What Is Christianity?

[Thurston Quinch]

Will somebody explained what this site attempts to achieve. I have read the lead in text and am still confused.

[Thurston Quinch]

Will the site administrator please delete this second duplicate topic? My error. Sorry.

[fatherman]

Welcome, Thurston. GREAT QUESTION!!! The is a Bulletin Board or Forum sponsored by The Center for Progressive Christianity.

 

I can't tell you what this site attempts to achieve, but I can tell you what purpose it has served for me and others. This forum has been an open platform for exploring, deconstructing, reconstructing, questioning, and discovering Christian faith. Progressive Christians value diversity, inclusivity, open-mindedness, authenticity, social justice, questioning, and whatever journey you may be on. We also value discussion, sharing, civil debate, fellowship, and community...perhaps community is our highest purpose here. So many of us have felt isolated in our questions and doubts and beliefs. For many, this community has witnessed oiur first steps toward true faith. Many have come with wounds and frustrations and crisis and have found healing, reconciliation, and peace...and friends.

 

Among us we have humanists, mystics, agnostics, new-agers, antagonists, philosophers, universalists, scientists, gays, straights, channelers, surfers, yogis, poets, clergy, and the occasional TROLL who are all in some way drawn to Christ.

 

Perhaps you can tell us what you attempt to achieve with us or what specifically you are confused about.

 

We're happy to listen.

[Thurston Quinch]

Again, I apologize for the duplicate thread. I was attempting to edit my first topic post and ... well ... you see what happened.

 

I also apologize for having not scrolled far enough down to catch fatherman's response to me. Having read it and looked again at the the eight points, I can say I am confused for sure. I have studied Protestant, Catholic, Non-denominational, and Eastern Orthodox and so was curious about Progressive Christianity.

 

One fellow posted (and I include my response to him here) that P.C. deals with the present, not with the past as in the case of traditional institutions.

 

My point, I guess, is that Christianity by its very name is an artifact of history. It is what it is, a combination of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. The Protestants took the book 500 years ago given the advent of printing presses and cheaper paper, as well as a rise in literacy, and used it as a sort of wizard's stolen magic wand to break from the oppression of the Mother Church. What they tossed out in the process, the Sacred Tradition, was a wealth of knowledge relevant to that book and the conduct of proper Christianity.

 

Further breakaways, like the non-denominationals who claim to be a return to the early house church are a bit of a paradox, because one cannot return to what one is breaking away from.

 

Progressive Christianity seems a ship lost at sea, claiming a broad reach and open spiritual exploration, a sort of "I'm okay, you're okay" approach of the Unitarians (by what I have heard of them, which is scant little).

 

What I have learned is that, to the contrary, Christianity is really rather specific. St. Polycarp (who hung around with the apostles) would likely have fled when he read your eight points. St. Paul told Timothy that he had 10,000 goodly Christians to help him but not enough fathers to shepherd according to the doctrine.

 

Yes, there is a reason for doctrine.

 

You can call it man made; but if you don't believe in the supernatural as to delivered truth you have lost base with true Christianity.

 

This is why I said in my topic description that one is left with pagan mysticism.

 

No one taught me about Church. Frankly, I hated it. I prefer to spend my time in my garden (which is actually a park). But God started to speak to me and asked why I was there (the joke in the family is that I have been pit by too many ticks). While in my community there is a wide choice of churches of the entire so-called Christian spectrum, but God sent me to prophesy to the Catholic Church. about their Vatican II reform which He abhors. He sent me to the Protestant church to tell them to stop doing what they are doing and called the non-denominationals and pentecostals as children playing church and pagans, respectively.

 

You may then say this is God's message to me, alone; that He speaks to other people differently.

 

God said what He speaks is via the Holy Spirit and its manifestation as the Mother Church.

 

Jesus prayed for complete unity and it was the role of the primacy of St. Peter to insure in a monarchical way that unity.

 

This was made very clear in the writings of the ancient fathers and there is no question they were adamant about it.

 

Christianity has a specific origin and a specific message and a necessary, albeit gradually discerned, method of worship.

 

East and West look for the time when they can reunite, but while there is rather secondary theological concerns they have much bad blood between them. The various Protestants have egotistically intellectualized themselves, particularly the fundamentalists and evangelicals, into a spiritual prison.

