sky4it

Very interesting quote. You might find it amusing, that in a long discussion, a guy who was an atheist and I where really on track when it came to Calvin. If you have never studied it at all, it is quite amusing. In a nut shell, Calvinism predestinational thinking proclaims that the individual is responsible for nothing. Calvin kind of taught that everything got hammered in you in automatic mode. Interestingly, in order to accomplish this doctrinally, John Calvin had to degrade the human will.

Anyway appreciate the Jefferson quote, I like it so much I copied it to my hard drive. Thank you also for the quote tutorial. I am practicing on this post. Cheers. :wave:

Toto

BSF is not Biblical enough for some, it seems, but too strict for others: Bible_Study_Fellowship_(BSF):

-Jay-

There's an interesting little book I've read called Gospel Fictions (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Randel Helms that addresses this subject. He traces several examples where the Gospel writers went back to the Hebrew Scriptures to find Messiaish (my word, not Helms') things Jesus would be expected to do or say, the idea being that the Hebrew Scriptures provided sort of a template for what a Messiah's life would be like. This wasn't an attempt at outright fabrication, though, despite what it might seem from our modern perspective (refer to the earlier posts around here for a brief discussion), but a perfectly reasonable technique for the Gospel writers to employ. I'm sure some of the more in-depth Biblical commentaries would address this as well, but Helms' book is one you can read in a couple of hours just to get your feet wet.

(Caveat - in some parts of his work, Helms can appear to have an axe to grind. I don't recall that he actually uses the term "cultural theft", but I felt that he implied that in some places. That's not to say his analysis of the Gospels is wrong, but it's always good to consider possibile biases of an author when reading his work.)

regards,

NinJay

funinspace

Only in the most general sense was I referencing you and your personal views of Calvinism. I was trying to suggest being more judicious in the use of the word cult. Most non-Christians find the Trinity construct to be rather hysterical, yet I would not label your faith a cult. Allot of all this boils down to where one is coming from. I probably wouldn't argue against the idea that the early Calvinists following John Calvin were more cult like. Is Calvinism really any stranger than the RCC's history with Pope's, perfection, and claims to correct church built out of the rock of Peter? We could probably together tear a whole bunch of the Christian sects down into being cultish, and then we would have put down maybe 70% of Christians in the end. The way most people use the word cult today, makes the word virtually meaningless. For what do we call the group of people who followed Jim Jones down their cool aid path; or David Berg's Children of God and their sexual twists? Would you really put Presbyterian churches in the same context as these?

If someone could show how an average conservative or evangelical believer differed from fundamentalist theological views, I would probably not use that word any more. Neither of these other words directly implies a belief that the Bible is God-breathed; or the belief that the Hebrew grand miracles of old were fully real (aka the Deluge and Joshua's solar object demands). It's kind of like the word ignorant. People don't like to say "hey I'm ignorant of Lutheran practices". Yet, I am. And I take no negative connotations from it. Anywho, this horse is probably well dead.

I didn't know that they put Luther on the dusty book shelf…interesting. I know Methodists still commonly cite John Wesley's POV and interpretations. He seams to be one of the few major break away leaders without many scars of time on his life.

sky4it

Funinspace:

In context with the ones you mentioned, you are correct, if we were to look at Branch Dividians and some others this would be a rather non-judicious use of the term to apply it to "them". Remember I said Calvinists I did not say Presbyterians. Not all Presbyterians's are true Calvinist thinkers. Some, in fact, may be more like that "put Luther on the dusy shelf" type of analogy you used. Thus, to call all Presbyterians Calvinist's would be incorrect.

My view of cultist is a bit larger, prinicipally since I have had experience with some former 'The Way International" people. You are correct however, the term cult is used rather loosely today. Since we are in rare air, perhaps we could steal a word from Billy Crystal, who said there is a big difference between being "dead" and mostly dead. ie (There is a big difference in bieng a cult and mostly a cult) The point being that if you are mostly dead you might in fact become real dead.

You bring up a point of relevance however with the "sexual twist" thing. Calvinism, today, operates under a concept called The TULIP. T= Total Depravity or Total Inability ie( A persons will is powerless) U= Uncondional Election ie(which simply means there are NO CONDITIONS to be met for an individual.) New testament dynamics have conditions applicable to the Kingdom of God, and other things about salvation. (I will not recite biblical perspective because the mod does not want it without scholorship) Those conditions are very simple. 1) Adultry and fornication is NOT allowed. 2) Coveteousness is Idolatry. Doing 1 and 2 is UNCLEAN in New Testament dynamics.

It is my perspective that the T and U in the Tulip, operate principally to circumvent the provisions of NT dynamics. ie(That is precisely what they were created for.)

What does this mean in practical application? Good question. I prefer to think of Calvinists as the "initiated practicing Calvinist" and the "uninitiated Calvinist." Thus, you probably have a wide spectrum of people within the organization, some who are just innocent bystanders. Funinspace, it is a very lengthy topic, in fact I arranged a model of the theatrics on a different web site, describing the actual contraption. Simple point, its way to lenghty to get into here.

