@LeeWoofenden That is not traditional Christianity nor Protestantism for that matter - you are so entrenched in your idolatory of Swedenborg that you do not have a clear perspective on other Christians and consistently resort to calumnies. Shame on you.
@TRiG only if it's not in fact true. A majority of the legal codes for Western notions coud seem abstract and definitely legalistic when you read them on the books. Some are even fictions in the sense that the justice system never applies them in real life. They are very much real however and find their outworking in daily life. Someone who reads the law-codes but never attends a court may have exactly the same attitude as you do with respect to Christian theology...
...theology that is not lived is an abstract legalistic fiction
@LeeWoofenden You always say that. That's not the problem.
@LeeWoofenden You said " To be blunt, traditional Christianity, and especially Protestantism, is hopelessly off-base on its concept of sin and salvation. It's turned the Bible's very practical teachings about human evil and sin into some abstract, legalistic fiction about being saved from the consequences of sin without the need to actually stop sinning."
@curiousdannii If the Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith alone is taken as it really is, then not sinning is not necessary for salvation. Only believing is. But most Protestants in practice back away from that, because it's obviously wrong.
@curiousdannii I understand what they believe in practice. But that's not what their theologians teach in theory. Simply saying that salvation is "by grace alone, through faith alone," Protestant theologians are flatly contradicting the Bible.
"Grace alone" appears nowhere in the Bible. "Faith alone" appears once in the Bible: in James 2:24. And in that one verse where it appears, it is specifically rejected as saving.
And incidentally, the Bible also nowhere says that Jesus paid the penalty for our sin. It's just not there. And yet, that, too, is central to Protestant theology.
@LeeWoofenden How do you explain "the wages of sin is death" (NLT), then? If we don't have to die for our sins, then the wages have been paid. By whom? Who else but Jesus?
@curiousdannii There is no significant difference between justification and salvation. One always accompanies the other. If you're saved, your justified. If you're justified, you're saved.
@El'endiaStarman Jesus came to save us, not from the penalty of sin, but from the sin itself. When we are no longer sinners, then we no longer draw the wages of sin.
@curiousdannii You can make academic and intellectual distinctions between them. And theologians do. But in real, actual, practical Christian life, they are inseparable.
@LeeWoofenden Here's one difference: new life is an essential part of salvation, but it is not part of justification, it is the result of justification. That isn't an academic distinction, it is a vital part of practical theology
The Bible in multiple places says that Jesus saves us from sin. It never says Jesus pays the penalty for our sin. In saving us from sin, Jesus also saves us from the penalty of sin. Not by paying the price, but by bringing about our spiritual rebirth so that we are no longer sinners. (Though of course, we will never be perfect.)
@curiousdannii If you can explain it to me in words that a fifth grader would use, then perhaps I'll agree that there's a significant difference. But it's all couched in fancy theological terminology--which usually means that it doesn't have any real, practical significance in actual Christian life.
@curiousdannii This is Protestant doctrine, but it is not Biblical doctrine.
@LeeWoofenden "Our new eternal lives are part of salvation, but they are not part of "justification" - our becoming right with God. Our new lives are the result of becoming right with God" - how's that for fifth grade language
The Bible doesn't make these theological and academic distinctions between salvation and justification, or talk about being justified but not saved, or that faith justifies us but doesn't save us. It's all a lot of theological language to justify a fundamentally false and non-Biblical doctrine: salvation by grace alone through faith alone.
Even if Luther himself did not teach penal substitution (I still haven't gotten a clear answer on that), he certainly taught salvation by faith alone. That was his invention. And that is just as false and non-Biblical as penal substitution.
@curiousdannii It can be safely ignored if it's the product of theologians rather than the teaching of the Bible.
@curiousdannii Swedenborg's basic theology is all stated plainly in the Bible. Yes, there are parts of Swedenborgian theology that aren't plainly stated in the Bible. But all the essentials are there, with no need for fancy theological interpretations.
