Posted on 06/13/2015 5:42:16 AM PDT by Kolokotronis
“It some times takes masculinity to lift some one out of the ditch and that comes from the love Jesus was talking about.”
To equate love with a guy’s “Feminine Side” is a mistake. We love but in a different manner than females.
When a girl friend said to my wife: “It’s nice to see Texantothecore’s feminine side.”
My wife replied: “He doesn’t have a feminine side”.
No; my experience in the Philadelphia and Baltimore UMC conferences mirrors Louis Foxwell’s testimony completely. Eight out of my ten pastors and several bishops from the ‘90s and ‘00s were gay, bi or lesbian, and the others were very sympathetic. One of the women pastors had been tried within the UMC for apostacy for writing a book claiming that God is a woman. Two of the gay pastors were in “beard” marriages with lesbians. The so-called Methodist Home of Washington, DC (it has recently been sold) where generations of elderly in my original congregation had lived was, by the ‘00s, being run by cross-dressing lesbians, who discontinued the saying of grace from the communal mealtimes and removed the large painting of Christ from the dining room. We had to leave, even after generations of family going back to the time of Francis Asbury, as it was no longer safe to raise a family in the UMC as we found it.
“My problem with the Orthodox Church is that this is where much of the anti-Semitism that lead to the Shoah came from...”
The East had plenty of its own anti-semitic sentiment, but the West did too for many centuries. When you throw in the new racial theories, Darwinism, Nietzsche, the neo-paganism revival of Wagner and Wotan worship nonsense that flourished in the late 19th-early 20th century you can see where it was all going.
I agree with your view of LCMS — it is apostolic and strives for Biblical truth. In fact, it was formed to reject "progressivism." Just in the past year, I actually heard a sermon condemning birth control, abortion and homosexual behavior. After years of listening to what has become of Methodism, I almost fell off the pew.
To equate love with a guy’s “Feminine Side” is a mistake. We love but in a different manner than females.
The same is true with fundamental churches. They preach the word rather than some watered down Social Justice nonsense.
Pray America is waking
You know, one of our great 20th century theologians was a convert from Lutheranism, Jaroslav Pelikan.
The UMC is not “99” per cent of Protestantism was my original issue!
I hope you are not attempting to challenge me to another FR sectarian war.
I think the term "Protestantism" is the issue, since it may be widely interpreted to mean any church that is not expressly Catholic or Orthodox, or narrowly interpreted to mean the 20th-century mainstream Protestant churches, namely Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian and Lutheran, and some of the smaller sects that merged with them (such as Evangelical United Brethren, which merged with Methodist Episcopal to form the UMC). Those old-time "mainstream" churches have gone down the slippery slope with feminism and homosexuality.
"Protestant" has old-time associations with "protesting" Catholicism. Many of the later-forming "evangelical" or "pentacostal" denominations in the U.S., as well as the SBC, are striving to remain Biblically traditional; although many of them also have corruptions of the Word or what I would call insufficient scholarship of the intentions of the Apostles and the early church.
Not all Orthodox Churches are Russian Orthodox.
That’s just the biggest one.
Orthodox Churches in public tend to be more nationalist because they don’t have the benefit of Rome’s Sovereignty.
I think most of the “corruptions” are of such minimal consequence that they fall under the “don’t get into useless disputations” clause that the apostle Paul warned us not to fall into.
Christ is God in flesh, born of the virgin Mary, killed, resurrected and now is an advocate for us with the Father! He died to cleanse us from sin and to restore us to fellowship with the Father. Though the serpent bruised his heel, Christ has crushed the serpent’s head! Christ delivered the truth of himself and the gospel to the apostles as he was the chief cornerstone thru which the apostles built the Church via the Holy Spirit. Christ will again come back to destroy the works of the devil completely and to claim his own, both those then living, and those dead in his name. We are urged to confess Christ with our mouths and to believe that God has raised him from the dead in our hearts in order to be saved; and then, having done so, to be baptized in his name. We are also urged to preach the gospel to every creature, where we may...in our immediate surroundings and unto the far flung parts of the Earth!
There lies the basic Orthodoxy of the faith,,,more or less as any simple man can understand it! The rest is semantics and slantings of the various teachers and preachers, most of which are pretty decent, no matter what denominational persuasion.
