In debates and discussions here at Internet Monk.com, a reader is likely to read that Catholics have “added doctrines” to Christianity. My reaction is not so much to challenge the statement- I believe it is a universal fact in Christian history- but to raise the issue of whether evangelicals really shouldn’t be somewhat more careful where they point that particular weapon. It could go off and hurt someone they know.
Just for example, I’ve thought back to my own upbringing in a Southern Baptist fundamentalist church in Western Kentucky. Did I encounter any “added doctrines?”
Let me be clear that I heard the Gospel in this church, was discipled intentionally, learned much about community and leadership and was encouraged and affirmed in my gifts and callings. I’m grateful for all the good the Holy Spirit did in me through that community.
But in this same context, I learned…
1. The only way to receive Jesus Christ and be saved was to walk the aisle at the end of a sermon and repeat a prayer provided by the preacher.
2. That the American flag and patriotic demonstrations were part of worship.
3. The Jesus had founded the Southern Baptist church, which had existed from Biblical times to the present day.
4. That Christians must be teetotalers, and no one in the Bible ever drank wine.
5. The King James Version was the only real Bible.
6. No one could be a Christian if they weren’t a Baptist.
7. There was an extensive dress code and behavior code for Christians that could not be specifically found in the Bible.
8. The civil rights movement was wrong and the Vietnam war was right.
9. Tithing was a New Testament requirement for all Christians.
10. Church sponsored revivals were endorsed in the Bible.
11. Deacons were supposed to run the church.
12. Sunday was a day when all businesses must be closed, and we should vote to impose that view on the community.
13. All true believers had a “born again” experience which they could recall and describe.
14. Being a good Christian was a matter of attending church events. especially all worship services and Sunday School.
There are certainly other matters on which our church taught and promoted questionable doctrines. We were strongly dispensational and had extensive beliefs about the end of the world, for example. If you crawled up inside a lot of things we said and did, you’d find bunches of legalism and even superstition.
The big difference is that these doctrines aren’t part of any Baptist confession of faith, though some were part of our church covenant, and all were frequently preached, taught and enforced.
Are these errors as bad as the extra-Biblical doctrines my church would have charged to Roman Catholicism? Purgatory? Praying to Mary? Papal infallibility? That’s not my call. But they are substantial. They deny or distort important things that all Christians believe.
Just a reminder that we need to be equally aware of our own issues with “additional doctrines” that can’t be substantiated by scripture. (And as I said elsewhere, our Catholic friends wouldn’t claim that everything they believe is clearly taught in the Bible. We did.)
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“We are not Protestants.â€
There are a non trivial number of SBC people that I’ve know who consider the Anglican and Lutheran traditions something almost as alien to the SBC as the RCC. It requires a strong misunderstanding of church history but it’s there.
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In the responses, I came across, “We are not Protestants.” This made me reflect back to when a pastor (who is now retired) at my church said the same thing to me about 3 years ago. I was explaining some point of Catholic doctrine to my students and asked him a question as he walked by, and he said that he does not consider Southern Baptists protestants. I wish I had asked him what he meant by that, but I was just puzzled and went back to talking to my SS student.
Has anyone else heard this or know of this or experience this?
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I don’t believe anyone has the ability or the right to judge anyone else’s faith or salvation. There is no “loyalty test.” No one can even be sure that when they carry out God’s will to the best of their knowledge and ability what the results will be.
When Mother Theresa of Calcutta was asked how one could know they were doing God’s will, she told the inquirer to make a fist. She then opened one finger at a time, saying, “To – the – least – of – these …”
The message of the Gospel — what is “new” about the New Testament — is that all of Scripture — in fact, all of human experience — must be interpreted through the prism of this “One Solitary Life” ….
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That’s why I’m so suspicious of people who do pretend that No Creed But The Bible isn’t just a way to distance themselves from Guilt By Association with past Christian failures. — Pat Lynch
In Islam, there’s a similar movement called “Salafi”. They preach that modern Islam has been corrupted; the only solution is to return to the Pure Islam of the Days of the Prophet, a perpetual Year One of the Hegira. It doesn’t work, and is one of the factors responsible for extreme Islam’s stagnation and backwardness. All it does is provide recruits for the like of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Matter of fact, I don’t like the way this field is laid out at all: lets move all the wheat we have left to another field, re-plant it, and when Jesus comes here, we’ll just take him to the new field and he’ll be really impressed because he won’t have to do anything! — Pat Lynch
That sounds a lot like the Russian Army anecdote about the visiting general. The entry to the army base the General was visiting was lined with trees — only all the trees had died. What to do?
“Quick — paint all the dead trees green and we’ll drive him by them really really fast! He’ll never notice!”
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Why is it that few Christian thinkers have noticed that it was not Jesus who focused on sin — that it was the scribes, priests and Pharisees that held this attitude toward spirituality? In only a couple of places did Jesus directly embarass anyone by publicly forgiving them, but he healed people wherever he went, and as many as he could. It was the clerics and “religious” whose sins he pointed out.
How is it, then, that we are all still wrestling with Adam’s sin, as if that were anything but a small part of a teaching story that the Ancients told around the fire at night for the benefit of the children …?
Yes, Jesus did suffer the “death,” and for a moment in eternity he became sin for us so that we don’t have to suffer any separation from God, ever. But we do daily endure injury and physical and emotional trauma in this life, and we are all in need of Christ’s healing touch. And all Christian sects believe that He now lives in us. We are all “little Christs.” He is still “incarnate” in our bodies.
So while we each pray and wait for Him to touch us, He is waiting for us to reach out and heal each other….
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willoh, we don’t have to explain our present-day faith to the dead people of the past OR their murderers.
I don’t consider my faith as the rationale for doing what I do, or would imagine that my beliefs explain my actions. My faith is not my excuse or explanation for why I act the way I do.
That’s why I don’t weep over the sins done in the name of Jesus.
I have no interest in reforming, excusing, or even talking about the sins of my past co-religionists. Other people may not like me because of what they did or didn’t do, but I don’t owe them an explanation for some strange Europeans. They’re all as dead as if they never lived. Who cares?
Their thoughts, excuses, rationales, theological bullshitting – I can’t share the grace of a saint’s life, why should I bear the guilt of some dead sinners?
Likewise, I wouldn’t expect that other people’s twice-weekly attendance at one building or another, or their preference of ancient reading material, explains much behind what they do – no matter what creed they make out of it.
We live in today. We’re not smarter, or holier, or more serious about our faith in this generation than we ever have been. We are a stupid tribe of Christians: every once in awhile, somebody reads a couple of Bible verses about holiness and purity and goes nuts being Holier-Than-Thou and trying to throw out the money changers as if that’s OUR job, but it’s not.
That’s why I’m so suspicious of people who do pretend that No Creed But The Bible isn’t just a way to distance themselves from Guilt By Association with past Christian failures.
Protestants are ALWAYS trying to weed the field before they’re told to, criticizing everything that, in their ignorance and itching to prove their ardor is Real and Holy, doesn’t look exactly how they FEEL about the Faith.
Tear out the “Mary Worship”. Grab some hoes, “Indulgences” have to go. Make sure you get rid of “The Real Presence” at the roots. “Monasticism” looks suspiciously like something that grows in somebody else’s field, and we think they’re going to Hell, so NOBODY should be a monk or a nun. Matter of fact, I don’t like the way this field is laid out at all: lets move all the wheat we have left to another field, re-plant it, and when Jesus comes here, we’ll just take him to the new field and he’ll be really impressed because he won’t have to do anything! He’ll see we’ve worked really hard for Him, and he’ll totally melt when we say “Your work was sufficient” and He’ll give us a GREAT BIG HUG and take us out for SUNDAES!! Yeah!!! I love you, Daddy. You’re the best savior ever, Jesus.