> 3 Some people may contradict our teaching, but these are the wholesome teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. These teachings promote a godly life. 4 Anyone who teaches something different is arrogant and lacks understanding. Such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. This stirs up arguments ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. (emphasis mine)
By contrast, Catholic and Protestant theology have made fundamental, key doctrines out of non-Biblical teachings. Swedenborg doesn't do that. That's why he is to be listened to, but not Catholic and Protestant councils and theologians as to what are the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.
@curiousdannii It does not say "justified by faith alone." It says "justified by faith." And faith, as Paul and the Bible generally use the term, has little or nothing to do with the intellectual faith of Protestant theology. Faith is something that transforms one's life. It is the beliefs that we live by, and that transform us from the inside out. If that doesn't happen, it's not faith. Faith alone is not faith.
Plus, Protestant theologians read Paul's statements about faith entirely out of the context of his writings as a whole. They focus on everywhere that he talks about faith, and ignore the places where he says we must do good works or we're going to hell. They read Romans 3, and skip over Romans 2.
They also ignore Jesus own teaching in Matthew 25:31-46. It just can't get any clearer than that. Those who do good works for their neighbor in need will go to eternal life. Those who do not will go to eternal punishment. That is the Lord's own teaching about who will be saved and who will be damned.
If Paul is read as contradicting Jesus, then the understanding of Paul must be wrong. Who is the greater teacher, Paul or Jesus? Should we nullify Jesus' teachings because we think Paul is saying something different? Or should we understand Paul in light of Jesus' teachings?
@curiousdannii No. As a matter of fact, I believe that most Protestants have good hearts, and therefore they actually do live according to the teachings of Jesus, and are saved. It's the doctrine that's wrong. And it has caused massive confusion.
@curiousdannii But by saying that faith transforms lives, they are contradicting the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. Faith alone does not transform lives. Faith with hope, love, and works does transform lives.
@bruisedreed You want me to throw some random quotes at you and judge you by whether you know their source?
@LeeWoofenden If you think the belief that faith transforms lives contradicts the doctrine of salvation by faith alone then that proves you don't understand it!
@curiousdannii I've read many fancy Protestant arguments about how faith alone really is true, and doing all sorts of mental calisthenics to "prove" it, none of which have anything to do with what the Bible actually says.
@curiousdannii That's just doubletalk. If they agree with James, then they will know that "a person is justified by his works, and not by faith alone."
@LeeWoofenden so the full quote from Martin Luther: “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” please note the 'but' in there
When Protestants try to explain away James, that is when they get at their most mentally calisthenic. I must admit, my brain does loop-de-loops when I read the incredibly fancy arguments protestants use to say that James doesn't actually mean what he says.
@bruisedreed Martin Luther was in a tough position. He needed a doctrinal point on which to distinguish his doctrine from Catholic doctrine. So he came up with salvation by faith alone, even though it's not in the Bible, and makes no sense. Then he went into all sorts of gymnastics to try to show that it was actually true.
Luther himself wasn't so bad. But his followers took his "salvation by faith alone" doctrine and ran with it.
@LeeWoofenden Well that says a lot about you then. I don't see any need for any complicated explanation of James. It is simple and not in conflict with either Paul or Jesus
I don't think Luther actually believed in salvation by faith alone. At least, the various extracts from his works that I've read indicate that he actually believed in faith together with works.
@curiousdannii I agree. All three of them teach that if we wish to be saved, we must have faith and do good works.
@LeeWoofenden Martin Luthen was in a tough position because he was excommunicated, pronounced a heretic and was hunted for his life. All for honestly teaching what he believed the bible was saying. He didn't need to differentiate his teaching from the Catholic Church
@LeeWoofenden Your question for simplicity in doctrine is valid, but I fear you have let it lead you simplistic doctrines
You may not want to distinguish between salvation and justification, but the Bible does at times. Such as Romans 5:9: "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God."
