Posted on 01/21/2013 7:45:16 PM PST by narses
Some areas of disagreement:
1. First off, I disagree with the underlying premise of the entire book - a premise that says the early church was untainted and uncorrupted by human tradition. I often ask this question to those who want to get back to the early church: Which early church do you want to be like?
(Excerpt) Read more at amazon.com ...
This is not an intertwining of Christian and pagan beliefs.
It show how Christianity took over the GROUND formerly occupied by pagan religion.
The so-called Pagan influences on Christianity are, in most cases, just the opposite: the Church deliberately plopped down her own Holy Days on pagan holy days IN ORDER TO OBLITERATE THE LATTER.
How does one take over, convert, Christianize a culture? By eliminating its deeply embedded practices and beliefs.
How best to do that? Put your own beliefs in their place.
How do post-Christian, secular, Church-haters seek to destroy the cultural embeddedness of Christianity? By plopping down their neo-pagan, post-Christian, anti-Christian practices and holidays and beliefs over the top of Christian practices, holidays and beliefs.
The French revolutionaries did this. The Bolsheviks did it. The Kwanza-cranks tried it. The secular Power-Worshiping chattering-class elitists are doing it right now.
This book is part of the effort to eliminate Christian culture and it does so by turning on its head what actually happened back then.
Christianity pushed pagan culture aside. Not forever. Weakened by the state take-over of the Church in Protestant Europe of the 1500s, we are now being pushed to the side.
Bu they can’t and won’t obliterate us. Force us underground, yes, obliterate us, no.
... an event that happened only in fictional "histories".
And the plan met the approval of the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch. These they set before the Apostles, and after they had prayed they laid their hands upon them.
(Acts 6:5-6)
Tibi gratias. The_Reader_David puts it a bit more smoothly: Constantine didn’t make Christianity the state religion of Rome, just made it legal (and gave it a boost up by having a newly built Christian city — in the sense it had lots of churches and no pagan temples — made the new capital). The Empire didn’t become formally a Christian state until decrees of Theodosius I in 380.
I apologize for over vividly remembering the story of the Milvian Bridge. But I really do not apologize for reminding people that Christianity ... a Divine Intervention in Human History ... did not eliminate it. Furthermore, the pagans did not go all that quietly, and had a revival or two of their own along the way.
Personally, I have always been rather proud of the church's connection to the classical world. To deny that the Roman Catholic Church is Roman, or that the Greek Orthodox Church is Greek, and that both subsumed elements of pre-Christian practice strikes me as the height of religious prudery.
Perhaps it is an over-reaction to those Catholic-hating early Protestant divines who sought to remove every practice they considered "pagan" from their new churches. For example, the Puritan leaders of the Bay Colony made the celebration of Christmas a crime.
I’ve taken the Scavi Tour and it is clear that the pagan cemetary was emptied of bodies by the pagans BEFORE IT WAS HANDED OVER TO CHRISTIANS. Christians then seized the tombs, buried their dead, and all of the area was buried. After all that, the first basilica was constructed on top of it. In other words, the place was Christianized BEFORE the basilica was constructed. Did you conveniently forget that part of the tour?
That says nothing about bishops or priests.
That passage is actually the institution of the diaconate. The offices of “bishop” (overseer) and “priest” (elder) are mentioned a bit later in the NT.
I disagree with a few things, history itself is only evidence of how things were done, it does not prove that it was done the way Jesus taught.
The verses below show that Jesus did not intend for the Apostles to start a hierarchy.
Mat 20:25
But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
26
But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
27
And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:
28
Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Also
Mat 23:5
But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,
6
And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,
7
And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
8
But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.
9
And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
10
Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.
11
But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
12
And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
The people who followed the Apostles did it out of trust.
In view of what Jesus said, how could any real believer trust some one that had just the opposite attitude?
The verses below show that Jesus did not intend for the Apostles to start a hierarchy.Wrong. But nice try.
The verses below show that Jesus did not intend for the Apostles to start a hierarchy.Wrong. But nice try.
Not sure how you get that out of those passages. "Whoever would be chief among you" sounds like it assumes the possibility of a "chief among you" which doesn't sound like complete egalitarianism to me. The whole passage is a warning against the misuse of authority, not a rejection of authority itself.
Besides, are you saying that the Apostles fumbled the ball when they, as St Paul writes, "appointed elders in every town" (cf Titus 1:5)?
Bottem line is that The words of Jesus are the Gospel,
Jesus brought in Gods new covenant which was told of by Jerimiah.
That changed many things.
The tithing system for instance, stoped with the destruction of Israel, it was brought back by the gentile Church but had nothing to do with the state of Israel.
Kings and priests are foretold in rev but that does not make void what Jesus said.
All other scripture can be adjusted for the sake of religion but the words of Jesus are not religion but they are what we live and die by.
The verses below show that Jesus did not intend for the Apostles to start a hierarchy.
Wrong. But nice try.
Not sure how you get that out of those passages. “Whoever would be chief among you” sounds like it assumes the possibility of a “chief among you” which doesn’t sound like complete egalitarianism to me. The whole passage is a warning against the misuse of authority, not a rejection of authority itself.
In my view Hitler and Stalin were the leaders of a hierarchy.
It seems like you are rejecting quite a bit of Holy Scripture by this post. This would mean Christ’s Church went wrong from the get-go.
Also, Jesus established a hierarchy: Peter, the Apostles, Disciples.
Aside from these problems, you position has a practical problem: there would be no consistent doctrine and teaching without some authority to determine orthodoxy of the universal Christian Church - One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
thanks for your reply...
I am not trying any thing, what i wrote was just what Jesus said.Nope, what you wrote (you, NOT Our Lord) was:
The verses below show that Jesus did not intend for the Apostles to start a hierarchy.And of course what you posted said no such thing. You simply misread Holy Scripture.
Thus, hierarchy=leaders of sacred rites.
By contrast --- if I may pun badly --- Hitler and Stalin were leaders of "lowerarchies."
It seems like you are rejecting quite a bit of Holy Scripture by this post. This would mean Christ’s Church went wrong from the get-go.
It went the way it was supposed to go, the object was for The Gospel of Jesus to be preached to all the world.
And that has been the case, People can believe it or they can try to turn it into a big scheme for power.
ravenwolf wrote:
Nope, what you wrote (you, NOT Our Lord) was:
The verses below show that Jesus did not intend for the Apostles to start a hierarchy.
The power the Apostles had came from the Holy spirit, they had no power to force any one to believe nor to do what they taught .
The Church they set up was based on faith, as you can see by Pauls writings to the churches, he was disturbed because they were in many things going against his teaching, and there was nothing he could do about it but to scold them.
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