Posted on 10/30/2014 7:16:19 AM PDT by Keli Kilohana
To The Editor
The Pope has the "That's-Not-What-He-Meant" Czardinal running his slippers off! In the pope's desperation to be relevant, Francis used words about Creation that will hurt Christians for a long time. However. while media outlets concentrate on Francis saying that God is not a magician, I grieve that a pope would dare to say that God is not divine. How can anyone support a pope—or church—that says that God is not divine?
The church’s role as arbiter of so-called scientific thought seems so important to Francis that he is willing to sacrifice the divinity of our Creator in order to glamorize the secular elements of man. Please note similar off the wall comments by Francis on atheism, the economy and homosexuality. The pope proves that when anyone seeks in such a manner to be relevant and open-minded, his or her brain falls out and he or she declares his or her faith is a fraud. If evolution is compatible with creation, then Adam's and Eve's parents were non-human apes. Francis, if we evolved from apes and monkeys, why are there still apes and monkeys?
The assertion from a pope that God is neither divine nor omnipotent is startling. If that assertion is true, then obviously the miracle of the Virgin Birth is also a myth. But what is perhaps most startling to me is that such an admission would be met with blasé acceptance by the Christian world.
It seems the pope is no magician either. His infallibility is a myth.
Pastor Terry K. Hagedorn
Calvary Baptist Church
PO Box 282 Reedsville, WV
Ph. 304-864-3870
MOUNTAIN MANNA, 96.7 FM, Sundays 9:30am
http://mountainmanna.com
"Pointing Mountaineers to Mount Calvary."
I’ve been saying right along that he has dementia. His statements are full of confusion....and erratic.
“Francis, if we evolved from apes and monkeys, why are there still apes and monkeys?”
It would be nice if the dude would stick to religion and not science ...
The Church has had many intellectual giants over the millennia, but no one will ever accuse Frances of being one of them.
To the author: Thanks for taking exactly what the media says at face value, and then running off in every other direction.
Since the document wasn’t released in English, let’s wait until the official translation comes out.
BTW, I ran the document through Google Translate, and what the press is reporting is word for word out of it.
Finally, as a Baptist pastor, what does he care what the Pope says?
The Church’s teaching on the compatibility between evolution and Creation has not changed since Pope Pius XII.
The Genesis story describes a universe that cannot and does not exist, e.g., the geocentric universe, and thus must be rationally interpreted as symbolic or allegorical.
That evolution occurs and continues to occur is proven in organisms that have short life cycles (like bacteria and viruses: evolution that we can observe in real time.
That we evolved from other common ancestors is evidenced by commonality of DNA, as well as other hints: for example, the finding of enzymatic functions and small-molecule metabolic mechanisms common to many, many species (cyclic AMP is a metabolic mediator found in mammals, plants, slime molds, etc.)
Thus, God has given us an intellect and He has left us tantalizing clues to our evolutionary origins: did he do this in order that we discover the wonders of His Creation, or did he do this to lead us down a false path?
If the latter were true, it would be a very great deception, and we all know who the Great Deceiver is.
I for one, am happy to think of God as the originator of the Big Bang, and who allowed evolution to occur, just as He imbued Man alone with an immortal soul.
That makes so much sense. My mother and MIL both and they were the same way. They say and do things completely out of character.
Pray.
One might take it as the Rev. taking pot shots at a different denomination, but it sounds to me more like he cares about all Christendom, all believers. That means Roman Catholics or for that matter no name at all outside the church door.
I do hope that this was just another terminology gaffe. If God didn’t appoint church officials, then who did? And this could be asked across all denominations regardless of the systems they observe. Divine prerogatives are what make God worth following in the first place.
I believe Jesus was dead for three days before he was resurrected. I believe he could calm the seas and heal the sick. I believe he could walk on water. I believe he was born of a virgin. I believe The Lord our God always was and always will be.
God can do things that man cannot fathom. I don’t need the pope to tell me what God can and cannot do.
The Pope has his own Josh Earnest?
“...as a Baptist pastor, what does he care what the Pope says?...”
Post of the day - so true!! Why does any non Catholic care?
The man who wrote this is unfortunately a liar, because the Pope did not say that.
Those who would have the church espouse literal biological evolution as atheistic science propounds it today, need to ask why the creation got as “lucky” (rhetorical license taken) as it did in churning out new species. The noted old earth creationist Hugh Ross (www.reasons.org) has detailed this to a T.
God puts things into our lives as tests to see if we will acknowledge the divine power or just shrug it away.
As far as I can tell he said ‘demiurge’ which got translated into english as ‘divine being.’ Now some translations into english are using ‘demiurge.’
So it actually might be a case where he actually was translated badly, unless demiurge means something different in Italian or Spanish.
FReegards
You think that those wascally Protestants don’t give a hoot about the deterioration of other parts of Christendom?
I would say it’s more accurate to state
“Weasel goes the Pope”.
Weasel - verb: Using shiftiness to evade an obligation, commitment or duty. Making promises then reneging on them.
‘Weasel’ is very often followed by ‘out’ as in ‘weasel out’.
That would mean a god of limited power.
Still, we can’t excuse nonsense just by saying that the one who allegedly carried on the nonsense was infinitely powerful. We ascribe miracles to God but never nonsense.
This pastor is very judgemental, isn’t he? He also tries to make it personal; without regret. I remind him that we should love our neighbor, and I’m sure Pope Francis will forgive this ad hominum attack...
Dominus vobiscum
Heck. St. Augustine first wrote about Genesis not being literal.
The portrayal of the pope that went out in the news is the way he’s looking at the pope.
You’d think after getting misconscrewed like this, the news mavens at the Vatican would start anticipating things like “demiurge=>divine being” and get a translation ready to release before the garbage starts going out. By accusing this Rev. back, you don’t get rid of the original problem.
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