Furthermore the different Biblical authors do not always use language in identical senses.
Romans 5:10: "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life"
were enemies -> were reconciled -> now are reconciled -> will be saved
@LeeWoofenden If they are as famous or influential as that last quote, no I wouldn't have a problem; and if I wasn't already familiar with it, I would appreciate you for introducing me to it
Paul is obviously making some point by his use of tense here. What that point is is not immediately clear, it takes careful study. And it's a point that is specific to this passage. Other passages, whether by Paul or another author, which say different things using different tense constructions, are saying different things
@bruisedreed I didn't know who said the part you quoted. Simply because I haven't read very much of Martin Luther's writing. Hardly anything, come to think of it. And yes, I'm a Protestant. Well, sorta. I consider myself non-denominational after all...
@bruisedreed I'm sure he believed that the Bible was saying that faith alone saves. Unfortunately, it simply doesn't say that. So he made a mistake on that one. And that mistake of Luther's has been replicated in various permutations throughout Protestantism.
@bruisedreed In other words, Martin Luther not only contradicted the Bible, he contradicted himself on this point.
@LeeWoofenden before you can say he contradicted himself, you should demonstrate that you actually understand what he says in toto - something you have manifestly failed to do.
@curiousdannii The true, Biblical doctrine is actually quite simple. It took theologians to make something complicated and incomprehensible out of it.
@bruisedreed I don't think anyone understands the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, because it is self-contradictory. Same with the Trinity. Not only are they not in the Bible, but they simply don't make sense.
I feel no need whatsoever to understand a doctrine that is not only not taught in the Bible, but is directly contradicted in the Bible. That's not a doctrine that is worth comprehending.
If you can show me a single passage in the Bible that says either that we are saved by faith alone, or that we are saved by grace alone, I will be happy to reconsider. But you can't do it, because it's not there.
@bruisedreed No. Paul emphasizes faith, while James emphasizes works, but both agree that there must be both together. It's just that "works" in Paul is almost always a code word for the Torah, or Jewish circumcision, sacrifices, and so on. Paul is saying in Ephesians 2:8-9 that we're not saved by that, but by God's love (which "grace" is another word for), which we receive by faith in Jesus. And faith in Jesus involves a changed life, and doing good works.
So it is all seamless if properly understood.
@bruisedreed As I said, nobody really understands it, because it is self-contradictory. Same with the Trinity. That's why, in the case of the Trinity, that they say it's ultimately a mystery. Which basically means: nobody understands it.
And I'll talk about both as much as I want. Neither one is in the Bible. Therefore neither one can be considered basic Christian doctrine.
In other words, you think "works" in Paul is different to "works" in James - what's your evidence for that
@LeeWoofenden confessing you don't understand it is fine. Saying no-one understands it is both arrogant and stupid (just to be clear, \I'm not talking about the trinity here, but salvation by faith)
@bruisedreed Because in Paul "works" is almost always accompanied by telltale words such as "circumcision" or "of the Law" or other such things that indicate what he's talking about. In Romans 2 he uses it differently. There he's talking about good deeds. Elsewhere he is usually talking about the Torah when he uses the word "works."
James is clearly talking about good deeds, because he gives examples of what he's talking about: feeding the hungry, etc.
It was common for observant Jews to boast about their observance of the Law, and consider themselves superior to others because of it. See Jesus Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18:9-14. That's what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 2:8-9.
@bruisedreed The doctrine of salvation by faith alone requires the doctrine of the trinity of persons in order to work. If the trinity of persons falls, so does salvation by faith alone.
Both are non-Biblical, and both fall together.
Aside from penal substitution and salvation by faith alone, most of Protestant doctrine is derived directly from Catholic doctrine. And it's all based on the doctrine of the Trinity.
