Posted on 04/10/2017 6:40:46 PM PDT by fishtank
Evangelical Apologist Hank Hanegraaff Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy
Posted by: Rob Bowman
On Palm Sunday, April 9, 2017, Hank Hanegraaff formally joined the Orthodox Church. Since 1989 Hanegraaff has been the President of the Christian Research Institute (CRI) and (since ca. 1992) the host of CRI’s Bible Answer Man radio program.[1] Hank, his wife Kathy, and two of their twelve children were inducted by a sacramental rite called chrismation into the Orthodox faith at St. Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, near where CRI is based. In chrismation, a baptized individual is anointed with oil in order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.[2]
(Excerpt) Read more at religiousresearcher.org ...
Why do so many people in these threads have to prove YOUR point?
And it's just ONE of a bunch of parables that were recorded one after the other.
I wasn't suggesting it being biblical; just the way it seems to be accepted by so many folks.
And Mormons say:
"I listened to the Holy Ghost a long time ago: That’s why I’m not a Protestant OR a Catholic!!
HMMMmmm...
Seems to be a common Catholic condition.
When you gonna' move out of Denial City? It was a strawman, period. Unless you are a mind-reader (which you are not).
>>>>Thus, for someone to even hint that there can be no connection between the physical and the spiritual denies basic realities which Christianity has always embraced.<<<<
That's inaccurate. The man hinted no such thing - not as you describe it anyway, and not to the extent you would have that apply, so thus was the strawman. It came about right after the man just wrote that the Lord's spirit was present within himself, too. Think about it. There's the combination that counts for most everything. Lacking that, one cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Perhaps you may not realize it, but from within your assorted suppositions (which I know all too well, having been subjected to those, on this forum, for long years) and the accusations you keep making about persons here on this forum, in the way you are arguing for connection between flesh and blood, you are arguing against the man's own personal testimony, and in how you are seeking to apply your arguments to support the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, are tending towards arguing against the Lord's own words also;
John 3
7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
The annihilation of the "species" (of the bread) argument is just so much Grecian philosophy gone to rot and corruption at hands of the Latin Church scholastics. If that's what you had in mind -- supporting transubstantiation (it was, wasn't it?) --- I must say that on this forum, you are playing wicked evil games with things of the Lord. You really should simply stop. If you don't -- then you could get "it" from both sides...
>>>>You can’t argue against anything I have said effectively apparently<<<<<
I can, I do, and I have often, although it's like arguing with a viper. I'm left feeling filthy each time I need read anything you care to write, if then needing crawl into the argument enough to illustrate just where and how it doesn't quite work.
There are simpler and gentler ways, which are of Him ---instead of things of the Lord being of the men of the Roman Catholic Church (in the way they explain and assert a this, or a that, among that "religion")
You can believe your own little twisted up stories about those things, if you need to. Just don't expect me to do the same.
>>>> And I refuse to turn away from Christ as you suggest.<<<<
You've got that entirely backwards.
It's more like the need for you to be turning towards Him, while turning away from religiosity that is ostensibly all about him, but which is not always --- for it too often becomes like a last-ditch effort on part of the deceiver to keep one from encountering the true Christ by offering substitute in place of Christ.
>>>>>You have a Happy Easter, Blue. And remember, the resurrection in itself, is proof that there is a connection between the physical and spiritual.<<<<<
Yes, of course there was a connection during Christ's resurrection. That still doesn't support transubstantiation, so therefore is neither here, nor there, regarding the prior context of this discussion.
Where is that image/gif from? A movie, I take it — but which one?
The virgin birth is plainly enough written of. There was never any dispute about that among the early Church, nor is it in any way an invention of men ---not unless one were to dismiss the witnesses who attested to that fact -- a multitude of them having apparently enough testified to the writer of the Gospel of Luke.
Creation ex-nihilo
As this link, offers in part, some discussion/explanation;
The Bible never expressly states that God made everything from nothing, but it is implied. In Hebrews 11:3 we read, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” Scholars take this to mean that the universe came into existence by divine command and was not assembled from preexisting matter or energy.
The resurrection of the dead is clearly spoken of within Scripture, even from within the Old Testament. That Christ resurrected from the grave by no means equates that the doctrines and dogma later arising and delineated among men regarding transubstantiation are themselves line-by-line equal to being the written Word of God.
imardmd1: Are you ready, Vlad, for that kind of spirituality? It's not the surface things that count, FRiend. Spirituality is not visible or tangible.
