Evangelical Apologist Hank Hanegraaff Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy

religiousresearcher.org ^ | 4-10-2017 | Rob Bowman

[fishtank]

Evangelical Apologist Hank Hanegraaff Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy

Posted by: Rob Bowman

On Palm Sunday, April 9, 2017, Hank Hanegraaff formally joined the Orthodox Church. Since 1989 Hanegraaff has been the President of the Christian Research Institute (CRI) and (since ca. 1992) the host of CRI’s Bible Answer Man radio program.[1] Hank, his wife Kathy, and two of their twelve children were inducted by a sacramental rite called chrismation into the Orthodox faith at St. Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, near where CRI is based. In chrismation, a baptized individual is anointed with oil in order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.[2]

[Elsie]

What a load of egotistical, elitist garbage!

It's scriptural:

Luke 18:9-14

[Elsie]

Izzat Big Indian or Little Indian?

[Elsie]

No reasonable person would rely on you cut-and-paste Protestant anti-Catholic presentation of the Catholic Faith for a fair telling of what the Faith and Scripture teach.

So we should listen to the folks who believe that apparatrions come from Heaven and give humans additional instructions from the throne of GOD?

OK then...

[Elsie]

The wedding of Cana has been one of the most abused passages of Scripture by Roman Catholics to justify a whole range of false teachings regarding the Roman Catholic "Mary".

Just what DID Mary say??

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All the Words of Mary...
...as recorded in the Bible.

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 ...To the angel
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 
Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”   (Luke 1:30-38)

 

...To Elizabeth
And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.” (Luke 1:46-55)

 

 ...To Jesus
His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”  (Luke 2:48-50)

 

... at Cana
And when the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”
His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it” (John 2:3-5).

 

 

[Elsie]

I wil pray to Mary through God’s power for her intercession with Christ.

[ealgeone]

Can’t happen....we’ve been told Catholics don’t pray TO Mary. Somebody didn’t get the message.

[MHGinTN]

You are familiar with Daniel chapter five; where was the rest of the being whose fingers wrote upon the wall of palace party central? Was the being in a material body?

Jesus took HIS material body out of the tomb and visited with HIS disciples, appearing and disappearing at will. Later, HE ascended into the Heavens to be with the Father.

Following the Rapture, we will be doing things and hearing things, existing in transformed bodies fit to dwell in eternity. We will also descend from Heaven with The Lord Christ at the end of the Tribulation, all in real bodies, but bodies which derive the energy of life from the Spirit not the blood. Our soul and spirit will be dwelling in real, physical bodies, but bodies set in a different space time realm which exists now, all around us but unseen.

[MHGinTN]

I wonder, will vladi now reject your post as ‘misrepresentation? LOL, when the brilliance of the devil fills the heart of a man or woman, they can think they are never wrong or mistaken, as they stride the broad road to destruction. ... but Catholics aren’t worshipping the Mary of their religion when they attribute to her god-like characteristics. Strong delusion indeed!

[ealgeone]

I bet St Dominic was busy writing down all of the qualifications and explanations from the apparition!

Roman Catholicism has to come in and "clean up" these promises to make them align with the Bible. That so many explanations were required should be the first indicator these are not Heaven sent.

[ealgeone]

Mary is so central to the John 2 passage she's not even mentioned by name.

The only person who is mentioned by name is Jesus.

John tells us the purpose of this passage:

This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him. John 2:11 NASB

We also see something else very important in this verse...His disciples believed in Him.

In verse 12, which Roman Catholics seem to gloss over, we see Jesus, His mother and His brothers...meaning Joseph and Mary had children of their own.

What we do not see in the account at Cana.

People praying to Mary or coming to Mary for anything.

It is possible someone came to her about this or she saw this herself. The text is silent on the issue.

All we know is Mary came to Jesus and said, "they have no wine."

John does not record anyone at the wedding according anything special to Mary in regards to the wine being refilled. In v11 though he attributes this as the beginning of Jesus' signs...again, nothing to do with Mary.

To read into the text all that Roman Catholicism has is eisegesis...reading something into the text that isn't there.

It very often leads to very bad theology.

[imardmd1]

I dunno. Mark sends me an emoticon and it comes in as a hex number in a little box. the first part of the number is a line in the “upside” half of the box, and it is always 1F0; while the bottom half is variable, say XYZ, where X, Y, and Z could be alphanumeric characters 0 to F. thus I interpret that this number in the little box is 1F 0X ZY. My guess is that is the memory address where the algorithm representing the code for a particular emoticon is stored, I also surmise that either Mark’s operating system is different than mine (which is Windows XP Pro); or that I don’t have a font of emoticons whose addresses are 1F 0X YZ format. If each one is being sent as, say, a 32-bit word, it is probably sent as 00 1F 0X YZ, in which case it is not Indian.