Yes, Paul does use "works" in different senses. And the very next verse reads: "For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." I don't think Paul could be a whole lot clearer than that that we are supposed to both have faith and do good works. He actually agrees with James. It's just that he emphasizes faith more, as the gate to savation.
In fact, Paul is correct that we're not saved by works. We're also not saved by faith. We are, in fact, saved by "grace," meaning God's love. It is a pure, undeserved act of salvation out of pure love on God's part. But if we do not have faith and do good works, we reject God's presence in us, so we reject both the grace and the salvation.
So technically, we're saved neither by faith nor by works, but by God's love.
Rather, faith and works are necessary conditions in us for us to accept God's love, grace, and salvation.
And notice that in the very next verse, Paul talks about circumcision. That's the telltale sign that he's discussing being an observant Jew vs. being a follower of Christ.
When Paul talks about "works" and "the works of the Law," "circumcision" usually occurs nearby.
Paul, by his own account, was a Pharisee. He was steeped in the Torah. And he was dealing with a major issue over whether Christians must also be observant Jews. Without understanding that, much of what Paul writes is opaque. These days, that issue has long since been settled. So it's easy to read Paul completely out of the context of the issues and debates that he was embroiled in with the Jerusalem (Jewish) Christians.
@curiousdannii Once again, faith alone is not taught in the Bible. I'm talking about what actually saves us. God saves us. Faith and works are necessary conditions in us for that to happen. Faith alone does not save, nor is it even faith.
Further, both the faith and the works are God's in us. They are not ours. All we can do is accept or reject them from God.
@curiousdannii I think Protestants are so stuck on faith alone, because that was the dividing line between Catholicism and Protestantism, that they cannot read the Bible for what it actually says. There is a powerful overlay of faith alone in their thinking, which skews everything in the Bible.
I'm speaking very simply here. "Grace alone" appears nowhere in the Bible. "Faith alone" appears only once, and in that one place it is specifically rejected. There is really no need for fancy theological argumentation to understand that. It is very simple.
@LeeWoofenden Insisting on talking about things that you don't understand is the action of a fool. You seem very intelligent, why would you do something so foolish?
@LeeWoofenden Everyone has beliefs which affect their natural reading of scripture, but everyone can look past them too. Many Protestant scholars have of course considered non-protestant arguments. Many of those will have been persuaded by them. But many do not.
Further, why did no one come up with those doctrines until 1,500 years after Christ? If the Bible is so clear about these things, why was Martin Luther the first one to promulgate it as a doctrine, and have it accepted by his followers? If it were in the Bible, Christians would have noticed it a thousand and a half years ago.
@bruisedreed I actually think I understand faith alone quite well. I simply think it is wrong, mistaken, and unbiblical. It requires massive amounts of fancy argumentation to derive. But it is nowhere actually stated in the Bible.
Yes - the wikipedia article on sola fide baldly asserts that Augustine is among the "Church Fathers whom Protestant apologists believe taught the doctrine of Sola Fide (although Catholic and Orthodox apologists quote the same fathers as supporting a justification that includes works)."
Confusion...
@curiousdannii Meh. Protestants are always going back and claiming that all sorts of church fathers taught faith alone, penal substitution, and so on. But their arguments are weak and partial, based on selective readings of only passages that support their views, while ignoring overwhelming volumes of statements to the contrary.
Matthew 19:16-29. See especially verses 17-19. Why would Jesus tell the young man to keep the commandments, and specifically list several of the Ten Commandments, if all the young man needed to do was believe in Jesus?
Should I keep listing passages? It's the teaching of the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, that we must not only believe in God, but follow God's commandments if we wish to be saved and go to heaven.
@bruisedreed By the same token, having faith requires following God's commandments. If you try to have faith without following God's commandments, you will fail. One simply does not exist without the other. They are inseparable. There is no such thing as "faith alone."