 

Like Pollyanna's they talk about what miracles they have experienced to prove they are right. But Jesus said He was not about miracles, but about conviction, submission, and faith.

 

Where there are not these three things there can be no relationship with the one true Lord and Master. First this, as hard as it is for modern man to take, and only then do we arrive at a father-son relationship.

 

Along the the path we have Mary to nurture us, though the cult of Mary within the Church was originally secretive; for she was in human form the foundation of the Church, having more knowledge of Jesus than even His disciples, and Her Personnae and actual Spirit still guides it.

 

So we have a pope, shepherd father on earth and yet a mother, too.

 

Any other Christianity is not at all that which it claims to be. They take remarks made by Jesus as instruction and employed them as a basis for founding their own kind of church. He did not intend this at all.

 

The most important instruction is that given to Ss. Peter and Mary (the beloved disciple - not John). It was them who were cornerstones of a true church (yes, He intended such) and do not understand why this is ignored.

 

Jesus said, many say "Lord, Lord", but I do not know them.

 

I write this from my heart. I really don't desire to be troublesome to you. May God bless you and your families.

[McKenna]

Again, I apologize for the duplicate thread. I was attempting to edit my first topic post and ... well ... you see what happened.

 

I also apologize for having not scrolled far enough down to catch fatherman's response to me. Having read it and looked again at the the eight points, I can say I am confused for sure. I have studied Protestant, Catholic, Non-denominational, and Eastern Orthodox and so was curious about Progressive Christianity.

 

One fellow posted (and I include my response to him here) that P.C. deals with the present, not with the past as in the case of traditional institutions.

 

My point, I guess, is that Christianity by its very name is an artifact of history. It is what it is, a combination of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. The Protestants took the book 500 years ago given the advent of printing presses and cheaper paper, as well as a rise in literacy, and used it as a sort of wizard's stolen magic wand to break from the oppression of the Mother Church. What they tossed out in the process, the Sacred Tradition, was a wealth of knowledge relevant to that book and the conduct of proper Christianity.

 

Further breakaways, like the non-denominationals who claim to be a return to the early house church are a bit of a paradox, because one cannot return to what one is breaking away from.

 

Progressive Christianity seems a ship lost at sea, claiming a broad reach and open spiritual exploration, a sort of "I'm okay, you're okay" approach of the Unitarians (by what I have heard of them, which is scant little).

 

What I have learned is that, to the contrary, Christianity is really rather specific. St. Polycarp (who hung around with the apostles) would likely have fled when he read your eight points. St. Paul told Timothy that he had 10,000 goodly Christians to help him but not enough fathers to shepherd according to the doctrine.

 

Yes, there is a reason for doctrine.

 

You can call it man made; but if you don't believe in the supernatural as to delivered truth you have lost base with true Christianity.

 

This is why I said in my topic description that one is left with pagan mysticism.

 

No one taught me about Church. Frankly, I hated it. I prefer to spend my time in my garden (which is actually a park). But God started to speak to me and asked why I was there (the joke in the family is that I have been pit by too many ticks). While in my community there is a wide choice of churches of the entire so-called Christian spectrum, but God sent me to prophesy to the Catholic Church. about their Vatican II reform which He abhors. He sent me to the Protestant church to tell them to stop doing what they are doing and called the non-denominationals and pentecostals as children playing church and pagans, respectively.

 

You may then say this is God's message to me, alone; that He speaks to other people differently.

 

God said what He speaks is via the Holy Spirit and its manifestation as the Mother Church.

 

Jesus prayed for complete unity and it was the role of the primacy of St. Peter to insure in a monarchical way that unity.

 

This was made very clear in the writings of the ancient fathers and there is no question they were adamant about it.

 

Christianity has a specific origin and a specific message and a necessary, albeit gradually discerned, method of worship.

 

East and West look for the time when they can reunite, but while there is rather secondary theological concerns they have much bad blood between them. The various Protestants have egotistically intellectualized themselves, particularly the fundamentalists and evangelicals, into a spiritual prison.