It’s nauseating.
It’s also not what he wanted, and it’s something the Jews had a history of doing – disappointing God with shows of piety that don’t help ANYBODY grow, rather than stupid obedience which is what helps EVERYBODY grow.
I’m not calling you out willoh, I’m just saying that I don’t think there really IS a valid way to be a reformer without, first, admitting the full authority of what you wish to reform and letting go of all that self-validating “No Creed But The Bible”-zeal.
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You are right Patrick Lynch in a way, but the truth is I would like to see it, but it is not there to be seen. As the great folk artists Crosby, Stills and Nash have sung,”Too many people have died in the name of Christ, and I can’t believe it all”. Ditto As a student of history I weep over deeds done in the name of my Savior.
Holiness and being open to the bible is not a fresh gimmick. It worked for the Bereans and it will work for us. Owch, that really hurt, fresh gimmicks, wow.
In my Humble Opinion, the work of redemption was done by Our Lord and needs no further add ons, I read that we were to go forth, not complicate.
Out of respect to our host and Love for all I withdraw my stubborn , but amazingly blessed self from discussion, hoping above all to meet When He Returns. Peace!
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willoh,
“These people, full of the Holy Ghost and taught by the Ultimate Teacher, did what SEEMED right, they did not issue a binding encyclical claiming to speak for God.”
Obviously, issuing binding encyclicals claiming to speak for God SEEMED right – and was evidently guided by the Holy Spirit, as such things have been happening for a MILLENNIUM and helped keep the Catholic Church together.
Ultimately, Protestantism’s root problem is that it doesn’t want to believe that holiness, faith, fervor, and indeed God’s Favor have always existed in the Roman Church and were quite as common in medieval Christianity as during the Reformation and today. By trying to run with ‘holiness’ and ‘being open to the Bible’ as a fresh gimmick (lets call it The Spirit of Revival), Protestantism ceases to be able to explain coherently anything that came before it.
If you can just admit that it would seem God’s been looking after the Catholics every bit as much as he’s been looking after the Jews before them, a lot of this “additional doctrines” talk sort of explains itself away.
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1. Yes absolutely, and not so much with my view being the ultimate judge, but with the denomination being able to say to their own standard “thus Saith the Lord”. If you are in a group that decides to follow traditions established by time , a leader, or elders of some kind, those traditions must be set on a separate man-made level, and not elevated to Holy Writ. If the Amish wish to ride buggies that is fine, but to tell the world automotive transportation is a portal to Hell is wrong. If you like the way Menno, or Wesley, or John Paul , or preacher Jimmy-Bob, expressed their faith that is wonderful, but they are not God.
2. Creeds based on Scripture used to set doctrinal boundaries must be open to vigorous examination and not held so sacred as to be above such examination.
3. These cults may or may not be harmful to the participants, but certainly are harmful to the Kingdom of Christ. Rev 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
Rev 22:19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and [from] the things which are written in this book.
I take this as a warning against adulterating God’s Word to any degree, not only in Rev.
It is the “add ons” that repel many in the world from the saving grace of Jesus, not His Message. It is the hypocracy of many systems, like the rules M. Spencer describes, that turns many thinking minds away from the simplicity of the Mysteries of Christ. When we add to what is Perfect, do we think it will improve?
4.I do not propose a specific interpretation of scripture, I propose that scripture be interpreted.
We all need to be like our brothers in Acts, and do what”seems right” to us and the Holy Spirit. Notice they said what seems right. These people, full of the Holy Ghost and taught by the Ultimate Teacher, did what SEEMED right, they did not issue a binding encyclical claiming to speak for God.
Radagast, thank you for your questions please hear that while I am strong in my opinions, I do not think my opinions any better than those of anyone else.
There lies the crux. IMHO, Whether in the hills of Kentucky or the Halls of Rome, the Words of God are found only in Scripture, not out of the mouths of man. Additives are poison.
We await His return when the Bride will be United!
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So established denominations that follow a specific theology that in your view could not expressly be determined in Sacred Scripture would be a cult? Those faith traditions that include creeds in setting doctrinal boundaries also fall under your definition? Under your definition does that mean these cults are harmful?
If someone was to follow your specific interpretation of scripture would this small nucleus be considered a cult?
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Any group that uses the basics of established common thought and practice and yet go beyond biblical orthodoxy and add to the observances a set of man made rules, regulations, and doctrine would be a cult to me. One of the dangers of established denominations is that denominational distinctives take on a weight equal to that of the very commandments of God. It is important to cult leaders that even questioning is strongly forbidden.
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Of course that does not mean there isn’t spiritual abuse in individual churches…
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Sam:
I find it an interesting article from the standpoint of how the Orthodox see the situation. She does a pretty thorough job in explaining her point of view, though I too, do not agree with all she states in the article.
willoh:
You need to define what your meaning of ‘cult’ is. If you are looking at it from a mind control or spritual abuse point of view then I would suggest that none of the major denominations fall into this category. Although I once heard a caller on a non-denominational talk show try to convince the listeners that the Catholic church was a cult.
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Interesting link, Radagast. Very through piece of theology. It is flawed, however, in a way that I see frustratingly often in Orthodox writings, in that she states “Western Christianity teaches X, whereas the East says Y”, where Y is what I am being taught in my RCIA class by a conservative Roman Catholic professor of philosophy. I agree with much of what she says in that article, and she is pretty spot on in regards to Lutheran views of Justification. Really, it’s astounding how the points where she goes out of her way to differentiate between East and West are the areas where she uses the exact same language to say the exact same thing as my catechist. This I think is a positive sign.
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Just because a group is loving, and has some good doctrine does not mean it is not a cult. Take a deep breath, look at the definition of cult, and there you are.
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Fr. Ernesto:
“…part of the Orthodox disagreement with the West is that we accuse the West of believing in original guilt rather than original sin. ”
I believe that because the East did not embrace this portion of Augustinian thought the Immaculate Conception made no sense to the East (if there is no inherited sin from the Fall then Mary, being born without Original Sin made no sense).
I have been doing some studying on Eastern thought and came across a good article on how Eastern Orthodox view justification written by Valarie Karras (in light of the joint declaration on justification agreed to by Catholics and a segment of Lutherans): http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/justification.htm
Although she may be considered a bit liberal in EO circles, I found it an interesting read from an EO point of view.
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Brother,
Just wanted to say that your post brought back some memories. I too am from Western KY- Muhlenberg County (for all non-Kentuckians, we Kentuckians identify ourselves to one another by the county in which we come from- it’s just a thing with us). Like yourself, I experienced some fundamentalism, but ever so much love and discipleship as well. Looking back now, my favorite issue growing up was trying to figure out if we actually were a Southern Baptist Church. We went by the name “Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church” and as a youngster I always wanted to know if we were “Missionary Baptists” or “Southern Baptists.” Funny thing is, no one could actually tell me! I had to figure it out on my own as I grew up.
Interesting that you mentioned the democrat voting deal. We too were all registered and usually voting democrat, but that was because of the massive union influence from the coal mines.
Blessings,
TJ
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Brother,
Just wanted to say that your post brought back some memories. I too am from Western KY- Muhlenberg County (for all non-Kentuckians, we Kentuckians identify ourselves to one another by the county in which we come from- it’s just a thing with us). Like yourself, I experienced some liberalism, but ever so much love and discipleship. Looking back now, my favorite issue growing up was trying to figure out if we actually were a Southern Baptist Church. We went by the name “Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church” and as a youngster I always wanted to know if we were “Missionary Baptists” or “Southern Baptists.” Funny thing is, no one could actually tell me! I had to figure it out on my own as I grew up.