@curiousdannii We're just going in circles. Until you can show me a place where the Bible says that we are saved by faith alone, or by grace alone, I simply won't believe it. I can show you hundreds of passages that say we're saved by our beliefs and our actions. You cannot show me a single passage saying we're saved by faith alone.
@curiousdannii Nobody merits anything by works. That's just a basic Biblical teaching. But it has nothing to do with faith alone. It has to do with the fact that "without me [Jesus], you can do nothing." We don't merit anything by our faith. We don't merit anything by our works. We humans have absolutely zero merit. Nothing to do with faith alone.
@bruisedreed A quick word search of that Q&A shows that "faith alone" occurs in various explanations of the answerer, but not in any of the Bible passages, except in James 2:24. It's making my case for me.
@bruisedreed It's not a concession. It is part of actual, Biblical teaching. We don't have merit, nor is Christ's merit infused into us so that it is ours. All merit is always Christ's.
We don't gain any merit by our works. Merit has nothing to do with salvation. Having faith and doing good works is salvation, because that is Christ's presence in us. Without those two, we are not saved because Christ is not in us.
@bruisedreed I think they mean exactly what they say. When James says, "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone" (James 2:24), I think he means exactly what he says. No fancy explanation is necessary. It's crystal clear.
@LeeWoofenden this is nothing the Reformers would have disagreed with. You just aren't grasping what they had to deal with in terms of the prevailing Catholic soteriology and how to teach against it
When Jesus says in Matthew 25:31-46 that those who do practical good deeds of love and service to their neighbor will go to everlasting life, while those who don't will go to everlasting punishment, I think he means exactly what he says. No fancy interpretation necessary. All you have to do is read it.
When Paul says in Romans 2:13 that "It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified," what else can he possibly mean but that those who follow God's commandments will be justified? The rest of the chapter fully reinforces that point, and explains how non-Christians (Jews and "Greeks") are saved, through Jesus Christ.
Romans 3 says that faith leads us to righteousness. If it doesn't it is useless. Faith that doesn't lead to righteousness is faith alone. Faith that does lead to righteousness is not faith alone. It is faith together with righteousness. That is faith that saves. And not from our own merit, or "boasting," or anything like that, but simply because it is God's commandment, which we must follow or we are rejecting both God and salvation.
@LeeWoofenden In general it is considered respectful to let those who adhere to a belief be the ones who define it, rather than forcing definitions they'd disagree with onto them
When Paul says in Romans 3:28, "For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law," he immediately follows it in Romans 3:29 with, "Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also." He is saying that it is not necessary to keep the Jewish ritual law in order to be saved.
@curiousdannii It is considered Christian to base beliefs on the Bible. And my understanding of Protestantism is that the Bible is supposed to be allowed to speak for itself, in its plain, literal words. The doctrine of salvation by faith alone fails that test.
@LeeWoofenden This is what you are doing to protestantism: "Swedenborgians are modalists who believe that God is only one person who appears as different forms at the different times"
@bruisedreed You have still not shown me a single passage in the Bible that says we are saved by faith alone, or that we are saved by grace alone. When are you going to show me the passage where the Bible plainly teaches this doctrine that you say is fundamental to Christianity?
@LeeWoofenden actually I keep coming back to Eph 2:8-9. It is you that choose to ignore the clear implications of that passage. It uses "not of works" rather than "alone" - so what, the meaning is clearly there
Protestants can believe whatever they want to believe. But I will not believe it as fundamental Christian doctrine unless it is stated plainly in the Bible.
@LeeWoofenden You have shown that you actually believe something very similar to what protestants mean by faith alone, or possibly even exactly what they mean. But for a reason I don't understand, you keep saying that protestants mean something else by it
@bruisedreed If that's what the Bible means there, then why does the Bible explicitly reject that interpretation in James?
Paul is not saying what you're attributing to him.
@curiousdannii All I'm saying is that both salvation by faith alone and penal substitution are false doctrines because they're not taught by the Bible. If they were peripheral doctrines, I wouldn't make such a big deal about the fact that they're not taught plainly in the Bible. But they're held as essential doctrines. That's a problem.