 

Like Pollyanna's they talk about what miracles they have experienced to prove they are right. But Jesus said He was not about miracles, but about conviction, submission, and faith.

 

Where there are not these three things there can be no relationship with the one true Lord and Master. First this, as hard as it is for modern man to take, and only then do we arrive at a father-son relationship.

 

Along the the path we have Mary to nurture us, though the cult of Mary within the Church was originally secretive; for she was in human form the foundation of the Church, having more knowledge of Jesus than even His disciples, and Her Personnae and actual Spirit still guides it.

 

So we have a pope, shepherd father on earth and yet a mother, too.

 

Any other Christianity is not at all that which it claims to be. They take remarks made by Jesus as instruction and employed them as a basis for founding their own kind of church. He did not intend this at all.

 

The most important instruction is that given to Ss. Peter and Mary (the beloved disciple - not John). It was them who were cornerstones of a true church (yes, He intended such) and do not understand why this is ignored.

 

Jesus said, many say "Lord, Lord", but I do not know them.

 

I write this from my heart. I really don't desire to be troublesome to you. May God bless you and your families.

 

I don't have time for a full reply at the moment (and I'm sure the others will do better than me anyway ), but I just wanted to ask what you consider to be the true Church? Because it sounded like you were dismissing the Protestants simply from breaking away from the Catholic Church, but then you said you were sent by God to prophesy to the Catholic Church. So I'm just a little unclear exactly what form of Christianity you believe is the "true" form.

 

Thanks!

[fatherman]

I agree in a general sense, Thurston, that Christianity is something specific. A Religion must have parameters to exist. Every religion is not everything to every person. I don't believe, however, that Christ was about 'getting it right'. This was exactly the kind of thinking that he sought to reform among his contemporaries, especially the Pharisees. Nor, do I believe that he was about starting a new religion. Christ was born and died a Jew. In fact, had it not been for the gentile woman who requested Jesus' help and was initially turned down, I'm not sure he would have broadened his horizons beyond Jews at all.

 

I think the hope of Progressive Christians is to somehow cut through the BS and the layers of distortion to find the true spirit of Christ. Ultimately, we must all meet Christ in our own way. No one can dictate how we are to meet him...or how we are to meet God, for that matter.

 

It certainly wasn't a religion (true or otherwise) that led you to God...right? You found God in the stillness of your garden.

 

"pagan mysticism" hmmmm...maybe not a bad way to go.

[Cynthia]

Agreed Fatherman and McKenna.

 

Thuston - it is difficult to convey tone in this format, so I will accept your statements as sincere attempts to enlighten. Please accept mine likewise.

 

It has been said (I haven't counted ) that the most frequent command in the bible is, "fear not". That seems quite likely to me as fear seems to be the primary motivator for many things done in the name of God that all would agree are not Godly.

 

People tend to fear differences and to want everyone to be the same. If we know "the rules" and the rules are clear and black and white, then the world is a much safer place. I completely sympathize with the concept and desire to be safe. Clear, binary rules just don't fit with my experience of the world thus far.

 

The bible, which I have read, several times, seems to me to have many points. If we are looking primarily at the new testament, then a more clear theme emerges. It strikes me as changing the laws of the old testament from black and white (at which point the pharisees and so many others over time - have completely lost the spirit of the law to the letter) to the idea of, put simply, ACT RIGHT. Jesus calls it up the sum of the law. I read this as a command to stop getting caught up in the petty and meaningless concerns of following specific laws and to focus on loving God and loving others. These two things will guide you in the interpretation of all the specifics. Much more abstract, much less safe, but also much more clear and much harder.

 

I hope we can continue this conversation, with open minds and hearts. Discussion and a sincere desire to learn are a form of worship to most of us here, please respect that.

 

Godspeed.

[McKenna]

Okay, I have some time now so I thought I'd come back and provide a fuller response

 

Further breakaways, like the non-denominationals who claim to be a return to the early house church are a bit of a paradox, because one cannot return to what one is breaking away from.

 

If I'm reading you correctly, this is the starting point of your argument (that churches that broke off of the Church were really just drifting farther from the original Way of Jesus), and it is probably because I disagree with you on this point that I disagree with your argument as a whole.

