@Aigle Yes. Without repentance from sin, there is no salvation. John the Baptist, Jesus, and Jesus' disciples all preached repentance for the forgiveness of sin.

@Aigle Yes, we believe that people of all religions go to heaven if they live a good life according to what their religion teaches that God wants of them. See: "If there's One God, Why All the Different Religions?" and: "Is Jesus Christ the Only Way to Heaven?‌​"

@LeeWoofenden You did, here: " I mean both historically and in the present, Protestants who believe in basic Protestant doctrine in fact, if not in their own minds, give more authority to Luther, Calvin, and the other leading Protestant theologians than they do to the Bible, because if there's a contest between what the Bible says and what Luther says, they'll pick what Luther says and not what the Bible says."

@Birdie That's not saying they're being dishonest. Just that they are self-deceived, or unaware that they are giving more authority to Luther than to the Bible. They sincerely believe that they are giving primary authority to the Bible. It's just that that's not actually the case.

Many Protestants are not even aware that Luther was the one who promulgated the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and that he placed it as the cornerstone of the church.

Or at least of the doctrine of the church.

I said intellectual honesty; if you're giving more authority to someone like Luther rather than the Bible while claiming you're giving more authority to the Bible then you're being intellectually dishonest.

@Birdie No. People can be mistaken without being dishonest.

Do you know what intellectual dishonesty is?

It's not the same as lying or telling the truth.

@Birdie Do you know what intellectual error is?

Sure.

@Birdie I am not accusing Protestants of being dishonest. I am saying that they are in error. There's a big difference.

No, you're saying they hold Calvin/Luther/etc. in higher authority than the Bible, while claiming not to. Which is intellectual dishonesty.

@Birdie I am saying that they are unaware that they are giving Luther and Calvin higher authority than the Bible. They sincerely believe that they are giving the Bible the highest authority. But in fact, they are giving Luther's and/or Calvin's doctrines higher authority, such that everything they read in the Bible is interpreted according to those doctrines, whether or not the Bible itself actually states those doctrines (which it doesn't).

@LeeWoofenden How can you say Jesus saves still support that good people from all religion come to heaven.. Jesus is the King in his kingdom.Why Jesus, if you just can be a good person in another religion?

Yes, which is an accusation of intellectual dishonesty. I reject your conclusion, they are not being intellectually dishonest, nor do they hold Luther or Calvin in higher authority. You just think they are, and aren't willing to concede people can see Protestant doctrine in the Bible without any influence from Luther and Calvin.

For example, a recent convert friend of mine, without having any real contact with any church, let alone a book by Luther or Calvin, came to Protestant conclusions just by reading the Bible. Is he lying to himself about his Luther/Calvin influences?

@Aigle Because Jesus is the one and only God of the universe. Jesus is the God of all religions, whether or not the people of those religions realize it. When they pray to God, they are praying to Jesus, because there is no other God to pray to.

@Birdie Once again, I am not accusing them of being intellectually dishonest. I am accusing them of being self-deceived and in error.

If you cannot understand the difference between error and dishonesty, then we really can't have a reasonable discussion about this.

You still clearly don't know what intellectual dishonesty is :P

@Birdie You still clearly don't know what honestly held error is.

@LeeWoofenden I must say Lee while i strongly disagree with you.Im impressed how you stand up for The sweedborgian faith.Respect!

@Aigle Thank you.

@Birdie Protestant dogmas pervade Western society to the extent that even people who are not themselves Christians commonly think of Protestant beliefs as being what Christianity is.

Honestly held error is when you make a mistake, or lack information. Intellectual dishonesty is when you apply logical fallacies to data to result in a pre-determined preferred conclusion, while claiming to be keeping the argument logical.

@LeeWoofenden I don't think you live in my country, most people don't even know that Jesus is anything but a swear-word. Any knowledge of Christianity is likely to be Catholicism from movies.

@Birdie What country do you live in?

New Zealand.

@Birdie Is New Zealand not predominantly Protestant?

Definitely not, most people are atheistic or agnostic.

@Birdie I mean, of those who are religious.

Depends where you place Anglicanism, but no.

Predominantly Anglican and Catholic

With most of the Anglicans being high-church, not low-church.