@bruisedreed I said nobody understands it. Because it's self-contradictory. As for the words that are used to explain it, and the formulas that are used to express it, I understand those perfectly well. But either they're not faith alone, or they're not true because they're not in the Bible.
This, in fact, is a fundamental misunderstanding that I'm continually running into among Protestants that I talk to: the idea that good works must involve merit, and therefore they're not saving. But doing good works because God commands us to has nothing to do with merit. It's simple obedience. And disobedient people are not saved.
@curiousdannii I really don't know why Protestants are so stuck on that doctrine.
I actually had a fundamentalist try to convince me to say that we are saved by faith alone together with works. It was very important to him, for some reason, that I affirm "faith alone," even if I did it in a context that denied faith alone. "Faith alone" comes from Luther. And Protestants are very stuck on it.
@LeeWoofenden No that's perfectly comprehensible. It's not nonsense, but it is false.
@LeeWoofenden I'm going now. But I'd ask that you have the humility to be willing to consider that protestants might mean something different by "faith alone" than what you think they mean by it
@curiousdannii Well, let's get technical about "nonsense." I'm using it in the common meaning of the word, not in some technical definition. Something that is self-contradictory is false. Faith alone is self-contradictory, because faith cannot exist in an "alone" state. It is therefore false.
@curiousdannii Defining "faith alone" as something other than "faith by itself" is just playing with words. If there's something else with it, it's not faith alone.
I've read your definition of faith alone, I've read various Protestant definitions of it. Either they're not actually faith alone, or they're just plain false and non-Biblical.
@curiousdannii That's why it's awkwardly stated. A person ordinarily wouldn't state it that way. But if someone did say that, it would mean that you're the only Dannii in the chat room. Otherwise it would mean nothing at all.
@curiousdannii Once again, this is just playing with words. If you want to define "faith alone" as "faith that has six other virtues with it," then be my guest. And I'll define a cat as a dog, and a rose as dog poop.
@curiousdannii And if "X" is "save you," then that is wrong. Only God can save you.
@curiousdannii I also think you're defining "faith alone" entirely differently than the way the vast bulk of Protestants believe it. The vast bulk of Protestants think it means that you're saved by believing in Jesus. Period. But you seem to be defining it in a whole different way.
@curiousdannii I've been told that quite explicitly by Protestants. I've even been told by a Protestant that I'm going to hell because I won't say "faith alone saves."
To be clear, I don't think Protestants are going to hell because they doctrinally believe in faith alone. I simply think that doctrine is irrelevant to their salvation.
I expect that most Protestants are going to heaven. And they're going to heaven because they not only have faith, but they do their best to follow Jesus' teachings about loving the neighbor.
@curiousdannii But the doctrine of salvation by faith alone lends itself to that sort of obtuseness. It suggests to people that all you need to do is believe in Jesus, and you're saved. And that gets preached from thousands of Protestant pulpits.
It's all over the televangelists. Put your faith in Jesus, and you're saved. Believe in Jesus, and you're saved. But if you don't believe in Jesus, you're damned to hell. All Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Native Americans, and anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus is damned to eternity in hell.
That's what the doctrine of salvation by faith alone lends itself to people believing.
@LeeWoofenden That is true, which is why protestant teachers keep going on about faith alone, so that people won't fall for the idea that perversion of it
@LeeWoofenden ...you do realize that the more-educated Protestants probably don't believe or agree with the televangelists...right? They snag the more gullible segment of the general population.
@El'endiaStarman Protestantism has its fundamentalists and its mainliners. Fundamentalists teach the hard version of faith alone. Mainliners--at least, the ones I've hung out with--don't actually make much of a big deal about faith alone. They believe that Christians should live good lives, and that's what they do.