Interesting that you mentioned the democrat voting deal. We too were all registered and usually voting democrat, but that was because of the massive union influence from the coal mines.
Blessings,
TJ
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I grew up in the charismatic church, which had its own extra-biblical conventions:
1. The best way to receive Jesus Christ and be saved was to walk the aisle at the end of a sermon and repeat a prayer provided by the preacher (just like the Baptists, who were the Christians NOT in the Pentecostal/charismatic church, believed).
2. We had the American flag on stage, too, and always “celebrated” America around the 4th of July.
3. The church Jesus founded spoke in tongues and performed miracles, and the true church still spoke in tongues (even if its various parts disagreed on how that worked itself out) and miracles still happened, usually in special healing services or in healing lines after the regular service.
4. No one in the Bible ever drank beer, either, and you better not, either.
5. The King James Version is the most real Bible, but if the TV preachers and travelling teachers (Marilyn Hickey, Joyce Meyer, Gloria Copeland) used the Amplified Bible, it was okay, too.
6. Christianity was determined on one’s status with Jesus, though if you weren’t charismatic, you were considered a Baptist.
7. Men: dress in suits and ties on Sunday. Ladies: nice dresses on Sunday. Gotta look your best on the Lord’s Day, you know.
8. Christian rock was sinful. Jimmy Swaggart was right. Reagan was of God. The liberal media and the world it covered was of the devil.
9. You better be tithing at least 10 percent, and if you wanted to prosper more, then you’d need to be tithing more.
10. All true Christians went to old fashioned revival meetings to hear some traveling evangelist or (if your church was big enough) a well-known TV evangelist, in a tent, sometime during the summer (or, in the church building, with the AC running, if it was too hot).
11. The pastor ran the church, with assistant pastors to help him.
12. Sunday was the Lord’s Day, when we dressed up to meet Jesus at church, then went out to a nice restaurant and ate. Many (but not all) people apparently came back for the evening service, when God chose to let His gifts loose on the people (He also chose to let those gifts loose at the mid-week service, and/or during the summer week-long tent revivals).
13. “All true believers had a “born again†experience which they could recall and describe.” Amen, my Baptist brother. What day and service did YOU raise that hand and walk that aisle?
14. Being a good Christian was a matter of attending church events. especially all worship services and Sunday School. Also, speaking in tongues. And, watching/reading people like Jimmy Swaggart, PTL, Kenneth Copeland, Pat Robertson, and that Baptist, Charles Stanley.
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“You see, besides the question of tradition, the question of authority is also involved. In groups in which the only authority is Scripture on issues of ethics and morality; in groups where the Church is denied any authority save it can find a quote from some verse of Scripture–even if eisogeted–it is inevitable that either the individual become the actual authority or that the exegesis of Scripture is destroyed beneath the heel of necessity, the necessity of providing clear moral guidance to the Church. And, once exegesis is destroyed, it is but a short step to cultish behavior.”
You have well articulated much of my opinion. And each church (at whatever level) can determine traditions / standards for their membership. But what some of us here have experienced in our church lives is traditions that get morphed into “you are not a Christian if”.
This is a big failing of much of the SBC and from what I’ve seen much of the rest of the Christian world. And to be honest I’ve not had much rub elbows experience with the EO compared to many of the others.
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FR. Ernesto,
You are a wise person. I always appreciate your take on things. You have a way of pulling all that has been said and bring some perspective to it. I am a Baptist that has leanings toward Orthodoxy so I listen more closely than some may but I wanted to let you know that you bring a good balance to this blog. I don’t know if I have commented before but I always enjoy Michael’s blog. I believe he is doing a good work in bringing people together to discuss things in a civil way that has not been happening in the past, at least at the lay level.
Bry
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Comment on babies — part of the Orthodox disagreement with the West is that we accuse the West of believing in original guilt rather than original sin. Because our take is different, there is no worrying about unbaptized babies among us.
On rules — could part of the problem be the unwillingness to admit that there are traditions? That is, in reaction to the Roman Catholic Church, have some Protestants so tried to deny the place of tradition in the Church that they have dug themselves into a worse problem than they allege that we have?
You see, if tradition is always, and only, bad, then you must justify everything by some Biblical rule, regardless of the amount of eisogesis you have to do. Worse, once you justify it by Scripture–which never changes–you are either stuck with a tradition that can never change, or you end up being a laughingstock several decades later when the rule is openly flouted or obviously ridiculous, even to members of your own group. Meanwhile, we have more than one type of tradition, as do Roman Catholics and Anglicans.
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (Anglican) say, “It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word. Whosoever, through his private judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, (that others may fear to do the like,) as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the Magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of the weak brethren.”
Look at the balance that is struck there. Traditions can be different from place to place and can change, if necessary. Nevertheless, no private person may freely break the rules of the Church by simply saying that they are not commanded in Scripture. In fact, that type of person needs to be disciplined for they are unwise and understand little about the Kingdom of God!
There may indeed be reason, at times, to forbid the wearing of mini-skirts, short shorts, or pants so low that they show half of your boxers. When those times are there, the Church has the authority to forbid those things for a time, whether long, short, or forever. It does not need to show that they are forbidden in Scripture. The Church only needs to show that they do not contradict Scripture, violate some doctrine, or lead to the violation of some doctrine, and that they are currently necessary rules.
You see, besides the question of tradition, the question of authority is also involved. In groups in which the only authority is Scripture on issues of ethics and morality; in groups where the Church is denied any authority save it can find a quote from some verse of Scripture–even if eisogeted–it is inevitable that either the individual become the actual authority or that the exegesis of Scripture is destroyed beneath the heel of necessity, the necessity of providing clear moral guidance to the Church. And, once exegesis is destroyed, it is but a short step to cultish behavior.
If you admit that tradition is possible, and that the Church has real authority, then the logic behind the rules becomes simpler. Moreover, when the necessity is gone or the culture changes, the rules can be slowly (or quickly) modified as necessary. After all, they are not Scripture, but rules found to be necessary by the Church. Orthodox worship in the USA–for instance–is actually shorter than Orthodox worship in some other countries, and so on. Our women do not, by and large, wear veils here, but they certainly do in other countries, etc.
A final note, we consider Holy Tradition to be a different thing than tradition, but that is another subject. I am talking here about traditions.
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Let me display my ignorance. How about the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” in order to be saved? Yes, I do have a relationship with Jesus, but what if, via the sacrifice of Jesus,I spend my time in prayer with the Father, with the help of the Spirit? Does one need to say, those words “personal relationship?”
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But isn’t the whole concept of a Christian nation absurd? Human nature being what it is, any explicitly Christian country would be corrupt and have all sorts of problems, turning people off from christianity right at the beginning. This is what has happened, to a certain extent, in the South- look at how many younger people go to church- very few. They’ve well understood the reality of “christian politics” in this country.
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FWIW, over here in Seventh-Day Adventist circles, it’s the Sunday laws that have been the sign of degeneracy because they mock the Saturday Sabbath. SDAs do some of the things on IM’s list but #2, mixing government and church is a big no-no.
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7th Heaven
I’m not much for wmen preacheer, but this one show I believe it was on April 11 when the Daughter of the main minister who is the Associate Pastor preached, she mentioned a lot of things and said it wasn’t long ago when the businesses was closed on Sundays. I want to add to this, ot used to be that the Churches was full now the Churches aren’t, everyone still says America is a Christian Nation, this is far from the truth, if a Christian says anythibg that the world disagrees with they call it hate, but they can say what they want even useing the LORD thy God’s name profoundly, businesses are open on Sundays,Christians are told work ob Sundays or you have no job, families are scattered, noone gets along, money is placed over God, Christians eat out on Sundays (this tells the business world it’s ok to take Chrisitans out of Church) when the Bible says In Heb Hebrews 10:25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. if we banded together and not purchase anything on Sundays I believe we would see a whole lot of Change for the better, maybe we would get the care for one another back LORD Bless
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12. Sunday was a day when all businesses must be closed, and we should vote to impose that view on the community.