@Birdie Okay. But I would still say that Protestant doctrine has been very successful in placing itself as "Christian doctrine" throughout the Christian world.

Sure, but my country is not a Christian country, and my friend is from a Chinese background, which doesn't even have a Christian heritage let alone majority Christian population.

@LeeWoofenden I agree .There are major problems with protestant dogmas.Many keep to traditions they know is as ungodly as can be.But because it seems good they keep to false teaching.Mostly because they see the old testament as evil or strange,and a strong connection to pagan culture

@Birdie People can think they're being logical when they're not actually being logical. Intellectual dishonesty involves an intent to deceive. I don't believe that Protestants have an intent to deceive. I simply think that they are in error, and are themselves deceived.

@Aigle Perhaps the biggest problem I have with Protestant doctrine is that it makes it far too easy for Protestants to think that it's not particularly important to repent from sin and live a good life instead. No matter how many times their theologians say that's wrong, the doctrine itself lends itself to "antinomianism," as it's called in technical theological terms.

@Aigle I have a young email friend from Nigeria who became a Swedenborgian, and part of her impetus was that in the evangelical Protestant churches she attended she saw people saying they are saved, but living terrible lives. They believed that they were saved simply by believing that Jesus paid the penalty for their sins. So since the penalty is already paid, why bother repenting and no longer sinning?

Once again, no matter how many times Protestant theologians say you have to repent and not sin, the fact that they say good works are not saving, and that the only thing that saves a person is faith in Jesus, unavoidably gives the message that repenting, not sinning, and living a good life really isn't all that critical.

Antinomianism has dogged Protestantism ever since Luther first promulgated the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

@LeeWoofenden But theres alot of protestant.Not everyone has forgotten to repent

But if you want to build a big popular church you wont have to much repentance

@Aigle Yes, of course. There are many good people who are Protestants. They do repent from their sins and they do live good lives of love and service to the neighbor, as Jesus taught. And they will go to heaven just as people of good will and good lives in every other sect and religion will go to heaven.

(most of the time)

@LeeWoofenden major problem with your other religion view

@Aigle Yes. A big reason Protestant doctrine has such wide appeal, I think, is that it's easy to "believe in Jesus" and be saved. Repenting, reforming, and being reborn is hard work.

@LeeWoofenden Reforming i think is a big problem

@Birdie Well, I don't know your friend, so I can't really comment on that. But as I just said to @Aigle, Protestant doctrine is appealing to people. Otherwise Protestantism would not have been as successful as it is. But the fact that it is appealing doesn't necessarily mean it's right.

@LeeWoofenden That's not Protestant doctrine, that's easy-believism promulgated by the modern evangelical movement. It certainly wasn't taught during the Protestant Reformation.

@Aigle That's where the hard work of salvation is. Changing your desires, attitudes, and actions from the old habitual self-centered and materialistic ones that we all come equipped with from birth.

@Birdie No, it wasn't. But the moment Luther invented and promulgated as core Christian doctrine the doctrine of justification by faith alone, antinomianism was inevitable. I'm certain that was an unintended consequence. But it was an inevitable consequence.

@LeeWoofenden Interesting we are talking about To repent.Peter is talking about that we shoud confess to eachother so we can be healed. And for jews and christians this is a big part of How you repent. But I have read that That in judaism you only confess straight to God and not eachother. Most of what we read in the new testament we find in the old,even to confess.But why does Peter say to confess to eachother?

@Aigle That's a big subject. But I do think that admitting to other people that we've done something wrong is important, especially when our wrong actions have hurt them. If you hurt someone through your wrong actions, it is good not only to recognize that between you and God, but also to apologize to the person or people you hurt.

And a real apology is not "I'm sorry you got hurt," but "I'm sorry for what I did. It was wrong."

@LeeWoofenden Not a big part of church teaching.But I think Leviticus talks about repaying

Along those lines, you might be interested in this article: "Repentance: The Unpopular Partner of Forgiveness."

ok thanks

@Aigle Repentance is primarily something that we must do in front of God. But Jesus also said that as much as we do something for the least of his brothers (and sisters) we have done it for him.

@LeeWoofenden Interesting to read there view

@LeeWoofenden The role of mercy is interesting,does it take away sin or give you time to repent?

