Posted on 09/20/2013 4:29:03 AM PDT by spirited irish
“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).
“And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit." (Rev. 9:1)
In his Concise Commentary Matthew Henry identifies falling stars as tepid, indecisive, weak or apostate clergy who,
"Having ceased to be a minister of Christ, he who is represented by this star becomes the minister of the devil; and lets loose the powers of hell against the churches of Christ."
John identifies antichrists, in this case clergy who serve the devil rather than Christ, sequentially. First, like Bultmann, Teilhard de Chardin, Robert Funk, Paul Tillich, and John Shelby Spong, they specifically deny the living, personal Holy Trinity in favor of Gnostic pagan, immanent or Eastern pantheist conceptions. Though God the Father Almighty in three Persons upholds the souls of men and maintains life and creation, His substance is not within nature (space-time dimension) as pantheism maintains, but outside of it. Sinful men live within nature and are burdened by time and mortality; God is not.
Second, the specific denial of the Father logically negates Jesus the Christ, the Word who was in the beginning (John 1), was with God, and is God from the creation of all things (1 John 1). In a pre-incarnate theophany, Jesus is the Angel who spoke “mouth to mouth” to Moses (Num. 12:6-9; John 9:20) and at sundry times and in many ways “spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all…” (Hebrews 1:1) Jesus the Christ is the incarnate Son of God who is the life and light of men, who by His shed blood on the Cross died for the remission of all sins and bestowed the privilege of adoption on all who put their faith in Him.
Therefore, to deny the Holy Father is to logically deny the deity of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, hence,
“…every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist . . . and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:3).
According to Peter (2 Peter 2:1), falling stars will work among the faithful, teaching damnable heresies that deny the Lord, cause the fall of men into unbelief, and bring destruction upon themselves:
“The natural parents of modern unbelief turn out to have been the guardians of belief.” Many thinking people came at last “to realize that it was religion, not science or social change that gave birth to unbelief. Having made God more and more like man---intellectually, morally, emotionally---the shapers of religion made it feasible to abandon God, to believe simply in man.” (James Turner of the University of Michigan in “American Babylon,” Richard John Neuhaus, p. 95)
Falling Stars and Damnable Heresy
Almost thirty years ago, two well-respected social science scholars, William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark found themselves alarmed by what they saw as a rising tide of irrationalism, superstition and occultism---channeling cults, spirit familiars, necromancers, Wiccans, Satanists, Luciferians, goddess worshippers, 'gay' shamans, Hermetic magicians and other occult madness at every level of society, particularly within the most influential--- Hollywood, academia and the highest corridors of political power.
Like many scientists, they were equally concerned by Christian opposition to naturalistic evolution. As is common in the science community, they assumed the cause of these social pathologies was somehow due to fundamentalism, their term for authentic Christian theism as opposed to liberalized Christianity. Yet to their credit, the research they undertook to discover the cause was conducted both scientifically and with great integrity. What they found was so startling it caused them to re-evaluate their attitude toward authentic Christian theism. Their findings led them to say:
"It would be a mistake to conclude that fundamentalists oppose all science (when in reality they but oppose) a single theory (that) directly contradicts the bible. But it would be an equally great mistake to conclude that religious liberals and the irreligious possess superior minds of great rationality, to see them as modern personalities who have no need of the supernatural or any propensity to believe unscientific superstitions. On the contrary...they are much more likely to accept the new superstitions. It is the fundamentalists who appear most virtuous according to scientific standards when we examine the cults and pseudo-sciences proliferating in our society today." ("Superstitions, Old and New," The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. IV, No. 4; summer, 1980)
In more detail they observed that authentic ‘born again’ Christians are far less likely to accept cults and pseudoscientific beliefs while the irreligious and liberalized Christians (i.e., progressive Catholics, Protestant emergent, NAR, word faith, prosperity gospel) are open to unscientific notions. In fact, these two groups are most disposed toward occultism.
As Bainbridge and Stark admitted, evolution directly contradicts the Bible, beginning with the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo. This means that evolution is the antithesis of the Genesis account. For this reason, discerning Christians refuse to submit to the evolutionary thinking that has swept Western and American society. Nor do they accept the evolutionary theism brought into the whole body of the Church by weak, tepid, indecisive, or apostate clergy.