@curiousdannii Prosperity gospel is not the same as the common teaching of salvation by faith in Jesus. It's a weird mongrel of OT and NT teachings aimed at reaching people who are more focused on material struggles than on spiritual life.
@curiousdannii They come in all stripes. Some of the more recent ones have struck out on their own tangents.
FYI, I spent ten years heavily engaged in the local Council of Churches and Clergy Group in the town where I was pastor. Mainline Protestant pastors and congregations were the backbone of the group, plus the Unitarian Universalists. They were all about doing good in the community.
We occasionally got some of the fundamentalists involved (even though the UUs didn't like it!), and they were all about getting people to believe in Jesus so they could be saved.
Oh, and the Catholic Church was involved here and there. They, too, were all about doing good in the community.
In my experience, the doctrine of salvation by faith alone just isn't much of a consideration among mainline Protestants. They believe in following Jesus teachings about loving God above all and loving the neighbor as oneself . . . in practical ways.
I've mostly encountered it among fundamentalist Protestants. They're the ones that push it hard. And to them, it means that the only thing that saves you is believing in Jesus. If you believe in Jesus, you're saved. If you don't, you're damned. That, practically speaking, is what salvation by faith alone actually means to the bulk of Protestants who actually consider it to be an important doctrine.
I do realize that there are Protestant theologians that write very fancy explanations of what "salvation by grace alone, through faith alone" actually means. But I don't think those fancy explanations make much of a dent in Protestantism as it actually exists, and in what most Protestants think of when they think of salvation by faith alone.
And I think it is no accident that the Protestants who push that doctrine hardest are the same ones that believe that the bulk of the world's population is going to hell because they don't believe in Jesus. It's a doctrine that lends itself to false beliefs.
@curiousdannii Really? I always thought fundamentalists were in the minority. I would generally be in agreement in saying that mainline Protestantism is getting weaker, so to speak, as their moral stances gradually change in accordance with changes in society's moral stances.
Christianity is the most popular religion in the United States, with 70.6% of polled American adults identifying themselves as Christian in 2014. This is down from 86% in 1990, lower than 78.6% in 2001, and slightly lower than 73% in 2012. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation. The United States has the largest Christian population in the world, with nearly 247 million Christians, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations.
All Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism by itself, at 23.9%, was...
@curiousdannii Yeah, the pastor of the UCC church across the town square from us had greatly inflated his church's membership figures. When he left and an interim came in, the interim was quite disgusted with how the previous pastor had artificially pumped up the numbers.
You can get affiliation numbers from things like a census, but actual attendance rates would have to be self-reported, so it's hard on both sides to get accurate results
@fredsbend No, they don't have "entitlement issues"; they have covetousness/covetice. It is perfectly natural and normal to think "I should get what I deserve, and Jane Doe should get what she deserves"; but when we start ...
thinking, "This is what Jane Doe deserves, or doesn't deserve", then (assuming we haven't been put in a specific position of judgment by society) we've appropriated a function of God's; and that's a sin.
@bruisedreed Finally got around to actually reading that Q&A. I was quite disappointed in the answers. Of the six answers, two of them don't answer the question at all (and I flagged them as such), two of them come nowhere near Christianity.SE standards for a good answer, and the remaining to provide only a couple of quotes from the Bible each.
It's almost as though the answerers thought the answer was so obvious that it wasn't necessary to actually provide a solid answer. Just say that the Bible supports it, and throw in a couple of quotes.
If that's the best you guys got, you're a long way from making a good Biblical case for Sola Fide.
@fredsbend the tough thing about these old questions is that it's practically impossible for a new answer to displace the old answers, even if there's no accepted answer. I wish there were a way to get a group of users together who agree to review each other's new answers to old questions and vote them up if appropriate
I think I mentioned before how it seems like there are so many questions that say things like "what do the church fathers say about ..." or "what do reformed theologians say about..." and then the answers don't quote any fathers or theologians and have double-digit positive votes