Posted on 07/14/2017 10:35:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Some are, some aren’t. The same can be said about any “Christian” sect or denomination.
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Agree 100%.
RE: Yes, I know EXACTLY how people in this tradition think: “Everyone who disagrees with us is of the devil!”
I think you’re exaggerating. I know several Moody Bible Institute graduates and I have not seen one who would say : “Everyone who disagrees with us is of the devil!”
It depends on the NATURE of the Disagreement. If you do not believe that Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity, then yes, the doctrine is heretical, but that would not be unique to Moody Graduates. Even Catholic and Eastern Orthodox doctrine would agree.
There is a difference between simply believing that you are in error in certain areas of scripture and saying that you are of the devil.
I have theological issues with Hank that make his "conversion" the least of his issues. I agree it underscores his drift but I find myself agreeing that, apart of the core values and principles of our worldview, Hank's conversion isn't all that earth moving.
That’s not what Sacred Scripture says.
Gal 1:9ff But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
Please check your private messages. Thanks.
RE: Gal 1:9ff But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
And where do we find what the Apostle Paul preach to us?
Why of course, in Sacred Scripture ( where his Epistles and Pastoral Letters are ).
So, what’s wrong with my statement? I said, any tradition of the church should be evaluated in light of Sacred Scripture.
>>So, I would say we have a conundrum. Today’s canon was not determined by the bible but by the belief of a council of bishops. Also, it was not a once (one council) and done thing. Multiple successive councils are responsible for identifying the books that make up today’s bible.
All who profess to be Christians except those in the Catholic and Orthodox churches MUST refute your entire post in order to adhere to their two fundamental doctrines of Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura.
Oh, right. The Galatians had copies of Paul’s epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, etc. Including the ones that hadn’t been written yet. Because when he said “preached”, he didn’t really mean it. Because when he was actually there he never uttered a word.
You crack me up.
I wrote what I believe history tells us is true. If I'm wrong or missed something, tell me why. Hopefully, none of us are so intractable that we won't change a position when that position is proven wrong.
In this we can agree, that the leadership of the Christian Research Institute has a right to have a spokesman who reflects their beliefs. BTW, I recall listening regularly to the CRI radio program some 40 years ago.
Nope. Again, apples and oranges. Communist countries have one-party uncontested elections where people can't choose anyone but Communists, so by definition, they are not "democratic", even if they use the name.
Eastern Orthodox Churches on the other hand, use scripture at EVERY service, and having reading and understanding the bible as a major component of their faith, and have done so for nearly 2000 years. Go to any Eastern Orthodox Church for a Sunday liturgy and you will hear multiple bible readings, and their pastor will discuss what the passage meant during his sermon afterwards. Thus, by definition, they are scriptural and bible-based.
If you find an Orthodox Church that claims to be bible-based but NEVER once uses a bible at their services, then your "Communist countries that call themselves Democratic" allegory would make sense.
Just because you flat out lie about Orthodox Christianity and claim they don't study scripture or follow the bible doesn't make it true, anymore than if I were to claim Billy Graham shouldn't be allowed to discuss Heaven and Hell because "he is a member of the Baptist faith and their churches do not believe in the afterlife"
Absolutely. I did not mean to give that perception regarding MBI, which was actually quite balanced, and did not attack other Christian denominations. However, the school is often linked with Grace Theological Seminary and Dallas Theological Seminary as a top Evangelical school. I also attended other schools linked to Bob Jones University, which presented a very hardcore approach towards other denominations.
This whole line of reasoning reveals a fundamental assumption about the New Testament canon that needs to be corrected, namely that it was (or had to be) decided by a church council. That without a church council, we would not know what books are inspired.
The fact of the matter is that when we look into early church history there is no such council. Sure, there are REGIONAL church councils that made declarations about the canon (Laodicea, Hippo, Carthage).
But these regional councils did not just “pick” books they happened to like, but AFFIRMED the books they believed had functioned as FOUNDATIONAL documents for the Christian faith. In other words, these councils were declaring THE WAY THINGS HAVE BEEN, not the way they wanted them to be.
Thus, these councils did not create, authorize, or determine the canon. They simply were part of the process of recognizing a canon THAT WAS ALREADY THERE.
This raises an important fact about the New Testament canon that every Christian should know. The shape of our New Testament canon was not determined by a vote or by a council, but BY A BROAD AND ANCIENT CONSENSUS.
I don’t usually agree with the Higher Critic Bart Ehrman.
However, I agree with at least this one statement of his -— “The canon of the New Testament was ratified by widespread consensus rather than by official proclamation.”
This historical reality is a good reminder that the canon is NOT JUST A MAN MADE CONSTRUCT. It was not the result of a power play brokered by rich cultural elites in some smoke filled room. It was the result of many years of God’s people reading, using, and responding to these books.
The same was true for the Old Testament canon.
Jesus himself used and cited the Old Testament writings with no indication anywhere that there was uncertainty about which books belonged.
In fact, He held His listeners accountable for knowing these books.
But, in all of this, there was no Old Testament church council that officially picked them (not even Jamnia). They too were the result of ancient and widespread consensus.
