Posted on 08/30/2014 8:36:05 AM PDT by WXRGina
Appearing in part 1 is the phrase "low-information voter" (LIV) which is oft used by a popular radio talk show host. The host suggests that those who make up this population set are individuals who vote for a candidate or important issue having little or in most cases zero knowledge about either. LIVs are highly opinionated even when they have no idea what they're talking about.
Also included in part 1 was the following quote from C. Edmund Wright. I appreciate the way he expands on the LIV concept:
But forget low-information voters for just a minute; the malignancy that is really destroying this country is low-information people with high-profile power and/or influence. You know, people who would lobby for, comment on, advocate for, or vote on laws like ObamaCare without any understanding of its real-world impact. Such felonies are then carried out by low-information bureaucratic microbes with the power to destroy lives and businesses with impunity, and a political and talking-head class with the access and sway to codify these common malfeasances. Destruction of private property and liberty – and these two concepts are not divisible – takes place in government cubicles every minute of every day across the country. And why not? (Source – emphasis in original)
His thoughts fit nicely with what I've come to believe about many leaders in the evangelical community. Specifically, a large number of them are uninformed people with high-profile power and/or influence. The LIVs Wright's pointing a finger at are liberals. Likewise many of the evangelicals that came to mind for me are liberals but because liberal has a negative connotation they prefer "progressive Christian" or "social justice Christian." Take your pick. But whichever one you go with has its roots in communism.
So to Christianize the LIV phrase I simply changed "voter" to "evangelical," thus it became "low-information evangelical" (LIE). I defined the LIE in this way:
Reminiscent of the LIV, the high-profile LIE does not understand the impact that his unorthodox view has on the visible church. When it comes to the Bible, the LIE has opinions on a variety of challenging topics. Even when his opinion is decidedly unbiblical, he presents it as the gospel truth. The LIE's arguments are often based, not on what God's Word clearly teaches but instead on esoteric experiences he's had or what he's picked up from LIE celebrities.
More on esoteric experiences in a moment.
There's also a group of evangelicals that fall into the category of undistinguished LIE (ordinary folk). The term I bestowed on them is u-LIE. This group is also uninformed on many things (both Christian and otherwise). They are often biblically illiterate. In part 1 I made this observation:
Sadly, some undistinguished low information evangelicals (u-LIEs) assume that popular pastors, teachers and best-selling authors would never steer them wrong. But nothing could be further from the truth!
Last but not least, I coined the phrase LIE-celebs. These individuals are prominent Christian leaders who are uninformed people with high-profile power and/or influence. Many of them are false teachers who do not speak for God.
LIE-celebs And Their Vain Hopes
God tells us how we are to handle false teachers:
Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD." (Jeremiah 23:16).
We are to pay these folks no mind.
One example of a LIE-celeb is popular women's Bible teacher Beth Moore. In part 1 I reported on Moore's claim that she receives personal direct revelation from Almighty God. In other words, God tells her things. According to her, He calls her "baby" and "honey." I'll have more to share on this modern day prophetess in a moment.
LIE-celeb Joyce Meyer also claims that she receives extra biblical revelation or "revelation knowledge" from the Almighty. Both Moore and Meyer's respective claims clearly deny the sufficiency of Scripture. Equally troubling is that Joyce holds to heretical Word of Faith (WoF) theology. So naturally her students are swallowing the poisonous prosperity health and wealth gospel that does not save anyone. Following is an erroneous assertion made by her:
The Bible can't even find any way to explain this. Not really. That is why you have got to get it by revelation. There are no words to explain what I am telling you. I have got to just trust God that he is putting it into your spirit like he put it into mine. (Source)
Why do I say this is erroneous? Because it's not taught in the Bible. She made it up. How do I know this? I searched the scriptures. (Acts 17:10-15) Nowhere does Scripture teach that God's people are given special "revelation knowledge."
"The fact that contemporary evangelicals seek 'fresh' revelations from God," says Larry DeBruyn, "indicates that they no longer consider Holy Scripture to be sufficient and authoritative in matters of faith (2 Timothy 3:16). This seeking is Gnostic and mystic. Harvie Conn ...a former missionary in Korea, noted that the 'central feature of mystical religion is its 'belief in special revelation outside the Bible.' Yet if the Bible is no longer considered sufficient, the coming of "new revelations" raises the following conundrum. I repeat it.