Over eighty years ago, Rev. C. Leopold Clarke wrote that priests who embrace evolution (evolutionary theists) are apostates from the ‘Truth as it is in Jesus.’ (1 John2:2) Rev. Clarke, a lecturer at a London Bible college, discerned that evolution is the antithesis to the Revelation of God in the Deity of Jesus Christ, thus it is the greatest and most active agent of moral and spiritual disintegration:
“It is a battering-ram of unbelief---a sapping and mining operation that intends to blow Religion sky-high. The one thing which the human mind demands in its conception of God, is that, being Almighty, He works sovereignly and miraculously---and this is the thing with which Evolution dispenses….Already a tremendous effect, on a wide scale has been produced by the impact of this teaching---an effect which can only be likened to the…collapse of foundations…” (Evolution and the Break-Up of Christendom, Philip Bell, creation.com, Nov. 27, 2012)
The faith of the Christian Church and of the average Christian has had, and still has, its foundation as much in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis, the book of beginnings revealed ‘mouth to mouth’ by the Angel to Moses, as in that of the person and deity of Jesus Christ. But how horrible a travesty of the sacred office of the Christian Ministry to see church leaders more eager to be abreast of the times, than earnestly contending for the Faith once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). It is high time, said Rev. Clarke, that the Church,
“…. separated herself from the humiliating entanglement attending her desire to be thought up to date…What, after all, have custodians of Divine Revelation to do making terms with speculative Biology, which has….no message of comfort or help to the soul?” (ibid)
The primary tactic employed by priests eager to accommodate themselves and the Church to modern science and evolutionary thinking is predictable. It is the argument that evolution is entirely compatible with the Bible when we see Genesis, especially the first three chapters, in a non-literal, non-historical context. This is the argument embraced and advanced by mega-church pastor Timothy J. Keller.
With a position paper Keller published with the theistic evolutionary organization Bio Logos he joined the ranks of falling stars (Catholic and Protestant priests) stretching back to the Renaissance. Their slippery-slide into apostasy began when they gave into the temptation to embrace a non-literal, non-historical view of Genesis. (A response to Timothy Keller’s ‘Creation, Evolution and Christian Laypeople,” Lita Cosner, Sept. 9, 2010, creation.com)
This is not a heresy unique to modern times. The early Church Fathers dealt with this damnable heresy as well, counting it among the heretical tendencies of the Origenists. Fourth-century Fathers such as John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Ephraim the Syrian, all of whom wrote commentaries on Genesis, specifically warned against treating Genesis as an unhistorical myth or allegory. John Chrysostom strongly warned against paying heed to these heretics,
“…let us stop up our hearing against them, and let us believe the Divine Scripture, and following what is written in it, let us strive to preserve in our souls sound dogmas.” (Genesis, Creation, and Early Man, Fr. Seraphim Rose, p. 31)
As St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote, higher theological, spiritual meaning is founded upon humble, simple faith in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis and one cannot apprehend rightly the Scriptures without believing in the historical reality of the events and people they describe. (ibid, Seraphim Rose, p. 40)
In the integral worldview teachings of the Fathers, neither the literal nor historical meaning of the Revelations of the pre-incarnate Jesus, the Angel who spoke to Moses, can be regarded as expendable. There are at least four critically important reasons why. First, to reduce the Revelation of God to allegory and myth is to contradict and usurp the authority of God, ultimately deny the deity of Jesus Christ; twist, distort, add to and subtract from the entire Bible and finally, to imperil the salvation of believers.
Scenarios commonly proposed by modern Origenists posit a cleverly disguised pantheist/immanent nature deity subject to the space-time dimension and forces of evolution. But as noted previously, it is sinful man who carries the burden of time, not God. This is a crucial point, for when evolutionary theists add millions and billions of zeros (time) to God they have transferred their own limitations onto Him. They have ‘limited’ God and made Him over in their own image. This is not only idolatrous but satanic.
Additionally, evolution inverts creation. In place of God’s good creation from which men fell there is an evolutionary escalator starting at the bottom with matter, then progressing upward toward life, then up and through the life and death of millions of evolved creatures that preceded humans by millions of years until at long last an apish humanoid emerges into which a deity that is always in a state of becoming (evolving) places a soul.