Post #265
In your confused natural response, deflecting attention away from the issue of your own spirituality, you substituted the issue of the Memorial Supper, instituted by Jesus:
Vlad: JESUS IS PHYSICAL. He is "visible". He is "tangible". Are you denying He is spiritual? Post #273
For the moment neglecting many of the side-aspects this brings up, only the first are refuted, directly and without question. All of the bodily manifestation of Jesus, including His Blood, since His Ascension into the Heavenly realm, have been and currently remain there. No part of his bodily manifestation has ever appeared to you or to me in this natural earthly realm, nor to any other human. In this realm, He is not here, He is not visible, and He is not tangible, and He is not present in any physical way. He is in Heaven, all of Him, at the right hand of God The Father; and we are here. Period. End of that erroneous claim of yours. But you continued:
Vlad: Finishing a thought: You deny the real Christ when you deny Him as He really is and how He really manifests Himself spiritually to His people. Post #274
As shown, He really is in the Heavenly sphere and not here in the earthly sphere. We really are here in the earthly sphere and not in the heavenly sphere. Our physical faculties cannot pierce the veil between the two spheres, and therefore He does not manifest Himself to His selected subjects through any of our sensory faculties, audible, visual, or tangible. Bread may be a token by which to effect the Remenbrance Menorial Supper, but it is bread, and cannot be His flesh, or His Body would long ago have been eaten up. Likewise, His Incorruptoble Blood, all of it, still remains spread on the True Mercy Seat in Heaven, continually visible to the Father. None of it has transited to Earth to appear in the fruit of the vine, the physical token to remind us of the shedding of /his Blood whilst we repeatedly observe the Memorial till He returns to fetch us out of this realm. So I said:
imardmd1: Which is? Let me guess . . . physically, in a piece of embossed flour? Post #277
To which your riposte was:
Vlad: And you think the Eucharist isn’t spiritual? Again, your logic is not logical at all. Post #282
This embodies several errors if a few words: (1) you claim to be reading my mind and imputing what I am thinking; (2) you suggest that the physical objects used as memory aids are at the same time of spiritual substance; (3) that my statements do not flow logically one from another (an irrational blindness to reality); and (4) that this is a repetitive futile device that I employ to advance my points.
Furthermore, your ideation shows that your focus for the conduct of the Remembrance is on idolizing the material tokens of His Passion, rather than on the details of His Person as He submitted Himself for execution in the place of each one of the regenerated particiupants, that we may be judicially declared "Not Guilty!" by the Judge of Souls of men.
Your distraction by the soulless, spiritless elements is indeed pathetic. Your excuse for this misplaced emphasis of importance is the nebulous, irrational invisible, intangible, unexplainable, illogical theory of "transubstantiation," the transformation of the grown, harvested, and prepared substance of comestibles into human flesh and blood with the life still in it.
What a silly notion! It is not logical. And it is not Scriptural, because your system takes the words spoken by Jesus as clearly figurative-literal illustrations of Spiritual truths, and turn them into an illogical utterance of literal impossibility, both on physical and on moral principles.
Now, how much more illogical and unintelligible can that be? Yet it becomes a central postulation of a religious system that is opposite to the Testimony, the Covenant, the Will of the Person it claims as its founder. It comprises yet another logical fallacy: mistranslation and misinterpretation of the words of the Scripture to lend an illegitimate authority to your proposition.
So I reply:
imardmd1: And transubstantiation is logical? It is certainly not Scriptural. Post #294
To which your illogical response is:
Vlad: It’s as logical as the virgin birth, or creation out of nothing, or the resurrection of the dead. Post #298
Well, let's see now. Neglecting the inexplicability of the operations, but considering the scientifically provable observations of the outcomes,
(1) the birth of a child by a female that has not had generative participation of the male of the species, a male child who is seen by humans and angels, develops through maturing and training stages, and becomes both a carpenter and a teacher/trainer of Bible students--to me, that is a logical outcome. Then:
(2) For some reason, dimensions, mass, and light come into play, a system populated by interrelated and interdependent objects and substances is made, and certain assemblies of parts and processes appear that have the ability to communicate and propagate, with a wealth and logical organization of these components--well, that is entirely logical to me as an outcome of the prime cause, eh? Going on:
(3) that a self-motivated object for some reason loses the power to self-boot itself, and even after a period of such inactivity is able to respond to the application of restoration by an external source, both physically, mentally, and spiritually, then go on fubctioning as before; moreover seen and evaluated in the scientific sense; well, that is not illogical to me, especially since I have not only heard of it in reports, but have seen it in both animate and inanimate entities. Resurrection is a logical process with a logical result.
