Posted on 05/17/2012 5:40:57 PM PDT by Gamecock
INDEED.
Mormons believe in a non-virgin born Jesus who is the half-brother of Lucifer who was born of another one of Elohim's wives.
But how does that qualify as a response to Dr. E's statement?
Largely agree with that statement, I'd have to add that in my experience, my wife of nearly 26 years and I left the Catholic church also because of the "cafeteria Catholics" who keep trying to change the Church. I'm sure you've met them, they're the ones who try and politicize and change the Church's stance on everything from Birth Control, family, marriage, illegal immigration and more.
Honestly, my wife and I genuinely loved the Priest in our Church. We both knew him for several years before he married us. A finer example of a man with a full heart for God who exemplified grace and mercy you'd be hard pressed to find.
It was really all the other b.s. going on in and around the Church caused in large part by the cafeteria Catholics who wanted to pick and choose what they believed in while still calling themselves Catholics that literally pushed us over the edge to leaving the Church.
We've been members of an Evangelical Christian church for the past 13 years now and while I really like the fact that we belong to a fully Christ and Gospel centered church, it truly does break my heart to see what's happening to the Catholic church as that's where my relationship with Jesus started.
I'm really tired of people focusing on the minutia that divides us. Our relationship with Christ independent of whether one calls themselves a Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Evangelical or whatever should be what unites us, rather than the Religious labels dividing us.
Respectfully,
USC
100% of the Catholics that I know who left the church...and I know at least 6 (including a nun)...left because they sought spiritual growth and a personal walk with Christ...and the Catholic Church wasn't giving that too them.
Do you really have to ask why people are leaving the church when only 12% of Catholics believe the Bible is literally true...when only 7% read their Bibles with any regularity...when only 17% think Satan is real...or only 9% believe that their most important relationship is between them and God?
Now...the numbers for Evangelicals and mainline protestants are not near what they should be...but you get some disgruntled Catholic with a hole in their heart who wasn't discipled very well (and believe me...with numbers like this...it AIN'T the people...you have a SYSTEMIC problem) and they will leave the church in a heartbeat for something they perceive as real.
I was raised Catholic, went from one Protestant church to the next after I had children. Met many very nice, welcoming folks who love the Lord. I learned a lot, but the upshot is that I went back to Catholicism and brought 10 more with me. :)
I still love my old friends from all denominations!
What do you think it means? It means what it says. It means that that congregation is no longer considered part of the PCA.
Thanks for the confirmation. Does that mean that every member of the particular church will be unwelcome at every current PCA institution? How is that enforced or communicated?
Does that mean that they are unable to participate in any PCA or affiliated services?
What do you think it means? It means what it says - "they are not allowed to particpate in communion and then asked to leave the church if the sin continues with no repentance". I should have added the part about the repentance.
I don't know what it means. That's why I asked. Does this apply to every Reformed denomination or just every PCA institution?
It sounds more encouraging than I thought, but can you explain exactly what this process means?
The process is exactly as described in scripture. Please refer to Matthew 18:15-20: 15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
If they go to another PCA church, or even another Reformed church, are they able to participate in communion there?
I am not Metmom, but I know of a solid local Baptist congregation who had an elder who was found to be a child molester.
I didn't know that metmom was Baptist.
They Matthew 18 and confronted him. They prayed with him. He did repent, but he is no longer an elder and they immediately reported him to the authorities and obviously is never again allowed to be alone with children. This is standard proceedure in biblical churches, and has always been.
I thought that you were PCA. However, were there any other repercussions to this elder? Was he excommunicated?
What is the history of your church on child molesters?
In my diocese, there are a half dozen priests and other clergy over the last 30 years that have been jailed. All have been removed from the ministry of the Church and been excommunicated. The bishop who oversaw some of this has has his name over the local Catholic university's library removed in shame (as well as our KofC Council's founding name) and been convicted of abetting (or some such). I don't believe that he has been excommunicated, but as he is still alive, the possibility still exists, since the investigation is still going on.
Ex-communication means nothing when you recognize the fact that salvation is through by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.
Ah. Nothing. Gotcha.
If you believe that ex-communication affects your salvation, then you are placing your trust in the church to save you and not Jesus.
Once again, I see the reason that people leave the Faith. Their faith is in themselves and their religion is what they construct. Everything is justified 'in the name of Jesus'. I hear that argument from everyone from Osteen to Swaggart to Oral Roberts to Bakker to Haggard to...