@Aigle Sin cannot be taken away without repentance. That's really just a tautology, however. Repentance is simply the first step in taking away sin. And God's mercy is such that it will always take away sin provided that we are willing to have it taken away. However, at the time of death, if we have still not repented, there is no more repenting or turning back. Our course is set, because our character and direction is set.

Death is like the point at which the pot is fired, after which it can no longer be reshaped.

@Aigle And yes, interesting stuff.

@LeeWoofenden What do you think about what Paul said about women in leadership?

@LeeWoofenden Does sweedborgians have women leaders?

@Aigle On this type of social issue, Paul necessarily spoke to, and according to, the culture in which he lived. At that time, women were considered inherently of lower status than men. Paul considers it unseemly for those of lower social status (women) to lead those of higher social status (men).

Today, women are not considered (in the West, at least) to be of lower social status than men. Therefore there is no shame or social wrong today for women to be leaders.

@LeeWoofenden "Death is like the point at which the pot is fired, after which it can no longer be reshaped." Interesting.Do you have a bible verse to back that up?

Paul also said that slaves should obey their masters as they obey Christ. But in today's society, in which slavery has been legally and socially (though sometimes not in practice) abolished, that commandment of Paul is no longer in force.

@Aigle The more liberal branches of the Swedenborgian church ordain women and give them full equality in the leadership of the church. The more conservative branches still do not. It's similar to the split in traditional Christianity on this issue.

@LeeWoofenden Ok. I do not agree with your viw on Paul here.As far as I know And I think I did ask that question here before.There where no women priests in the temple.That should tell us something.

@Aigle In the Bible, the connection would be to the time of judgment, at which time we are judged according to our works, and sent either to everlasting life or to everlasting punishment, as Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-46 and Paul said in Romans 2:1-16.

I'd have to think about whether the Bible makes any explicit connection between the parable of the Potter and the time of Judgment. But at the time of Judgment a person's final fate is sealed, as is made clear in the above two passages and a number of others.

@LeeWoofenden I did not know there was a liberal and concervative branch in The sweedborgian church.How many members are there?

@Aigle It does tell us something spiritually. But socially it is a reflection of the fact that ever since the Fall, and actually, ever since the second have of Genesis 2, before the Fall, we humans have not been in the proper order in which God created us. Many of the commandments and practices in the Bible in their literal sense are adapted to us "stiff-necked people" and our wayward ways.

@Aigle In the various branches worldwide there are probably somewhere between 25k and 50k members. Last I knew the majority were in South Africa. However, I don't know a lot about the South African Swedenborgian church today, so I can't say much about it.

The four branches headquartered in Great Britain and the U.S. divide along those lines when it comes to women's roles in the church. They number under 10k members put together.

@LeeWoofenden Well my problem with it Is that There where alot of other religions at that time that had alot of Women priests in there religion and If God did want women to represent as priests in the temple or general I guess It would be clear in the scripture.

The British "Conference" and the U.S. "Convention" branch ordain women and give women full equality in church leadership. These are the two oldest branches of the Swedenborgian Church. The U.S. based "General Church" and "Lord's New Church," which broke off from Convention over a century ago, are more conservative and do not ordain women or allow them to serve in the highest leadership roles of the church.

@Aigle Once again, most of the Bible speaks to a fallen humanity. Here are two articles that speak of this, though they focus more specifically in relation to marriage rather than to women in priestly and leadership roles:

What are the Roles of Men and Women toward Each Other and in Society?

@LeeWoofenden That also tells us that they ar not to live like the other nations and Isreal is a holy nation.The same goes for many other stuff,gay marriage .They where different from the world ,the same is for the church today(is dont see why this should change because of culture)

Man, Woman, and the Two Creation Stories of Genesis

@Aigle Yes, they were set apart, primarily because they were to represent spiritually a true church and our spiritual life. However, culturally they weren't all that different from the surrounding nations. They were constantly worshiping other gods and breaking the other commandments because other than being perhaps more stubborn than the surrounding nations, they were basically of the same character.

It was that stubbornness that made them able to serve as God's representative church at the time, as illustrated in the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, in which, even though the angel had put his hip out of joint, Jacob refused to let go until the angel blessed him.