Podles points out that the sentimentalism of the middle ages also gives rise to the emphasis on feminine type emotionalism. This is most often seen in protestant churches who like to claim and emphasize a "relationship" with Jesus. Charismatics are the most guilty of emotionalism, but perhaps the emotional manipulation of the second great awakening by men like Charles Finney are the most to blame in N. America.
Every denomination is subject to the cancer of feminism, because every member and leader lives in a feminist culture. I could produce hundreds of examples from every flavor of Christianity but a few from the most conservative will suffice. Al Mohler, (President of Southern Baptist Seminary SBC), writes that a man must continually earn his access to have sex with his wife contrary to 1 Corinthians 7:5. One of the favored marriage counseling materials in the greater church is "His Needs, Her Needs". The author Harley recommends that wives reward husbands who meet the wife's needs with sex that she has been withholding. How many times have you heard from the pulpit that marriage is a compromise yet scripture never even hints at compromise, but is clear on wifely submission. How many times have you heard a sermon on wifely submission start out on submission is not and by the end of the sermon is submission for the wife turns out to be making her husband make her happy! Happy wife happy life is not a proverb of the scriptures but "a contentious wife is like a constant dripping" is. The Lutheran study Bible in the comments section says that that proverb means that it is important for a husband to get along with his wife, the comment is only 180 degrees away from the scriptures message. In John Piper and Wayne Grudem's Recovering Biblical Manhood and Woman Hood they say that the starting point is that men and women are equally created in the image of God. They use the most fragile exegesis to support their point without giving any ink to the volumes written on what is the image of God and how or if it survived the fall. What is noteworthy is the appeasement of the feminists. IF they had simply said both were created to bear the image of God they might have avoided this controversy but they said equally not both. The Bible nowhere says equally, that is concept from civics theory not theology. The feminists say equality the closest the Bible comes is join heirs in 1 Peter. The church is simply saturated in feminist presuppositions such that she is incapable of discerning how far she has wandered from the teachings of the Bible.
The culture of the church music reflects the gyno-centric emphasis. The leading part or melody is written for the soprano, women and the most masculine part the bass is normally just written to augment the women.
If a pastor dares to teach Biblical patriarchy, he risks being defrocked. If a Pastor risks teaching 1 Peter 3:1 he risks being deposed and exiled. This is not hyperbole it is first hand experience. Christo-feminism is not to be challenged, the white knights and rebellious women will not allow it.
I'm glad for you that has been your experience. It hadn't been mine in mainstream protestantism.
Amen to the rest of your post. I believe in unity and fellowship among Christians, not sectarian squabbling. That said, when a denomination goes off course, sooner or late the faithful leave. That is why the old mainstream churches that once were huge are now struggling; yet the liberals in charge won't admit it and change course. They are children of the Father of Lies whose purpose was to destroy those churches, and to a large extent they have succeeded. But, as I said, the faithful have left, so all they can do is destroy the remains of an organizaton.
Absolutely not! The connection between Lutheranism and Orthodoxy has been very real, and frankly fascinating since the first generation of Lutheran divines after Luther entered into correspondence with the Patriarch of Constantinople. For me it is a joyful situation, not one for cause of flame wars!
I was forced out of my eldership by lesbian domination. I was told about my congregants, “They are sheep who will follow you anywhere.” The sheer ignorance of Christ’s commission was obvious and completely abused. I knew then that the UMC was no longer my spiritual home.
In 1916, the primary argument among Russian Orthodox Priests was what number of buttons you were supposed to have down your Cassock, instead of trying to counter the godless atheism that infected Russia for 75 years.
“In World War One, the Jews looked at Germans as the Liberators.’
Irrelevant.
“That’s because the Russian Orthodox Church still believed in the Blood Libel that only the Jews killed Jesus.”
Still irrelevant.
“In 1916, the primary argument among Russian Orthodox Priests was what number of buttons you were supposed to have down your Cassock, instead of trying to counter the godless atheism that infected Russia for 75 years.”
They couldn’t counter something that did not exist. In 1916, Russia was more than a year away from the Bolshevik uprising and its atheism. Russia had some notable atheism before the late 19th century but that atheism was not necessarily anti-semitic.
So glad to hear it! Hardly a day goes by when some RC on FR doesn't bash Luther. Blessings to you, and thank you for an informative post. I read several other articles on the web site as well, and plan to send the link to a couple of friends.
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