What does a Roman Catholic need to do to join the OPC [Orthodox Presbyterian Church]?

"I don’t believe that’s a scientific conclusion."

It was sarcasm. Every time there is a thread about Catholic abuse some moronic anti-Catholic makes an ignorant statement about Catholic clerical celibacy.

Sorry. :) I’m a little irritated with the blatant hypocrisy.

"Sorry. :) I’m a little irritated with the blatant hypocrisy."

Its understandable. Just remember that the attacks on the Church are not made for any altruistic purposes or out of a desire to "save" anyone's soul from a Papist hell, they are done for sport. Were that the case we would see some legitimate efforts to engage in a proper discussion and see some sympathetic postings.

What we are experiencing is a modern day derivative of bear-baiting; Catholic-baiting. Bear-baiting was popular in Protestant England until well into the the 19th century and is akin to dog fighting and cock fighting, but without any hope of victory for the bear. Typically, arenas for this spectacle consisted of a circular high-fenced area, the "pit", with raised seating for spectators around the perimeter. A post would be set in the ground in the pit and the bear chained to it. A number of fighting or hunting dogs would then be set on it, being replaced as they tired or were wounded or killed.

Denied this passion by humanitarian laws the good "anti-Catholic" folks now attempt to construct engagements with the Catholics figuratively chained to a post by forum rules and sympathetic moderators.

Unlike merry olde England, sometimes the bears win causing a great deal of consternation among the Protestant dogs and their sympathizers.

It wouldn’t be a problem if they were allowed to marry!

protestant clergy, where the VAST majority of abuse cases take place, are allowed to marry....how does that fit with your asinine accusation???

The Church Jesus Christ founded was on the Apostles, in Jerusalem, not in the pagan imperial capitol of Rome. The Apostles left a sure and certain record of their beliefs and exact teachings in what we call the New Testament—that collection of books all Christian groups agree about

yeah, that'll work, pick what you think is o.k. about a 2,100 year old christian religion, listen to your protestant minister about what is wrong with the Catholic church, decide that Catholicism is too hard for you to follow (you have to get your butt out of bed once a week and go to Mass), you cannot divorce and remarry, no more abortions, confess your sins,etc. etc., very hard church to belong to.....by the way, don't marry another person who has been divorced....Homosexuality is out,but the good news is that dancing is in as is music in the church (I understand that there are protestant denominations which prohibit such blasphemous behavior)..oh well

"how does that fit with your asinine accusation???"

See post #141.

There was some mumbling about it, but the BOCO (Book Of Church Order) doesn’t allow it. It won’t happen.

I'm glad that you told me what BOCO is; I was envisioning some sort of Michael Myers in a hockey mask hidden in a back room watching the proceedings. Stick to your guns, my friend. Don't go the way of the Episcopagans...

No problem.

If they let a Roman Catholic in aren’t they going to pollute their church?

For a Catholic to join the OPC, he must reject all of God's teachings and stop being a follower of Christ and become a follower of Calvin.

For Calvin teaches that one does not need to believe in Christ but one is part of an elite brahmin caste.

To become a member of the OrthodoPresbyterian Cult, one must throw out scripture and adopt the 14-page excerpted version of scripture with the colored pictures that the OPC believes in.

To become a member of the Orthodo PresbyterianCult, one must Aacording to the OPC OrthoPresbyterianC: "Christians should not celebrate the Seder or other Jewish festivals. "

The followers of Machen, the OPC, disregard scripture where it calls men to repent, have faith, convert, and persevere. Instead they insist on some kind of non-scriptural preservation which is not only non-scriptural but also disagrees with the beliefs of their hero, St. Augustine who believed in perseverance of the saints, not preservation. Augustine did not believe in Calvin's understanding of the "perseverance of the saints,"

the OPC's theory that man can never lose his salvation, no matter what he does, so when they read 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Galatians 5:19-21 the OPC believes that if anyone commits any such sin, there is no repentence for the followers of Calvin. Their deity will not take repentence, so the followers of Calvin will say that the person never was Christian at all!

