Posted on 08/27/2010 11:45:13 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
So, where was the Catholic church in providing relief for its members during the Irish potato famine?
How?
The explanation rendered is a product of uncontrolled imagination and not historical accurate analysis. Self prideful interpretation is what which Jesus rebukes.
Ponder Jn 6 52: 58 and disabuse one self of any fanciful flights of imagination to validated specious reasoning
God bless
In addition, a thorough analysis of the KKK and No Nothing movement in this nation would be just what the physician ordered for self healing since self interpretation appears to be the specialty of the protestant ilk. Temper the pride .
God bless.
Believe in Jesus
I try to serve as a beacon of light to these souls lost in the morass of self pride and blood lusts. A lighthouse whose beacon assists these spiritual bankrupt to the safe harbor of our Savior.
God bless.
Brits.
It was political as much as anything.
Religion determined the politics.
Accept Jesus as your Savior.
Then the next question is, "Where does their goodness come from?"
... the issue is do they save or are they a fruit of your salvation.
Well that is AN issue, it is not, however the issue raised by the challenges you made in the direction of Mother Teresa, or I don't see how it is.
The question was about how to understand her remark about if people become better Muslims, Orthodox Presbyterians, whatever, and, in particular the clause, "... then there is something else growing there."
Something may be the most important good to a particular person at a particular time, but that does not mean it is the only good. So when Mother Teresa says what you quoted, it is not clear she is talking about a saving good. Consequently it is not clear that saving goods are properly relevant to a discussion of her work and words.
Another problem with this kind of discontinuous view of the universe is that the same people who take their kids to services and Sunday school and VBS talk as if there were no value in any work undertaken to sort of predispose someone to hear the Gospel or to, as it were prepare the ground -- is it clear to you, and if so what are your sources, that Mother Teresa started her mission to 'convert' the people whe took from the streets? It might not save her or anyone else, but is it a bad thing to provide a little comparative comfort to someone who is dying -- even if the comfort does not 'save' them? Is it inappropriate for churches to, say, feed the hungry? Why or why not?
I wonder what types of reeducation camps they attended to fill the vacuous abysses of their spiritual vacuum.
I will continue to pray for these lost sheep.
I don't see anything in what you say that addresses what the pastor said. Is it right to neglect alcoholics "because they are going to hell anyway?"
I would say addictions are diseases with a strong, maybe even a dominant 'spiritual' component. I have tried to keep up with the field, AND I have known people who, having started the never-ending recovery process, then received the Lord into their lives and hearts. I have also known people who first had a religious conversion and THEN quit drinking. Both groups seem to benefit (or at least those who love them do) from continued 'spiritual growth', consciously sought.
Is it your general thought that .... well, try this:
I was chaplain at a home for severely handicapped kids. Though it was fewer than ten miles from Charlottesville and had been there since Hector was a pup -- and longer, very few people knew about it. The board seemed more preoccupied with being First Families of Virginia than with keeping the place going. ( I got $50 a week for my alleged work.)
So I went to a local 'radio personality' and bought time on the Sunday morning schedule and for 4-5 years I had a show every Sunday without fail (though some were taped in advance.)
As a result of my attention seeking and publicity-grubbing, I raised local awareness of the institution, shamed the board ( a very little -- they were pretty proof against shame), and raised money on which I had to pay taxes but all of which went to the care of the children.
I mingled with the local 'great', and dealt with their misplaced admiration. There's a word for what I was that I cannot use on the Religion Forum. Let's say "attention prostitute." I'm hoping that's acceptable.
BUT I achieved the objective, by God's grace and the generosity of my audience of two or three. It took the help of the Federal Government to close the home.
So I suppose I also have received my reward. In any event I am edified by the respect given to the injunction not to judge, and the careful exercise of the responsibility to avoid taking quotes out of context when one is doing a hatchet job.
Time: What's your greatest hope here in India?Here.Mother Teresa: To give Jesus to all.
Time: But you do not evangelize in the conventional sense of the term.
Mother Teresa: I'm evangelizing by my works of love.
Time: Is that the best way?
Mother Teresa: For us, yes. For somebody else, something else. I'm evangelizing the way God wants me to. Jesus said go and preach to all the nations. We are now in so many nations preaching the Gospel by our works of love. "By the love that you have for one another will they know you are my disciples." That's the preaching that we are doing, and I think that is more real.
