Posted on 10/11/2006 9:29:49 AM PDT by Antioch
That's the stupidestn analysis of this statement that anyone could have expected.
I'm not aware of any "liberal mainline churches" that are Pentacostal. The Assemblies of God is the largest Pentecostal church and is by no means a liberal mainline church.
As a matter of fact, it actually started down here in the Bible Belt amongst the poorest of people
"Pentacostalism" started in Kansas and had it's first big revival in the Azuza Street Mission in Los Angeles.
I actually believe Catholics could learn from Pentecostals to tone down the intellectualism, rationalism, anti-supernaturalism, Biblical criticism, and evolutionism and allow the emergence of an sector of American Catholics who are more like the illiterate peasants of other Catholic cultures, but what do I know? In America Catholicism is all about intellect, intellect, intellect, and evidently the intellect tells us that the universe created itself and that the Bible is made up of myths adopted from pagan cultures.
Now when hyper-intellectual bishops with Ph.D.'s actually come to illegal Appalachian churches to watch "poor white trash" handle rattlesnakes we'll be getting somewhere!
In that case I apologize for the double-post. It would be best to delete the offensive one and keep the last one.
Thank you for your forebearance.
LOLOL! I just cleaned it up so there would not be a double post on thread. Thank you for your cooperation.
Thanks for your kind reply.
Am reminded of the phenomenon in China . . . where there's a lot of intellectualism in the Christian church in a given area, there are fewer miracles.
Where folks just read the Scriptures and apply them in faith, there are LOTS of miracles routinely.
Yes, Good doctrine can be greatly helpful.
In it's place with Holy Spirit's guidance and perspective.
I was not referring to Pentecostal churches but to Pentecostalism within liberal, mainline churches (Catholic, Episcopal, etc.). In those cases Pentecostalism always seems to be promoted by the same people who push for Biblical criticism, "social justice," and endless innovation. It doesn't make any sense, but that's the way it is.
"Pentacostalism" started in Kansas and had it's first big revival in the Azuza Street Mission in Los Angeles.
I know about Azusa Street (at which, I'll bit, no liberals were present), but I had heard that Pentecostalism begain with a poor (perhaps illiterate?) Tennessee preacher named George Went Hensley.
In other words, rather than teach the fullness of the Catholic faith, we should drop large chunks of it until it is approved by the world and everyone is happy. Thats not ecumenicism, it's capitulation, Kasper..
= = = =
Teaching Christ and Him crucified worked for St Paul.
Also, the intellecutal assumptions about a paucity of intellectualism amongst Pentecostals has been proven to be utter hogwash by a number of scientific studies.
Most of that perspective came into public consciousness via a bunch of atheist and agnostic sociologists writing decades ago from their own biases instead of solid research.
Bethel Bible College prayer meeting on Jan 1, 1901 in Topeka Kansas is the first recorded place of a modern day baptism in the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues.
From there Pentecostalism spread to all areas. I believe Hensley was a very early Pentecostal preacher, but not the first.
Us Pent-o-costels is soo dum, we cantz even preech the Gospel efektively.
Where folks just read the Scriptures and apply them in faith, there are LOTS of miracles routinely.
One thing I have never understood about Catholicism is the co-existence of the miraculous with high rationalism. Ueber-rationalist Catholics have no problems with Haitian or Guatemalan peasants and those peasants are never turned off by the intellectualism of the Church's leaders, but it's hard to believe they even subscribe to the same religion.
Yet rationalist Catholics who have no objections to traditional Catholic miracles (transubstantiation, the liquification of the blood of St. Januarius, miracles associated with saints and relics, the Fatima sun dance) seem highly offended with Biblical (especially "old testament") miracles that are of utmost importance to Fundamentalist Protestants. When dealing with those miracles the big guns of intellectualism and rationalism begin blasting away, claiming that belief in these miracles is unnecessary, that "the best scholarship" has disproved them, that the Bible was adopted by redactors from ancient pagan myths, etc. I've heard that in Eastern Orthodoxy Adam and Eve are regarded as saints, yet there is certainly never much of an attempt to publicize this or to encourage a cultus to them. For some reason everything that is important to Fundamentalist Protesants is threatening to Catholics and Orthodox, despite the fact that these people/events are supposed to be the common heritage of all chr*stians.
I don't get it. I don't think I ever will.
From there Pentecostalism spread to all areas. I believe Hensley was a very early Pentecostal preacher, but not the first.
Thank you for the information.
The point is that Pentecostalism began among the most despised of unsophisticates, yet is promoted in the mainline churches by the most liberal elements who hate and detest the people who created it.
Yeah, the paradoxes of the enemy's rationalizations are much more silly and convoluted . . . impossible . . .
than the mysteries of The Lord.
Been a long time since I researched such as background for my dissertation.
Thanks.
LOL.
The point is that Pentecostalism began among the most despised of unsophisticates, yet is promoted in the mainline churches by the most liberal elements who hate and detest the people who created it.
= = = =
I think God has a hobby of rubbing our human absurdities in our faces.
And moving mightily anyway.
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