Classical Protestant Resurgence: how the PCA got its mojo back

The Aquila Report ^ | 24 May 2010 | Chris Hutchinson

[metmom]

Yeah. Lots.

I’ve had my fill of the naughty teacher threads.

They turn my stomach.

[lupie]

Therefore, without God's free, unmerited, merciful gift of grace through faith in Christ, all men will "choose" poorly because that's who we are and what we do unless God first regenerates us to "know the things of God," to obey, repent and believe to the saving of our souls.

Amen.

For a long time, I read many biblical doctinal debates among Calvinists, Armeniens, Roman catholics and my eyes always glazed over trying to understand and I would go away more confused than ever. Then one day, by His grace, the simplicity of what you just said finally sunk in, and all things made sense. It is the only way that it all fits together in setting God apart from man and makes Him God and us fallen creatures. All most come from God, or He is not God, or we are part God.

[daniel1212]

Mileage and quality varied, but Pope Alexander is acknowledged to be the worst.* And as pointed out before, "unbroken succession" of Peter-popes includes some who even on moral grounds would not be qualified to be or remain church members even in the universal church, (1Cor. 5:11-13) let alone leaders, (1Tim. 3:1-19) but were more like Judas who was was replaced to maintain the original number of foundation (Eph. 2:20) apostles, (Acts 1:17; Rev. 21:14) while none was evident for the apostle James. (Acts 12:2)

Moreover, the method in Acts 1 was by the O.T. means of casting lots, (Josh. 14:2; Prov. 16:33) which was contrary to the politics which were so evident in papal elections (though as with infallibility, it can be argued that the God-ordained end justifies any means). And while the method of election varied through the centuries, it was never that of Acts 1 (Acts 6:3,6; 13:1-3 shows the method for others). And which election also was not thus as prolonged, as the "unbroken" succession of ecclesiastical Petrine progeny includes gaps of up to 3 years, or sometimes with antipopes, which is what the sedevacantists called PJ2, etc. --------------

*From http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/search/label/Pope%20Alexander%20VI

"..in 1492, Pope Innocent VIII died.

The ensuing conclave saw Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia elected as Alexander VI (1492-1503), although he was the only non-Italian in an electorate of twenty-three cardinals, of whom eight were nephews of former popes. (Roger Collins, Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy, New York, NY: Basic Books 2009, pg 339)

Such was the inbred power structure that really had ruled, in one form or another, for centuries.

Thirty five years as cardinal had provided him with much wealth, numerous offices and several palaces, all of which were offered to fellow members of the college in return for their votes in the conclave (ibid).

Fortunately, bribery in papal elections was outlawed after this. Eamon Duffy notes, "at the time of his election [he] was already the father of eight children, by at least three women. That such a man should have seemed a fit successor to Peter speaks volumes about the degradation of the papacy.

[A Spaniard,] he held sixeen bishoprics in Spain alone, and his office of vice chancellor was the most lucrative post in the Curia.

His pontificate has long been regarded as the most scandalous and dissolute of any pope, certainly since the tenth century. His conduct came in for criticism in his own lifetime, but this was as nothing to how it was regarded in the centuries that followed, he and members of his family were accused of murdering many who stood in their way, and the pope's death in August 1503 and the simultaneous illness of his son Cesare were quickly attributed to a botched attempt on their part to poison one of the cardinals (ibid).

While pope, Alexander "continued to live openly with his mistresses and in producing nine illegitimate children during his years as cardinal and pope." Defenders of the papacy use the "Alias Smith and Jones" defense in holding his place in "the succession": "For all the trains and banks he robbed, he never taught anyone."

J.N.D. Kelly ("Oxford History of the Popes") said, "his consuming passion, gold and women apart, was the aggrandizement of his relatives, especially Vannozza's children. (She was a Roman Aristocrat.) Thus he soon named Cesare, still only eighteen, bishop of several sees, including the wealthy one of Valencia, and a year later, along with Alessandro Farnese (brother of Giulia, his current mistress), a cardinal. Cesare's brother Juan, Duke of Gandia, he married to a Spanish princess, and in 1497 he enfeoffed him with the duchy of Benevento, which he carved out of the papal state. For Lucrezia he arranged one magnificant marriage after the other. [Serial annulments, no doubt. Not one of them genuinely a marriage.] In his absence from Rome he sometimes left her as virtual regent in charge of official business. In June 1497 he was momentarily shattered by the murder of Juan, his special favourite, with suspicion falling on Cesare. Grief-stricken, he vowed to devote himself henceforth to church reform ... But he lacked the resolution to abjure sensuality; he soon resumed his pleasures and family machinations, with Cesare now increasingly his evil genius." (253).

Still, it is said "he took seriously" his ecclesiastical duties, "with a love of show and magnificance." "In the later years of his pontificate, Alexander VI became more concerned with the inheritances of his children." In exchange for annulling the marriage of King Lois XII of France, Cesare was made "Duke of Valentinois" and was given a princess to marry.

Alexander and Cesare "envisaged the appropriation of the entire papal state and central Italy," and "this project, with the systematic crushing of the great Roman families, filled the rest of the reign. The enormous sums required for its realization were raised by assassinations, followed by seizures of property, and by the cynical creation of cardinals who had to pay dearly for their elevation (Kelly, 253-254).

This is the world in which Martin Luther became a young man. In 1501 Luther entered the University of Erfurt; by 1505 he had earned his master of arts degree and entered the monastery of the Hermits of St. Augustine at Erfurt.

[Quix]

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THX for your prayers and caring re my Dad, BTW.

[ichabod1]

Look, it IS a business, but so what? Is business evil? Are you a communist? They don’t like business or churches either.