I like this one look at what having the businesses open has done ( almost has murdered America) now Christians have to fight for Sundays so they can be in Church, they call a Christian SELFISH if we want Sundays of . Sam had Wal-Mart closed on Sundays until his death, then his kids took over and messed things up and opened it
I bless Companies like Chick-Fil-A who do close.
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Memphis Aggie –
I see somebody has been visiting Fr. Z’s website.
Martha –
Oh well yeah, sorry my stomach churns everytime I hear that phrase as well as my eyes beggin to move towards the back of my head which is followed by a sigh or a shake of the head.
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good stuff, very true, although i didn’t regularly go to a baptist church until about age 19. still, saw it all and still see it.
i think you can take it a step farther. evangelicals, especially baptists, complain about individuals in the catholic church having power and the authoritative say about matters, i.e. papal authority and such. yet evangelicals establish de facto authorities, i.e. piper, packer, and a small pail of others.
if i hear one more unquestioned “piper says” or “packer believes” or “mohler says” or “patterson believe,” it’s possible i’ll lose control and end up on the news lol. evangelicals cite these guys as unchecked authorities . . . smell of catholicism?
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Radagast, those would include association football (soccer), rugby football, and the native games Gaelic football and hurling, which though amateur (more or less) can be extremely competitive. Since hurling involves striking the ball using sticks made from ash, swinging those around at head-height can indeed result in the commentators needing phrases such as “X is injured/bleeding/lying stretched on the grass” 😉
Giovanni, I was thinking of it along the lines of the meeting of matter and anti-matter 🙂
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The encyclopedia article on Fr. Theobald Matthew, the Apostle of Temperance is quite fascinating.
But balancing that is the Blessing over Beer from the Rituale Romanum:
One can only be so legalistic about booze with a blessing like that on the books!
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Martha:
Now all I need to do is get the inflection correct…
Gaelic calls to the Irish side of me like the sea did for Legolas in the Lord of the Rings. I am assuming though that brolly translates to umbrella for us in the States. By the way would the games be football(soccer) or rugby (or any sport ’cause its going to be bloody fun)?
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Oops had that exactly inverted: Say the black do the red
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Say the red do the black
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To Patrick Lynch-
I think it has been declared in the past that “Metallica Rules” by Several Papal Encyclicals.
To Martha-
I wouldn’t wish the “spirit of Vatican II” to our worst enemies. Thank God for B16 Summorum Pontificum and the re-stablishment of the Tridentine Rite.
Save the Liturgy; Save the World.
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Actually, this long digression into the by-ways of rubrical minutiae makes me think that the solution to all our problems (yours and ours, between the Scylla and Charbydis of legalism and licence) is to send all the “Spirit of Vatican II” folks to the Southern Baptists and then ‘duck and cover’ 🙂
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“#7. The tie was the modern version of the sash Jesus wore.”
Fascinating how traditions develop, isn’t it? This reminds me of the maniple, which is now gone out of fashion, but used to be used (and still is, in the Latin Mass).
The maniple is a band of cloth worn on the left arm by the priest; in an old Missal I have, the significance of the vestments is explained one by one and the maniple is said to signify “the fruit of good works, as a reward for painful exertion and struggle; it is the Priest’s duty to fear neither suffering nor labour. Girdle, Stole and Maniple represent the cords with which Jesus was bound, and the rod with whcih He was beaten.”
The vesting prayer said when putting on the maniple is “Merear, Domine, portare manipulum fletus et doloris; ut cum exsultatione recipiam mercedem laboris. ‘Grant, O Lord, that I may so bear the maniple of weeping and sorrow, that I may receive the reward for my labors with rejoicing.'”
All very pious, yet all this is only a later explanation for why the maniple was worn, when the original purpose had been forgotten or superceded; in origin, the maniple was probably of the nature of a handkerchief, as it was a piece of cloth used to wipe the face and hands, then (probably) carried as an ornamental indication of rank, then it was invested with liturgical significance.
Same way the idea of ties = sashes developed out of the notion of dressing modestly and fitly for sacred ceremonies?
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It’s funny, my first experience with Baptists was with an American Baptist Church in a college town in the North. My wife and I actually left because we found it too liberal– and I’m a N.T. Wright lovin’, Old Earth leaning type.
Moving to the South has been a real education for me. I wanted to know more about the dominant culture of the area, so I started Googling “Baptist.” My, my, did I ever get an education– KJV-onlyism, syncopated beats make you think about sex, Landmarkism, the “well to Hell”…
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Fabulous topic and Great responses. As a Baptist preacher and former legalistic idiot, I now have to wonder if I really was saved because:
#1. I was listening on car radio to Jimmy S. in the early 70’s & prayed while driving
#2. God and Country were almost synonymous (and their order was interchangable).
#3. A lot of Baptists got under J.M. Carroll’s skirts with this one..
#4. We are priests and kings before God and strong drink is not for kings O Lemuel….
#5. SO Very ingrained that my (originally Methodist) wife still can use no other version.
#6. Matthew was a LEVI Baptist!.
#7. The tie was the modern version of the sash Jesus wore.
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Radagast, immigration really does do crazy stuff to religion. I read a pretty sweet book about the subject called “American Catholic” by Charles Morris ( http://www.amazon.com/American-Catholic-Sinners-Americas-Powerful/dp/0679742212 ) that has a lot of information on how different strands of Catholicism have become dominant or declined over time in our country. Interesting stuff – you never realize how many statistics you’re a number to until you start to look at immigration.
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Okay, this is totally off-topic, but on that last, I can’t resist giving the helpful phrases for radio weather forecasting in Irish:
“It is going to rain
Tá báisteach air
It is pouring rain
Tá sé ag stealladh báistÃ
It is lashing rain
Tá sé ina ghleadhradh báistÃ
There is more rain
Tá tuilleadh báistà ann
There are floods on the roads
Tá tuilte ar na bóithre”
As they add, “Tóg leat do scáth fearthainne/báistà (Take your brolly with you)!” 🙂
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Radagast – ah, the Language Revival question!
Unfortunately, like the majority of my countrymen and women, despite learning it at school, I am not a fluent speaker of the First Official Language. That’s a tortuous question in itself – why are we so bad at learning our own language? But I can make an attempt at the “cúpla focail” (literally, ‘couple of words’) 🙂
Nollaig shona agus ath-bhliain faoi mhaise daoibh (Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all)
Here’s a link to Irish phrases for use on the radio (common greetings, etc.):
Click to access 29987_BCI_English_Irish.pdf
As a sidenote, it throws a revealing light on Irish sporting practices by giving the following useful phrases for commentary on games:
“X is injured/bleeding/stretched on the grass
Tá x gortaithe go dona/ag cur fola/sÃnte ar an bhféar
X is leaving the field
Tá x ag imeacht den pháirc
X is being carried on a stretcher
Tá x á iompar ar shÃnteán”
😉
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Interesting post. The exercise of dogmatic theology is to say no more than Scripture warrants nor less. The history of dogmatic theology shows that there is a tendency toward one ditch or the other – to say more than Scripture says and also to say less than what we are given to say.
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Martha:
(off subject) – Do you speak Gaelic too (the Irish ancestorial instinct in me wants to know)? Actually the Irish side of my family were legendary drinkers and singers in their own mind (although I imbibe very little because waking up to all the little ones on a hangover is a bit torturous).