"If added revelations repeat what's in the Bible, they are unnecessary. If new revelations contradict the Word of God, they are heresy. And if they supplement God's Word, then the new revelations imply Scripture's insufficiency, and about this Proverbs warns: 'Add thou not unto his [God's] words, lest he [God] reprove thee, and thou be found a liar' (Proverbs 30:6, KJV)." (Source – emphasis added.)
Gnosticism is esoteric mysticism – a desire to "know the unknowable." One of the obstacles the early church faced was Gnosticism. The Gnostics believed that the masses are not in possession of spiritual knowledge, and only the truly "enlightened" can experience God. The Apostles condemned Gnosticism as a heresy.
But Gnosticism is not the issue; the issue at hand is this: how can one know for certain if Meyer's so-called revelation came from God? "Is she on par with the apostles who received revelation knowledge from God himself?" asks apologist Matt Slick. He continues:
Or how about the Old Testament prophets? Does she, like them, also receive revelation knowledge from God? If so, how would we know if it were true or not? The answer is simple: we test what she says against Scripture, and it is obvious that she is getting a lot of things from somewhere else that contradict the word of God. (Source)
More On Moore
In part I brought the reader up to speed on Beth Moore's slide into mysticism and also gave a heads up on her unbiblical teaching and had planned to leave it at that. But then the news came that she made an appearance on Joyce Meyer's TV show. This is the sort of news Beth fans should be made aware of, so I decided to include a bit about it here. Just before her appearance Beth tweeted:
I have the great privilege of sitting down w/@ Joyce Meyer in her studio today to talk about unity. Pray for Jesus to be so present & pleased.
The unity Meyer and Moore espouse is man centered, not Christ centered.
Scoffers And Bullies And Meanies, Oh My!
So – Beth Moore sitting down for a chat with a WoF heretic is a problem in and of itself. But the reason she gave for appearing on the show was to talk about unity. The obvious question is why would a "solid Bible teacher," as she is called, choose to unite with a woman who preaches a false gospel? Although their tête-à-tête is troubling it's not the only concern people have with her. As I pointed out in part 1, she's been under fire for, among other things, engaging in Christian mysticism, likewise for her acceptance of "charismania" which is odd for someone who's an SBC Lifeway Bible teacher. Another problem arose when she appeared on Life Today with "Protholic" and big time promoter of ecumenism James Robison and proceeded to advise the audience to tune out the "scoffers":
We're going to have people that are honestly going to want to debate and argue with us about awakening and downpours ... But there will be scoffers and they will be the far bigger threat, the one within our own brothers and sisters, our own family of God – far, far more demoralizing. And yes, it will come from bullies, and yes, it will come from the mean-spirited. (Source)
Beth's attempt to shut people up who question her teaching should be concerning to Christian women who read her books and participate in Bible studies she has written.
Be Watchful!
For those of you who are Joyce Meyer fans, it's imperative that you wake up to the fact that some of this woman's teaching is outright heresy. Anyone who continues learning from her is choosing to remain under the teaching of what Jesus referred to in Mat. 7:15 as a ravenous wolf. Listen to John's warning:
Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. (2 John 9-11)
Sadly, a growing number of LIE-celebs, likewise u-LIEs, are taking part in the wicked works John spoke of.
We are living in perilous times, brethren. It's now common place for professing Christians to dabble in mysticism. The result? Many believers boast of having subjective magical mystical experiences such as visions; dreams; impressions; hearing inner voices; experiencing private illumination; and angel visitations. Warning! Christians who engage in esoteric mysticism deny sola Scriptura – the sufficiency of Scripture.
God's people must come to grips with the fact that historic orthodox Christianity holds to the belief that everything we need to know about our Triune God is contained within the pages of the Bible. (Psalm 119:105)
Stranded In Spiritual Infancy
Following is an observation by apologist and author Bill Muehlenberg from a post entitled Kindergarten Christianity:
We have millions of believers who may have been saved decades ago, but are still acting like spiritual infants. They have not grown much, they have not progressed much in their walk with Christ, and their spiritual condition is rather anaemic [sic] and shallow.