 

In my opinion, churches that broke away from the Catholic Church (and breakaways from those churches) could ostensibly have been returning to the original Christian Way. While it is true that one cannot return to what one is breaking away from, the whole point that these churches were making in breaking away is that they were not returning to what they were breaking away from - they were breaking away from the Catholic Church (which, in their view, had "gone wrong" somewhere along the way) in order to return to the true Way. In other words, if you're following someone on a path, and they start to wander off the path, you clearly have to break away from them in order to return to the path. Thus there is no paradox, at least not from the point of view of the breakaway churches.

 

Progressive Christians do not necessarily put Tradition high on their list of Sources of Faith, because they may question that that Tradition has any real basis in reality, or may feel that it has lost its relevance. For example, Progressive Christians may or may not confess certain Creeds, because they may feel that those Creeds, having been written so long after Jesus' life, have no historical basis and thus are not really relevant to their faith. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, and it certainly doesn't speak for all Progressive Christians.

 

One thing to keep in mind with Progressive Christians is that many of us take the findings of science and historical scholarship into account when evaluating the Bible and Tradition. Thus our conclusions and beliefs are sometimes somewhat different from what has historically been considered Christian Doctrine.

 

I write this from my heart. I really don't desire to be troublesome to you. May God bless you and your families.

 

Thank you for being so respectful God bless!

[Thurston Quinch]

I wiil try to sum up my responses to fatherman, Cynthia, and McKenna in one response as I am typing this on the fly.

 

Sacred Scripture is derived from Sacred Tradition. The early teachings of the church (and Jesus does mention church to Peter) were oral. The early disciples of the original witnesses were meticulous about keeping to what they were taught. This was handed down into two branches of Christianity: Roman Catholic and Orthodox (called Eastern, but there is an Oriental break away church within it).

 

It is to these perpetuated witnesses that we must turn for the true Christianity.

 

I am only a certified lay minister in the Catholic Church, but my prophesy (relatively sudden supernatural knowledge) brought me there and I accelerated very quickly in my progress within the church. My advancement will likely be hindered by bureaucracy. If I am denied further access to the Church God tells me I can go home, as this would be tantamount to a rejection. God says I only have to try. If I am rejected I can go home; so I am good either way.

 

If I am rejected in the Catholic Church it appears I am to explore the Orthodox which I have already begun doing. However, I am not comfortable there because the church history (not by any means the wonderful liturgy and doctrine) is so different from my western culture.

 

This then is where I personally go to find the true Christianity.

 

The arguments for a liberal take on what Christ taught is a modern co-opting that is not really Christianity at all.

 

Before my supernatural phenomena as a journalist I probably would have agreed with your approach. No, I would have definitely done so.

 

There is much mystery to Christianity that is preserved in the conduct of these two grand old churches. If you exclude that from your consideration you will not achieve the submission necessary for God to talk to you.

 

Primarily, you must have a sacrifice for Christianity. Strangely, according to St. Paul, the presiding priest need not even be worthy. He said, the sacraments work on their own.

 

In one of the six prophetic books I have written (compilations of topical essays), I mention that it is proper for the sinner to offer up Christ. Because the sinner cannot save himself, only Christ can. But then again the sinner must be in a sincere state of conviction and submssion.

 

That would be strange for a sinner, I think.

 

I will check back with your site later, but I have to rush off now.

 

It is important that such things be discussed.

 

My prophetic knowledge sits me midway between Roman Catholic and Orthodox; and I am afraid I will be marooned there until the two churches combine, perhaps a hundred years from now or more.

 

God bless all of you.

[fatherman]

There is much mystery to Christianity that is preserved in the conduct of these two grand old churches

This then is where I personally go to find the true Christianity.

 

Interesting that you concede that there is "much mystery to Christianity", but you can still maintain that you have incontrovertible knowledge of the truth.

[McKenna]

Sacred Scripture is derived from Sacred Tradition.

 

But much of Tradition wasn't fully developed until after Scripture was recorded (with the help of various Councils and the writings of people such as St. Augustine). So, for me, it makes just as much sense just to go back to Scripture rather than believe all that has been handed down as Tradition by the Church, because I don't believe that everything held by Tradition actually goes back to Jesus; much of it seems to me to be later additions to and interpretation of Scripture.