Evolution amputates the entire historical precedent from the Gospel and makes Jesus Christ unnecessary as the atheist Frank Zindler enthusiastically points out:
“The most devastating thing that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a saviour. And I submit that puts Jesus…into the ranks of the unemployed. I think evolution absolutely is the death knell of Christianity.” (“Atheism vs. Christianity,” 1996, Lita Cosner, creation.com, June 13, 2013)
None of this was lost on Darwin’s bulldog, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1985). Huxley was thoroughly familiar with the Bible, thus he understood that if Genesis is not the authoritative Word of God, is not historical and literal despite its’ symbolic and poetic elements, then the entirety of Scripture becomes a collection of fairytales resulting in tragic downward spiraling consequences as the Catholic Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation makes clear in part:
“By denying the historical truth of the first chapters of Genesis, theistic evolutionism has fostered a preoccupation with natural causes almost to the exclusion of supernatural ones. By denying the several supernatural creative acts of God in Genesis, and by downplaying the importance of the supernatural activity of Satan, theistic evolutionists slip into a naturalistic mentality which seeks to explain everything in terms of natural causes. Once this mentality takes hold, it is easy for men to regard the concept of spiritual warfare as a holdover from the days of primitive superstition. Diabolical activity is reduced to material or psychological causes. The devil and his demons come to be seen as irrelevant. Soon ‘hell’ joins the devil and his demons in the category of antiquated concepts. And the theistic evolutionist easily makes the fatal mistake of thinking that he has nothing more to fear from the devil and his angels. According to Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of Rome, there is a tremendous increase in diabolical activity and influence in the formerly Christian world. And yet most of the bishops of Europe no longer believe in the existence of evil spirits….To the Fathers of the Church who believed in the truth of Genesis, this would be incredible. But in view of the almost universal acceptance of theistic evolution, it is hardly surprising.” (The Difference it makes: The Importance of the Traditional Doctrine of Creation, Hugh Owen, kolbecenter.org)
Huxley had ‘zero’ respect for modern Origenists and received enormous pleasure from heaping piles of hot coals and burning contempt upon them, thereby exposing their shallow-reasoning, hypocrisy, timidity, fear of non-acceptance, and unfaithfulness. With sarcasm dripping from his words he quipped,
“I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history; the identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them. If the covenant with Abraham was not made; if circumcision and sacrifices were not ordained by Jahveh; if the “ten words” were not written by God’s hand on the stone tables; if Abraham is more or less a mythical hero, such as Theseus; the story of the Deluge a fiction; that of the Fall a legend; and that of the creation the dream of a seer; if all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently real events have no more value as history than have the stories of the regal period of Rome—what is to be said about the Messianic doctrine, which is so much less clearly enunciated? And what about the authority of the writers of the books of the New Testament, who, on this theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fictions for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of Christian dogma upon legendary quicksands?” (Darwin’s Bulldog---Thomas Huxley, Russell Grigg, creation.com, Oct. 14, 2008)
Pouring more contempt on them he asked,
“When Jesus spoke, as of a matter of fact, that "the Flood came and destroyed them all," did he believe that the Deluge really took place, or not? It seems to me that, as the narrative mentions Noah’s wife, and his sons’ wives, there is good scriptural warranty for the statement that the antediluvians married and were given in marriage; and I should have thought that their eating and drinking might be assumed by the firmest believer in the literal truth of the story. Moreover, I venture to ask what sort of value, as an illustration of God’s methods of dealing with sin, has an account of an event that never happened? If no Flood swept the careless people away, how is the warning of more worth than the cry of “Wolf” when there is no wolf? If Jonah’s three days’ residence in the whale is not an “admitted reality,” how could it “warrant belief” in the “coming resurrection?” … Suppose that a Conservative orator warns his hearers to beware of great political and social changes, lest they end, as in France, in the domination of a Robespierre; what becomes, not only of his argument, but of his veracity, if he, personally, does not believe that Robespierre existed and did the deeds attributed to him?” (ibid)
Concerning Matthew 19:5:
“If divine authority is not here claimed for the twenty-fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, what is the value of language? And again, I ask, if one may play fast and loose with the story of the Fall as a “type” or “allegory,” what becomes of the foundation of Pauline theology?” (ibid)
And concerning Cor. 15:21-22:
“If Adam may be held to be no more real a personage than Prometheus, and if the story of the Fall is merely an instructive “type,” comparable to the profound Promethean mythus, what value has Paul’s dialectic?” (ibid)
After much thought, C.S. Lewis concluded that evolution is the central, most radical lie at the center of a vast network of lies within which modern Westerners are entangled while Rev. Clarke identifies the central lie as the Gospel of another Spirit. The fiendish aim of this Spirit is to help men lose God, not find Him, and by contradicting the Divine Redeemer, compromising Priests are serving this Spirit and its’ diabolical purposes. To contradict the Divine Redeemer is the very essence of unfaithfulness, and that it should be done while reverence is professed,
“…. is an illustration of the intellectual and moral topsy-turvydom of Modernism…’He whom God hath sent speaketh the Words of God,’ claimed Christ of Himself (John 3:34), and no assumption of error can hold water in the face of that declaration, without blasphemy.” Evolutionary theists are serving the devil, therefore “no considerations of Christian charity, of tolerance, of policy, can exonerate Christian leaders or Churches who fail to condemn and to sever themselves from compromising, cowardly, shilly-shallying priests”---the falling stars who “challenge the Divine Authority of Jesus Christ.” (ibid)
The rebuttals, warnings and counsels of the Fathers against listening to Origenists (and their modern evolutionary counterparts) indicates that the spirit of antichrist operating through modern rationalistic criticism of the Revelation of God is not a heresy unique to our times but was inveighed against by early Church Fathers.