They have not become genuine disciples in other words, and they are still stranded in a spiritual infancy. They can't even handle the deep truths of God as revealed in Scripture. Indeed, many of them hardly even read their Bibles, barely pray, or engage in in-depth fellowship.
No wonder they are still floundering around as babies. They have not moved beyond the nursery. They are all stuck in day care. They are permanent residents of Christian kindergarten. Sadly this is so very widespread today in our churches.
This brings me back to the low information evangelical. As Muehlenberg pointed out, many Christians prefer milk to solid food. (1 Cor 3:1-3) Consequently they're biblically illiterate...which is the reason for the colossal lack of discernment among Christians. So it should come as no surprise that the worst sort of unbiblical teaching has reared its ugly head in the visible church, thanks largely to diaper-wearing milk-fed u-LIEs who rarely, if ever, go to the Bible to scrutinize someone's teaching. (1 John 4:1) These same u-LIEs are the ones who put on a pedestal/promote/pay tribute to and finance the lavish lifestyles of LIE-celebs, some of whom are prosperity preaching/health and wealth televangelists. What will it take to get professing Christians to understand that they're propping up heretics?
Before I close I must also mention that the liberal media seems to think that all Protestants are evangelicals – and that includes WoF heretics such as Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes and Oprah's pal New Age/New Thought/Emergent guru Rob Bell. Nowadays evangelical is such a broad term that it has lost its meaning. Even Red-letter Christians Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis, who have abandoned the biblical gospel for the "social gospel," call themselves evangelicals.
Campolo, Wallis, Osteen, Bell, et al can say they are monarchs and wear a crown if they so desire. But as I've said many times, a mouse in the cookie jar is not a cookie.
Resources:
Beth Moore: God's Vision for the Church Includes the Roman Catholic Church "Denomination" – Apprising Ministries
Beth Moore recommends 'Jesus Calling' book – Apprising Ministries
Contemplative Prayer – On Solid Rock Resources
Cults and Heretical Teaching – On Solid Rock Resources
Emergent/Emerging Church – On Solid Rock Resources
New Age/New Thought Spirituality – On Solid Rock Resources
Occult – On Solid Rock Resources
Word of Faith/Televangelists – On Solid Rock Resources
We need to find some witness protection for that Catholic poster. The black van with Jesuit ninja commandos will be at the door:)
“So said the Gnostics, too. Could they have been right and all the rest of us wrong?”
Your writings are completely bereft of any hint of Christian charity. That you would say something like that speaks volumes about the content of your heart.
“Or maybe God reveals Himself to whosoever He pleases”
Yes, He does. To many more than most of us would guess. What we have to remember is that this does not mean that we are somehow better than those to whom He does not reveal Himself. It means we are in the spiritual special Olympics and needed some extra help.
“Peace”
On the first three small beads of the Rosary we pray for faith, hope, and charity.
“It also allows vague, unsourced claims to be made about unnamed people for unspecified reasons.”
Let he who has ears to hear, hear.
“And you know that how?”
Know what, that you don’t understand what you read? To be just a little flippant, but still on point, you’re not a Catholic. Q.E.D.
“It’s not like the RCC had written up a commentary of the entire Bible for Catholics to use in reading it so it’s all interpreted for them”
Wow, really? Are you really unaware of the vast treasure that is the collection of Catholic exegesis and theology? To quote G. K. Chesterton, “There is no other case of one continuous intelligent institution that has been thinking about thinking for two thousand years. Its experience naturally covers nearly all experiences; and especially nearly all errors. The result is a map in which all the blind alleys and bad roads are clearly marked, all the ways that have been shown to be worthless by the best of all evidence: the evidence of those who have gone down them.”
There are at least several treatises dealing with every part of the Bible, written by men both holy and brilliant, and which have withstood the test of time.
“And simply hearing the readings in mass once a week does not equate to any Catholic understanding what they hear and read either.”
