Theonomy is a view held by some Christians which argues that the Mosaic law should be applied in modern society. One of the things that some proponents of this view argue for is that atheists should be punished by governments for sharing their beliefs. Many theologians have argued for and agains...
@Eagle It's just not clear what the topic is: repenting, reprimanding, or church discipline? And even if you clarified that, all of these are topics which are unlikely to have official church positions.
Most denominations have firm theological positions, but leave the specifics of how to put their theology into practice up to each individual church.
I'd be very surprised if any major denomination had any firm rules on how to reprimand anyone.
Also, the large (formerly state) churches often don't do much church discipline. It's a hold over from the days of parishes and cultural Christianity, when everyone in the area was technically a member of the church, when church and community were equivalent. It's very hard to effectively discipline people for sin in that kind of context, so church discipline is often neglected in the non-congregationalist churches. (Though also see the questions on theonomy.)
@Eagle But don't give up, we want to see questions like yours improved and reopened. We're here to help.
@curiousdannii thank you for your answer,It was a hard question to ask and I knew it would be compilcated.But when people can't agree even on if Jesus did use Harsh language that would make most lutheran church members upset,then we have a problem.
I would think almost everyone would agree on that
If for some strange reason I could re-write that question so it would get reopened and get major upvoted,i should get the nobel peace prize
(I was going to write harsh words not harsh language)
@Eagle In fact, he was downright insulting and disrespectful toward people who believed differently than he did. He attacked them personally. He called them awful names. He said they were going to hell. What a jerk!
@Eagle I dunno. I'm getting called a jerk here for saying things a lot milder than Jesus did about the established religious institutions and leaders of his day.
@Eagle "Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, you hypocrites!" does not sound very tolerant. "You make them twice as much a child of hell as yourselves" does not sound very tolerant.
It is his temple his nation the son of the creator and they are messing it up.And the pharisees did agree there was angels and olam haba(heaven) many others did not agree these things existed.So he is talking to the people He can talk to about these things,and He does this to save them and to treat them like men.
These scribes was not stupid people,they needed to hear it like men,and be set in place,they where not stupid sheep.They where ego,and many times evil but there was hope.So jesus did talk to them that way i think.
This is serious stuff
The people Jesus was not that hard against they where sinners,because of many things,life is complicated.
@Eagle Agreed. That's why I take it seriously, and I don't pull my punches. I look to Jesus as my model. And people regularly get mad at me for speaking that way. But that, really, is their problem, not mine.
Many people are defending their religious orthodoxy, even though it is not actually taught in the Bible. Jesus attacked the religious authorities of the day for doing precisely the same thing.
I have no qualms about saying loudly and clearly, "That doctrine is not taught in the Bible, and it is false and wrong."
And I really don't care if the entire Christian establishment disagrees with me. The truth is not democratically elected.
@Eagle Precisely. It twists it. It does not pay attention to the plain words of the Bible, but rather takes the words of the Bible and "interprets" them into things that the plain words of the Bible reject as false and wrong.
It is only gradually dawning on me that Swedenborg was right all along: these religions have completely falsified the Bible. They do not listen to the plain words of Jesus and the Prophets. They read into the Bible whatever they want to see there, based on their false, human-invented doctrines.
I used to think Swedenborg was speaking hyperbolically. Now I think he was just speaking the plain truth.
And that is based on 20+ years of conversations and debates with Protestants, in which it has become painfully obvious that they simply don't care what the Bible says. They will stick with the doctrines of Luther and Calvin come hell or high water.
Instead of reading what the Bible says in its own plain words, they will twist the words of the Bible in order to make them conform to the doctrines invented by Luther and Calvin.
@Eagle I'm well aware that Swedenborg engaged in extensive spiritual interpretation of the Bible. And if people don't agree with his interpretations, I can understand that. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the basic, biblical teachings about salvation. On that, he looked to the Bible's own plain words.