What makes these Biblically-reported accounts illogical, Vlad? I don't follow your reasoning. But then, according to your report,
(4) A piece of bread and cup of grape juice are mumbled over, and become . . . voila! a piece of bread and a cup of wine, able to be ingested, digested, decomposed into various chemicals, some to be incorporated, some to burn and supply heat, and the remainder to be excreted as waste. Now, that is logical. But to be turned into human flesh and blood without any change in composition, appearance, taste, or digestibility, isn't that a bit . . . illogical?
But as for the appearance and usefulness of the bread and expressed liquid from the vine-grapes--being commonly available elements--to deliberately use them as visual reminders to refresh one's mind of the occasion of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth on the basis of His substitutionary death in the place of the true criminals who have naturally and willfully disobeyed the will of their Creator . . . is this not a completely logical and reasonable employment of these elements in assisting in the mental focus on the recorded report, that prompts a spiritual response of joy anf thanks for a Savior and Redeemer?
"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isaiah 1:18 AV).
You cited this, but you don't seem to understand it as applying to you and your deviation from God's ways. Come on, Vlad, you need to start making sense rather than making nonsense.
Otherwise, I'm not interested in wasting time instigating you to keep running your windmill.
Glorious. We are godparents to a young man entering the true Church of Eastern Orthodoxy tonight. He’s coming home from The Roman Catholic sect.
“Goodbye. I’m not going to deal with a single other thing you had to say in this reply. It’s not worth it. You’re still wrong and will stay that way (until you repent—turn around and go the other way).”
“Goodbye.”
As an Easter gift I’ll help you stick to your own words.
“Goodbye. I’m not going to deal with a single other thing you had to say in this reply. It’s not worth it. You’re still wrong and will stay that way (until you repent—turn around and go the other way).”
“Goodbye.”
As an Easter gift I’ll help you stick to your own words.
If the Eucharist is what Eastern Orthodox say it is, is it then spiritual or physical or both?
Maybe in the church circles you run in, but I don't find that to be the case in many churches I've been to. There is a lot of unity that's been happening here in the Syracuse area and most church people I know recognize tat different churches minister to different individuals needs. We are fine with some one going to different churches if that's what they prefer.
The only thing that concerns us about where individuals go is whether or not the church is a Bible believing church.
The salvation of souls is not a competition for who can have the most membership.
Well put!
Competition and disunity is the Achilles heel of evangelicalism.
Heresy is the Achilles heel of mainline protestantism
Extra-biblicalism is the Achilles heel of Catholicism and Orthodoxy
I don't really know what the Eastern Orthodoxen say that the elements of the Remembrance Supper are, or what the ordained partaking of them represents.
I don't think that the common doctrine of that group determines what the significance of the ordinance is. Rather, the significance is defined by the Word of God, and ought to determine the doctrine of any assembly of professing believers concerning the breaking of bread together in remembrance of the love and obedience of Christ, themselves imitating the role of the original partakers.
What is physical and what is spiritual is obvious in the Scripture passages describing the event and its later rehearsals. Like a staged play, the tokens of His Body and Blood can be compared to stage props, without which the scenario cannot proceed. A single bread-loaf and the blood of the cluster (and a cup or cups into which the whole is apportioned) are indubitably physical in nature, as are the participants and the private place of assembly.
It is the acting out of the breaking of the bread-loaf and the sharing of the wine by Spirit-born believers under the supervision of the very real presence of the Holy Ghost representing the Master and drawing attention to Him, with a sober attitude and unity of purpose, that is spiritual.
As an Easter gift I’ll help you stick to your own words.
That was aimed at one particular oozing puss-pocket of a comment you sent my way...
I didn't say anything about other pimples that could be squeezed.
Don't be coming to me seeking gifts, or trying to give me any either, or even go to any altars seeking something from the Lord (even to try and give Him some "Easter gift") not until you go back and apologize to one particular person.
Go here
Or wind up here
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