It's ironic that a conservative website would have a forum dominated by a liberal church. We can only hope that the conservatives in it will change the organization's culture, but I'm not hopeful. They reject the absolute authority of Scripture and instead believe their hierarchy has that power, not unlike liberals wanting govt to have absolute power.
I'm reminded of this authors beautiful testimony and the response to it.
Bible in hand, I proclaimed that "the absolute and final authority in all matters of faith and morals is the Bible, God's own Word."
Three days later, the archbishop of Vancouver, B.C., James Carney, called me to his office. I was then officially silenced and forbidden to preach in his archdiocese.
INDEED.
Well put.
AMEN!
But sadly, all liberalism is similar. Those who so easily cast off the authority of the written words of Scripture just as easily cast off the authority of the written words of the Constitution.
Same error.
"Bible in hand, I proclaimed that "the absolute and final authority in all matters of faith and morals is the Bible, God's own Word."
Three days later, the archbishop of Vancouver, B.C., James Carney, called me to his office. I was then officially silenced and forbidden to preach in his archdiocese."
And because Romans 8:28 is mercifully true and miraculously consistent, that seemingly unhappy event led to the author's departure from Rome and into the pure light of the Gospel.
As God willed. A happy ending.
“We can only hope that the conservatives in it will change the organization’s culture, but I’m not hopeful. They reject the absolute authority of Scripture and instead believe their hierarchy has that power, not unlike liberals wanting govt to have absolute power.”
When one has to work their way to heaven they don’t want to encumber themselves with too many sins they have to avoid. The point about the comparison between Liberals and Romanists is spot on. The Liberals are looking for a secular salvation and receive their atonement by way of governmental machinations.
Link: http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/
The ruling class's appetite for deference, power, and perks grows. The country class disrespects its rulers, wants to curtail their power and reduce their perks. The ruling class wears on its sleeve the view that the rest of Americans are racist, greedy, and above all stupid. The country class is ever more convinced that our rulers are corrupt, malevolent, and inept. The rulers want the ruled to shut up and obey. The ruled want self-governance. The clash between the two is about which side's vision of itself and of the other is right and which is wrong. Because each side -- especially the ruling class -- embodies its views on the issues, concessions by one side to another on any issue tend to discredit that side's view of itself. One side or the other will prevail. The clash is as sure and momentous as its outcome is unpredictable.In this clash, the ruling class holds most of the cards: because it has established itself as the fount of authority, its primacy is based on habits of deference. Breaking them, establishing other founts of authority, other ways of doing things, would involve far more than electoral politics. Though the country class had long argued along with Edmund Burke against making revolutionary changes, it faces the uncomfortable question common to all who have had revolutionary changes imposed on them: are we now to accept what was done to us just because it was done? Sweeping away a half century's accretions of bad habits -- taking care to preserve the good among them -- is hard enough. Establishing, even reestablishing, a set of better institutions and habits is much harder, especially as the country class wholly lacks organization. By contrast, the ruling class holds strong defensive positions and is well represented by the Democratic Party. But a two to one numerical disadvantage augurs defeat, while victory would leave it in control of a people whose confidence it cannot regain.
Certainly the country class lacks its own political vehicle -- and perhaps the coherence to establish one. In the short term at least, the country class has no alternative but to channel its political efforts through the Republican Party, which is eager for its support. But the Republican Party does not live to represent the country class. For it to do so, it would have to become principles-based, as it has not been since the mid-1860s. The few who tried to make it so the party treated as rebels: Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. The party helped defeat Goldwater. When it failed to stop Reagan, it saddled his and subsequent Republican administrations with establishmentarians who, under the Bush family, repudiated Reagan's principles as much as they could.