Posted on 04/14/2005 12:00:51 PM PDT by Dean Baker
Baptist church 'fake pope' sign attracting attention, criticism By JEANNINE F. HUNTER, hunter@knews.com April 13, 2005
NEWPORT, Tenn. - Two days after being posted, a church marquee message that questions the purpose of the papacy is still attracting attention in this small community.
"What I am trying to do is to let people know there's only one way to heaven through Jesus Christ," said the Rev. Cline Franklin, pastor of Hilltop Baptist Church. "There's no need for help. God sent his son, Jesus Christ. We're all priests if we're saved. I don't need to go to anybody else to pray."
The sign's side facing Broadway, the main thoroughfare in Newport, reads, "No truth, No hope Following a hell-bound pope!" On the other side, facing the church parking lot, it reads: "False hope in a fake pope."
The message appeared days after Pope John Paul II's funeral last week.
"It is unfortunate when it comes from within the Christian church. It's really sad," said the Rev. Dan Whitman, 54, pastor of Newport's Good Shepherd Catholic parish and Holy Trinity parish in Jefferson City. "You learn how to deal with it and pray not to be that way yourself."
It does not reflect mainstream Baptist thought, said Dr. Merrill "Mel" Hawkins, associate professor of religion and director of the Center for Baptist Studies at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City.
"When you see signs like that, they are almost like relics or artifacts of a bygone era," Hawkins said.
He spoke about animus between Protestants and Catholics persisting after the Protestant Reformation and for centuries, during which "harsh things were said, couched within misperceptions, misunderstandings."
Among the major misperceptions is that Catholics "venerate the pope on the same level as Jesus," Hawkins said, and that "the pope is connected to their salvation in place of Jesus Christ."
Catholics make up about 12 percent of the population in the South.
"Catholics are a minority faith in the South, and there's often bias toward minority religious communities because people don't understand," he said.
James Gaddis, a lay speaker who also chairs the board at First United Methodist Church, said he had not seen the sign but had heard about it.
"I understand that it's very degrading," he said. "I think it's tragic that any church group would stoop to this posture."
Following Tuesday night's council meeting, Newport Mayor Roland Dykes Jr. said he was a little saddened by the message.
"It doesn't behoove any of us to determine who is going to heaven or hell. I think the pope is a highly, highly respected person," he said.
Franklin's church is a five-year-old independent Baptist church. When asked what the message meant, he said: "What does 'pope' mean? It means father. We have a heavenly father, and the Bible says we shall call no man a father. "
He said people have been driving by or taking pictures or calling to share their views. He said the intent was not to offend Catholics and people are misunderstanding the sign.
Copyright 2005, Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.
Excellent instruction and apologetics on purgatory are at Purgatory Dogma Explained
Pax
Yes and yes.
Now go google Martin Luther and John Calvin!! :)
Oh my; not this brown stuff again.
Blasphemy.
Babies are not baptized by anyone in a protestant church. A person must one their own free will accept baptism - babies are not able to do that.
Babies are "dedicated" in protestant churches in a baptism type setting. It has no special meaning however is just something the parents are doing to show their appreciation to God for the gift of their child. A minister doesn't have to do it though - anyone can.
As far as marrying people, a pastor doesn't have to do it - its just tradition. A justice of the peace could easily do it.
Clergy have no super powers when in protestant theology. They are regarded as shepards but that's it. Many protestant churches are becoming cultic however and are forgetting this.
In protestant theology pastors are servants just like everyone else and very fallible. To think that any person on this earth has super powers given from God is cultic.
Well, go get a copy of the Koran and read it.
Before you read, pray for guidance and direction from God and/or Christ, if you are a Christian. Ask for protection in the event anything in it would lead you astray.
"You know why that is? Most people think you worship a mortal - Mary. Everything is Mary, not Christ. There's Mary's beads, statues, prayers, ornaments of Mary, but very little has to do with the one who bought you.
I always thought the Catholics made Mary their Goddess. That's all I ever saw. If one listens closely, they'll notice Mary is used to get to Christ in the end."
Read your own words. "I always thought the Catholics made Mary their Goddess." You don't say "most people" here. You say "I." So again why do you bother to mischaracterize their faith? They've denied your characterizations countless times here on FR. Repeating this canard, despite their claims to the contrary, is not much different than calling them liars.
>> in the place of Jesus Christ <<
The Pope's title is Vicar of Christ, and thus, stands as a priest, "Alter Christi" ("In the place of Christ") but not as a replacement for Christ, but rather as one through whom Christ works.
Jesus said he is "the Good Shepherd," but tells Peter, through whom the Pope claims his authority, to "shepherd my sheep." In other words, the sheep are still Jesus, and he is ultimately their shepherd, but Peter was given a role in shepherding them. Does the Baptist leader not use the word "Pastor," himself? If he does, he is claiming to act as Vicar of Christ."