To answer, they twist their weasel-words as

First between true and false conversion. The Bible recognizes that not everyone who says he believes in Christ really does

Voilą! (by the way, that means "see there" in French) -- the followers of Calvin-Machen use their rubber dictionaries to say "Oh, they never were Christian in the first place!"

And some more beauties of the OPC fate

Salvation of Infants Who Die

The Confession entertains the idea that at least some infants who die in infancy and some others "who are incapable of being outwardly called" are among the elect.

However, the Confession does not say that all such infants, etc., are saved.

The OPC believes that God pre-damns infants to eternal hell. This isn't the Christian God of Love.

To become a member of the OPC, one must deny the scriptures like Ezekiel 33 that says

12 “Therefore, son of man, say to your people, ‘If someone who is righteous disobeys, that person’s former righteousness will count for nothing. And if someone who is wicked repents, that person’s former wickedness will not bring condemnation. The righteous person who sins will not be allowed to live even though they were formerly righteous.’

13 If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done.

14 And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right—

15 if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil—that person will surely live; they will not die.

16 None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live.

To be an OPC cult-member, one needs to hate Pentecostals and Methodists, followers of Arminianism and say that they follow a "damnable heresy"

To become a member of the OPC cult, one needs to abandon scripture which says

John 4:42 describes Christ as "the Savior of the world,"
1 John 2:2 Christ "is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world."
1 Timothy 4:10 God is "the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe."

To become a member of the Orthodo Presbyterian Cult one must learn to hate and worship the CalvinGod of hate and reject Jesus Christ, the God of Love

To become a member of the OPC cult, one must reject God's words inaugurating the Eucharist in John 6.

26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.
27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?
31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.
37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered.
44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.
45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[b] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.
46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.
47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.

48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?
62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!
63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[c] and life.
64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.
65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life
69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

To become a member of the OPC cult, one must reject God's words inaugurating the Eucharist in John 6.

And, if you read in the Bible, starting from John 6:30, we read

30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?
31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.

They asked Him for a sign, saying that Moses gave them manna in the desert. If Jesus (according to them) was aspiring to the level of Moses, He should do something as big as that.

and Jesus says something strange to them -- He says Moses didn't give you bread, My father did, and bread that comes down from heaven. Then He says that HE is the bread of life, HE is the manna -- and manna was to be eaten.

The Jews made the same mistake you did, which is to think he was speaking as a metaphor.

Yet Jesus REPEATED the same thing, saying

48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died.
50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die.
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

And now the crowd is openly rebellious saying “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
And

53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.

Note -- Jesus doesn't clear up the Metaphor, like he did in Matt. 16:5–12

5 When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread.
6 “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
7 They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.”
8 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread?
9 Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?
10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?
11 How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
12 Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

So, Jesus DOES indicate when it is a metaphor and when it isn't.
In this case, look at the reaction of his DISCIPLES, people who had heard his teachings for so long and followed him

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”...

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

You cannot say that this was just bread and wine of that this is a metphor for coming and having faith in the Lord or some kind of metphor for believing in Christ because of the reaction of the Jews and the very language -- to eat one's flesh and drink the blood means to do violence on some one. You see it even in Hindi where a threat is "Mein tera Khoon pie jaongaa" or "I will drink your blood" -- and this is among vegetarians! To drink a persons blood means a serious threat of injury.

You cannot even say it was a metaphor by incorreclty comparing it to John 10:9 (I am the gate/doorway) or John 15:1 (I am the true vine) is because this is not referenced in the entire verse in the same way as John 6 which shows the entire incident from start to finish of Jesus saying His body is to be eaten, repeating it and seeing his disciples go and not correcting them (as he did in Matthew 16). Even in the literal sense -- Christ says he is the gateway to heaven and the vine such that we get nourishment with him as the connecting path. But John 6 is much much more than mere symbolism as He categorically states that "For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:55).