Oops, something funny happened there. "And so do I" was supposed to come after the longer comment.
@Eagle I've done that extensively. And they reject it. I've quoted many passages in the Bible that say plainly, in its own words, the things I am saying about salvation. And they say, "That's not what it means. It means something else. You have to interpret it."
Which really means, "No, no, no! That's not what Luther/Calvin say it means! It must mean something else because Luther and Calvin teach something different!"
The whole ridiculous argument about "faith alone" is a case in point. Not once does the Bible ever say that we are justified or saved by faith alone. In fact, it specifically denies it. But because Luther says that we are justified by faith alone, it simply doesn't matter what the Bible does or doesn't say.
@Eagle Well . . . the Mormon Church is a strange bird. (With apologies to any Mormons here.)
Same goes for penal substitution. The Bible nowhere, not in a single verse, ever says that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins. In fact, it vociferously rejects the whole concept of punishing the innocent and exonerating the guilty. But it simply doesn't matter what the Bible does or doesn't say on the subject. The Protestant theologians have spoken, and that settles the matter.
But people do not think the same stuff when they say "faith alone".When some people say faith there is a combination of works and for others its just a mind thing.So you have to ask them What do yo mean when you say "faith alone"
@Eagle It is such a useless doctrine that most Protestants in practice don't actually believe it. They believe in salvation through faith and works in practice. But because their preachers keep saying "faith alone," they, too, say "faith alone" with their lips.
Meanwhile, the theologians and those who dig deeply into their "mysteries of faith" say all sorts of non-biblical gobbledygook about how "we are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves us is never alone."
@Eagle Yes, but the hair-splitting Protestant theologians claim that works only follow salvation, which is itself purely a matter of faith. There's no biblical basis for this, but that's what they believe.
They call works "the fruits of faith." Another idea that is stated nowhere in the Bible.
it will sound like:Hey See God I did all this good stuff and i know you are the Master jesus,will you let me in now? Thats strange to me..I should be somehow that its all from Mercey and It is Gods work,God made it possible to work ,how we work and how we got saved.
We shall not just be workers for the Lord,We shall become like him,As jesus says"Me and my father are the same"
Mystical stuff and hard to give a clear doctrine about
@Eagle Not really that hard if we recognize that yes, it is all God's work, but God works through means to save us. Faith and good works are the primary means in us that God works through in saving us. If we don't have faith, we reject God's presence in us. If we don't do good works, we also reject God's presence in us, because it is God, not us, who does the good works in us, just as it is God who gives us the faith.
Jesus says to his deciples :You know how to get where Im going (and we know what that is,it is a relationship with Jesus and to love others like he Loves us,that is as clear doctrine as we ever gonna get I think)
@Eagle Yes. Loving God and loving the neighbor are the heart of the Bible and of Jesus' teaching. And love involves a relationship with God and with our neighbor.
@Eagle Unfortunately, their doctrine confuses people. But of course, they are going to keep teaching it, no matter what you or I or the Bible itself says.
One example: i think its a huge! problem that Swedborgians and other doctrines that do no stay firm In that jesus is healing today and driving out demons in a time Where i Think the world looks spiritually very dark.To not say That jesus is healing today "like in the old days" is false doctrine,i wont use the word in general but I think it is
@Eagle I don't say Jesus isn't healing today. I simply think that healing the body is a much lesser form of healing than is healing the soul. One is temporary. Our body will, in time, die. The other is eternal. Our spirit will live on forever.
Swedenborg actually did teach that physical health and disease are a result of good and evil spirits accompanying us--in a way that makes present-day scientifically-minded people squirm. But he also said that external, medical means of healing are valid as well.
@Eagle Jesus healed a few people. But there are many more that he did not heal. He was focused first on people's faith, and only secondarily on their physical health. If physical health were as important as spiritual health, why didn't he heal all the people who didn't have faith in him? His physical healings were a means to bring people who already had faith to greater faith.