From the scholarly writings of the Eastern Orthodox priest, Fr. Seraphim Rose, to the incisive analysis, rebuttals and warnings of the Catholic Kolbe Center, creation.com, Creation Research Institute, Rev. Clarke, and many other stalwart defenders of the faith once delivered, all are a clear, compelling call to the whole body of the Church to hold fast to the traditional doctrine of creation as it was handed down from the Apostles, for as God spoke and Jesus is the Living Word incarnate, it is incumbent upon the faithful to submit their wills to the Divine Will and Authority of God rather than to the damnable heresy proffered by falling stars eager to embrace naturalistic science and the devil's antithesis--- evolution. But if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord,
“…you have your choice: choose this day that which pleases you, whom you would rather serve….but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15
Is Kevmo’s job here to make certain no post of BroJoeK’s goes unanswered — in the most vile, murderous language imaginable?
***Murderous? Where do you get that? Such bowlsheet would obviously be removed on a religion thread. So, aren’t you happy that you get to push your heresy here with relative impunity? Is BroJoke’s job here to make certain that Christ’s warning against false teachers should be ignored by “reasonable” people? That Christ was being unChrist-like when he keyed up on heretics like brojoke?
Jesus warned us of false teachers who would call themselves christians and deny the very central tenets of the faith. It is perhaps better for someone who IS a christian not to call themselves christian than for someone who is a false teacher to call themselves a christian so they can poison the well of the faith. Jesus was vehement in his denunciation of false teachers & heretics, and so I follow in His steps on this issue.
The very first sentence of this thread:
“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).
And also in this thread...
John identifies antichrists, ... they specifically deny the living, personal Holy Trinity in favor of Gnostic pagan, immanent or Eastern pantheist conceptions.
So you admit to making unfounded accusations.
Please quote any and all statements "proving" your accusations.
FRiend, everything in the Bible is religion, period.
To call certain texts "religious" is not an "insult" and can in no possible way be false.
Some of the Bible is considered "historical" in a non-religious, academic-standards sort of way.
Academic standards for what qualifies as "history" can vary, but one person who's applied the most stringent academic standards to the Bible is John Domonic Crossan.
Crossan's standards allow as "historical" events which have multiple attestations -- for example, that plaque, "King of the Jews" is recorded in all four Gospels.
Crossan would say that is certainly historical, as is the role of Pontius Pilate, the Roman Prefect.
But Crossan would deny "historical" status to, for example, private conversations without witnesses.
Crossan also gives credit for events which may have only one Biblical source, but are confirmed by other non-biblical sources.
FRiend, Kevmo, that's real history -- it's how history is supposed to work.
Your religious beliefs are something different.
They require you to accept the Bible as true regardless of whatever historical or archaeological or any other scientific confirmations you might wish.
The Bible was not written or intended to be confirmed scientifically, and if you insist on scientific confirmations, then you yourself are not religious enough to believe.
Yes, it does turn out that much of the Bible can be confirmed by various tests, but those tests and any confirmations, cannot be, must not be the source or the rock of your belief, period.
What I'm telling you is that "historicity" and scientific confirmations are irrelevant to your belief.
Sure, some will go in your favor, while others do not, regardless, you still believe for reasons which have nothing to do with those tests.
Others also believe, for their own reasons, beliefs which are not identical to yours but still beliefs which do not deserve such deadly epithets as "damable heretics".
I admit to a mistake. But it is no mistake to bring attention to your trolling behavior over so many years. So it would not surprise me that a troll like you would drift into heresy, but it’s neither here nor there. Unless you want to call yourself a christian.
Thanks for bumping the thread T4BTT
Take a pill, psycho.
Please quote any and all statements “proving” your accusations.
***I just did. What are you, in copy & paste mode, not even reading the post? It wouldn’t surprise me.
FRiend, everything in the Bible is religion, period.