As we see here so often, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him read either Aquinas or Augustine. Some Catholics are pew-sitters, it is true, but if you want the whole of Revelation and the most correct explanation available of what you hear, there is no place else to go.
The priest’s homily after the readings is also supposed to provide a more complete understanding of those scriptures. On top of which there are Bible-study groups, and catechism for the young. Catholics are steeped in scripture, whether the heart of any given individual is fertile ground or not.
“FWIW, the Bible is not hard to understand.”
Right there, with that, you demonstrate that you do not understand what you read. AAMOF, there are parts of the Bible that no human alone can possibly understand correctly.
“there is not a lot of interpretation or understanding that needs to be done.”
Wow, there it is, right there. Tell you what: let’s not post each other any more, okay?
“Even you could read it and get something out of it.”
I memorized the 23rd Psalm and recited it in front of the whole church when I was three. However, I gained a much deeper understanding of it when I was 48 and 49. Maybe I’ll be Graced with an even deeper understanding before I shuffle off this mortal coil.
I had read or heard the entire Bible by the time I was twelve, and was baptized in the Southern Baptist Church—Liberty Baptist Church, in Capitol Hill, Oklahoma City.
“If you weren’t otherwise convinced that you can’t as the Catholic church tells it’s constituents.”
Error. Always from you it is error. The Church tells the faithful that they certainly can and should read their Bibles. By the way, the possessive form of “it” is “its.”
Don’t hold your breath. A major recourse for RCs is the argument from silence in attempting to appeal to Scripture to support traditions of men which do not rest upon the weight of Scriptural evidence for their claimed veracity.
“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine";
I have been wondering how you came to be in possession of so much disinformation. I’ve been reading a book called “The Da Vinci Hoax,” and now I think you got a lot of your information from “The Da Vinci Code.”
I guess someone should tell you that practically everything presented as fact in that book is false.
“Luther uncritically parroted by RCs, who strangely seem to think we are like hem and follow men as popes or see him as faultless and determinative of doctrine.”
Whether you want to admit it at all, protestants today follow that man out of the church as much as the protestants of his own day.
The line is, “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.” And I still have both eyes.
Clean off that mirror of yours, you apparently cannot see that HUGE beam in your eye! SR is one of the MOST charitable posters on this forum. That you cannot acknowledge that and instead attack what was a benign statement exposes the content of your heart - it ain't pretty.
At last...we now know where all the vitriol comes from against "not-Catholic Christians"! It's failed, former Protestants who like former smokers are the most adamant to defend their newly realized position. How many times have former Catholics here been castigated as being guilty of the same things? How many times have we been reminded that, "once a Catholic, always a Catholic"? It's good that the reasoning behind such assertions has been exposed and taken with a large measure of salt - as it deserves.
“At last...we now know where all the vitriol comes from against “not-Catholic Christians”! It’s failed, former Protestants who like former smokers are the most adamant to defend their newly realized position. “
I think this is where someone is supposed to say, “he was poorly catechized or in sin.”
Actually, this is the place where someone decides that it's because of moral failings, like they wanted a divorce and couldn't get one so they became Catholic so they could get a church sanctioned divorce, aka annulment, with the church's blessing, all for a modest fee, of course.
What with the Catholic church teaching its laity that they are incapable of understanding Scripture and so need them to interpret it for them, that's RICH coming from a Catholic.
So what inside edge to Catholic have by virtue of being a Catholic that gives them understanding of Scripture?
You do realize that it's the Holy Spirit who enlightens one, don't you? And without Him, you cannot understand spiritual truths no matter what pedigree of teachers you have and how awesome everyone thinks they are.
“What with the Catholic church teaching its laity that they are incapable of understanding Scripture”
You know, you should really stop lying. It cant be good for your soul. You know that no such thing has been said or ever occurred.
“and so need them to interpret it for them, that’s RICH coming from a Catholic.”
Pretty much everybody needs help with a lot of scriptures. That doesn’t mean they are “incapable of understanding.” It means that brighter and holier men than they have achieved a deeper understanding, which can be shared from one person to another.
