Posted on 11/23/2003 3:39:24 AM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian
The Bible doesn't tell us the lineup for the '49 Yankees either, but we know it existed. I gave you the names, quotes, dates and sources of five early Church Fathers who placed Peter in Rome, Lactantius, Irenaeus, Ignatius, Eusebius and others, including Augustine in his Letters, No. 53, 400 AD
No matter, for even if all these early Christian Bishops and historians are somehow wrong, Peter was head of the Apostles and the Church long before he ever left Jerusalem. The Bible is rich with examples of this irrefutable fact. So the "Peter in Rome" debate is really just smoke and mirrors anyway. But it is a curious thing for me, because most serious Protestant scholars and exegetes, faced with the writings of the early Fathers, now admit that Peter was most likely in Rome, died there, and was Bishop of Rome. I'm wondering why you still cling to this long defunct Protestant charge?
I can find as many 2 million in South Korea cited...
There aren't 2 million Presbyterians in Korea; there are over 9 million. At least 20% of the entire population (Presbyterianism is the dominant Christian denomination in Korea). Korean Presbyterians almost certainly outnmuber all presbyterian denominations in the USA combined, probably by a good margin.
Like I said, that's just the most obvious example -- but we have to add another 7 million Presbyterians to your Worldwide tally right there, even without including the millions of Worldwide Reformed (who really are "Dutch Presbyterians" -- or maybe Dutchman Jean Chauvin would say that presbyterians are "Scottish Reformed" -- it's basically a Greek-Orthodox/Russian-Orthodox ethnocultural distinction as much as anything).
As to their orthodoxy: well, I haven't been to Korea, but I've known plenty of Korean Presbyterians here in the US of A -- and the above link has it right, the Korean Presbyterians "appear to be a monolithic group – traditional, conservative, biblical and evangelical". In Presbyterianism, as in Anglicanism, the Evangelized... have become the Evangelists (a little conservative backlash from the hinterlands wouldn't hurt Rome either, in "abortion-on-demand-for-any-reason-ever" Mother Italy).
O, by the way, about the not evangelizing to Jews... campaigns to target Jews as a group should be abandonned as they are *counter-productive* to conversion, and destructive to a religious dialogue which the Catholic Church has grown richer from as it has fostered a greater understanding among Catholics about the relation of God the Father to his people. I am uncomfortable with this position, but I don't consider it scandalizing, like the shuffling of pedophillic priests, or the approval of sodomite "marriages".
Since you were charitable enough to mention in the same breath American Catholicism's clerical problem (pederasty) and American Presbyterianism's clerical problem (blessings on "monogamous" sodomy), I shall be charitable enough to admit that I myself find the Presby-Church-USA denomination's formal permission of sodomitic unions is in theory a more greivous breach of Church holiness than the American Roman church's informal cover-up and protection of clerical pederasty -- on the hypothesis that the FLAGRANT perversion of moral orthodoxy on the part of Presby-Church-USA is arguably worse than the INSIDIOUS hypocrisy, deceit, and victim-blaming of the American Catholic church. That may be my own parochial disgust for my fellow (professing) "presbyterians", but that's the way I see it.
In Canon-Law theory, at least. It's a harder call, in practice -- One may hope that the practitioners of Presby-USA sodomitic "union" only defile themselves (and unless they repent, they have already chosen Hell, after all), aside from the profane example they set before the Church and World; but a single Roman pederast, protected by his Bishops, may have defiled hundreds of child innocents. So, Presby-USA being the worse of the two in theory, it's hard to say which is worse in praxis. Either way, it's like choosing between a dog's vomit and a dog's sh... well, you get the idea.
What really bothers me about the American Bishops denunciation of Evangelism targetted towards the Jews... well, how do I put this. Hmmm. It's not, thank God, a blessing of sodomitic "monogamy"; it's not, thank God, another cover-up of clerical pederasty; it's just that it's... an attempt to play fast and loose with the Great Commission itself.
That's just... very troublesome. It is not, of course, my place to tell Rome her business -- but I wish that she would formally rebuke this dangerous indifferentism. At the end of the day, upholding the Great Commission is surely more important than, say, Rome's consistent opposition to condoms.**
Tuesday, November 23rd 1999
NEWARK, NJ -- A regional Presbyterian church court in New York yesterday rejected a conservative faction's efforts to prohibit gay unions and block an openly gay candidate for ordination in a stunning setback for conservatives in the 2.6 million member Presbyterian Church (USA).