Patrick Lynch:
It is interesting that in America in the nineteenth and early twentieth century the Catholic Church was very cultural. German Catholics did not mix with Irish who did not mix with Italian who did not mix with Polish – and each had their own little “t” traditions along with different emphasises on Big “T” traditions. Kind of how the Eastern Orthodox operate today (from what I understand there are cultural divides between the churches that sometimes cause issue).
Boethius:
In some Catholic cemeteries there are actually areas set aside for markers to honor those babies lost to abortion. These markers are put there by women who, through the process of regret-pain/healing/forgiveness (Project Rachel) want to remember the life that could have been and mourn their decision.
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Headless
I may not be aware of my own faults, but I’m confident my wife can tell me 🙂
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Its worth keeping in mind that different dioceses in different places were apt to handle doctrines like Purgatory in different ways. What might have seemed normal and natural in one Irish-American church might have seemed severe and unnecessary in a Catholic church in a Polish American community.
Kind of like the SBC.
If one dumbass pastor tells you that you can’t Really Be Saved if you’re really into Metallica, and you leave the church as a side-effect, nobody standing by would blame the SBC or the Reformation for introducing such divisive doctrines. They’d blame (or, probably, commmend) that guy. That would be wrongheaded.
Despite the fact that Metallica sucks and banning them is in good taste, I mean.
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Aliasmoi:
The woman I am referring to was a coworker of mine. She was elderly and I am sure she has passed on by now. I wonder which baby she is buried next to, if she is with either of them. Too bad the RC did not clarify this doctrine before she passed on.
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Just to clarify that last – no, I’m not a Pioneer, never got the pin, and do indeed take a drop now and again 🙂
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Boethius – so if grape juice only works on Baptists, can I wave my Pioneer pin at the Methodists? 🙂
The Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart is an Irish sodality for lay people who voluntarily vow to abstain from all alcohol as an act of reparation for the abuse of alcohol. They recite the “Heroic Offering” prayer twice daily and have a badge they wear. And, interestingly enough in light of what Michael said about the influence of women in the temperance movement and Evangelicalism, it was co-founded by four women because membership in the early days was confined to women.
Traditionally (I don’t know if it’s stil done nowadays), when you made your Confirmation (at age 12), you were also given the opportunity to ‘take the pledge’ until the age of 18 (legal drinking age in Ireland).
With studies showing that the average age for Irish people to start drinking is 13(!), maybe this isn’t such a bad idea anymore… but please remember, all this is *voluntary* and no-one *has* to do it. The whole point is that abstention is seen as a mortification, a sacrifice, since drink is a natural good, is licit, and hence a gift of God, if not abused.
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If we can drift from the Gospel in an over reaction to a real world problem (drinking, drug abuse etc). Where have we/or have we drifted in over reaction to today’s real world problems? — Memphis Aggie
No individual or culture is conscious of their own blind spots. That’s why they’re called “blind spots”.
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Boethius, I’m old enough to remember being taught about Limbo in school and yes, in the old days (up to the 1960s/70s), it was indeed the tradition that unbaptised infants were not buried in the consecrated ground of the graveyard.
This was indeed harsh, and thanks be to God that it has now changed. As I recall, Limbo was taught to us as a place of “perfect natural felicity” – no suffering or certainly not regarded as a place of punishment, but the deprivation of the Beatific Vision.
However, it was always more along the lines of a hypothesis rather than a firmly taught doctrine such as (yes) Purgatory – a theological construct as an answer to the perpetual question of “So, suppose a good man – a man whom we or anyone would call a virtuous man – dies, will he be damned for lack of baptism? How is this reconciled with a merciful God?” That’s even addressed by Dante in the “Divine Comedy”, where he uses the example of a man living in India, who has no opportunity to be baptised – can he then be held as culpable as a man living in Christian lands? How is this justice?
On the other hand, to say “Everyone can go to Heaven” then means that you deny the necessity of Baptism – and if baptism is not necessary, then why is it done? Why was it instituted in the first place? If it comes to that, what is the necessity for being a Christian if a good Hindu, Buddhist or Taoist has an equal chance of attaining Heaven as long as they are (naturally) virtuous?
So the current position is we don’t know what happens the souls of unbaptised infants but we rely on the mercy of God.
As an aside, I have to say that outside the question of babies and small children, Limbo made sense to me as an intellectual construct and I can see why it was proposed; it’s not a place of suffering or punishment, it deals with the problem of reconciling justice and mercy, and it offers a middle ground between declaring all save Christians are unequivocally damned (whether or not they even had a chance of knowing God) and Universalism which has its own problems. But in the end, it’s the mercy of God we must all rely on. And, as Dante answers his own question, we should be a lot more worried about the state of our own soul than wondering if a hypothetical Indian pagan is damned 🙂
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The grape juice thing is an interesting idea – I believe there was more wine drinking (no pasteurization and the grape juice naturally fermented) because you could get sick on the water…
I won’t speak to Baptist man-made tradition since I am not a Baptist and have no experience here…
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j. Michael Jones:
Reading Imonk is like a cup of coffee for me and some of these posts can really get me laughing – a good laughing, not at the person or even the topic or in a judgemental way, but in the way, and the tempo the post was written – some of you could be comedy writers. That’s how your post above started out – until I got to the bottom – prayers to you guys, unfortunately whether you be Baptist or Catholic or even just a kid in school, that kind of evil lurks…
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Back on topic. If we can drift from the Gospel in an over reaction to a real world problem (drinking, drug abuse etc). Where have we/or have we drifted in over reaction to today’s real world problems? I think temperance is much less blameworthy than prosperity Gospel. To me, temperance is a response to real problems while prosperity gospel is just hucksterism. Or is that just my modern perspective talking? Surely poverty is a real problem as well and some Biblical prescriptions around debt and the like just make sense. Maybe some of the prosperity fantasy rose out of good intentions and willful self deception rather than motives of cynical manipulation.
Hard to know, but what I really wonder about are not so much the large scale failures I can easily spot in someone else but the possibility that I may err in a similar way. If nothing else this blog regularly highlights clear differences between sincere followers of Christ. In seeking Christ I need to ferret out those occasions when I may rationalize the Gospel or excuse myself too easily. While it’s easy to say the prosperity Gospel is too materialistic do I examine my own practices? I just bought yet another Spiderman toy for my oldest for Christmas. What am I teaching him? Christ was born in poverty and slept in a pen feeding animals his first night. So I go on to celebrate his birth with garish lights, excess feasting and excess merchandise.
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We are veering off subject a bit….But, infant death, or children of any age for that matter, is something that we must simply trust God with. We can wrestle and toil with what might be or what God thinks, but it will really get us nowhere since the scriptures are pretty vague regarding this difficult reality.
We must trust God for who He is. Period. For He alone is Judge….and a merciful, faithful, loving, and grace giving One at that.
Peace
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I believe that it is impossible to have grape juice for any prolonged period of time without the modern technology called Pasteurization.
The way I heard “wine” rationalized by people who didn’t want to believe it was what the rest of us call “wine” was that what it really meant was NEW wine. Grape juice will naturally ferment, but in Bible Times, they only let it ferment just a little, so it had a teeny bit of alcohol in it and would keep.
I now know that it doesn’t quite work this way. First, that much alcohol isn’t enough for the wine to “keep” unless there is essentially no sugar left after fermentation — if there’s sugar, natural yeasts will go after it. Second, since I think their mental image of “just a little alcohol” was on the order of 1%, that means you’d have to pick your grapes very, very unripe (before they had significant sugar in them) in order for this to work. But that’s what they believed.
iMonk, I can’t believe you forgot GAMBLING in your list of rules. I’m used to associating with people who agree with me that gambling is bad, and I keep getting surprised, because I now work for a Catholic institution where social events often include bingo and the like.