In the end, we can certainly acknowledge that humans played a role in the canonical process. But, not the role that is so commonly attributed to them. Humans did not determine the canon, they RESPONDED to it. In this sense, we can say that the canon and recognition of these as such were chosen because the Holy Spirit guided Christians of all ages to recognize them.
No problem. The Hail Mary prayer is directly citing scripture, and versions of it are prayered by all Christians (Catholic, Orthodox, and many protestant churches).
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you“ Luke 1:28
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb” (Jesus). Luke 1:42.
"The mother of my Lord" Luke 1:43
"Supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for everyone, for this is good and pleases our Savior." -- 1 Tim 2:1
I'm sure Hank would also be happy to explain this to you but you were too busy pretending the church he joined doesn't use scripture.
You forgot the part where you ask her to pray for you as a sinner, etc.
If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death” — 1 John 5:16
The bible has about a half dozen difference times where Jesus tells people to confess their sins to other people instead of to “God alone”, by the way:
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working”
James 5:16
“If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
John 20:23
” ‘But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he then said to the paralytic— ‘Rise, pick up your bed and go home.’ And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men”.
Matthew 9:6-8
“Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ”
2 Corinthians 2:10
RE: Just because you flat out lie about Orthodox Christianity and claim they don’t study scripture or follow the bible doesn’t make it true, anymore than if I were to claim Billy Graham shouldn’t be allowed to discuss Heaven and Hell because “he is a member of the Baptist faith and their churches do not believe in the afterlife”
I think you are misrepresenting what I said.
You were arguing this — that the name of the organization is the “Christian Research Institute” (CRI) and the name of his show is “The Bible Answer Man” (BAM), not “the Protestant Research Institute” and “The Evangelical Answer Man”
Sure,that’s their name, but they have NEVER, EVER stated or pretended that because they use the word “Christian” or “Bible” for their name, that their point of view do not reflect Evangelical Beliefs.
Your argument seems to be this — Because they use the name :”Christian” or “Bible” in their organization or their show, they should then ALLOW others who are Christians like Catholics or Eastern Orthodox to lead their organization or their show.
As for Hank Hanegraaf, If you change your views, you should say so, openly and with explanation. It just breeds suspicion and undermines credibility as well as making you look dishonest if you pretend there’s no differences.
Second, he should have simply added some Orthodox material to balance things out. And then add a blurb saying to the effect that CRI recognizes that Christians disagree on such and so issues so we present both sides for consideration. That would have allowed them to take a more impartial stance by taking a step back. It would signal that Hank was not trying to make CRI into the Orthodox Christian Research Institute. It certainly would have helped not to alienate his evangelical base quite so much. But that train has left the station.
Also, Hank has more direct problems. The CRI Doctrinal Statement is REQUIRED for all employees. You have to sign it to work there.
Well just for starters look at section 6, which reads,
“(6) Jesus’ death on the cross provided a penal substitutionary atonement for the sins of humanity. In salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by His unmerited grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone.”
Now, I am pretty darn sure that that is not Orthodox teaching and it is not compatible with Orthodox teaching anymore than say, the decree on justification from Trent is compatible with it. It doesn’t matter if you think the doctrines the CRI doctrinal statement expresses are true or false. What matters is that it expresses WHAT THEY BELIEVE and it is binding on CRI employees of which Hank is one.
Does he affirm the CRI doctrinal statement as it stands or not? If not, how can he work there when CRI advances doctrines that directly contradict the teaching of his church? To do so, gives tacit assent and support to those doctrines. If he does assent to it, how can he be in communion with the Orthodox church when at his chrismation he either explicitly or implicitly publicly swore before God and the church to uphold all the teachings and traditions of the Orthodox Church and those teachings are incompatible in some important areas with the CRI doctrinal statement?
For that matter, why doesn’t Hank just come out and say he doesn’t believe in Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura anymore and explain why?
BTW, Hank doesn’t get to play the persecution card here and Orthodox should not fall for it. Here is why. If those Evangelical networks had not dropped him, I would certainly take them less seriously, and it would probably be straight out dishonest. It is part of their job as Evangelical networks to promote, well, what EVANGELICALS believe.
If we had an Eastern Orthodox radio host who became a baptist, do you think they would leave him untouched? Not a chance. They are just policing their own borders.
Finally, I challenge you to show me where I said that the Eastern Orthodox do not believe or use scripture. C’mon, point out one post I made in this thread. If you can’t you owe me an apology by calling me a liar.
What I did was HIGHLIGHT the major differences in PRACTICE between Evangelicals and Eastern orthodox ( See Post #13 above ), even as they read the same scripture.
THOSE DIFFERENCES form the dividing line between Evangelicalism and Eastern Orthodoxy even as they share many things in common. Let’s not pretend that there are no differences.
RE: The Hail Mary prayer is directly citing scripture, and versions of it are prayered by all Christians (Catholic, Orthodox, and many protestant churches).
The first part of the Hail Mary prayer is scriptural. It was the statement made by the Angel Gabriel to Mary.
The last part is where Evangelicals disagree with.
And the very act of PRAYING TO MARY is what Evangelicals disagree with as well. They find no basis for that in scripture.
2 John 1:12 Having many things to write to you, I did not wish [to do so] with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.
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