Posted on 06/21/2014 5:16:01 PM PDT by don-o
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
I'll ask Christ for forgiveness...you can ask a man.
So you will ignore Holy Writ. Not a surprise. Just typical of the proddy revolt against The Word.
“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ “
There is another part to “forgiving sins” that seems to be spoken of here - church discipline, as in keeping someone in the church versus thrusting them out. That is spoken of in the letters to the Corinthians. Someone could do things over and over and keep saying “forgive me,” for example, and when does the church decide that the person isn’t sincere? It was the apostles, the first leaders, to whom who the Lord originally gave authority to decide that important matter, and from the Corinthian letters we see that then the leaders of new churches also had that authority. The New Testament also says for Christians to confess their sins to one another. The most grievous sins, though, like the man who had his father’s wife, would of course be taken up by the leadership.
This is akin to the Laodicean church of which Christ spoke in Revelation 3:15,16 -
“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth."
All the mainline churches will die of spiritual neglect. This is as it should be. God will purify His Church with the fire of the Holy Spirit and the dross will be burned away.
On the polls involved, the Pew is called the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, from September 28, 2010. Among other things, it reports that the following can come up with Genesis as the Bible’s first book (open-ended question, not multiple choice): white evangelicals (85%), black Protestants (83%), atheists and agnostics (71%), white Catholics (47%), Hispanic Catholics (29%).
With the other poll on the most and least “Biblically-minded” U.S. cities, there was a similar poll by the same group on the most “post-Christian” cities, and once again highly Catholic cities were the most post-Christian. Without Biblical fundamentalism, the U.S. would be like Europe and there would be no church left in the West. There’s so much that has shown me that the Catholic priesthood of the West would overall be happy to bring it down from within, like the Episcopal and PC-USA leaders know they’re doing.
It’s a lot of work from my phone to look up any more than I have in the past, but I took notes on the most and least “Bible-minded” cities, according to a Barna poll.
The least (bottom 10, not in order, though): Providence RI (82% Cath, 4% Amer. Baptist), New Bedford CT (84% Cath, 4% Jewish) , Buffalo (77% Cath), Portland ME (57% Cath, 10% UMC), Cedar Rapids IA (41% Cath, 13% UMC), San Francisco (56% Cath, 15% Jewish), Hartford (67% Cath, 7% UCC), and Phoenix (43% Cath, 13% LDS). The most Bible-minded: Chattanooga (Southern Baptist 37%, Cath 5.5%), Birmingham (SBC 49%, Cath 11%).
What the Bible-minded survey asked was if the person had read the Bible in the last week and if they strongly agreed in its accuracy. Other top ten “least-minded”: Albany, NY (the most “post-Christian” in the other poll and highly Catholic), Boston and Burlington, VT. The other most “Bible-minded”: Springfield MO, Roanoke, Shreveport, Charleston, Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville NC, Little Rock, Jackson and Knoxville.
Consider, too, how the states have legalized gay marriage, including what states and what order. It’s been a Catholic-led movement.
Post 67 was also supposed to be addressed to you. Sorry about that. And by the way, the information on religion in different cities come from City Data.
It’s really a race to the bottom (hell) for these folks.
On “gay marriage” and the states that have legalized it, here they are (this from research I did in the last 6 months): Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, D.C., Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Minnesota, New Jersey, Maryland, Maine, Washington, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, New Mexico, Utah. Typically the Catholic Church is the largest religious group in the state by far, although sometimes it’s the combined Catholic and mainline Protestant populations that bring about “gay marriage.” Iowa and Minnesota are two examples.
Iowa: Catholic Church is largest denonimation - 500,000, followed by the UMC 235,000 and ELCA 230,000. Minnesota: 32% mainline, 21% evangelical, 28% Catholic.
And California is in there, too.
Nancy Pelosi is a not a church. Just a heretic. The Episcopalian Church has sold his soul to the devil. People are leaving the faith by the thousands daily because it has sold out to the radical sodomites. Most are converting to Catholicism.
The Episcopal church ordains transponders?
I would walk out.
I meant transgenders Apple’s spell check has changed it several times.
Do you include those among ‘us’?
I appreciate the kind words, narses.
Are the national cathedral folks and boston university examples of mainstream Protestantism?
FWIW, there are only denominations. There is no such thing as ‘protestantism’. There’s no Office of Protestantism, Church of Protestantism. We talk about denominations.
The national cathedral presentation is representative of episcopalianism. Boston University is representative of northeastern US United Methodism, since each of Methodism’s dioceses in independently operated by their own bishops with their being no over-bishop to whom they report.
Is that presentation typical of the Assembly of God or of the Southern Baptists or even of conservative Methodism? No, it isn’t.
Or maybe Jesus got furious and turned over the tables.
The short answer is yes. In the episcopate structure of TEC, the top officer/priest is the presiding bishop. The physical work office/residence of the PB is in Manhattan/NYC. However, the PB's "home" church is The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington (D.C.), aka the "National Cathdral." The day-to-day operations and most of the preaching at all TEC cathedrals are managed by the Dean of the cathedral.
When the NATIONAL CATHEDRAL and Boston University (the university is nonsectarian, but is historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church) accept this, how is that NOT the mainstream of American Protestant thought?
...maybe so, narses, but as a fellow Catholic, I’m calling your Sola Scriptura comment out as needlessly provocative, and has caused a serious situation that all Christians should be concerned about, to be hijacked, giving leave to the numerous Catholic bashers on this forum to land their usual potshots...and this is coming from someone who has given back to these fellows as good as I got from them...
But the RCC needs to have the ability to make up things to continue its false teachings.
...that’s rich...coming from a bunch that gave us snake handlers, Jimmy Swaggert and Tammy Fae Bakker...and don’t you just love it when Benny Hinn cures ‘sick’ people on stage...
...nothing false about those kinds of teaching, nosiree...
...look, sir, every cultural organization has it’s whackadoodles...Catholics and Protestants are no different than anybody else...unfortunate that you seem only too eager to be ‘baited’ into arguing deep down into a rabbit hole, just as narses seemed too eager to initiate it in the first place...
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