And from a Swedenborgian perspective, they were like "parables" in action, showing in a physical picture the nature of spiritual health, which we call "salvation." We humans, being physical-minded, need visible imagery in order to think about spiritual things. Jesus' healings provide us with that physical imagery for the healing of the spirit that is called salvation.
@Eagle The Gospels say so explicitly about his time in his home region of Galilee.
And at the pool of Siloam, how many people there needed physical healing, and how many did he actually heal?
There are other passages where it simply says, "He healed their sick," and "He healed many." But the overall picture is that there were many sick people who did not get healed because they did not approach him with faith.
29Moving on from there, Jesus went along the Sea of Galilee. Then He went up on a mountain and sat down. 30Large crowds came to Him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and laid them at His feet, and He healed them. 31The crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled restored, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.…
AND yes some did not get heald as you said
But It should be a great part of the ministry
because the Kingdom has come close
or is here
however you wanna say it
It has to do with The Kingdom of God,not just a good thing to feel better,Healing is a part of the Kingdom
@Eagle It's just that I focus more on healing the spirit, and consider that to be a far greater miracle. But of course, I'm not opposed to physical healing. However, on the physical level I focus more on health through healthful living, and less on miraculous healing. I do think that the ancient Greek ideal of a sound mind [spirit] in a sound body is a good one.
I do firmly think that if the body is sick .. something is wrong.. somekinda curse or something.Still saved ,but the kingdom is not complete in your life
@Eagle I don't think sickness is necessarily evidence of spiritual malaise in that particular person. We're subject to many genetic and environmental factors that have nothing to do with our spirituality or lack thereof. But I do think that it is very difficult for people who are severely, chronically ill to focus on their spiritual rebirth and growth. So I agree that healing is a good thing for our spirit as well as for our body.
Genetics and curse is a classic .Where the sin comes upon next generation
Well whatever I have deep faith in that Healing the body is a very important part of the ministry and the Kingdom of God.And every church should atleast have a lot of it
@Eagle And I think that the focus of the church should be on the healing of the eternal soul. But I do think that the church should encourage people to take care of the health of their body, and to seek out healing where it is available.
@Eagle You and I aren't going to agree on this. The healing of the soul is essential to salvation. The healing of the body is not. Still, as I've said, I think that seeking and achieving physical health is an important thing. Personally, I've never been a patient in a hospital because so far I've never needed it. And that's at least partly because I pay attention to my physical health.
@Andrew You can do it from the menu that appears when you click their avatar in the avatar list on the right, or you can find their chat profile somehow and do it from there.
@LeeWoofenden Well, the one who is in Christ is a new Creation, created to do good works. How do you suppose that the old man can do what the new man has been created to do?
@LeeWoofenden Salvation, to you, is a lifelong process?
@LeeWoofenden Grace alone means that election, justification, regeneration, and sanctification are the exclusive work of God from beginning to end. No man can cause himself to be born again any more than he can cause himself to be born the first time.
@MattGutting So D. didn't know any subject and by that no essence. But he didn't deny that there were objects? So when he gave these objects names they weren't essences?
@Marijn Well, what Descartes was saying was that the only thing that makes an apple an apple, for example, is that it has a whole bundle of properties (size, weight, color, and so forth) that we associate with apples. The bread of the Host is what it is because it has the properties of being small, white, fragile, and so on. The body of Jesus would have had different properties, presumably (let's say) of being between 1.5 and 3 meters tall, weighing somewhere between 50 and 100 kg, etc.
The only way Descartes would allow the Host to become Jesus would be to have the Host suddenly become between 1.5 and 3 meters tall, between 50 and 100 kg, and so on.
Since obviously this doesn't happen, the only way to admit the Host actually changing into Jesus is to say that after Consecration, the Host only looks "small, white, fragile..." but these are actually optical illusions or hallucinations of a sort.
