What about the mainline Protestant religions?

Blackhawkk,

Some are content to cast stones at others, but would never ever think to look at our own churches. We're more than happy to call the Catholic Church an adulterous woman and throw stones at her. Yet we never stop to listen to Jesus to who tells us that only those among us without sin may cast the first stone.


Every religion, church, fellowship, congregation, and denomination, is flawed, manmade, fallible, and imperfect. Pulling logs out of the eyes of the brethren does nothing to make us more able to see clearly. We parade around singing the "my church is better than your church" theme song in vain, and getting nowhere while wo sing it. That's what we've done for hundreds of years, and that's the way it will be until Chist comes.

 

If experience has taught me anything it is the so-called mainline denominations are diverse umbrellas covering a wide range of beliefs. I have met people nearly as antichristian as Spong and I know people who are very Biblically minded.

I have been disappointed on a regular basis by what Barnes and Noble calls "christian" literature.

 

I pastored in the United Methodist Church for 13 years, Blackhawkk. I don't think there is enough bandwidth here to list out the etc. in your post. Things like a fourth person in the Godhead named Sophia, calling the Cross child abuse, abortion, homosexuality, a Native American sweatlodge purification ceremony at one youth camp and, of course, etcetera.

johnv, I agree that "(e)very religion, church, fellowship, congregation, and denomination, is flawed, manmade, fallible, and imperfect." However, when you set out to make it intentionally so is a matter of apostasy.

 

I do not know if I should laugh or cry. You have to be kidding. Please back up your assertions about the Methodist and Episcopalians!

The churches you listed at least the two I'm familiar with (Episcopalian/Methodist) do not deny the deity or the resurrection of Christ.

 

Nate,
Sadly I've read comments over the years from liberals from these and other denominations in which such denials have been made loud and clear.

 

It feels to me that there are, everywhere in the churches, certain ideas that someone, somehow, somewhere declares to be politically correct, and others fall into line lest they be thought ignorant or backward. I teach as an adjunct professor at a United Methodist seminary, and see some of that going on.

 

No doubt there are very bad doctrinal views held by certain fringe groups. But what if they TOO started praying to the dead, torturing heretics, exaulting some favored Bible character to "all powerful like God status", declared themselves to be "infallible", raised rival armies within their own church to go and kill each other, took over all of Europe, persecuted the saints for centuries on end, declared that the bible should be burned and only actually read by their own leaders because "The people can not be trusted", invented the inquisition, pulled mankind into the "Dark Ages"! (The list goes on).

The point being - that atrocious doctrinal errors of the RCC where introduced at a time when it was gaining control over all of Europe and forming in places The Holy Roman Empire. Whereas the groups you mention do not have that much time or control over mankind!

So although I readily agree that their errors are atrocious - there is a reason that they don't make "as big a splash" the scope of time as the many centuries old RCC!

In Christ,

Bob

 

Joseph, are you at Wesley with Larsen, Stookey, et al?

 

I am Anglican and I have never denied the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, His bodily resurrection or His victorious return, the infallability of the scriptures, in their original scripts.

On the other hand, I received a degree from a school where a Baptist minister taught who said the only trinity that existed was you, me and the other fellow, he denied the virgin birth, deity of Christ and a host of other things. Does that mean we must label ALL Baptist churches as being false and heretical?

Cheers,

Jim

 

Well Blackhawkk, you are like a breath of fresh air, and it didn't take long for some to zero in on you. We have a Methodist and an Episcopal church here that are very old and the Gospel has not been preached in them as long as anyone here can remember. And they march through gay and lesbian preachers all the time, for a year or two, presumedly so they can seem progressive or something.

We buy lots of books and B&N gets most of our business lately, for price, delivery time and discounted used books, but Christian literature doesn't mean much there. As long as we order $25 at a time, freight is free. Online that is.

 

Blackhawkk,

I agree 100% when it comes to Spong - but he does not represent mainline episcopalism, particularly English episcopalism. Many of the finest evangelical scholars are episcopal.

But unfortunately there ismuch nonsense going on in many of today's "Christian" denominations.

 

The ultra-liberal groups in protestant "professing" christianity are sometimes filled with almost as much blashphemy and false teaching as Catholicism. I have been consistent about that all along.

And some of the "mainstream"(as opposed to "ultra-liberal") groups seem be going further and further in the direction the ultra-liberals have gone to.

I'm not an "end time events" prophecy expert, but I feel that there could very well be some crediblilty to the view that Catholicism is the Scarlet Woman spoken in Revelation 17 and "Mainstream" to "ultra-liberal" christianity is the Scarlet Beast. (Or the other way around, cant remember)

Thats the reason why I try to always be careful about the phrases I use when referring to christianity when debating Catholics.

I'll try and always use phrases like "bible believing" Christianity, "conservative" Christianity, "evangelical" Christianity, "pentecostal" christianity, or "charismatic" christianity.

Blessings,

Mike

 

Yes, actually I am a semi-volunteer at Wesley. I lead something we call a "House of Baptist Studies" (which has no house, does not of itself conduct formal studies, but at least it is Baptist This past semester I assisted Dr. Stookey in his Introduction to Corporate Worship course by meeting with the Baptist and other free church tradition students from time to time to discuss how what was being taught was played out in our kind of church.

 

JMS - I spent two summers in the cellar at Straughn. I must have lost 30 pounds in the 100 heat/humidity. I spent most of my time there sitting down the hill talking to Wesley's horse and feeding peanuts to the black squirrels. It was less painful than crossing swords uphill.

 

Most Lutherans are far different from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), they have the most numbers but their liberal theology is a shrinking miniority. Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS), Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), American Association of Lutheran Churches, and Evangelical Lutheran Synod are very conservative and so are many of our foreign brethern. Unfortunately news reporters do not make the distinction and so the end up painting all of us with the same brush as they do the ELCA.

 

It is amazing how we all get shoved into the same envelope if we happen to be other than baptist.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Amen, Jim. We Baptists admittedly do think a bit too much of ourselves in that aspect, for which we should repent. Many won't because they really do believe they're better than others.