 

The arguments for a liberal take on what Christ taught is a modern co-opting that is not really Christianity at all.

 

I would argue that anything after Christ's Resurrection is pretty much interpretation of the Christ event. The creeds, for example, IMO were interpretations based in the culture and worldviews of people at the time; I don't think that if the creeds had been written in the modern age we would have come up with the same words/ideas. Scripture also was written at a specific time in a specific culture and thus IMO cannot be held as absolute. As for modern times, IMO all churches look at the Christ event through modern eyes and thus all modern theology is a "modern co-opting" of original Christianity. What is called conservative Christianity today for example can in some ways be seen as a reaction to the Enlightenment period; certainly fundamentalist Christianity can.

 

In other words, yes, I think progressive/liberal Christianity imposes its own ideas back onto the early Church's; but I think all forms of Christianity do. Naturally we're going to interpret events in the past through our modern eyes; there's no escaping that.

[Thurston Quinch]

Fatherman: You must submit to the mystery, not take it as an invitation to explore pagan mysticism. This would take us back to square one. Jesus is progressive, but not in that way. What Jesus proposes is supernatural. We can't do what he proposes without the supernatural. It is impossible for people. Thank you and God bless you.

[Thurston Quinch]

To Mckenna: While I don't know what IMO is, I can say that what God taught me in my garden matched with what was taught in the modern Catholic and Orthodox church, at its core. The Catholic church will stress core; but the Orthodox will say everything is core. Jesus gave to His disciples authority to do as they wished in conducting the sacrifice (which churches have forgotten on the Protestant end) and carrying out other discerned sacraments for the nurturing of church members, as they saw fit. I spend my breaks and lunch at work reading the original writings of church father of the first and second centuries. I know what they were saying. These guys knew the original apostles and what they taught and what they themselves were told to do by their predecessors.

 

Modern people search for something that is still there and very much intact. I can see it and cut out from it what is extraneous supernaturally because of my gift. The core is still there and it is beautiful. Much of the tradition is tradition as it was from the beginning; Scripture comes from that and not vice-versa. It was largely oral. This was passed on from Peter to Linus to Anacletus to Clement (who was a popular read in the early church for hundreds of years) to Everistus to Alexander to Sixtus to Telephorus to .... well, I can't remember without checking the list. But there has been continuity of knowledge for each pope (previously and stilled called bishop of Rome) kept a list of desired successors. When an inappropriate person took the chair, the administration later deemed such fellow as an anti-pope and so recorded him, and so on.

 

People spend to much intellecutalizing Christianity when it has alot to do with simple submission, confession of sin, and eating the Body and aBlood of Christ as He commanded. That allows us to participate in His sacrifice and partake of the atonement within. It is a gift we receive; we don't negotiate with it. Thank you and God bless.

[McKenna]

To Mckenna: While I don't know what IMO is, I can say that what God taught me in my garden matched with what was taught in the modern Catholic and Orthodox church, at its core. The Catholic church will stress core; but the Orthodox will say everything is core. Jesus gave to His disciples authority to do as they wished in conducting the sacrifice (which churches have forgotten on the Protestant end) and carrying out other discerned sacraments for the nurturing of church members, as they saw fit. I spend my breaks and lunch at work reading the original writings of church father of the first and second centuries. I know what they were saying. These guys knew the original apostles and what they taught and what they themselves were told to do by their predecessors.

 

Modern people search for something that is still there and very much intact. I can see it and cut out from it what is extraneous supernaturally because of my gift. The core is still there and it is beautiful. Much of the tradition is tradition as it was from the beginning; Scripture comes from that and not vice-versa. It was largely oral. This was passed on from Peter to Linus to Anacletus to Clement (who was a popular read in the early church for hundreds of years) to Everistus to Alexander to Sixtus to Telephorus to .... well, I can't remember without checking the list. But there has been continuity of knowledge for each pope (previously and stilled called bishop of Rome) kept a list of desired successors. When an inappropriate person took the chair, the administration later deemed such fellow as an anti-pope and so recorded him, and so on.

