Free Republic

Subtitle: Correcting Some Misunderstandings, by James R. Payton, Jr. (purchased by the reviewer)I am not among the targeted, intended audience for this book, for Professor Payton is writing to clear up misunderstandings among Protestants of their own history. Anglo-Catholics are also exempted, because he does not discuss the English Reformation except for a brief mention of Bucer in England during Edward VI's reign. Surprisingly, he does not include the Reformation in Scotland either, with John Knox and the Presbyterian Kirk. Contents Acknowledgments Preface Introduction 1. The Medieval Call for Reform 2. The Renaissance: Friend or Foe? 3. Carried Along by...

Two Judgments? For those Evangelicals who understand their teachings about the "Great White Seat of Christ", the "Judgment Seat of Christ" and God's judgment of sin at the Cross, this could be helpful. Some Evangelicals are nervous about asking Christians in heaven to pray for us because they think the final judgment hasn't occurred yet. The Evangelist, Calvin held that the final destiny is not decided until the last day of history. (Inst. III, 25) This is the view of most Evangelicals.Catholics believe that there will be a final "general" judgment at the end of history but that there is...

The Christian tradition that emerged from John Wesley’s eighteenth-century Methodist movement has developed several branches. One of them is called the Wesleyan Church, and I was born into a family in that denomination. My parents met at a Bible college in Oskaloosa, Iowa. My father was studying to be a minister, and my mother was there to pick a husband out of the pool of future preachers.Dad’s family was predominately Wesleyan. As Wesleyans, we believed in being born again. We boiled it down to the ABCs. A: Accept Jesus as Savior. B: Believe He died for you, personally, on...

When still an earnest Calvinist I saw the Anglican church as the proper heir of Swiss Reformed thought, or even Calvinism, for that matter. It was largely the accident of Knox having published in Geneva his First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women without Calvin’s consent or knowledge – - or so Calvin claimed in a letter to Elizabeth’s secretary, William Cecil – -that had put Geneva on the outs with Elizabeth. Consequently, not Geneva, but Zurich became the primary court of appeal for the English Protestants in the first decades of Elizabeth’s reign, and the...

Unconditional election The doctrine of unconditional election means God does not base his choice (election) of certain individuals on anything other than his own good will [13]. God chooses whomever he pleases and passes over the rest. The ones God chooses will desire to come to him, will accept his offer of salvation, and will do so precisely because he has chosen them. To show that God positively chooses, rather than merely foresees, those who will come to him, Calvinists cite passages such as Romans 9:15-18, which says, "[The Lord] says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I...

Continuing his decades-long tradition of New Year’s predictions, Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson appeared on Monday’s broadcast of the “700 Club” to share what he says God told him about 2011.“Sometimes I’ve have had things that have been so spot on that it’s almost frightening,” Robertson said to the Christian Broadcasting Network’s Terry Meeuwsen. “Other times, I put these tentatively, and see if this is what the Lord has.”The former Republican presidential candidate says that God told him America “is in grave peril.”“The leaders have hearkened to the demands of interest groups and have led your nation into bankruptcy,”...

If you grew up Catholic, it may be difficult for you to relate to those who profess faith in Jesus but whose stomachs turn at the thought of being Catholic. It might seem odd that the Catholic theology you’ve grown up with is seen by others as an offense to God. I was one of the stomach turners. There are days that I wake up and I still can’t believe I’m Catholic. I grew up in the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, usually referred to as Foursquare. Foursquare is a Pentecostal denomination that began in the 1920s and is...

If there had been time, Marie Exley would have liked to start a family. Instead, the 32-year-old Army veteran has less than six months left, which she'll spend spreading a stark warning: Judgment Day is almost here. Exley is part of a movement of Christians loosely organized by radio broadcasts and websites, independent of churches and convinced by their reading of the Bible that the end of the world will begin on May 21, 2011. To get the word out, they're using billboards and bus stop benches, traveling caravans of RVs and volunteers passing out pamphlets on street corners. Cities...

The historic marriage of Episcopal Divinity School, dean and president, the Very Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale and Mally Lloyd, Canon to the Ordinary, took place today at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston.The Episcopalian bishop of Massachusetts began 2011 by solemnizing the first lesbian marriage - of two senior Episcopalian clergy - at Boston's St Paul's Cathedral Saturday (January 1). The marriage of Episcopal Divinity School, dean and president, the Very Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale and Mally Lloyd, Canon to the Ordinary, was the first lesbian marriage solemnized by the Right Reverend M Thomas Shaw SSJE, Bishop Diocesan...

The “Restorationist Movement” as an American religious movement began in the late 18th and early 19th centuries with the activities of individual preachers who became disenchanted with the denominational groups to which they belonged and their religious formalism.5 They regarded denominations as man-made and called for the replication or recovery of the church of the New Testament. In the 1790s James O’Kelly, an Irish immigrant, broke from the Methodist Episcopal Church, preferring the simple name “Christians.” Abner Jones and Elias Smith separated from their Baptist associations and joined with the O’Kelly group in 1811. Among the more well-known “restorationists” were...

