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
Did you skip over that verse 8 where God says:
But about the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.
God calling the Son, God. Right there. Hard to miss or ignore.
I don't think you are being honest about it. I never said that. I would never "admit" something if I didn't believe it. It seems you are quite hung up on the GDH accusation and you ignored that I said most of the Founders' views on Christianity would probably be right in line with mine. Why would I call them heretics? Are you able to separate their heroics from their heresies? Is it possible that those who held unorthodox beliefs on Christian tenets just MAY be guilty of heresy ON THOSE SPECIFIC doctrines?
Go back and read my post again, I gave them PLENTY of respect!
But it absolutely, positively does, and if you doubt that for even a moment, then just consider: suppose our Founders' religious views had equated to those of, oh, just to pick one: the Pilgrims who landed in 1620.
Do you fantasize they would ever write a First Amendment, guaranteeing our Freedom of Religion?
HiTech RedNeck: "Let’s not point a finger at Washington without realizing that three more point back at us."
Far from trying to "point a finger at Washington", I am instead holding Washington up as a great example of what being American is all about.
Imho, our Founders religious views had profound effects on their Declaration and Constitution, from which we still benefit to this day.
That's why I'm here to request they not be treated on Free Republic as "God Damned Heretics".
Do you disagree?
But I do, FRiend.
My best wishes to you and your wife...
FRiend, that is a direct quote from Psalm 45:6 which refers not to God Himself, but to a human being.
As we have reviewed here now several times, Jesus himself referred to this Psalm and Psalm 82:6 in John 10:34, noting specifically that human beings are sometimes called "gods" in the Old Testament, as terms of highest respect.
That's why Jesus said, "I am God's Son", was not "blasphemy".
For the same reason that Kevmo does.
Many of our Founders were not traditional Trinitarian Christians, but were to some degree or another influenced by Enlightenment-age deism, Unitarianism and/or Freemasonry.
I'm here hoping to defend their views against the murderous hatred of folks like Kevmo.
Do I take you correctly to want both sides?
I meant to ping you to #2506
I'm pretty sure that was you doing that.
The smooth, demonic minion denial comes fashioned as questions, questioning the faithe/faithing of those we were raised to respect as Christian men and women founding a nation. The Mormonism 'apologists' do the same demonic deed and pat themselves on the back praising their clever manipulation of words and meanings.
“The smooth, demonic minion denial comes fashioned as questions, questioning the faithe/faithing of those we were raised to respect as Christian men and women founding a nation. The Mormonism ‘apologists’ do the same demonic deed and pat themselves on the back praising their clever manipulation of words and meanings.”
Spirited: A powerfully insightful explanation, one that goes beyond the linear and into deeper levels of meaning.
Jesus knows all men and knows what is in man.He knows the thoughts and intents behind every word of every post.
I see you ARE being quite vocal (Typal??) in this thread!!
Don’t waste TOO much time with the TarBabies of the world.
I've "blithely ignored" nothing.
When you demand book-length answers to your book-length post, then the only possible response it to refer you to one of my book sources.
You will find that link in my post #2,482.
As an aside, Elsie, do you recall any Biblical passage where an Angel/Angels was/were referred to as giants or gigantic?
So you either view Jesus Christ as a mere human, a demigod or a 'lower' god than the Father. From John 1 we know the Son of God as the One where "all things were made." So obviously you don't see the Son of God as a mere human. That leaves a demigod or a god for you to choose from who created all things.
John 1:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Yes, but Ephesians 3:19 does, and with the same "fullness" you used to claim Paul wants us to believe that Jesus is God Himself.
Nonsense! You are confusing divinity and deity. Go learn the difference between divinity(theioes) and deity (theotes). Things are divine if they are from God or associated with God, whereas God is (theotes). Now put away your childish reference to Ephesians 3:19. It's nothing more than mere pettifogging.
In fact, if John had merely wanted to affirm that Jesus was divine, there was a perfectly proper Greek word for it: θεῖος (theios, divine) (R. Brown 1966: 5; Bultmann 1971: 33–34; Carson 1991: 117). Nevertheless, the force of the anarthrous θεός is probably not so much that of definiteness as that of quality: Jesus “shared the essence of the Father, though they differed in person” (Wallace 1996: 269). Everything that can be said about God also can be said about the Word (Morris 1995: 68; Wallace 1996: 735). By contrast, wisdom is never referred to as θεός. Köstenberger, A. J. (2004). John (pp. 28–29). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
I did post previously the church affiliations for the founders:
FRiend, there are no "minion games" and no "setting aside" any gospel.
But, as partly explained in post #2,467, I have not addressed John 1 for the following reasons:
MHGGinTN: "The smooth, demonic minion denial comes fashioned as questions, questioning the faithe/faithing of those we were raised to respect as Christian men and women founding a nation."
But I am not "questioning" our Founders' faith, I'm telling you they were not, in large part, traditional Christians.
Instead, their Christianity was influenced, to greater or lesser degrees, by their Age of Enlightenment, by deism, Unitarianism and Freemasonry.
Those are not "questions", they are facts.
MHGGinTN: "The Mormonism 'apologists' do the same demonic deed and pat themselves on the back praising their clever manipulation of words and meanings."
I am not Mormon, but some of my relatives are, and they are the nicest, best people you can imagine.
There is nothing "demonic" about them, and for you to claim such says nothing about them, and a lot about you.
That is evidently the conclusion you've been trying to drive me to, according to your twisted, specious logic.
First you lump all the Founding Fathers together into a "group," so to speak of "their" religious views. As if such were monolithic. Among the Founding Fathers are to be found Trinitarians, Unitarians, and/or Deists.
A Christian by definition is a Trinitarian. For a Christian to deny the divinity of Christ might be heretical. But it might also be the consequence of a certain "mental blindness," wherein one can read this scripture —
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.— and not notice that it declares Jesus Christ, the Word and Son of God, is "One" with the Father from the Beginning. That He is of the same divine substance as the Father, and thus Himself fully divine.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. — John 1:1–5
Evidently, BroJoeK, you need to see "Jesus Is God" spelled out for you in the Holy Scriptures in just so many words. Since that statement is not there (AFAIK "in so many words"), you feel you have reason to doubt.
And you seem to be here to promote that doubt. Or at least, to upset as many Christians as possible.
Do you suppose the Unitarians and/or Deists among the Founding Fathers took issue in any way with the Trinitarians? Or vice versa? Certainly, neither Thomas Jefferson nor Benjamin Franklin disparaged those who did not share their own particular religious views (whatever they may have been; that's not for me to say, it's a matter between them and God) — they were fully committed to John Locke's views on religious toleration. They didn't go running around trying to stir up trouble among the brethren as you do, BJK.
Anyhoot, the United States of America is not a "religious establishment." The Constitution was not conceived of by a band of priests, or a collection of Buddhist monks.
It was conceived of by a "band of brothers" with deep cultural roots in the ancient cities of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome.... [c.f. Russell Kirk's The Roots of American Order.]
They were also deeply influenced by the intellectual revolution occasioned by the brilliant achievements of Sir Isaac Newton, who seemed to have "mechanized" the universe.... The Founders were all to some extent "children of the Enlightenment."
Point is, the Founders are irreducible to the convenient categories of your preference. So what is the point of your exercise, to "force" certain FReeper Christians to declare at least some of them "heretic?"
Christianity is not about what you know. It's about how you live. And God alone is sole judge of that, certainly not me.
Pace, my friend.
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