 

People spend to much intellecutalizing Christianity when it has alot to do with simple submission, confession of sin, and eating the Body and aBlood of Christ as He commanded. That allows us to participate in His sacrifice and partake of the atonement within. It is a gift we receive; we don't negotiate with it. Thank you and God bless.

 

IMO means in my opinion

 

Well, I accept your right to believe that Perhaps it is just my modern mind that cannot comprehend such things as the eating of the Body and Blood and the idea of substitutionary atonement. God has yet to speak to me in a garden, so for now I'll follow my mind and heart the way I have tried to, but maybe God will reveal to me what He has revealed to you

 

Thanks again for being so respectful. God bless!

[Thurston Quinch]

To McKenna:

 

Thank you for your response to my post. I acknowledge the finality of it. Your post is very representative of the secular mind. It displays the typical pitfalls seculars suffer in coming to know God.

 

1. IMO, in my opinion; where opinions don't matter, only submission.

 

2. I accept your right to believe that; but I don't believe, I know. I, too, accept your right to believe that the sun rises in the morning (but you will tell me that is clearly more than a belief).

 

3. Perhaps it is just my modern mind that cannot comprehend such things; indeed, modernity is a fashion and God is not a god of fashions, but He is eternal and unchanging.

 

4. The eating of the Body and Blood and the idea of substitutionary atonement; ........

............ This is an important point.

 

If you call yourself a Christian, you can only do so if:

 

a) you are a disciple of Christ

b ) you can only be a disciple if you obey all His commandments

c) Christ commands that you eat His flesh and drink His blood (if you wish to enter His Kingdom).

d) by sharing in His sacrifice you die of your former self and rise anew, which is a gift from God that you receive by faith. This submission to Christ must be publicly proclaimed through baptism; only then with this witnessed declaration are your sins removed. If you continue to confess new sins to the Church (your brothers and sisters) the Church has been given the authority by Christ to forgive them and allow you do continue to participate in the sacrifice. What you must understand is that the sacrifice is perpetual and your participation must be perpetual.

 

How often? As often as you hunger for food -- even more! But we usually say no more than once a day.

 

What is faith? It is the mid way point between an instinctive love for Christ and the desire to obey His commandments. What, therefore, is the strength of your faith?

 

5) God has yet to speak to me in a garden, so for now I'll follow my mind and heart the way I have tried to, but maybe God will reveal to me what He has revealed to you; then you demand a sign, but Christ said no sign will be given save for one:

 

To eat His flesh and drink His blood.

 

May God reveal to you the wisdom in this. God bless you and your family. So Long!

 

P.S. When Christ was asked to prophesy, He said that the only prophesy He would give us is the story of Jonah, which is a story about an obstinate unbeliever of prophesy, on account of one's own opinion. And Christ is the invisible God made visible. So how much clearer to you can He be?

[McKenna]

2. I accept your right to believe that; but I don't believe, I know. I, too, accept your right to believe that the sun rises in the morning (but you will tell me that is clearly more than a belief).

 

I'm happy for you that you're so secure in your faith

 

3. Perhaps it is just my modern mind that cannot comprehend such things; indeed, modernity is a fashion and God is not a god of fashions, but He is eternal and unchanging.

 

I agree with that, but that doesn't mean I don't still view Him through my modern worldview...there's no escaping that, since I'm human.

 

4. The eating of the Body and Blood and the idea of substitutionary atonement; ........

............ This is an important point.

 

If you call yourself a Christian, you can only do so if:

 

a) you are a disciple of Christ

b ) you can only be a disciple if you obey all His commandments

c) Christ commands that you eat His flesh and drink His blood (if you wish to enter His Kingdom).

d) by sharing in His sacrifice you die of your former self and rise anew, which is a gift from God that you receive by faith. This submission to Christ must be publicly proclaimed through baptism; only then with this witnessed declaration are your sins removed. If you continue to confess new sins to the Church (your brothers and sisters) the Church has been given the authority by Christ to forgive them and allow you do continue to participate in the sacrifice. What you must understand is that the sacrifice is perpetual and your participation must be perpetual.

 

Then I suppose I'm not a Christian, by that definition.