[Elsie]

I wonder, will vladi now reject your post as ‘misrepresentation?

Probably not.

If you've noticed; most ALL of MY posts merely get IGNORED.

MY words can get flung back at me.

When I QUOTE Catholic stuff; they have no comebacks.

[Elsie]

All we know is Mary came to Jesus and said, "they have no wine."

Rome makes TONS of 'not' DOCTRINE from things that there is NO record of Mary EVER saying or doing; under the mantra of, "Well; she COULD have!"

[Elsie]

I think you've just described Mormon caractors!

The "Caractors" are the only tangible evidence in existence related to Smith's story.

No gold plates, no brass plates, no peep stones, no Urim and Thummim...

only these "Caractors," not a single one of which is in the purported languages.

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Smith's translation of the Caractors. According to Martin Harris (Joseph Smith - History, 1:64), "I went to the city of New York, and presented the characters which had been translated, with the translation thereof, to Professor Charles Anthon, a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments. Professor Anthon stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet translated,* and he said they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic; and he said they were true characters."

Speak right up now in all truthfulness. Isn't it revealing how Smith started out making a stab at creating believable "caractors" but quckly gave up and produced nothing but squiggles, ending up wih a series of nothing more than crude little scribbles? Yet Professor Anthon supposedly translated them!

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*Harris must have had two or three pieces of paper with him—one with characters and a translation of them (on the same paper or a separate one) and one with untranslated characters—quite likely the "Caractors." Some Mormon "scholars" have gone out on a limb, sawed it off, and knocked themselves out trying to translate from these true Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic characters a segment that would correspond with a verse from 1 Nephi.

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Modern-day experts in Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic. In 1829, any knowledge of these languages possessed by U.S. scholars would have been rudimentary at best. Expertise in them has vastly improved since then. So go ahead, do it. Get any modern expert in these languages to identify which of these "Caractors" are Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac and Arabic. Better still, accept the claim of Mormon apologists that Anthon did indeed so testify and that his appraisal of the Caractors was correct. (Op. cit, pp. 73-75)

Save your money! Samples of Assyriac/Aramaic and Arabic writing:

 

What say you? Which of Smith's "Caractors" resemble the Assyriac and Arabic ones? No need to pay experts for their analysis. A child could accurately check this out. These writing systems have remained constant for well over 3000 years.

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Why doesn't Smith get the proper credit for inventing (or prophecying about) the two button mouse?

It's shown in that image a couple of times...

...as well as a 4 input AND gate; too!

[imardmd1]

‘Scuse me. It was 01F, not 0F1. I know that’s going to make a yuge difference.

[imardmd1]

And when the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”

Reading between the lines, She was hinting, "They are not having wine at this wedding."

[MHGinTN]

Clearly, what you post from Catholic sources contradicts the effluent from Vlad, but he never seems to notice. But if you or I paraphrase, Vlad and a couple of Catholic Priests and women like Mrs Don-o will jump in to parse what we have posted from CATHOLIC SOURCES! Ealgeone and I have both posted direct quotes from O'Brien's catholic instruction book which carries the 'nihil obsta't from the Vatican, yet the CATHOLICIISM apologists working FR threads have slither methods to dismiss the O'Brien works.

De Nile is strong with those.

[editor-surveyor]

MHG,
This is headed into an area that is not covered in scripture, and conjecture is not fact, so I am hesitant to offer mine in this forum, so as not to mislead however unintentionally.

Aside from that, John ch 3 is very convincing to me. Nicodemus was an educated priest, who understood the written scripture, and was a true believer, not a scoffer.

I believe the things Yeshua told him were for our edification too. I have never walked invisibly through a room, have you? I believe all that Yeshua said in that chapter is at/post-trumpets.
.

[editor-surveyor]

.
>> She was hinting, “They are not having wine at this wedding.” <<

No, she was not!

The comment about having withheld the best wine until last contradicts that idea.
.

[ealgeone]

St. Louis de Montfort states:

"Since Mary alone

crushed all heresies, as we are told by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary)..." [True Devotion to Mary #167]

And no Roman Catholic has stood up to denounce this. Often, some Catholics attempt to dismiss Monfort's writings. Yet, he is considered a "doctor of the church".

I sure some Catholic will come along and try and explain that alone doesn't really mean alone.

The Mary we see in the Bible would not have said this. She would have put the focus on the Word and her Son. Not a prayer to her.

Especially not a prayer where the overwhelming emphasis is on prayer to her.

This stands in contradiction of Ephesians 6:10-18.

I always find it amazing that not one of the NT writers ever, ever said to pray the Rosary, pray to Mary for help, go ask Mary for help, never referred to Mary as our "mother", or advocate or redemtrix or Queen of Heaven or any of the other false titles attributed to Mary by the Roman Catholic church.