But the Church insists that these aren't illusions in any way; they're really there. The Host really is small, white, and fragile; it still has all the ("accidental") properties that it had before the Consecration.
Ok, but Descartes had concepts/ideas of objects and they were true because God wouldn't lie. So if God changed the concepts/ideas in Descartes head of what an object is than these objects can also change of size. So Jesus/Host became smaller etc. So this way it are the concepts transformed and not the objects and that is probably not corresponding with other rules of church although grace of believe can also change your way of thinking....
no I think Descartes would not deny the existence of objects in the outer world, but our concepts of those objects could be a kind of essence. But I'm not sure if he ever used the word essences for objects in the outer world or in presented in his mind.
I didn't know that; but good to know. So he didn't has an ontology or did he never use the word is/are by saying what someting ís...It is hard writing and talking in case you only use groups of properties.
@Marijn Yes it is. But that's the problem the Church had with his approach. If there are only groups of properties, and the Host retains all its properties after consecration, then the Host can't possibly be Jesus.
So the concepts/ideas human had in mind were only size taste etc. Still it is hard to believe that a smart guy like Descartes wouldn't had words for individual objects, didn't he say after the receiving impressions of size taste etc that it is something or should be something?
@Marijn He did say that it is something (certainly it is an apple, or a Host, or a table, or whatever). The problem is that if he admits it has all the properties of the Host, he's stuck saying that it is the Host.
@William I'm not entirely sure it's OK. Do you think it has a single objective answer? Would different people calling themselves Christian likely answer differently?
@Andrew It doesn't require a belief in grace alone to believe that. I believe that God's grace / love is what saves us. But I believe that God works through many means to accomplish that salvation. So from my perspective, grace alone is an oxymoron. And more practically speaking, the Bible simply doesn't say that we are saved by grace alone. It says that we are saved by grace. Not grace alone.
@William Having said that, there are themes that run through various types of religious, quasi-religious, and anti-religious art. Obviously these two images draw on similar themes, but apply them differently.
@William It is certainly not a "biblical basis" question.
@William I'd be interested to see the response there, if any.
@William It's an interesting question, but awfully broad and opinion-based for this site. I think it would be hard to phrase it in such a way that it would fly here.
@William It's not a good question. It will be heavily downvoted and closed.
But there's the potential for another good question, if you wrote it like this:
1) Give the dates of each art work to establish the Baphomet art came first 2) Give some evidence that the artists were working in the same region of the world so that the artist of Christ could have seen the art of Baphomet 3) Ask a specific question about one particular aspect of it, such as raising two fingers of the right hand
@LeeWoofenden actually, it assumes the old man is crucified with Messiah, which is what Paul says. The new man is a new creation altogether.
@LeeWoofenden I disagree. Paul is clear that we are saved while we are still dead in sin, chosen in Messiah before the foundation of the cosmos. Sanctification is a lifelong process, perhaps, but we are saved (from destruction by the blood of Messiah) already. Salvation is accomplished.
@LeeWoofenden Paul says we are saved by faith not by works, but you are saying we are saved by works that are identical to faith. You not only conflate faith and works, but sanctification of the flesh and salvation.
@William baphomet is an illustration of alchemical principles. The breasts are feminine, the phalus is masculine. The head and legs are animal the core is man. One hand points above, the other below. Baphomet is a depiction of the union of the opposites, the completed Self, a philosophy which culminates in the Union of God and man, which is central to the Christian notion of Self, at the core of which is the God who became man, who died, and who rose again to eternal life.
@William I don't speak for the whole community. Baphomet has been associated with the occult (that which is occluded, that is, hidden) which has been conflated with Satanism recently, but anyone who knows alchemy knows that these principles are magnified in Christ. Association with Satan is superficial, because the goat in Christian tradition is associated with sin.
Which of the following depictions came first?
Is one anti-religious or not? Is the resemblance significant enough?
The Upper Room
The Upper Room