 

5) God has yet to speak to me in a garden, so for now I'll follow my mind and heart the way I have tried to, but maybe God will reveal to me what He has revealed to you; then you demand a sign, but Christ said no sign will be given save for one:

 

To eat His flesh and drink His blood.

 

I'm not demanding a sign; I'm perfectly content in my faith as it is. I was merely saying that perhaps one day I will receive the same sort of revelation that turned you into a believer, but until then, I'll continue following my mind and heart as I have thus far, because it's worked for me so far.

 

May God reveal to you the wisdom in this. God bless you and your family. So Long!

 

God bless you and yours as well!

[Thurston Quinch]

Hello for a brief follow-up only.

 

 

McKenna writes (I paraphrase): Then by that definition I am not a Christian.

 

I say, how many definitions of Christianity are there? There is one Truth and only one way to that Truth. Just doctrine or dogma? Then this is relative and subjective and not Truth.

 

We only know what Christ taught and what He asks of us. He empowered His disciples with binding and releasing to teach as they thought fit. The Church was established under Peter and his primacy was recognized by the early saints, even after the capital of the empire was moved to Constantinople. Thus, this can be the only definition. The papacy did not begin until the Council of Nicea? But the pope is only the bishop of Rome (pope meaning papa in Italian slang). Peter, disciple of Christ > Linus, who St. Peter selected > Anacletus > Clement, who St. Peter ordained > Everistus > Alexander > Sixtus > Telesphorus > Hyginus > Pius > Anecitus > Soter > Eleutherius > Victor > Zepharhynus > Callistus > Urban > Pontian > Anterus > Fabian > Cornelius > Lucius > Stephen > Sixtus II > Dyionisius > Felix > Eutythian > Caius > Marecellenus > Marcellus > Eusubius > Miltiades > Sylvester, who served during the Council of Nicea. (My spellings are atrocious.) And so on to the present. The Church went in and out of corruption as men do but the doctrine never changed; while one may argue the jurisictional infallibility stand of Vatican I of the 19th century and the counter-reformation hierarchical defiance of the Council of Trent.

 

McKenna writes: I am content with my faith as it is.

 

Jesus says in St. Johns Revelation vision: I would that you were either cold or hot, but as you are lukewarm I shall spew you out.

 

May God bless you and keep you.

[October's Autumn]

You are missing the meaning in Revelation. That is a "Key" to which underground church it was to go to. The landmark was some kind of water source which had tepid water. Be very wary of using Revelations to quote at someone. Especially when you don't understand what you are talking about!

 

http://www.wordsoftruth.net/sevenchurchesa...t6_09082002.htm

[October's Autumn]

We only know what Christ taught and what He asks of us. He empowered His disciples with binding and releasing to teach as they thought fit.

 

 

Actually, we don't. You don't. Know one does. Have the courage to admit that there is no way for you to know what Jesus taught.

[Thurston Quinch]

To October's Autumn:

 

There are no specific rules dictated to Christians as to personal conduct or worship, unless a specific bishop finds particular instruction beneficial; bishps have the power to bind and release, under the review of the Chair of Peter.

 

Who knew the teachings of Jesus? Didn''t Peter know? Didn't St. Clement of Rome (the fourth pope) who was ordained by St. Peter? Did they not pass on the esoteric and mystical teaching framework for coming to know God through Jesus Christ (crude sacraments that evolved over the centuries)?

 

You look for specific instruction but such instruction misses the point. When you develop a truly loving relationship with God through Christ and Mary (as teaching Church) the essential teachings of Jesus will take root in you and grow to fruition. You are divine in origin and the Church can and does awaken this divinity in you. It is not a matter of do this and don't do that.

 

But the sacraments, which seem like this, are merely interactive instruction in relationship. They are an outward expression of what is happening to you supernaturally, as Christ was the incarnation of an invisible Creator Father. And Mary was and is the vessel by which little Christs are formed.

 

The luke warm reference refers, yes, to a particular church; but we can see that the warning applies to any similar attitude. Revelation warns us of the sins of the world which are severely debilitating. St. John's exaggerations about such social dynamics of sin rendered in a pagan mystical way are intended to emphasize this point with a cannon. The seven churches were facing a real war, as we do today; make no mistake about it. But be assured that Christ is the victor.

 

God bless you.