(Incidentally, the Pope is nowhere called "Vicar of the Son of Man.")
>> My father-in-law is a pastor. I never heard him say such a thing. But, his impetus is teaching faith based upon the word of God. <<
That's one of the silly notions about Catholics that the author attempts to disabuse people of: All Catholic doctrine is based on public Revelation (i.e., the Scripture). No Catholic is compelled to believe anything based on private revelation.
Carry on.
>> Catholics consider themselves to be born again as well. <<
Actually, I'm not sure if the Church has any teaching on this, but "conceived again" would seem to make more sense.
We will be born again when we are given our new Heavenly bodies. As it stands, we have not been born a second time, merely infused with the Holy Spirit.
Well, the phrase "born again" has a lot of baggage put on it by modern protestant churches. I presume that is the problem.
But call it "redemption" or "born again" the concept is --- in all Christian denominations --- that, by the death of Christ and accepting Him, the person is then a new creation (born again) without the baggage of original sin and as a slave to, well, the Devil. Of course, we promptly mess it up, but through repentence and the help of the Holy Spirit, one can be cleansed and the human nature to sin is slowly removed.
A non-instaneous process, alas.
Actually, one could take it as a self-condemnation.
He doesn't say, "There is no truth and no hope if you are following a hell-bound Pope."
He writes, "No truth. No Hope. Following a hell-bound Pope."
Given the lack of verbs, I would take that a description of himself: He has no truth, he has no hope, and he is following a hell-bound Pope: himself.
I shall say a prayer that his description of himself is incorrect.
Not God. Just Pope. See my previous post.
I can become so completely frustrated and totally heartbroken reading these posts. You're ALL ripe for the picking. Your false doctrine runs so deep...you have no idea!! Your being programmed and driven like cattle.
The devil believes in God!
The devil believes in Jesus!
The devil believes in the Holy Spirit!
Is the Devil saved?
Alas....God said He would send a strong delusion on the earth.....HE WOULD SEND IT,not the devil...because the heart of mankind is wicked and they want the delusion, they love it, they revel in it. They hate the meat that God has tried to feed them and cry like babies for their milk bottles, becoming soft, plump, fat and ripe for slaughter.
Dear GraceCoolidge,
Well, Catholics don't usually use the words "born again," (I usually don't) but to be baptized is to be "born from above," or put differently, to be incorporated into God's family.
Baptism is about spiritual birth, about entry into the spiritual family of the Church, which is the Body of Christ.
People who are not baptized have souls, but those souls are dead, from the effects of original sin.
The reason why we acknowledge ONE baptism is because we believe that one may be validly baptized only once. Baptism creates an indelible mark on the soul. Again, this is because the one baptized is incorporated, through being "born from above" into the family of God, via the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
It is said that even the Catholic who is damned will be recognizable, in Hell, as a Catholic, as one baptized.
sitetest
"To make a long theological point very short, Christians are adopted into the promise, and Jews, while still the Chosen People, don't necessarily get the benfit of the promise, post-Christ, unless they accept Christ just like everyone else." ~ Meanwesttexan
It's called being "grafted in" to the olive tree. (There is only one olive tree).
To make a long theological point very long:
There is a prophecy in Amos 9:11-12 that is quoted in Acts 15:14-19 which will help us to understand how God, through the Apostles, interprets Old Testament prophecies concerning a future for national Israel.
Our first step in interpreting this prophecy in Amos is to determine its context within the Old Testament.
Amos is prophesying against the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and dressing them down for their idolatry and social injustices. The prophecy focuses on the coming judgment God is about to bring on Israel with His chosen instrument, the Assyrians, in 722 B.C.
At the end of a series of visions concerning God’s judgment on Israel, we read that God has plans to restore the nation of Israel:
In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,” declares the Lord, who will do these things (Amos 9:11-12).
“In that day” refers to a time after the promised judgment on Israel which God poured out on them in 722 B.C.
According to Amos, this “day” or period of time after the judgment of Israel, will be a time of restoration of the nation.
“David’s fallen tent” refers to the divided kingdom. When David ruled over Israel it was a united kingdom and it is considered the golden age of Israel in Scripture. But at the time Amos was prophesying, the kingdom was divided and Israel was at a moral and political low point.
God, through Amos, was saying that in a day in the future God will unify the nation of Israel and make it like it was in the days of David and Solomon.
This is to happen for a reason: national Israel is to be unified in the future so that “they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations (Gentiles) that bear my name.”
Now if we look up Edom in a standard Bible dictionary we find that “The term Edom…denotes either the name of Esau, given in memory of the red pottage for which he exchanged his birthright…, or the Edomites collectively…, or the land occupied by Esau’s descendants, formerly the land of Seir… It stretched from the Wadi Zered to the Gulf of Aqabah for c. 160 km, and extended to both sides of Arabah or wilderness of Edom.”[2]
Therefore, when Israel is promised that they will possess the remnant of Edom, it is a reference to political and military supremacy over their national enemies.