@LeeWoofenden yes but that was a sin and a mistake

@Aigle Sure. But they were just as prone to that sin and mistake as the surrounding nations. They themselves were not a holy nation. But God made them a holy nation in order to represent the spiritual realities of the church through their physical commandments and practices.

@LeeWoofenden I have never seen a good biblical argument for women leadership over men in the church (spiritual leader)

That is also why, in the New Testament, many of those commandments and practices are abrogated because Jesus "fulfilled" them, meaning raised them to the spiritual level that they symbolized.

@Aigle And as long as you are stuck in the idea that women are inherently inferior to and subject to men, you will not see such an argument even if it is made. But that situation between men and women is still a product of fallen humanity. Read the two articles I linked for you above.

@LeeWoofenden But if God did not make women priests in the old testament why has that change now?

... Excuse me Lee. I have never said women are inferior.

@Aigle First of all, priesthood itself is abolished in true Christianity, because Christ is God's own mediator. There is no longer any need for human mediators between God and humanity. This is the significance of the veil of the Temple being torn in two from top to bottom at the time of Jesus' crucifixion, when he said "It is finished."

Those "Christian" churches that have priests, or "ministers" that are essentially priests, standing between the people and God, are not really Christian at all in their structure and worship of God. They have reverted back to ancient Jewish practices, before the veil of the temple was severed, and have substituted human intermediaries for God's own mediator: Jesus Christ.

In true Christianity, all people have a direct, unmediated relationship with God in Jesus Christ. This is the basis of the idea of "the priesthood of all believers."

And "all believers" includes women.

@Aigle Those who believe in excluding women from leadership and priestly / ministerial roles in the church commonly claim that they do not believe that women are inferior. They speak of all people, man and woman, slave and free, Greek and Jew, being equal in Christ. And yet, in practice they make women inferior to men by denying them leadership roles in the church.

@LeeWoofenden All Christians represent God in a way,but we have differnet gifts and roles.What is the problem with accepting that women and men have different roles?In The body of christ When God have created to different bodys?

This is not an intellectual question

It is similar to my argument above that Protestants, though they claim and believe that they give the Bible primary authority, in fact give Luther and Calvin primary authority, because they interpret everything in the Bible according to the teachings of Luther and Calvin, and give greater precedence to those teachings than they do to the plain statements of the Bible, which reject Luther's and Calvin's key doctrines.

@LeeWoofenden "Those who believe in excluding women from leadership and priestly / ministerial roles in the church commonly claim that they do not believe that women are inferior" I think you are wrong here

@Aigle I have no problem with men and women having different roles. And in my experience of women in the ministry, women do minister in a different way than men do, even in the same official role in the church. And my experience is that this made the whole ministry of the church far more whole and far better able to take into account the needs of all of the laity. Women's voices on the council of minister made the church's ministry richer and better.

@Aigle What, specifically, do you think is wrong in that statement?

@LeeWoofenden everything,some do most dont

@Aigle What I object to when it comes to roles is human beings imposing roles upon one another. And the church is a collection of human beings. In Christianity, every individual Christian has a direct relationship with God. It is not up to the church to impose particular roles on particular members. That is between the individual Christian and God.

@LeeWoofenden She was created as helper:New International Version The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." gen 2:18

A number of women from the more conservative branches of our church have become ordained in our branch because God called them to ministry, but their church would not ordain them or allow them to serve in the role that God called them to. And it's not my job, or the church's job, to contradict what God told them in their personal relationship with God.

@Aigle Read the two articles I linked for you above. That is dealt with there. Genesis 2:18 is the first place where God says something is "not good." What takes place after that, even though it is before the Fall occurs in Genesis 3, already represents a "not good" state of humanity, in which humanity has already departed from the original order in which God created us.

@LeeWoofenden If God created a suitable helper, it would be foolish not to give her that role in the church or for her not to take that role.Would go against creation

In the original creation of humanity on the sixth day in Genesis 1:26-31, man and woman are created together, not one from the other, both are created in the image and likeness of God, and both are given dominion over all of creation, with no distinction made between man and woman in any of these characteristics or roles.