Peace.
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You forgot “no dancing.” Are you sure you’re really saved?
I got into a real fundamentalist sort of group in my college years. They taught me to really look down on the folks in the church back home for not being “dedicated.”
I still today think that the folks in the home church (and I) could be more “dedicated.” But mostly I am just grateful that I grew up in a church full of people with bucket loads of common sense and humility. Knowing that there were other ways to practice your faith, I was eventually able to say goodbye to the fundies without saying goodbye to Jesus himself.
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When you get down to it, every church has their own set of traditions – many of them extra-biblical. I’ve served in six different SBC churches over the past 30 years and have noted a few of the above listed “additional doctrines,” but not all. I’ve served primarily in larger, urban congregations which tend to be less fundamentalist. All were very conservative.
In the first church I served as an associate pastor, our pastor required the staff to wear a suit to work – every day! (A blazer and tie were not sufficient). If it was 105 degrees in August, we had to have that coat on. I dearly love this pastor (now retired) and still count him as a good friend. He loves Jesus and cared for his flock faithfully, but I never understood his dress-code obsession. After he retired, the first thing to go was the dress code. No one complained.
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Obed
I think you have it right. Limbo arises from the apparent conflict of believing in original sin and in a merciful generous God. However I believe that Limbo never existed and that unbaptized innocents are either baptized by Angels or summarily judged innocent on the Last Day. In any case this relates to the concept of graces existing beyond the range of the visible Church. Another way of expressing it is that while God has promised grace through the sacrament of Baptism and we rely on that promise He is not limited to giving grace only through Baptism. His ways are not our ways so He may have any number of alternative modes of grace.
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From the linky that iMonk sent from Fr. Cantalamessa:
and
I was listening to some of Fr. Cantalamessa’s sermons on preaching. Dude has some wisdom goin’ for him.
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Imonk
The concept that infants without Baptism might be not be saved arose from the rejection of Pelagianism and the acceptance of the doctrine original sin. I think limbo was always a “theological speculation” to roughly quote Benedict XVI (that’s the clarification you mentioned) but because it came from St. Augustine it was influential. The doctrine of original sin is crucial in understanding the need for grace but as an unwanted side effect it gives rise to fear for the eternal welfare of children and infants (hence infant Baptism). The fact is we don’t really know what becomes of the souls of infants innocent of any worldly sin but carrying the original flaw. Modern Catholics rely on the concept that grave sin requires knowledge of it’s gravity to me mortal. Thus under that construct the innocent unbaptized infant carries only the fatal flaw of original sin as a potential but unrealized weakness or proclivity that is not yet mortal sin.
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My personal favorite extra law: if your wife has been divorced, you are excluded from serving in the pastorate. Never mind that the Greek of 1 Tim 3:2 reads “mias gunaikos andra” – man of one woman or husband of one wife. It says nothing at all about the wife and whether she had been married before – we have our traditions from the fathers. So, while we’re having a “leadership crisis” we’re going to exclude somebody for an extrabiblical “commonsense” interpretation that is neither common nor sensical.
Interpreting the Bible honestly and contextually too often takes a backseat to that part of human endeavor that is always involved in whatever is stupid, petty and vindictive: politics.
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Ummmmm how long ago was that Boethius? When my mom had a still born baby, the nuns at the hospital baptized him, and he was buried in a Catholic Cemetery. That particular cemetery has a special section for babies/very young children that died called, “Holy Innocents.” Not all of those children were born dead either – I’ve looked at some of the dates on the marker. And keep in mind – my family isn’t Catholic!!! My mom let them baptize the baby because she thought it would mean something to my step-father’s Catholic parents.
That’s one of the reason I’ll always have great affection/respect for the Catholic Church. When the schools in the city I lived in with both substandard and unsafe – the Catholic Church educated me. When my family didn’t have enough food to eat – the Catholic Church fed us. When my brother died and we couldn’t afford to pay for a burial – the Catholic Church paid for that too.
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I graduated from Southeastern 10 years ago and saw many reformed guys there as well, both faculty and students. There were many reformed guys in the IMB as well. Instead of parading under the angry-Calvinist banner, the guys I know teach with a high view of God, love the people, cooperate in missions, and hopefully will see long term fruit. I hope there are more than 6-10% of pastors like this in the SBC although I do think you are correct that the churches themselves don’t want to go in this direction. If change is going to come it will be through loving, patient, biblical pastors teaching the Bible and loving the people, not beating it down the throats of the churches. You also need to remember that it is still hard for an SBC seminary graduate to go to the PCA… I looked down that road… and Sovereign Grace is pretty restrictive in their church planting… you must come from within their churches to be considered and then you also have to go to their pastors school.
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Geoege C:
I was there. They loved me. When my dad became mentally ill, they loved me. They taught me. They affirmed my gifts and let me exercise them. They supported my education. They were family to me.
The doctrinal aberrations didn’t erase the love I experienced from family and friends.
I know. It was my life.
ms
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The SBC isn’t about good theology. Good theology is great. The SBC is about cooperative missions, and all of this crowd funds missions independently far more than through the CP. That’s the death of the SBC.
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Boethius:
Please consult the catechism and recent statements of the church on Limbo, including one linked in my Cantalamessa post. You are misrepresenting the church’s current views on Limbo. Benedict 16 has clarified this RC teaching.
I agree that in the past this doctrine was horrible, but the church’s views have “clarified.”
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Martha:
Just remember you can only wave the Welch’s grapejuice at the Baptists. 🙂
In all seriousness, I think the extra doctrines the RCs provide are harmful. I know a woman who left RC because she had an infant who died. The baby had been baptized and therefore buried in the RC cemetary. She then had a stillborn baby. The church leadership would not allow her to bury her stillborn baby near her baptized baby, in the RC cemetary, because the stillborn baby was in Limbo. She not only walked away from RC but no longer has any faith at all.
These doctrines, which RCs must assent to, such as Purgatory, Limbo, etc. can really cause emotional damage to people when carried out to their logical application in every day life.
I do think I have read somewhere that the RCs have now given up Limbo. Is this true?
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Michael,
I know that there are a lot of visible reasons to be pessimistic about Mohler’s, Dever’s, and 9 Marks’ influence within the SBC, but in the comments of your “12 Churches, 12 Calvinists” post, two “Reformed SBC’er” people posted (a young pastor, and another pastor’s wife) who were working in small, rural churches for Biblical reform. They weren’t trumpeting Calvinism; they were loving the congregations and pointing them in the direction of better teaching. The work seemed to be bearing fruit. These are small signs of hope in the overall SBC machine– but they are there.
Another sign of hope– *Jerry Vines* wrote a complimentary blurb for Mark Dever’s book, “The Gospel and Personal Evangelism.” Unexpected bedfellows, to be sure, but isn’t that *some* progress for the SBC? Also, Paige Patterson has expressed alarm over the lax state of membership in many SBC churches. 9 Marks may be making a larger long-term impact than we think in SBC life. I can only hope and pray. Time will tell. I do know that there are many young men coming out of Southern Baptist seminaries with good, sound theology and methodology for the local church, and they aren’t all going into the non-denominational churches, the PCA, or Sovereign Grace Ministry churches.
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imonk,
How do you figure that fundementalism loved you? Are you just basing it on perceived intentions?
You mentioned a couple of good ways in which you were nurtured, but that doesn’t negate the ways you were harmed.
It seems to me that love is actions and that if you teach someone lies you are not loving them. You might mean to love them, but you are hurting them.