To sum up, God, through Amos, prophesied that there will be a time in the future after the exile of Israel when the nation of Israel will have military supremacy over its enemies, political re-unification, and of course the expansion of its physical borders to its original size under David’s leadership.
The Acts Connection
We find Amos 9:11-12 quoted in the New Testament by Luke in the book of Acts Chapter 15. God, of course, inspired Luke to interpret the passage from Amos in the book of Acts. Therefore, as we look at Acts 15 our job is to determine how Luke interprets Amos 9 in the light of the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ.
The Context
In Acts 15 the Jerusalem council is meeting to discuss the question of whether or not Gentiles can be included in the people of God. In other words, can non-Jews be saved?
They were also addressing the related question concerning the law of Moses and what if any of that Law believers, especially Gentile believers, need to obey?
Luke, in the book of Acts, records James addressing the first of these questions showing that the prophets legitimize Peter’s understanding of God’s grace reaching non-Jews by quoting the book of Amos:
"Simon has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself. The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written: ”After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins will rebuild, and I will restore it, that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things" that have been known for ages. It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God "(Acts 15:14-20)
James interprets Amos to say that God does save Gentiles and they too should be included in the people of God.
We also know from James’ interpretation that the phrase “after these things” in Amos 9 refers to this period in which God is saving Gentiles, that is from Pentecost to the second coming.
James understood that the period of time Amos prophesied about was actually taking place in the 1st century A.D.!
He believed that the re-unification and restoration of Israel was happening.
But it clearly wasn’t a national re-unification because it included non-Israelites.
In addition, Israel the nation was securely under the thumb of Rome at the time!
There is something else that is important in God’s use of Amos 9 in Acts 15.
Notice that the reference to Edom seems to have been removed and the action resulting from the restoration of Israel has changed from possession of enemies to God’s election from among all peoples of the world.
The restoration of national Israel in Amos 9 is interpreted by God in Acts 15 to refer to the gathering of God’s elect, both Jews and Gentiles, to be saved and brought together into the church.
And this was not left to some time in the future, but it was happening in the first century and it is happening now according the book of Acts.
Jeremiah 31
The prophecy concerning the new covenant that is first mentioned in Jeremiah 31 and then quoted in Hebrews 8 and 10 is one of the most striking evidences that the promises to national Israel are fulfilled in the church.
In its old covenant context, Jeremiah 31:31-34 seems to be a prophecy about God’s future blessings for ethnic Israel and Judah sometime after Judah is defeated by the Babylonians:
“The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “When I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
If we had only Jeremiah to guide us we would have to conclude that the new covenant is all about God’s plan for ethnic Israel.
But God in the New Testament Scriptures has given us an interpretation of these verses that tell us that they are fulfilled not in the nation of Israel but in the church today!
This new covenant is none other than the work of Christ on the cross for His people from every tribe, nation, and tongue.
Jeremiah 31 is quoted in Hebrews 10 with just such an interpretation.
The book of Hebrews is addressed to believers who were once Jewish and because of severe persecution are being tempted to turn away from the sufficiency of Christ back to the old covenant with its sacrifices and ceremonies.
So the author of the book of Hebrews argues for the superiority of Christ and His saving work over all that the old covenant had to offer.
In Hebrews 10:11 we find the author comparing the sacrifices offered under the old covenant to the one sacrifice of Christ:
“Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
The author is clearly talking about the sufficiency of the one sacrifice of Christ to make sinners acceptable to God.
Unlike the sacrifices of the old covenant that had to be repeated endlessly and even then only served to remind people of their sin, the one sacrifice of Christ actually accomplished atonement for sins.
Nothing is more central to biblical Christianity than this work of Christ on the cross to satisfy the wrath of God.
But in the very next verses the author quotes from Jeremiah 31 as referring not to some future for ethnic Israel but to the sufficiency of the one sacrifice of Christ to make believers acceptable to God!
“The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds. Then he adds: Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.”
The author of the book of Hebrews has taken a prophecy, which in its old covenant context seems to clearly refer to a promise that God will bless ethnic Israel in the future, and has interpreted that passage to be talking about the cross.
Although in its original context the new covenant seems only to apply to Israel and Judah, the application by God in the book of Hebrews is to all those who trust in Christ.
In Jeremiah the promise of a new covenant seems to be for a people in the distant future, while in the Book of Hebrews the new covenant is the work of Christ and it applies to the church now.
In order to arrive at this conclusion we must read Scripture properly, that is we must read the promises given in the Old Testament Scriptures through the lens of the New Testament Scriptures.
http://www.newcovenant.ws/steve/John_Mac.html
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