In other words, God first created man and woman equal, both in the image and likeness of God, and gave them both dominion together. Only in the second half of Genesis 2, when God first pronounced something "not good," was woman created out of man as a helper for him. So woman as helper for man is already a falling away from the original order in which God created man and woman.

You really should read those two articles. It's all covered there.

@LeeWoofenden in the first creation story there is more imformation and in the second there is nothing that tells us that the first story is wrong

It might tell us that they are of equal worth ,and they are,no one says otherwise

@Aigle I'm sorry, but that common notion among Christians just doesn't work. The second Creation story, if taken literally, or as an expansion of the first, flatly contradicts the first in the order of creation.

Read the articles. It's all covered there.

Further, you have to understand that the word for "man" and "adam" are the same in the first creation story and the second. The Hebrew word "'adam" has the primary meaning there of "humankind," which encompasses both man and woman, as stated explicitly in Genesis 1:26-27.

Before Eve was created out of Adam's rib, "Adam," or "humankind," encompassed both male and female.

@LeeWoofenden You major problems is that All the jews and earlty christians such as Paul see it the same way. It is not a great topic in the bible should women be the leaders of men and that is not a cultural questions because other religions and cultures did have women leaders over men ,including Egypt .

Israel did travel away from egypt and there priests

It is not until Genesis 2:22-24 that the words 'ish and 'ishah," meaning male humans and female humans specifically, are introduced. Before that it is always *'adam," and the Hebrew words for "male and female."

It is necessary to read the text very carefully in its original Hebrew to get the full view of what, exactly, it is saying.

(you can call her a helper of man or humans in general she is still helper in the bible)

@Aigle Read the articles. That situation is the result of humans moving away from God's original plan for man and woman. And it continues to be the situation until the New Jerusalem comes, which I believe is happening in our day. Only then do we humans return to God's original plan for us. Only then to we re-gain access to the Tree of Life, which was lost from Genesis 3 right to Revelation 22.

In other words, throughout the entire Bible except for the first two and last two chapters, humans have not been in the order in which God originally created us. That applies both to the Old Testament and to the New Testament, including the letters of Paul.

And during that entire time, God has had to accommodate the teachings to humanity's fallen state. That also includes the letters of Paul.

Why did Jesus then not talk about this and why where non of the diciples and leaders women? If it was important they would have been

And really, only the first one and a half chapters of Genesis represent God's original ideal for humanity. From Genesis 2:18 onward, something is "not good." And we can't charge God with something being "not good." When God pronounces something "not good," it is because we humans have already begun to depart from God, and from God's plan for us.

Jesus made everything new.. still no women

@Aigle you don't seem to realize the significance of Mary learning at the feet of Jesus

have a think about why her sister was so upset

@Aigle The Gospel of Luke, especially, gives various key roles to women. And there are a number of women in the Bible who took leadership roles. See my article, "Is the Bible a Book about Men? What about Women?" However, human culture did not allow women equality with men.

And that has been so deeply ingrained in us that it is not something God could fix until the time of the New Jerusalem, when we humans finally return to God's original intention for us.

@bruisedreed Jesus is the Master and Teacher of all people, both men and women. Mary recognized that.

This is just like Deborah or Esther,they are important women and have a leadership role and a spiritual one.But it is not the same as representing the church As Jesus as the male role ,in creation and the leader role that was created.Not the same leadership role as the man

Well Dinner now

Tikka masala ,chiken and nan bread.talk to you all later

@Aigle That has been the state of human beings ever since we first began to move away from God so that instead of everything God created being "very good," as God pronounces it in Genesis 1:31, something is now "not good." And we've been living in that "not good" ever since.

@LeeWoofenden Although we probably have very similar views on this issue in general, I don't think we can profitably talk about it.

Only today, as the New Jerusalem descends from God out of heaven, are we finally returning to the "very good" that God pronounced in Genesis 1:31. And that includes men and women returning to the original equality, both in the image and likeness of God, that God created them.

@bruisedreed That's fine.

@Aigle In relation to that, you may be interested to know that the official name of most Swedenborgian denominational bodies includes "the New Jerusalem." Though my denomination publicly goes by "The Swedenborgian Church," our official, legal name is "The General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the United States of America."

