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To: dangus; Jean Chauvin; SoothingDave
I appreciate the trouble to which you went to educate yourself on the worldwide expanse of non-American presbyterianism, and some of your data seems very accurate. That said, some of your numbers seem awfully low, at least to my understanding. To cite only the most obvious example:

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.**



222 posted on 11/24/2003 10:44:37 PM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian (We are Unworthy Servants; We have only done Our Duty)
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To: OrthodoxPresbyterian; TheCrusader
Dutchman Jean Chauvin

Please. "Dutchmen"??? The name is obviosuly Gallo-French, and Chauvin is awfully suggestive of "Cohen" as a possible Jewish background.

231 posted on 11/25/2003 5:16:43 AM PST by Hermann the Cherusker
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To: OrthodoxPresbyterian; SoothingDave
At the end of the day, upholding the Great Commission is surely more important than, say, Rome's consistent opposition to condoms.

The one is impossible without the other. You can't uphold the Great Comission by preaching a false morality.

Anyway, I'm still waiting to see the list of "Great Protestant Missionary Achievements, 1517-1800". I have a feeling its about as blank as other famous non-works like "Feats in Space Exploration by the Pygmys and Bushmen", "How to Achieve Urban Prosperity: The Detroit Model", "Great Civilizations of Antarctica".

The fact is, there were no Protestant missions "ad gentes" 1517-circa 1800.

All the while, the Catholic Church was busy abroad.

243 posted on 11/25/2003 8:03:32 AM PST by Hermann the Cherusker
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