[boatbums]

yep! That’s the one. It’s been a long time, so I wasn’t very precise on the particulars. Thanks!

[editor-surveyor]

>> “Blasphemy is directly opposed to the second commandment. It consists in uttering against God - inwardly or outwardly - words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing in respect toward him in one’s speech; in misusing God’s name.” <<

.
A perfect description of every pope there ever has been, from the 6th century onward. The era of antichrist.

[metmom]

That’s not the meaning of the post.

It was more of the reason that I see someone like the illustrious FReeper you were addressing, rejects the church when the basis for the rejection is criticism of finances.

[HarleyD]

Yes, there are a number of these phrases throughout scripture. Another is Paul’s comment that God has caused a hardening of the Jews until the full amount of Gentiles come into the Kingdom.

[arrogantsob]

Perhaps you should look up the word “voluntarily” since you are clueless about it.

[Cronos]

What exactly is personal in asking a poster if she would like scriptural proofs? It's a question

SEcondly, what am I dragging from thread to thread? I'm asking her a question which is within forum rules.

[Cronos]

The Lord calls us to turn from our evil ways. We are called to walk in His way. We just refuse (please note v17).

And that is not possible according to Calvinism

[Cronos]

ha ha! That is funny!

[Cronos]

Statements worded as questions are rarely "making it personal."

For instance, "Are you a heretic?" is not making it personal. But "You are a heretic" is making it personal.

And I'm not badgering a person if I ask them if they would like more verses from scripture -- you pointed out that Quoting the Bible would rarely if ever be a case of finessing the Religion Forum guidelines.

It is our duty to spread the Word of Christ, and if we can do this in a non-insulting way and help others arrive to the realisation of Christ our Lord, God and Savior, it is good.

[Cronos]

Interesting — so then the stories by ex-freemasons that the Presbyterians and other groups are really just fronts for freemasonry is not rumour?

[Cronos]

The World Council of Churches was a KGB operation!

Interesting...

[Cronos]

It's that no one denies that there are sinners who sin in every walk of life and that those involved in the work of God are especially hard hit.

And yet we see the same tired posts on priests from the 70s and 60s re-posted again and again by the anti-Catholic ones. This is doing the work of the secularists who hate all Christians.

I'm sure many non-Catholics agree to your statement above, boatbums, yet the ones who frequent the "philadelphia priest ..." etc. type threads don't see it that way. They see it as another way to attack the Church.

What they don't realise is that they serve the secularists by doing this attack. Instead of focusing on doctrine or saying simple "good, you learned from this, force your hierarchy to never do this mistake again", it becomes a flame thread, with everything but the kitchen sink tossed in.

And of course, this gets escalation from other side, with głupi pictures added in..

Notice also the timelines -- the non-Catholic pastors acts are now, the Catholic pastors did their evil in the past and if you read through it you'll see that they were given "remedial actions-- in line with the 60s-70s liberal feeling" that things could be resolved by just saying "ok, go for a month's counciling" or "let's just put him somewhere else and he'll stop" -- this was stupid, yes, stupid of the bishops and they should be castigated for this. Any priest who does this now is taken away from active "duty" and if convicted is defrocked.

[Cronos]

a 4th person of the Trinity;

it seems like Christ's Church's enemies are increasingly illogical.

[Cronos]

HD, to his credit mostly sticks to theology. That’s why, I guess he stays off the cess-pit threads. BTW, HD, I do read your Reformed Caucus threads and think they are very nice and one does learn a lot about the psalms from your thoughts — thank you for posting them.

[Cronos]

from the 6th century onward

So, do you believe in the Great Apostasy too? Strange, each group has it's own dates for this and the Mormons took it and became GEneration 6 of Protestants (see below) and extended this to the Apostolic era that the GReat Apostasy happened then -- they learned from you guys!!

There are new directions being found, new interpretations everyday.

Each new bunch of Reformatters reformats the old.

1. You have the first generation namely Lutheran sticking close to orthodoxy with the Lutherans holding to the True Presence in the Eucharist, to Baptismal regeneration etc.
2. Generation 2: Then you have the Calvin-Zwingli crowd rejecting these two as well as other aspects of orthodoxy
3. Generation 3: Knox and the Anglican compromise
4. Generation 4: The Unitarians like Michael Servetus who went from being Catholic to Lutheran to Reformed to denying the Trinity.
5. Generation 5: the Baptists who now rejected infant baptism (quite unlike their namesakes the Anabaptists (now called Mennonites)) and said that there was a great Apostasy in the first centuries of Christendom (Gen 1-3 took later centuries as the dates of their "Great Apostasy")
6. Generation 6: the Restorationists at the Great Awakening, like
   
   • The Millerites, to become the Seventh DayAdventists -- with Ellen G White saying that Jesus was the same as the Archangel Michael and that Satan woudl take the sins of the world at the end of time and other beauties. They came up with their own version of the Bible
   • The Unitarians and Universalists -- reborn and reinvigorated by this reformatting, they tossed out the Trinity and eventually they end up as they are today where they believe in nothing
   • Jehovah's Witnesses: they tossed out the Trinity too and came up with their own version of the Bible
   • The Mormons: they took the Trinity and made it three gods. They too came up with their own version of the Bible
7. Generation 7: the Orthodo Presbyterian C, the FourSquare Ahoy! Pentecostalists, the Raelians, the Branch Davidians, the Creflo-Dollar crowd, the Jesse Dupantis (I went to visit Jesus in heaven and comforted Him) etc -- one step further beyond generation 6
8. Generation 8: ... any one of the thousands of new sects formed since 1990