That's because we believe that we are now living in the era when the New Jerusalem is descending from God out of heaven. The massive social and spiritual changes that have been taking place ever since what the secular world calls the "Age of Enlightenment" are, we believe, part of that descent of the New Jerusalem.

@Aigle There was highly entrenched cultural mysogyny at the time - this influenced greatly the ministry methodology of Jesus and the early church. There are some very important signposts in the New Testament however for a very different way of doing things. If you would like to investigate a different perspective than the one you're more familiar with currently, I'd like to suggest you check out margmowczko.com/category/equality-and-gender-issues

Ok ok we wont agree ! New topic

I wonder since you both are from the USA I guess.. Can you sell Halal meat as normal meat in the store?

@Aigle That is not something I pay much attention to, being both Christian and vegetarian.

@LeeWoofenden oh ok,I did try that a week,very hard .but you loose weight

Why a vegetarian?

@Aigle For most Americans, losing weight is a good thing. :-)

@LeeWoofenden Yeah overweight in america is insane

is healty food very expensiv?

@Aigle Better for the body, better for the planet. It is also the original human diet given in Genesis 1:29.

@Aigle Compared to meat, no.

We can get everything we need in the regular grocery stores here.

@LeeWoofenden Junk food is like drugs.but why keep eating it when your 140 kg?

The war on poverty in the US did not work out very well .. from 22 % to 21 % since the 1960s.I guess a war on fat will not work

@Aigle Government programs to fix people up rarely do work.

@LeeWoofenden agree 100%.and if it does it is a problem that the gouvermnet made

But if you think that all problems in the world are because of gouvermnet you will off course often use gouverment to fix them,never ending circle

@LeeWoofenden I hope USA never will give up there freedom

@Aigle Government has its role. But religion, not government, is the right vehicle to bring about personal and social change for the better.

@Aigle Too late. We're giving up more and more of it every day.

They are telling everyone to become more like Northe Europe,that is a stupid idea

Benjamin Franklin said it all:

> Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

@Aigle Stupid or not, we're rapidly heading in that direction.

@LeeWoofenden Great quote! Many people just fight to fight and no responsibility

@Aigle It is a desire to avoid personal responsibility that drives most of the laws taking away our freedom in the process of having the government take responsibility for us instead of taking responsibility for ourselves.

Some Harvard professor did a longitudinal study of democracies showing that once the people realize they can vote themselves stuff, the democracy declines. He placed the U.S. well over the hump on that curve.

@LeeWoofenden North Europe does not give the world anything,no military,dont create anything,and everyone is the same-Still Not many know that in Europe in general the Right wing partys are doing very well

There is no leader in europe that says God bless us

Maybe in east europe

@Aigle If I could make one and only one change in the U.S. government, it would be to stop providing military defense for the rest of the world. All that does is create weak and dependent nations all around the world. Northern Europe, Japan, South Korea, and so on are wealthy countries. They can afford to defend themselves without the U.S. providing massive military subsidies to them, on the backs of the U.S. population.

@LeeWoofenden agree

Then we'd see how well northern European style socialism really works, without the somewhat more free market U.S. subsidizing it. Cuba worked pretty well too as long as the Soviet Union was bankrolling it.

@LeeWoofenden But you know the North europeen countrys are not socialism,they are monarchist that gives the country a national feeling ,and not a two party system but many partys,in sweeden a very big strong party is very anti immegration,so the right wing is strong in North europe.The general socialism picture is wrong.Because the media is so far left everywhere.Most people are right wing,just not far right wing

@Aigle Europe in general has soft socialism. But there is now a backlash against it, hence the resurgence of the right.

The reason the gouverment takes so much place in most people lives is because the countrys only have a few million people so its more practical and would be stupid for America

But when it comes to college I dont see why I has to cost that much

@LeeWoofenden

In the US

@Aigle All good topics for discussion--in another forum. That's enough politics for me for now. When I was in my 20s I was highly active politically. Then I realized that "the root of the tree" where I should lay my ax is not politics, but people's spiritual life. That's what will, in time, bring about change for the good in people individually and societally. And that's where I've focused my primary efforts for the last three decades.

And now it's time to walk the dog. :-)

@LeeWoofenden walk the dog