Posted on 03/22/2005 8:30:04 PM PST by newheart
Shortly after the Reformation began, in the first few years after Martin Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, he issued some short booklets on a variety of subjects. One of the most provocative was titled The Babylonian Captivity of the Church.
In this book Luther was looking back to that period of Old Testament history when Jerusalem was destroyed by the invading armies of Babylon and the elite of the people were carried off into captivity. Luther in the sixteenth century took the image of the historic Babylonian captivity and reapplied it to his era and talked about the new Babylonian captivity of the Church.
He was speaking of Rome as the modern Babylon that held the Gospel hostage with its rejection of the biblical understanding of justification. You can understand how fierce the controversy was, how polemical this title would be in that period by saying that the Church had not simply erred or strayed, but had fallen - that it's actually now Babylonian; it is now in pagan captivity.
(Excerpt) Read more at virtueonline.org ...
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Interesting. An Anglican-oriented article with a hand in the Arminian-Calvinist wars.
Seem that sproul bases his view of predestination on Augustine making "a seemingly harmless and innocuous statement in the prayer to God in which he says: 'O God, command what you wouldst, and grant what thou dost command.'"
The more I read of Sproul, the less impressed I become.
bump to read when the coffee kicks in...
Until that happens there will not be a new Reformation, because at the heart of Reformation teaching is the central place of the worship and gratitude given to God and God alone.
Wouldn't Sproul also say that if it doesn't happen then God didn't want it to?
No need to get all het up when things are happening just like they're s'posed to.
Your link includes a post from a poster who says he is Reformed and in the process of becoming a former Anglican. What do you think he means by that?
Interesting, but nonfalsifiable, I think. What happens is what happens and anything else is counterfactual. We can perhaps intuit meaning from the course of events after the sequels start emerging and we can see what had major significance, what had minor significance and what had no impact, but it is all God's will.
The axle Sproul appears to have wrapped himself around is trying to have a single rule for understanding what human consent must be. And it's one of those subjects where the terminus ad quem is what has a major effect on what is hypothesized: if love is to exist, then those loving must be capable of offering it without constraint. And this means that we must have at least enough free will to freely consent.
Now, under what circumstances do we actually have the will to offer this consent? If Original Sin is an authentic doctrine, then our nature is fallen and every act of will on our part is flawed. This includes any act of will toward/away from God. But this does not eliminate the will of the individual, it impairs it and I think that unless one makes this tiny distinction, Pelagianism is an unavoidable label for the doctrinal result.
It would be nice if opposing doctrines could get a fair shake in discussion. We might arrive at Truth.
In Christ,
Deacon Paul+
Agreed.
I am compelled to ask about the origin of your screenname.
Beleg Cuthalion (=Strongbow) is an invented character. Prof Tolkien made him up sometime in the late 1910's while writing about his imaginary Middle-Earth.
Beleg was the MarchWarden of the Hidden Kingdom of Doriath, an elven kingdom guarded by the Maia Melian (one of JRR's many Marian analogs).
In Christ,
Deacon Paul+
You would be most welcome to stop by The Hobbit Hole from time to time. We have less to discuss now that the movies are all out in extended format. But we're a friendly group.
...sigh...
I used to be at TolkienOnline, which began as a good, Christian Tolkienic website. It was also relatively erudite, but that attracted others, whose delusional posts basically drove out anyone of any kind of common sense. It is a difficulty in many cybersites: there is no way to simply say: "That idea is insane." as it is almost certainly a TOS violation. Sort of like getting a cheap shot on the playing field, answering in kind and being the one who gets the flag thrown in penalty. So stupid, even dangerous and immoral ideas drive out sensible, reasonable sane ones (how do you argue with someone who can simply refuse to acknowledge reality and have dozens of side-boys to chime in with "me too so shut up you" posts).
As I say...sigh...
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