I know a lot of you protestants think that the Holy Spirit is right there ensuring that you don’t misunderstand anything. He’s not. The Holy Spirit only inspires a man’s reading of the Bible on rare occasions, and when that happens, there’s no mistaking it.
That you think you don’t need any help interpreting scripture...well, rave on, Napoleon.
“So what inside edge to Catholic have by virtue of being a Catholic that gives them understanding of Scripture?”
Well, most of them won’t have heard mistaken interpretations, and they will probably have heard correct interpretations.
“You do realize that it’s the Holy Spirit who enlightens one, don’t you?”
He directly enlightens some men. He does not visit everyone who reads his Bible.
“And without Him, you cannot understand spiritual truths no matter what pedigree of teachers you have and how awesome everyone thinks they are.”
Wrongola, once again. A correct interpretation of scripture, once communicated to man, can be passed from man to man. If there are exceptions, I do not know of them.
“At last...we now know where all the vitriol comes from against “not-Catholic Christians”!”
You have seen no vitriol from me, and you knew you had not when you wrote that. Let’s see, when a person utters a defamatory statement he knows to be false, what do we call that?
“It’s failed, former Protestants who like former smokers are the most adamant to defend their newly realized position.”
As Lenin said, “Accuse others of what you do.” I am in no way a “failed, former protestant” — I just traded up.
“How many times have former Catholics here been castigated as being guilty of the same things?”
Firstly, “castigated?” Never.
Secondly, if former Catholics are guilty of “the same things” (not sure what those are) it in no way follows that former protestants should be.
“How many times have we been reminded that, “once a Catholic, always a Catholic”?”
Show me one.
Even so, quod licit Jovi non licit bovi. Catholicism is true; where Protestantism differs from Catholicism, it is not true. Protestantism is not on the same moral footing as Catholicism.
“It’s good that the reasoning behind such assertions has been exposed and taken with a large measure of salt - as it deserves.”
Rave on, Napoleon. Your writings are utterly bereft of reason.
“SR is one of the MOST charitable posters on this forum.”
I just may barf myself completely to death on the bathroom floor.
dsc:Show me one.
Ask and you shall receive. (courtesty ping to salvation)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3198952/posts?page=115#115
"You are always a Catholic due to the mark of Baptism and Confirmation on your soul."
Yikes! So first you make a fallacious claim yourself, and now you deny that the Donation of Constantine was fallacious?! Where does it end? It was composed probably in the 8th century, and used especially in the 13th century, and later exposed as a forgery by a humanist Italian Catholic priest and others in the early 1400s, though its authenticity was occasionally defended till about 1600
Even the Catholic Encyclopedia admits this:
Donation of Constantine: By this name is understood, since the end of the Middle Ages, a forged document of Emperor Constantine the Great, by which large privileges and rich possessions were conferred on the pope and the Roman Church....This document is without doubt a forgery, fabricated somewhere between the years 750 and 850.
Most of the recent writers on the subject assume the origin of the "Donatio" between 752 and 795. Among them, some decide for the pontificate of Stephen II (752-757) on the hypothesis that the author of the forgery wished to substantiate thereby the claims of this pope in his negotiations with Pepin
The first pope who used it in an official act and relied upon, was Leo IX; in a letter of 1054 to Michael Cærularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, he cites the "Donatio" to show that the Holy See possessed both an earthly and a heavenly imperium, the royal priesthood. Thenceforth the "Donatio" acquires more importance and is more frequently used as evidence in the ecclesiastical and political conflicts between the papacy and the secular power. Anselm of Lucca and Cardinal Deusdedit inserted it in their collections of canons. Gratian, it is true, excluded it from his "Decretum", but it was soon added to it as "Palea". The ecclesiastical writers in defence of the papacy during the conflicts of the early part of the twelfth century quoted it as authoritative
St. Peter Damian also relied on it in his writings against the antipope Cadalous of Parma (Disceptatio synodalis, in Libelli de lite, I, 88). Gregory VII himself never quoted this document in his long warfare for ecclesiastical liberty against the secular power. But Urban II made use of it in 1091 to support his claims on the island of Corsica. Later popes (Innocent III, Gregory IX, Innocent IV) took its authority for granted (Innocent III, Sermo de sancto Silvestro, in P.L., CCXVII, 481 sqq.; Raynaldus, Annales, ad an. 1236, n. 24; Potthast, Regesta, no. 11,848), and ecclesiastical writers often adduced its evidence in favour of the papacy. The medieval adversaries of the popes, on the other hand, never denied the validity of this appeal to the pretended donation of Constantine, but endeavoured to show that the legal deductions drawn from it were founded on false interpretations. The authenticity of the document, as already stated, was doubted by no one before the fifteenth century.