***bzzzt, wrong. When Romans 16 mentions Erastus as the city Treasurer and we can see for ourselves an inscription that says exactly the same thing, it is an intersection with undeniable historicity. There are thousands of such intersections with mundane things in the bible, but that would be far, far above your head. Especially since you’re here to push a heretical idealogy and the historicity gets in your way. Why I even bother educating you is actually what’s crossing my mind at this time, it’s throwing pearls after swine. You’re no historian, your just a simple heretic.
No doubt Jesus was a psycho when He confronted the false teachers of His day.
Sorry for that senior moment, really, I've studied these matters -- at least somewhat -- and "get" what it's all about.
More important, when needed, I know where to go for precise data.
My basic attitude toward all that theological fantasizing is the same as Rhett Butler's, at the very end, after the war and everything is lost: "Frankly my dear..."
I prefer to think that the Bible means what it says, and says what it means, and where the meanings are not clear, that's because they were not intended to be clear, and we are free to interpret them according to our best judgments.
You can interpret them as you see them...
So, if poor benighted souls, like our own Kevmo, imagine this or that interpretation to be "damnable heresy", that is his problem, it's a theological sickness which desperately needs treatment, but in the final analysis, as the man said, "Frankly, my dear...".
Our Founding Fathers were, generally, deistic-Freemason-Unitarian Christians, and that is the religious viewpoint I am here to defend -- regardless of how insanely Kevmo or anybody else may howl about it.
I prefer to think that the Bible means what it says,
***Hogwash. John 1:1 The Word was God. John1:14 The Word became flesh and we beheld His glory, the the glory of the one and only Son,.... This and other scriptures you call “Proof Texts” and deny their simple meaning because you are pushing the heresy of denying the Deity of Christ.
and says what it means, and where the meanings are not clear, that’s because they were not intended to be clear
***Other than the fact that you’ve been twisting what the bible says and pushing heretical teachings onto this thread, that’s a very noble sentiment.
Of course "Damnable Heresy" is what the Christian churches were all about eliminating for the better part of 1,500 years.
And they did their level best -- they murdered "heretics", burned them at the stake, draw-and-quartered them, whatever it took they did, to eliminate "Damnable Heresy".
And today we have our FRiend, Kevmo, supporting spirited irish in carrying on the ancient tradition.
Thankfully, our Founding Fathers guaranteed that people like Kevmo will never again have the political power to enforce their wills on "Damnable Heresy".
And this one thinks he's Jean Dixon and knows dead men better than they know themselves.
Love Christ. Avoid His followers.
You skipped 500 years, right to where Jesus, who was God Himself, says that heretics like you are worthy of less than contempt. He calls you “sons of your father the devil” for spreading false teachings. Of course, you would accuse Jesus of not being Christ like when He does such a thing.
How did that happen?
FRiend, again I challenge you to quote where I have denied anything the Bible actually says about Jesus.
What I have challenged is your interpretations, interpretations which fall into the category of "orthodoxy".
But "orthodoxy" is a very broad category, and today's liberal/progressive "orthodoxy" makes all of us here is some sense "heretics".
Even amongst Christians, "orthodoxy" is very hard to define in hundreds and hundreds of Protestant denominations.
For many years, the Roman Catholic Church labeled all Protestants as "heretics" and supported wars to murder them.
Today the Church looks more kindly on most Protestants, especially since Catholicism competes so well religiously against Protestants in many areas of the world.
Today I couldn't say where, exactly, the Church draws its lines, but I am certain they don't make as big a fuss over "heresy" as they used to.
I mean, seriously, FRiends, think of this: if Nancy Pelosi (or for that matter Adolf Hitler) is not an official "heretic", then how could somebody as innocent as yours truly, BroJoeK, meet any criteria for "Damnable Heretic"?
Please provide quotes where I "taught" anything contrary to what Jesus actually said.
What I have challenged is your interpretations,
***Bowlsheet, heretic. You want to argue that what you call “proof texts” don’t actually say what they do, that’s your business, but it is still heresy.
I'll tell you what, FRiend, I'll make you a deal: I'll read & study your article just as carefully as you read & study some of John Domonic Crossan's books.
Now, isn't that fair?
You report back to me when you've read some of Crossan's books, and then I'll go study your article, OK?
I see no need to go fetch anything you ask for, heretic.
Thanks 4 bumping the thread T4BTT
I think being christian is something to aspire to. I'm not arrogant enough to lay claim personification.
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