In a decision released Monday, the 12-member Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Northeast let stand a decision by a group of southern New Jersey churches to admit to the level of candidate an openly gay man who had refused a celibacy vow.
The panel also upheld the right of the Hudson River Presbytery, a body of clergy members and church elders that oversees 95 churches in New York's lower Hudson Valley, to allow ministers to conduct wedding-like blessings of same-sex couples as long as they are called "holy unions" -- not marriages.
Presbyterians are now at a stalemate on the gay issue, with both sides vowing to assert their stand or split off from the main denomination.
In 1997, a well-orchestrated conservative campaign was successful in passing an amendment to the Presbyterian Book of Order requiring all unmarried ministers and church officials to be sexually celibate and defining marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman. The "Faith and Chastity Amendment" was intended to prohibit the quiet sanctioning of gay ministers and gay "unions" that had taken place for years in some Presbyterian churches.
Monday's decisions pivoted on a very narrow interpretation of that 1997 amendment to church law.
-- C. Barillas, Editor
Besides which, other than that... um, other than that, we disagree on... uh... hmmm.
Sorry, I can't think of much else we disagree on.
New Jersey! It's always New Jersey.
It's all good.
I gave you a hard time (as I admitted) by seizing on an obvious case where your numbers were way short of the actual tally. As a Roman Catholic, you probably weren't aware that Korea is probably (numerically, at least) the most Presbyterian country in the entire world -- both in terms of per-capita percentage and absolute numbers.
That said, the Korean Presbyterians truly are "monolithic" -- in a manner which almost seems spooky to a cantankerous, independent Western Protestant such as myself. The Korean Presbyterians have developed a curious local tradition of genuinely monstrous Local Congregations -- they have Individual Churches the size of American Cities, tens (even hundreds) of thousands packed-in-Covenant to a single Local Church, the size of a mega-stadium (under the overall supervision of a number of Elders, of course). In regular attendance. Almost as if a Roman Bishop were to call together his entire diocese for Liturgy and Homily every Sunday Morn.
Definitely... not typically Western.
But -- considering that the East-Asian Presbyterians today represent (as with the Africans of Anglicanism) the greatest numbers, and the greatest orthodoxy, of Worldwide Presbyterianism -- who am I to judge against the work of the Lord?
American Presbyterianism was once the Religion which gave rise to the American Revolution... but it has decayed into a shadow of its former self. Today, even as American Missionaries once evangelized Korea for the banner of Presbyterianism -- the Korean Presbyterians are now discussing amongst themselves whether or not they should evangelize North America for Presbyterianism!!
The Evangelized become the Evangelists.
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Which I answered (I discussed the earliest references, in which no reference to Peter's alleged martyrdom in Rome is found; and as I pointed out, your later references are separated from the actual events in question by as many centuries as the common Legend of "George Washington and the Cherry Tree" is separated from us today.)
No matter, for even if all these early Christian Bishops and historians are somehow wrong, Peter was head of the Apostles and the Church long before he ever left Jerusalem. The Bible is rich with examples of this irrefutable fact. So the "Peter in Rome" debate is really just smoke and mirrors anyway. But it is a curious thing for me, because most serious Protestant scholars and exegetes, faced with the writings of the early Fathers, now admit that Peter was most likely in Rome, died there, and was Bishop of Rome. I'm wondering why you still cling to this long defunct Protestant charge?
Well, if you're wondering, then I can answer you -- if you would like me to do so.
But I am already engaged in a similar discussion with Hermann -- who is, even at his most heated, both a more erudite and charitable opponent than you have so far chosen to be. I enjoy debating Hermann: both because he is challenging (he has identified several probable errors of dating and attribution in the Article above; which I, examining his arguments versus the Author's, have admitted) and also because (like Patrick Madrid, when he rarely debates on Free Republic) Hermann seems genuinely interested in converting his opponents to Rome -- not just labelling his opponent a closet homosexual and then claiming a self-congratulatory victory when his opponents finally become disgusted with his coarse and unchristian slanders.
If you really want me to answer the question you raise, I shall be happy to do so.
But first -- I have stated the price for my personal respect.
Just as you claim that your own vehemence is motivated by your defense of Your Own Church, so likewise is mine. I ask of you no apology whatsoever for your (entirely unwarranted) personal insinuations against my own sexual purity.