It was known to the Greeks in the second half of the twelfth century, when it appears in the collection of Theodore Balsamon (1169 sqq.); later on another Greek canonist, Matthæus Blastares (about 1335), admitted it into his collection. It appears also in other Greek works. Moreover, it was highly esteemed in the Greek East. The Greeks claimed, it is well known, for the Bishop of New Rome (Constantinople) the same honorary rights as those enjoyed by the Bishop of Old Rome. By now, by virtue of this document, they claimed for the Byzantine clergy also the privileges and perogatives granted to the pope and the Roman ecclesiastics. In the West, long after its authenticity was disputed in the fifteenth century, its validity was still upheld by the majority of canonists and jurists who continued throughout the sixteenth century to quote it as authentic. - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05118a.htm
The Donation of Constantine (Latin, Donatio Constantini) is a forged Roman imperial decree by which the emperor Constantine I supposedly transferred authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the Pope. Composed probably in the 8th century, it was used, especially in the 13th century, in support of claims of political authority by the papacy.[1] Lorenzo Valla, an Italian Catholic priest and Renaissance humanist, is credited with first exposing the forgery with solid philological arguments in 1439–1440,[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine
Now do you want to deny the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals were extensive and influential ninth century forgeries as well? RCs can make outlandish assertions such as there has never been a bit of anti-protestant bigotry on FR, as that is personal judgment (if assuming omniscience), but denying what is even admitted by Catholic authorities is simply untenable.
To which can be added, The Catholic historian Paul Johnson in his 1976 work “History of Christianity” finds,
By the third century, lists of bishops, each of whom had consecrated his successor, and which went back to the original founding of the see by one or the other of the apostles, had been collected or manufactured by most of the great cities of the empire and were reproduced by Eusebius…– “A History of Christianity,” pgs 53 ff.)
Eusebius presents the lists as evidence that orthodoxy had a continuous tradition from the earliest times in all the great Episcopal sees and that all the heretical movements were subsequent aberrations from the mainline of Christianity.
Looking behind the lists, however, a different picture emerges. In Edessa, on the edge of the Syrian desert, the proofs of the early establishment of Christianity were forgeries, almost certainly manufactured under Bishop Kune, the first orthodox Bishop....
When Eusebius’s chief source for his Episcopal lists, Julius Africanus, tried to compile one for Antioch, he found only six names to cover the same period of time as twelve in Rome and ten in Alexandria. More .
As for The Da Vinci Hoax, i have exposed that as fallacious as well, by God's grace, and is not based on Rome's actual forgeries. And in fact, as these forgeries were useful to supply what Scripture does not testifies that Rome did not change the Bible to conform to herself. It would not have been hard to include one mention of addressing saints in prayers to Heaven, or titling NT pastors "priests" and of them dispensing the Eucharist as life-giving flesh and blood, interpretive of the gospels. Etc.
“Ask and you shall receive.”
Or rather not.
Your careless rendering of her remark denies the possibility that one could become a fallen away Catholic.
Her statement is reasonable; your restatement of it is not.
And I already suggested that we not post to each other.
It’s been less than a day and I am already nauseated by the groundswell of nastiness that you protestants have generated.
I’m done with you for now. Post if you want. I won’t read it.
You’re projecting mightily.
It’s the mote and beam thing.......
“and now you deny that the Donation of Constantine was fallacious?! Where does it end?”
Getting into an exchange with you leaves me feeling unclean.
Since I did not affirm or deny anything about the Donation of Constantine, I guess it will end either when you stop lying or I resume ignoring you. Guess which.
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