Even at the end of John 6, Jesus rebukes those who think of what He has said as a metaphor by emphasising that

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?
62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!
63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[e] and life.
64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”

Jesus repeats the rebuke against just thinking in terms of human logic (Calvin's main problem) by saying

John 8:15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one.
16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me.

Just using human logic as Calvinist thought does, without God's blessings behind it fails in grace.John 6:63 does not refer to Jesus's statement of his own flesh, if you read in context but refers to using human logic instead of dwelling on God's words.

And, all of this is confirmed in Paul's writings to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:16)

6 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?

and also 1 Cor 11:27-29

27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.
28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.
29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.

How clear can Paul get? "The bread IS a participation in the body of Christ" and "who eats the bread... will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord" This is not just mere bread and wine anymore. This is the body and blood of Christ.

Finally, the Earliest Christians also said any consideration of this as just a metaphor was false -- Ignature of Antioch (disciple of Apotle John) wrote in AD 110 wrote about heretics who bstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again" (Letter to the SMyrnaens). The earliest Christians beleived this to be the ACTUAL body of Christ. Why, they were also accused by pagans of being cannibals and Justin MArtyr had to write a defence to the Emperor saying "Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, . . . is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus"

in view of this overwhelming evidence from scripture and supplemented by the practise and belief of the earliest Christians, we can only say that there IS a real presence in the Eucharist. Martin Luther too believed it -- he said that Who, but the devil, has granted such license of wresting the words of the holy Scripture? Who ever read in the Scriptures, that my body is the same as the sign of my body? or, that is is the same as it signifies? What language in the world ever spoke so? It is only then the devil, that imposes upon us by these fanatical men. --> only Calvin/Zwingli turned around what Christ had said

Hilaire Beloc describes it well in "how the reformation happened"

>What Calvin did was this. He took what is one of the oldest and most perilous directives of mankind, the sense of Fate. He isolated it, and he made it supreme, by fitting it, with the kneading of a powerful mind, into the scheme which Christian men still traditionally associated with the holiness and authority of their ancestral religion.

God had become Man, and God had become Man to redeem mankind. That was no part of the old idea of Inevitable Fate.

On the contrary, it was a relief from that pagan nightmare. We of the Faith say that the Incarnation was intended to release us from such a pagan nightmare. Well, Calvin accepted the Incarnation, but he forced it to fit in with the old pagan horror of compulsion: “Ananke.”

He reintroduced the Inexorable.

Yes, God had become Man and had died to save mankind; but only mankind in such numbers and persons as He had chosen to act for. The idea of the Inexorable remained. The merits of Christ were imputed, and no more. God was Causation, and Causation is one immutable whole.

A man was damned or saved; and it was not of his doing. The recognition of evil as equal with good, which rapidly becomes the worship of evil (the great Manichean heresy, which has roots as old as mankind; the permanent motive of Fear) was put forward by Calvin in a strange new form. He did not indeed oppose, as had the Manichean, two equal principles of Good and of Evil. He put forward only one principle, God. But to that One Principle he ascribed all our suffering, and, for most of us, necessary and eternal suffering.

Again, the Catholic Church had called the soul of man immortal. Calvin accepted that doctrine; but under his hands it becomes an immortality of doom, and for the few who shall have doom to beatitude, doom it yet is, as doom is is to the myriads for whom it shall mean despair.

From this man, I say, proceeds a whole web of ideas which still live, though the doctrines which were so living to him and his followers, the strict dogmas upon which they evolved their mighty system of warped theology, have faded from the modern mind. If today your non-Catholic conceives of the material, and, more latterly, the spiritual processes as inevitable, if he inclines to despair, if he is tempted by the latest fad of the “subconscious” which man fights in vain, the savor of Calvin is in it all

Interesting. Both our deacon (ELCA) and priest (Baptist) are former Protestants. The deacon in the church next nearest to us is also a former Protestant.