Catholic and Protestant Bibles The Protestant Old Testament omits seven entire books and parts of two other books. To explain how this came about, it is necessary that we go back to the ancient Jewish Scriptures. The Hebrew Bible contained only the Old Testament and from its Old Testament it excluded seven entire books—namely, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, I and II Maccabees—and parts of Esther(1) and Daniel(2). These books, which are missing in the Jewish Bible, came into the Catholic Church with the Septuagint, a pre-Christian Greek translation of the Old Testament. In the Septuagint they are intermingled...

A Quick Ten-Step Refutation of Sola Scriptura By Dave Armstrong 1. Sola Scriptura Is Not Taught in the Bible Catholics agree with Protestants that Scripture is a "standard of truth"—even the preeminent one—but not in a sense that rules out the binding authority of authentic apostolic Tradition and the Church. The Bible doesn’t teach that. Catholics agree that Scripture is materially sufficient. In other words, on this view, every true doctrine can be found in the Bible, if only implicitly and indirectly by deduction. But no biblical passage teaches that Scripture is the formal authority or rule of faith in...

The Lutheran World Federation invited recently Pope Benedict XVI to be involved in preparations for the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. LWF president Bishop Munib Younan, along with a seven-member delegation, invited Benedict during their papal audience in the Vatican. Younan said he hoped that by 2017, the LWF anniversary year, they can issue a joint statement on the doctrine of Holy Communion, The Christian Century reported. According to The Christian Century, prior to the meeting Younan said, “Our intention is to arrive at 2017 with a common Roman Catholic-Lutheran declaration on Eucharistic hospitality.” Younan said under such an...

This is a re-post of a previous blog but it warrants repeating. From time to time I get non-Catholics who read the blog and invite me to read their blogs in the hopes I will decide to convert. They believe they are being obedient  to "preach the gospel in season and out."  The presupposition with some of  these individuals is that Catholicism is a false religion or a "false gospel" .  The fact that a person would believe Catholicism is false clearly indicates that they have never studied what Catholicism is all about from a Catholic perspective. It is easy...

In the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) the controversy has been especially painful because the Federal Vision teachings have been adopted by a number of pastors and elders, who by their teaching and example, have turned whole congregations away from the doctrines of Scripture and the Westminster Standards on crucial gospel issues The committee points out that in regard to the doctrine of justification more narrowly considered, FV problems include a failure to affirm the imputation of Christ’s active obedience along with a redefinition of faith that merges Christ’s trust in the Father with...

Response to the Elders' Letter of January 20, 1996 PCA are the true separatists and schismatics.. Historical Introduction I and my family were formerly members of a small, conservative congregation in the denomination known as the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). The following letters, sent in February and September of 1996, were part of my explanation and justification of our separation from them and from the PCA. The earlier letter (about two-thirds of which is reproduced here) marked the climax of my attempts to convince the session [1] of that church of their departure, both congregationally and denominationally, from the...

I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard this year’s GA will entertain an overture requesting the BCO be adapted to allow ordination of female deacons. Actually, I just didn’t want to believe my ears. This overture should really come as no surprise. My pastor along with other friends in the PCA have been predicting it for years based on previous compromises within our denomination on issues like the Lord’s Day, Subscription, etc. Now it’s here. Let’s examine it. I have copied the supporting argument directly from the body of Overture 9, which is in bold below, and have added...

Few people engaged in the "War on Christmas" are aware that at one time it was a crime in Massachusetts to celebrate Christmas. Oh sure, some will say, count on liberal Massachusetts to pass a law against Christmas. But it was Calvinist Massachusetts, in the days of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, the Pilgrims and Puritans, that established penalties for the observance of Christmas Day "by abstinence from labor, feasting, or any other way." The noisiest opposition to public celebration of Christmas today comes from professed agnostics and atheists, particularly those seeking "freedom from religion." But there are still...

Back when I first joined YIMCatholic, I was going to write posts about my conversion. I hammered out seven posts in pretty rapid succession and then, I stopped writing them until recently. Many of my posts now are simply my observations of the world which are colored through the lens of a convert to Catholicism. It would be difficult for them not to be. Other posts I've written are of the "look what I just found!" variety, and the "I want to share this with you" type. Call them the discovery posts if you will. Recently I gave a talk...

Men are possessed of free will, and endowed with the faculty of making a choice. It is not true, therefore, that some are by nature good, and others bad.1. This expression [of our Lord], "How often would I have gathered your children together, and you would not," Matthew 23:37 set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free [agent] from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own soul, to obey the behests (ad utendum sententia) of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with...