I am also curious what your definition of a cult is? I know some people say that it is only when an essential doctrine (whatever that is suposed to mean) is denied, but it would seem to me that the NT seems to point to those who are purposely divisive (only baptists are really christians) and those who abuse their authority (questioning is rebellion) are along the same lines as heretics/cultists.
I lived in what I would consider a cult for over three years and while they had some fruity theology it is ultimately their abuse of (assumed) authority and the “we’re the true church” stuff that makes me believe they are a cult.
I believe the leadership had good intentions towards me much of the time and a sincere zeal for God, but to call what they did to myself and the others in that church love is quite a stretch.
We weren’t Baptist. Just for the record.
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I grew up in the SBC in Central FL during the 90’s and didn’t realize the majority of Christians accepted drinking alcohol in moderation, and *gasp* actually used it in the Lord’s Supper. I only learned this later on, after much confusion and stumbling from seeing fellow Christians I admired (but were non-baptist) partake.
Revivalism was strong. Once a year we got some speakers to come through, lined up some testimonies from current members, and went to church every night for a week. Lots of praying and crying.
The tithing thing, yeah everyone I knew accepted that as LAW, not tithing in full was backsliding at best. But the Assemblies of God church I frequented years later was just as bad, or worse if you consider the fact the pastor announced specials “times of blessing” when giving above and beyond would yield you a “special” blessing from God Himself. I guess the church’s bank balance was slipping those months. The irony was this was a very anti-catholic church and believed THEY were being led by the spirit, yet treated their own pastor/founder like a pope himself!
The PCA church I am part of now is very behind in the times and fairly fundamentalist, mostly because of the strong SBC/charismatic fundamentalism culture here in small town NC. I brew my own beer and make my own cider at home and don’t dare tell anyone because teetotalism is strong enough it would be a hassle.
I’m thinking of staying Presby at heart but attending Lutheran to be around some intelligent Christians, and still away from rampants liberalism, and popery which I want nothing to do with, neither one.
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With a Missionary Baptist upbringing, I get to play this game. We, too, faced Nashville when we prayed. :>)
However, I really believe that it is part of fallen-human nature that Lutherans, Catholics, Orthodox, Pentecostals each could name their own lists of colloquial (but extra Biblical) “idioms.” I even think, if I could create my version of the perfect church . . . in time (maybe in one generation), if we weren’t careful . . . it could go to seed.
With that said, I wish I could tell you the honest truth about my church’s list, but it would be so extreme that you would assuming that I was embellishing. I will mention a few of the more constrained lessons I learned.
1). I learned that having long hair, hair that went over my ear, was an outward sign I was gay. Gayness disgusted God to the point that it made Him want to throw up.
2). A perplexing lesson that premarital sex was sin . . . yet, parking, and necking for hours and having a girlfriend for years was very healthy and encouraged. Buying or having condoms was evil. Getting pregnant meant you were a worthless tramp and your entire family was trash. Yet, if you happened to be a boy and turned 18 and still was a virgin, meant you were a sissy . . . or gay. Gayness disgusted God and made Him want to throw up.
3). Having a big Bible on your coffee table, and one with your name on it, which you carried to church, made God happy. But if you read the Bible too much, you would go “Bible Crazy†and end up in the local mental hospital, called “Green Valley.â€
4) Music with a beat was from Satan. Listening to and singing along with the old Nashville Hymnal pleased God. If you didn’t like that kind of music, it meant that you were “of the world.â€
5) Jack was our role model. He had very short hair. He wore suits to church. He led the choir was the Sunday School director . . . and was a hard church worker.
Jack carried a large, white KJ Bible. He never drank alcohol and not only he didn’t swear, but he never said “darn,†“Shoot,†“Crap†or any other substitute for “swear words.†God loved Jack a lot.
I couldn’t understand why my mother always stood between Jack and me, and never let me go to his house for youth Bible study. When I was older I found out that he was sexually molesting many of the young men . . . including my older brother. All the adults knew what he was doing, but never spoke of it outside of whispers.
There’s more of the story here:
http://evangelicalinthewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/11/my-manuscript-chapter-nineteen.html
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Headless Unicorn Guy, touche, yeah that’s true – it’s more the idealized ’50s – I always pictured the phrase “Don’t smoke, drink or chew and don’t date girls who do.” as coming from the ’50s, but the cultural taboo against smoking hadn’t quite started yet
Are all the comments on this thread fun/hilarious or what? IMonk, you’ve been giving everyone way too much fun the last couple days. Independent/SBC fundamentalist Baptists are almost too easy to make fun of. I lived it for a couple years, and enjoyed myself. But their capacity for gleaning all sorts of rules from Scripture is pretty amazing.
Then, on the other hand, attending Pastor Mark Dever’s church in D.C. later was a breath of fresh air. There are some really good exceptions out there.
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BTW, that’s two different schools in my two comments. I’m a transplanted Yankee. 😉
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#7 is Scripturally-based. Dress code and hair length is what Paul meant (and all he meant) when he wrote Romans 12:2.
At least, that’s what they told me at my high school (which was run by an independent Baptist church — you know the kind that left the SBC because it was too liberal?).
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Is #3 a Trail of Blood reference? If so, that “doctrine” wasn’t limited to Southern Baptists. My Baptist school in Pennsylvania taught it in the 1970s, too.
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If you’re talking to me I haven’t been there except for a funeral or two in twenty years. And I moved away over 30 years ago. I don’t know much about it now.
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I know your church well. One of the best churches in the state. Just solid all around in the best sense of the SBC’s cooperative, missional vision.
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Shouldn’t #4 read:
At the wedding of Cana, Jesus changed the wine into water, not the other way around. (merely a translational error – the original documents were true)
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Just so everyone knows, in my neck of the SBC woods, the other end of the state from iMonk in the 60s, tt was considered pastors choice. But only for communion, never outside the church. I can’t quite figure out where they would get it except from non-Christians with that attitude. Which for communion purposes is a bit odd. But most folks would never let logic get in the way of legalism.
And we were in no way shape or form a non fundamentalist church. Well until we built that new building after the fire and got accused of building a, GASP, Catholic looking church. 🙂
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1315501527066441112MFqpmU
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So – the next time someone brings up “Where is Purgatory in the Bible?”, we should wave a carton of Welch’s Grape Juice at them 😉
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Welch, I heard about the story of how he developed his grape juice (which is to this day my favorite)
I tell my wife who is a Southern Baptist, that one of the greatest developments of the Protestant revolt was Welch’s Grape juice. She always gives me a dirty look when I bring it up.
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MNP:
Actually, the Methodist groups Welch belonged to were advocating unfirmented “wine” in the Lord’s Supper for several decades before the Welches developed pasteurized grape juice. There are some ancient methods for keeping firmentation at bay, but they’re not anywhere near as good as pasteurization. Not to lend creedance to the teetotalers’ revisionist histories regarding biblical drinking, but that’s what I read earlier today.
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My church was typical 1950-75 SBC:
Uneducated clergy, revivalistic, obsessed with legalistic witness, strong evangelism and discipleship but no awareness of the non-biblical water they were swimming in.
Dispensational, but largely ignorant of the meaning of the Kingdom of God.
Strongly anti-catholic. and anti-Protestant. Always said “We are not Protestant!”
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imonk –
Upon reviewing your list of additional doctrines, I can honestly say, “Been there, done that.” But, don’t you think this relates back to your earlier post on interpreting the Bible? Who instructed you on the dress code in your church? Who taught you that the wine mentioned in the Bible was actually grape juice? Exactly where does it say in scripture that “deacons run the church?” Was it a seminary-trained “professional” who told you, “If the Kings James was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me?” or words to that affect?