I ask no apology for your ad hominems against myself, personally. I ask only for your admission, retraction, and apology for your Lies against the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Do that, and I'll forget all your ad hominems. You claim that you seek to defend your own Church? You haven't a leg to stand on, when you deliberately tell lies about another man's Church.
You call yourself "Crusader"? And well you should -- you see yourself as fighting a legitimate Just War (and I admit that the Crusades were a defensive counter-attack against Islam, just as I admit that many of the tribunals obf the Inquisition were the most fair and enlightened of Continental Europe at the time -- as a Protestant, I may surprise you). But the Crusades failed in this -- their Just War of Defense became an unchristian massacre of rape, booty, and bloodlust. That which began as a Just War, did not remain so.
You may correct this error, in yourself. You may be a Crusader who not only commits War, but who commits Truth. You will admit that you promulgated Lies about the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You will admit that you were informed of your error, and preferred to continue in Dishonesty rather than acknowledge Honesty. You will retract these knowing Lies against the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You will apologize for these knowing Lies against the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Do this, and you will have my personal respect -- now, tomorrow, whenever we cross swords.
If not??
If not -- no bother to me. I will ignore you, and will instead prefer to encounter the sword of Hermann. Sharp, yes -- but also Clean.
If not?
If not, that is your own choice. You know that you have told deliberate Lies about Orthodox Presbyterianism which you knew to be False; yet in Spiritual Pride, you refuse to simply admit, retract, and apologize for your Lies.
That's a matter between you and your Confessor. What is the Divine Penalty for unrepented Spiritual Pride?
Last I checked, Spiritual Pride is the Soul-Killer.
By providing the Christians with an enormous swath of the world at peace for 400 years in which to begin the Church.
I would not disagree, ... but, of course, there is no need to imagine that the Church was based Rome for this to be.
The peace (through which the truths of the church were further spread) was a work of God, and, thus, would have existed, in any case.
Please. "Dutchmen"??? The name is obviosuly Gallo-French, and Chauvin is awfully suggestive of "Cohen" as a possible Jewish background.
Most of the Catholic parishes around me have 10,000 or more members.
That is an extremely presumptuous statement. Can you point to a similar golden period of such a vast area at peace for so long (over 400 years?).
I have no respect for your apostate ilk, nor will I ever. You have shown me only that you are the master of the lie, the slander, and the arrogant supposition. You entered the scene with your silly anthropoly as your historical "proof" that Peter was not in Rome, and when I exposed this lightweight circumstancial evidence for what it is, you switched to Scripture and chose to misuse the Bible by injecting your personal interpretation of Peter's reference to "Babylon", (a reference to Rome which is now almost universally accepted in all of Christianity, including the Chruch Fathers).
Next you tried to deny that many of early Church Fathers have written that Peter lived and died in Rome by chosing to ignore their writings and focusing on the silence or ambiguity of other Fathers. This is Clintonian maneuvering at best. I seek the truth and you carry an anti-Catholic agenda.
You never at any time presented a strong case, but only an arrogant one devoid of substance. Thus you chose to carp on the fact that I said you were a member of a Church that blesses homosexual unions, and apptempted to turn that into the focal point. The Presbytarian church does indeed perform homosexual ceremonies, and calls them "Holy Unions".
If your so-called "Orthodox Presbytarian" church rejects the abomination of your sister church then so be it. I stand corrected. But the two words "Orthodox" and "Presbytarian" are a Christian oxymoron anyway.
Hermann the Cherusker is indeed a worthy opponent, I have faced him myself a few times. He is more of a gentleman than I am, and probably more learned as well. I am never ashamed to face truth, in fact I have learned to love it, and that, my friend, is why I cannot tolerate bait-and-switch, professional liars such as yourself. Why not use all that energy and intellect seeking Truth rather than trying to destroy it?
regards,
Jim
The peace (through which the truths of the church were further spread) was a work of God, and, thus, would have existed, in any case.
That is an extremely presumptuous statement. Can you point to a similar golden period of such a vast area at peace for so long (over 400 years?).
Exactly how is such a statement presumptious ?
Do you deny that God ordained the peace ?
Not at all. You said the peace would have existed anyway. The peace only existed because Christ was born into it.
Do you deny that God ordained the peace ?
Not at all. You said the peace would have existed anyway. The peace only existed because Christ was born into it.
The peace existed because God ordained it.
Do you deny that God ordained other periods of peace, as well ... for instance ... the Pax Britannica ?
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