fact we race to get the LATEST books. Bible Codes, reading "LOST BOOKS" of the Bible. Those books were never lost, the early Christians knew of them all and REJECTED them.

CS Lewis said for every new book you read, read an old one. I would say, for the Christian, that means something written before 1517.

Read a Homily by John Chrysostom on a Gospel Passage instead of pulling down a commentary written in the last 200 years to try and understand the difference.


As an example of mysticism vs Scholasticism: Salvation: Relationship vs Transaction.

If I say Christ reconciles us to the Father. That will most likely mean something different to most modern day Protestants/Roman Catholics than it would to an ancient Christian. Protestants/Catholics start with a crime and punishment model that has some scriptural support, sure, but wasn't really developed until the middle ages by Anselm of Canterbury in Cur Deus Homo (Why did God become Man, literally, Why God Man)

Its like book keeping. God has a ledger and assets got to match liabilities.

Orthodoxy would say reconciliation should be thought of more like a couple in marital trouble. They are separated, now the Bridegroom has done all that he can to reconcile and can do no more. We, the bride, recognize the sinfulness in our lives and choose to return to the father's house. That is not the END, that is the beginning. It's not like a separated bride who returns lives as if the separation never happened. In a marriage there will be lingering concerns, resentments its not a single decision.

Another Example: Scriptural Interpretation: The Holy Spirit, the Bible, and me vs theHoly Spirit, the Bible, the Bible as historically understood to ensure I don't fall into error and me.

Protestantists value scripture much differently than they should. To come up with a new doctrine, I have to find a new "meaning" in a verse, then I must find support for that meaning in other verses. Then I go out and argue with other people who disagree with me by slinging verses of Holy Scripture back and forth in a point counterpoint fashion. Dispensationalism, Rapture, Millenial Reign.

For better or worse, some Protestants are rediscovering the early Church Fathers and reading their writings, however they interpret them the way they do scripture. They come with a preconceived doctrine then try to find quotes from the Fathers to support them. So I am not even sure encountering the Fathers of the Church will do much good anymore.

An earthly millenial reign was condemned as a heresy in the early church, but somewhere along the way it got resurrected. Now people want to argue about it. If people applied the way they want the constitution interpreted to the scriptures, a lot of errors could be avoided, but again, we have separated how we operate in the rest of our lives from how we approach God. Rapture, unheard of until 17 century when it gets into someones bible study notes now its all the rage.

In and of themselves, its OKAY to argue back and forth on several things, but schism and heresy are condemned. Think of riding in a car as a kid with other kids. You can fight all day long on the road trip but in the end you stay in the car. The adults in the front will keep you mostly in line.

I need to wrap up so excuse any hanging thoughts, but that is why Christianity, especially as it is expressed in the US, has lost its way. That is why Wesley's followers have strayed.

Just look to Wesley himself. Wesley was an Anglican (Episcopalian) priest. He never wanted his "followers" to schism from the Anglican communion. He wanted to reform the Church from within. He believed and read several early Church Fathers, there is even a story that when he had difficulty getting men ordained, because he believed in Apostolic succession by laying on of hands, he was ordained by an Eastern Orthodox Bishop.

He hardly had time for his body to cool in the grave before his followers schismed.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Christianity/Salvation is such a weird thing.

Feels like there’s either way more people saved then we all think, or way fewer.

 

[dmarsh8]

Western religion (first problem) has exchanged the union of fellowship with a triune God for the mental masturbation of theology, or even worse, just being hip or giving motivational speeches with talented bands playing catchy-lifeless music.

The religious bunch were always the ones fighting the solution (Jesus) and eventually killed him, as they were sternly reminded in Acts.

Jesus is the express image of the Father bodily and He said it is to your advantage that I go so the Holy Spirit will come and lead you....

He, the Holy Spirit, had been so far removed from most churches and hearts in the West that he's rarely even mentioned let alone understood or permitted to operate as He wills.
He is the "Forgotten God" as has been said by some.

You can't operate under a NEW COVENANT while adhering to an old government. Jesus did away with the curse, period and Adam's screw up and his delusion that followed. Adam's screw up wasn't and still isn't more powerful than Yeshua doing away with the curse. I like what one preacher said "Western religion in many places teaches the conditional-unconditional love of God and the unfinished-finished work of Christ."

The Holy Spirit takes us into the circle dance (Perichoresis) of the Godhead and continually reveals Jesus to us(if we allow Him), who has always revealed the true nature of the Father. The Bible obviously has vital importance in our lives as well.
We love the Bible, but that same Bible says that Yeshua was the WORD in the beginning, before there ever was a Bible. There are far flung places in the east right now where people are in hiding from their government with one page of a Bible experiencing miraculous encounters and places in the West that have dozens of translations and a million churches with no encounters. I doubt they'll trade-in their encounters for a whole Bible, let alone a hipster church.

I've heard it said this way: "Be careful about anything you think you know about God, that can't be found in person Jesus." The Father was in Him reconciling the world to Himself. He said He did nothing that wasn't exactly what His Father did/said.

In the here and now, for true believers, He, the Holy Spirit is in us to lead us and give us the ability to demonstrate and reveal the true nature of the Father to the world that is starving for His Agape(other-centered, self giving) love. To know that He is light and in Him is no darkness at all!
Not a pissed off abusive Dad that had to abuse His Son to appease His anger as some teach.

The creation is eagerly waiting for the manifestation of the SONS of God, not just nice Christians that attend a good Western Bible-believing Church where they go repeat a prayer because someone told them to. Even worse, in some settings they try to scare them into it. (Perfect Love casts out fear) so that isn't Love. Good intentions maybe, but not true love. It's the Goodness of God that draws people...

In many of those places the only message is religion, resulting in buildings full of people never experiencing the true life-giving power of the Spirit, but rather being taught to be really disciplined, or to hate sin more, or to hate their flesh a little more. They may even be told they are nothing more than "snow covered dung" or just a "sinner saved by grace." (I've never read where Christ did that.)
He always made the religious bunch out to be what they were, RELIGIOUS and revealed Agape to those who needed it most, even when religion wanted to stone the person to death.

Religion has one message, TRY HARDER!

Jesus revealed one message as well, THE LOVE OF HIS FATHER!
One works and the other doesn't.