Time: Friends of yours say that you are disappointed that your work has not brought more conversions in this great Hindu nation.
Mother Teresa: Missionaries don't think of that. They only want to proclaim the Word of God. Numbers have nothing to do with it. But the people are putting prayer into action by coming and serving the people. Continually people are coming to feed and serve, so many, you go and see. Everywhere people are helping. We don't know the future. But the door is already open to Christ. There may not be a big conversion like that, but we don't know what is happening in the soul.
Time: What do you think of Hinduism?
Mother Teresa: I love all religions, but I am in love with my own. No discussion. That's what we have to prove to them. Seeing what I do, they realize that I am in love with Jesus.
Time: And they should love Jesus too?
Mother Teresa: Naturally, if they want peace, if they want joy, let them find Jesus. If people become better Hindus, better Moslems, better Buddhists by our acts of love, then there is something else growing there. They come closer and closer to God. When they come closer, they have to choose.
To me the way what she says has been taken out of context is morally and almost physically revolting.
Are you saying that Calvin wanted Servetus at least sentenced to death?
I wish you'd just say what you mean ...
I want to thank you for providing the context for the Mother Teresa statement. It’s bothered me having seen it in isolation in the past, seeing the statement in full indicates that whoever originated the abbreviated quote was deliberately distorting what she intended.
So, thank you.
I have also often referred to Philippians 2: 12-13 and Colossians 1:24.
It is also important to understand that in our thought faith is not only a gift, but also a work. We do not make things EITHER graces OR works -- an idea which seems rarely even heard. We can see the works being gifts just as we can see the merits to be.
I was not expecting to read that we do not distinguish among salvation, justification, and sanctification. That does not make contact with what I teach or what I hear taught. I would glibly say that justification is done for one, and sanctification is done in one. But the doer is God.
You write:
In the RC analogy, an individual will and can never know when he has done enough to be certain of salvation for the simple reason that he can find no satisfying answer to this question from God’s word.
That does not make contact with what I believe and teach. An individual can always know, for my money, that he can never do enough to make himself certain of salvation. That certainty doesn't come and cannot come from doing. Jesus has done it all.
At the battling text, problem solving level, the verses I quoted seem to me that it isn't as simple as you make it out to be. It's not that you said anything importantly wrong. It's that once that is said, there is still more to say. There are good works for us to walk in, there is salvation we must work out in fear and trembling while and although God is the one working it out in us. There is SOME way that it is right to speak of something lacking in the all sufficient merit of Christ.
To my own surprise I'm starting my sixth year homeschooling my children. After spending my entire life preferring the company of adults I now spend most of my time with children... repeating myself... constantly. What I wouldn't give to be able to say something once and have everyone get it.
For a while there this afternoon I was beginning to wonder if I wasn't going to turn into Cato and finish every post with "furthermore Calvin hoped Servetus would at least be sentenced to death".
Somebody intended that others believe what was not true. And to bring that about he lied.
How does it glorify Jesus to lie about someone?
The idea of protestantism worked hand in hand with communism and socialism. This was notices by Pope Leo and Pope Pius IX
NOSTIS ET NOBISCUM ON THE CHURCH IN THE PONTIFICAL STATES ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS IX DECEMBER 8, 1849
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9nostis.htm
Excerpt...
"You are aware indeed, that the goal of this most iniquitous plot is to drive people to overthrow the entire order of human affairs and to draw them over to the wicked theories of this Socialism and Communism, by confusing them with perverted teachings. But these enemies realize that they cannot hope for any agreement with the Catholic Church, which allows neither tampering with truths proposed by faith, nor adding any new human fictions to them. This is why they try to draw the Italian people over to Protestantism, which in their deceit they repeatedly declare to be only another form of the same true religion of Christ, thereby just as pleasing to God. Meanwhile they know full well that the chief principle of the Protestant tenets, i.e., that the holy scriptures are to be understood by the personal judgment of the individual, will greatly assist their impious cause. They are confident that they can first misuse the holy scriptures by wrong interpretation to spread their errors and claim God's authority while doing it. Then they can cause men to call into doubt the common principles of justice and honor. "
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.