You keep telling me that nobody leaves the Faith for personal reasons and you keep showing me in your posts that that is exactly what you have done.
Churches don't save and churches can't save. Peter speaking here..... Acts 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
But as was ably demonstrated by the good Dr. E., it is the definitions and the doctrines as taught by the Church that teach orthodoxy, else anything goes and whatever springs from the whims of men may be construed as Christianity.
Likely. Good call.
Mormons believe in a non-virgin born Jesus who is the half-brother of Lucifer who was born of another one of Elohim's wives.
In other words, without the definition of the Church's teachings, anything goes. Thanks for the confirmation.
But how does that qualify as a response to Dr. E's statement?
See my last statement.
For all the grilling of lupie about the Reformed church, of which you are not even a member, how about answering some questions about your own church?
Like why it allows child molesting priests to continue to serve as priests and represent Christ to the parishioners?
Why hasn’t the Catholic church defrocked those priests? Why the mentality of *Once a priest, always a priest?*. when Catholics scorn OSAS?
Why serve communion to pro-abortion politicians? Why doesn’t the RCC enforce it’s OWN rules on its OWN congregants before throwing stones at others?
Why doesn’t the Catholic church ex-communicate those who are in sin by supporting abortion and homosexual marriage instead of granting them Catholic funerals?
Why the double standard of expecting absolute perfection out of others and giving themselves a pass in their own corrupt and immoral behavior?
Or is it just too much a matter of *Do as I say, not as I do?*
Catholics who hold to double standards, giving themselves and their church a pass while condemning others for the same behavior are the epitome of hypocrisy.
Physician, heal thyself.
Nobody owes you any answers as we answer to God for what we do, not men.
You still don't know.
Nice try but a epic fail.....
I do not know if Metmom is Baptist. I didn’t say that she is. I have no clue which church she attends, but from her testimony I know that she belongs to the church of Christ and is a member of His body. You might want to go back and read things more thoroughly. I sense a lot of confusion on your part because you seem to keep asking the same questions multiple times and distort what I posted.
Different Protestant and Reformed denominations have their own methods of knowing whether someone has been denied fellowship or is somehow under church discipline if the person is honest. Just like the Roman church. It all depends on the person. Someone who is excomunicated from the Roman church can go to any church and eat the wafer. Nobody will stop them at the door - even if there are an excommunicated somodomizing ex-priest who is out of prison.
In the end, God knows the heart. The LORD knows who is bringing judgement on themselves by partaking in the Lord’s supper while in rebellion to Him. Man can’t. A big man-made, man-run institution like the Roman church can’t. Nor can a small bible believing country church of 30 people.
Nobody leaves *the Faith* (capital *F*) because there is no such thing as the *Faith* (capital *F*).
People leave the Catholic church, just as they leave other churches, but leaving a church is not abandoning faith, it is not leaving Christ.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Faith is a very simple thing. It's just taking God at His word and what He says is really is in spite of the fact that we can't see it.
Nothing mysterious about it.
I suppose in one sense, you are correct. I left faith in the Catholic church for faith in Jesus and got saved in the process because it's faith in HIM that saves, not faith in the Catholic church.
Romans 10:8-13 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Another valiant try and another crash and burn fail.
Without the authority of and adherence to Scripture, anything goes. That explains why so many of the Catholic church doctrines are so off base.
The Church's definition of something is meaningless. It's what the word of God says that matters.
I’ve never personally know of a church outside Catholicism, which has had a problem with child molesting clergy.
I’ve seen reports of how the Catholic church handles it and seen reports of how other denominations handle it and there’s no comparison. The Catholic church is without excuse in it’s protecting of child molesting priests.
There is no Biblical basis for marriages against ones consent. There is no Biblical basis for marriages involving children. There is no Biblical basis for marriages involving the retarded. There is no Biblical basis for marriages between siblings and otherwise incestuous relationships. There is no Biblical basis for marriages that involve polygamy or bigamy. There is no Biblical basis for marriages involving fraud or deception. Yet all of these are causes for a declaration by the Church that the marriages were never valid.
May your everyday be like Easter Morning and your every night like Christmas Eve.
ping for later
That's a good description of Protestantism and its offspring. For them, it isn't really about the authority of Scripture or the adherence to Scripture. It's about the authority of their interpretations of Scripture.
It's what the word of God says, according to MY interpretation, that matters.
That's really what it comes down to.
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