Yea, but not entirely. As you are aware, Luther's biggest reform was " by grace through faith are you saved" which is still big today in the Lutheran church today. Since Luther brought this concept forward primarily because of indulgences offered in the Catholic church, the difference of Catholics and Lutherans on that topic is not very different today. Other Luther things, like marriage for those in the ministry remain big differences to this day. The actual Cathecism taught is perhaps very similar to Catholic one. I am not positive as far as comparisons go, but I think that Lutherans may in fact be the closest to Catholics in belief than any other denomination. ie( Lutherans and Catholics are not that far apart) The simple point is Luther brought a lot of things from the Catholics that he liked.

Regards

Lugubert

To add to the confusion, the standard European understanding of 'evangelical' is that it means just Protestant (or even Lutheran). In Swedish, the need was felt to invent a new word, so now we have the traditional evangelisk = Lutheran, and the new evangelikal, meaning contemporary proselytizing sects. I had severe problems with the US usage when I encountered US dominated discussion boards, in the same way that I initially a few times angrily told USAians that I'm certainly not a Caucasian, beacuse I and all my relatives have been born several hundreds of miles north of the Caucasian mountain range.

sky4it

Funinspace see last post page 3

ANDERS:

I actually have relatives in Sweden, even tho I remain I believe "mostly Norwiegon" My grandfather on my mother's side, came directly from Sweden, didnt speak a lick of English and was fighting in World War I, a few short months after arriving here. He left his entire family, in Sweden.

Yes, that about sums up the word Evangelical. The word Evangelical became a more prominent word and is perhaps best spoken of today after Billy Graham and the Evangelical Church. Ie( They kinda stole the Evangelical show because Billy is an Evangelist)

later........................:wave:

funinspace

In the general, yes…words like evangelical can cause all sorts of misunderstandings, especially when crossing cultural boundaries of countries.
Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of Presbyterians who are clueless to their formal theology, or simply agree to disagree, or ignore it. I would bet that at least 2/3s of all Christians do not fully agree with the formal theologies of the sect they properly belong to. Blissful ignorance is also a common problem with many Christians. They might know 1 John 5:11-13, but they still sip on milk, and think it a steak dinner. I'll get to more on this in a bit...
INCONCEIVABLE

One of the things I find interesting about this site, is that you get to meet people from all walks, from Eastern Orthodox to real Calvinists. As I mentioned earlier, Rev. Timothy Muse was a common poster here until this last year and we had many conversations/debates. I am well aware of TULIP, much to Rev. Muse postings. Here's a few links to a real Calvinist, a Presbyterian Reverend, with a Presbyterian Church:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showpost.php...2&postcount=37 (Following Tim's link in his post)
http://christianskepticism.blogspot.com/ (On the lower right pane is "Tim's Blog" then follow it to Church link next) And links to many Calvinist thoughts as well.
http://www.brandonpres.com/ And the Church
And you can follow their "What we Believe" and then their link to the "PCA's Westminster Confession of Faith" link. Now maybe this Presbyterian church isn't very typically. I wouldn't know, since my background was modestly liberal Protestantism; then near fundamentalist Bible type churches (shades of Baptist). But I know this preacher would not shy away from TULIP nor predestination; that many tie back to the man Calvin. Though he built on other peoples ideas.

You should check out the Charismatic Episcopal Church (CEC) for one that is pretty close to RC. They are a younger sect in terms of lineage.
http://www.iccec.org/whoweare.html

Jane H

Thanks for your thoughts, Oatmelia.

There is an evangelical line which says that because Jesus fulfilled so many prophesies, the Christian message must be true. That sort of argument is flawed; I’ll leave the detailed argument to those more accustomed to destroying apologetic approaches.

This points the way, I would suggest:

Jesus came in fulfilment of prophecy, and in doing so explained what the prophecies meant, because they weren’t clear. We know that C1 Judaism had a varied range of interpretation of the prophecies available. Where an argument can be fashioned very successfully is in the effect that Jesus had on these interpretations. Suddenly, people from a very wide range of religious backgrounds were interpreting the OT prophecies in the same way, declaring that they were now understood, but in a new way. The return from exile was happening, but it wasn’t about land. The messiah had come, but didn‘t fit any of the contemporary pictures. God’s kingdom, long promised, was being established, but wasn’t political in nature…….

This new understanding of the prophecies defies satisfactory historical explanation. The Xian claim is that the constancy yet radical mutation of understanding on so many issues is best accounted for by real yet shocking historical events.

The idea of Midrash within the NT, to a greater or lesser extent, is a well-developed and supported idea, but I’m not sure what your approach is on it- there’s a lot to be discussed in various possible directions.

I hope the rest is of help, though!

angelo

The prophecies, like the predictions of Nostradamus, are easy to decipher, ''after'' the events. If there was an historical Jesus, the people around him did not understand what the hell he was on about. So they looked at their scriptures for an understading. Don't forget, the Jews were awaiting a deliverer to rescue them from the Roman occupation of their promised land. Jesus failed to deliver, that's why they rejected him. Messiahs were a dime a dozen in those years. They all failed to deliver.