Firstly, I do not own Free Republic. I am a guest lat the invitation of Jim Robinson, and do not make policy.
Secondly, you ask that we treat your false views of Christ with forbearance ad resect. I treated you with respect, while carefully examining your views. I came to the conclusion you are indeed a gnostic, and rejecting the deity of Christ. I would not be kindly disposed to someone calling my mother a slut. Likewise, I am not kindly disposed to those with anti-Christ views.
I would not be kindly disposed to someone calling my mother a slut. Likewise, I am not kindly disposed to those with anti-Christ views.
***Well said.
I didn't ask Jim Robinson to change his policy, I do ask you to change your heart about people who disagree with your particular religious doctrines.
Those include not just yours truly, BroJoeK, but also our Founders and many "restorationists" Christians today.
GarySpFc: "Secondly, you ask that we treat your false views of Christ with forbearance ad resect.
I treated you with respect, while carefully examining your views.
I came to the conclusion you are indeed a gnostic, and rejecting the deity of Christ."
Should I take it that history is not your strong point?
Historically, Gnostics did not deny the deity of Christ, rather they insisted on it, to the exclusion of his humanity.
Historically, Gnostics were opposed by people who came to be called "Arians" -- those who took a more literal interpretation of the New Testament, and while accepting Christ's divinity, insisted that Jesus was not God Himself.
Both the Gnostics and Arians were condemned to death by Roman Empire authorities -- beginning at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
Those councils chose a middle ground, which claimed that Jesus was both God and Man, united in a trinity with the Holy Ghost.
Today, after millennia of persecutions, there are virtually no traditional-Gnostics left -- those who said that Jesus was only God, not human.
So whatever "spiritualism" we see today would be better labeled as "neo-Gnostics".
Arianism, however is a different story...
"Arianism" -- the idea that Jesus was something less than God Himself -- has always appealed to many people, including Jews and Muslims.
Among Christians, that was arguably the dominant idea, based on the New Testament, until eradicated by the Roman Empire, beginning in 325 AD.
Then, along with the Protestant Reformation came more anti-Trinitarians, especially amongst the Anabaptists (my ancestors).
Amongst our Founders, very few showed any signs of belief in Trinitarian orthodoxy, so most can be said to be, in effect, Unitarian-Christians.
Today such Arian-Unitarianism goes by the name "restorationists", and includes circa 50 million Christians world-wide.
None of this has anything to do with "Gnosticism".
On this particular thread there has been some speculation as to which of those denominations yours truly, BroJoeK, belongs to -- Mormon? Jehovah's Witnesses?
The answer is: none of the above.
I attend a small rural church, officially Trinitarian, but which seldom if ever dwells on the subject.
We say the non-Trinitarian Apostles Creed, and sermons focus on vital matters like our own sinfulness, and how we can be saved from it, not on the theology of a triune God-head.
GarySpFc: "I would not be kindly disposed to someone calling my mother a slut.
Likewise, I am not kindly disposed to those with anti-Christ views."
I have neither called your mother a "slut" nor expressed a single "anti-Christ view".
I am merely here to request that those who accept the New Testament words on Jesus -- i.e., our Founders, today's "restorationists" -- be treated with forbearance and respect, especially in a Free Republic News/Activism forum.
Why is that too much to ask from GarySpFc?