They're all former Protestants because cradle Catholics are not worthy to serve.

Yes. Catholics leave the Church for self interest and self indulgence, and people join the Church for the theology.

So true, it sure isn't for the music!

They're all former Protestants because cradle Catholics are not worthy to serve.

I'd like to become a deacon, which my wife most definitely supports, but with a young family and volatile job situation, I'm going to wait a bit.

This Trinity Foundation website says "Last year The Trinity Foundation published Paul Elliott’s book, Christianity and Neo-Liberalism: The Spiritual Crisis in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Beyond. That book examines in detail the false doctrine of salvation now being taught in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church

The above website says

Thus, the Report continues the conspiracy of silence that has prevailed in the OPC for three decades. It leaves the erroneous impression that the serious doctrinal problems are outside the denomination, not within it. The Report gives false comfort to those who think the OPC is still a bastion of Biblical orthodoxy. On the contrary, the Report, and the 2006 General Assembly’s commendation of it, both maintain the OPC as a safe haven for those who teach error

.....

Men within the OPC, including at least one member of the Committee itself, teach heresy regarding the Gospel and many other fundamentals of the faith.

you can read the details at the link on page 109 why the Former Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) ruling elder Paul M. Elliott says that

Satan has won his war of attrition against the one true Gospel in the OPC (113).
and The OPC long ago ceased to proclaim the one true Gospel to the exclusion of all false gospels (115).
and The Orthodox Presbyterian Church has abandoned the marks of a true church of Jesus Christ (118).

Why does a former ruling elder of the OPC say that? Well, he gives his reasons in his book about the heresy that he believes the OPC is following and he is urging every OPCer to leave. You can read it too if you want -- and if you disagree with him, he's given his posting and email address in the book. accordingly.

The author’s thesis is that the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) is today exactly where the PCUSA was back then.

From Trinity Lectures Foundation

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church was founded in 1936 by about 135 people who were offended by the lack of discipline in and doctrinal errors of the Presbyterian Church in the USA. .
But early in its history the OPC fell under the influence of an agnostic view of propositional revelation emanating from Westminster Seminary -- a view that said that there is no identity of content between the \"Christian system\" of theology, meaning Reformed confessions of faith, and the \"divine system\" of theology, known only to God.

This agnosticism has now brought the OPC to the point of falling. Like its predecessor, the PCUSA, the OPC has failed to discipline teachers who teach contrary to Scriptures and the Confession of Faith, and it has endorsed un-Biblical teaching about Scripture and the Gospel.

From Trinity Lectures Foundation

Despite the painstaking efforts of many fine Christians within the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), the leaders of the OPC maintain a suicidal course. Despite the departure of congregations and individuals from the OPC, due to the leaders' collective inability to resolve the current justification controversy Biblically, the OPC leaders continue to advance doctrines that contradict Scripture. The OPC is, in the words of its late historian Charles Dennison, "obviously inept, bumbling, [and] confused."1 That confusion now appears to be fatal.

At this point in its history, the confessional affirmations of the OPC have no more credibility than the confessional affirmations of the PCUSA from 1936 to 1967. One of the commissioners to the 2004 OPC General Assembly made this very point: "There was a time when, if the OPC said it, it was accepted. The 2003 deliverance that accompanied the decision to acquit [John Kinnaird] destroyed forever that our words will not be questioned. The PCUSA always said that the [Westminster] Confession was their confession (even as they were denying it)."

Anyone joining the OPC should know they are headed for another split or dissolution -- they are not a Church founded on faith but on a fake prophet, Machen, coupled with their rejection of being followers of Christ and becoming followers of Calvin.

This is a house built on sand in the 1930s and will not live to see its centenary

In short, no Christians should leave a Church of the Bible, leave being a follower of Christ and His words and become a follower of Calvin and Machen.

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