It took me many years (all the while attending Southern Baptist churches) to come to the realization that some folks were preaching and teaching things not found in Scripture. I’ve been called a “rebel” by a few, but I can live with that. You may remember that Tom Cruise movie with the line, “Show me the money!” Well, Preacher, Minister, Reverend, and fellow-Christian – “Show me the Scripture!”
God Bless.
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One of my favorite passages about drinking alcohol goes even beyond wine. Here’s Deuteronomy 14: 23-16–
“You shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God, at the place where He chooses to establish His name, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. If the distance is so great for you that you are not able to bring the tithe, since the place where the LORD your God chooses to set His name is too far away from you when the LORD your God blesses you, then you shall exchange it for money, and bind the money in your hand and go to the place which the LORD your God chooses. You may spend the money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household.”
Not only “wine” but “strong drink”! In fact, “Whatever your heart desires”! Are we talking about God and the Bible here?
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The only student who has ever been really really angry with me in a Bible class was a girl from Alabama who listened to me say “glass of wine” several times in a lecture on Passover/Lord’s Supper, and stopped me with a look of horror:
“You think that Jesus drank wine?”
I said “What do you think he drank?”
She began to explain that she’d done an extensive personal research project and learned that the wine in Palestine wasn’t actually fermented etc.
I said that I understood her pov, but there was only one word for wine in the NT, and the warnings about drunkenness made no sense if it wasn’t fermented.
She got very angry.
Apologized the next day, and from that moment on decided I was worthless as a teacher, but did well anyway.
I thought I’d be in the president’s office in a day, but I never heard anything of it.
It’s hard core orthodoxy down here in Ky- Jesus no way could drink no no no no no way.
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I believe that it is impossible to have grape juice for any prolonged period of time without the modern technology called Pasteurization. Welche was a tempermant movement man, and promoted his grape juice as a temperate alternative to wine in the Lord’s Supper.
Clive S. Lewis said that any educated person who maintains that they actually used grape juice in the early church is a lying charlaitan.
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Whenever I’m getting down on my good ol’ Baptist roots (Anglican now), I watch this best of the best of Rober Duvall’s movies and make sure I can put myself into the scene in the right way. Not that he’s a baptist … but perhaps some of you will know what I mean.
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That perfectly describes my 2 year stint in a fundamentalist Baptist church as well. The people there love the Lord and have a heart for Bible preaching and street evangelism. They have too many rules and absolutely no sense of the culture that they are in (as if they were still in the 1950s). — J.P.
No, they are not “still in the 1950s” — at least not the REAL 1950s. They’re in the mythological Fifties according to Ozzie, Harriet, and Donna Reed. For some reason, this mythic Fifties is supposed to be some sort of Godly Golden Age.
Go fig. I was a kid during the REAL Nifty Fifties (which actually lasted through the First 1960s), and it wasn’t a Perfect Godly Golden Age. My writing partner (burned-out preacher-man in rural PA) has constant problems with local congregations and some of his own flock who act like they were time-stopped somewhere around Eisenhower’s inaguration. One of our phone talks got onto this subject and sparked this rant on my end:
If they were still in the REAL 1950s, they’d be smoking. Tobacco use peaked in the US (50-60% of both sexes) between 1930 & 1970, and the Nifty Fifties were right in the middle of that period.
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I think Welch was a Methodist. The real fanatics 🙂
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This isn’t influencing the SBC. I am in great theological sympathy with these folks, but Macarthur, Piper, T4G are all taking young pastors out of the SBC. The SBC is going to decline partially because the fundamentalists will make it next to impossible for Calvinists- and that’s what we’re talking about here- to serve in the vast majority of SBC churches. The Calvinists will have a 6-10% slice of the pie, will have their own networks, celebrities, conferences, etc. The SBC’s cooperative vision will decline. It’s cooperative institutions will decline, and the SBC will move toward fragmentation. The Calvinists will call this renewal because they will gain in numbers in their 6-10%, but the great mass of the SBC has no interest whatsoever in this theological renewal, in Calvinism, in reformed theology or the whole business.
The Calvinist SBC is a minority talking to itself. Saying good things, but having almost nothing to do with the larger denomination. Piper and Mohler should form a denomination and stop pretending that what’s going on at SBTS has anything to do with the mainstream SBC.
peace
ms
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The teetotal position was a response to the abuse of alcohol on the American frontier. There was no tradition of moderation a la Europe. It was abuse and all the terrible consequences throughout America. So the revivalistic denominations bought strongly into the teetotal movement, even though their Puritan ancestors drank. It was a way of supporting home, family, marriage, decency, etc. — IMonk
In other words, the Culture War Gospel of its day.
Check out Collected poems of G.K.Chesterton sometime. A lot of them were written during Prohibition, and G.K. (a very traditional Englishman) never missed an opportunity to rag on the Yanks’ obsession with teetotaling and Prohibition —
“He reached the farther shore,
Where Hiram Higginbotham stood
And bade him drink no more.”
Now we have a whole hermeneutic with a teetotaling Jesus and no real wine actually mentioned in the Bible. Just Welches. — IMonk
Which was named after a Baptist preacher named Welch, very active in the teetotaling movement. He preached that Communion wine was a sin while holding the patent on and being the only source of unfermented grape juice with any shelf life. You went teetotal under Reverend Welch, you had to buy your communion grape juice from him. Nice racket.
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Imonk, 9 Marks and Capital Hill certainly don’t represent the entire SBC, but it’s influence is growing as ministries like theirs and Founders Ministry, Piper, Together for the Gospel, Jeff Noblit, MacArthur and others have a growing influence on us. Many young seminarians are graduating with not only a more reformed take on theology but without many of the above listed additions. My hope is that the SBC grows more biblical and less cultural.
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No one in the SBC ever takes on all the passages on alcohol.
Listen to Mohler’s famous forum with SBTS students on this one.
1) the Bible says one thing
2) Southern Baptists believe another
3) you want to work in an SBC church, you’ll get over what the Bible says and conform to the expectations of the denomination
https://internetmonk.com/archive/mohler-and-moore-on-southern-baptists-southern-seminary-and-alcohol-a-meandering-response-to-the-forum
https://internetmonk.com/archive/one-big-happy-lie-southern-baptists-alcohol-and-me
https://internetmonk.com/archive/riffs-110307-missouri-baptists-and-the-battle-of-the-booze
http://wooga.drbacchus.com/bible/alcohol.html
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My wife, by the way, was forced to go to an SBC camp in the Mojave dessert where they couldn’t wear shorts or skirts. 🙂
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I would just add something to Sherry’s comment and that’s that I grew up in a West Coast baptist church of some stripe (it had GARB roots but had moved on a bit … not far enough) and DID have all these rules.
So I think it’s not so much the SBC, per se, as it is any of the Baptist traditions that were heavily pietistic and fundamentalist.
Buth thanks iMonk for taking on the cult thing. To call the fundamentalist Baptists a cult would be wrong indeed — though perhaps some of the smaller, personality driven congregations may have had a few of the marks of cultish institutions, like you said, aspects of “cultishness” can be found in any tradition and therefore we should use the term carefully.
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Jim asked, “What do the “only-scripture-and-no-alcohol†folks do with Proverbs 31:6-7? ”
My first church wasn’t SBC, but they partially allegorized it to show that alcohol wasn’t for believers. Those who are “perishing”, spiritually speaking, are unbelievers. Christianity is not a religion of “bitter distress”, so again it’s talking about unbelievers. Same with “poverty” and “misery.” So alcohol was God’s gift to unbelievers – only in a way, though – because enbelievers did everything without regard for God, so it was still sin, but it was a minor granted mercy for them.
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Sherry:
Could I ask a few questions?
Was your pastor seminary trained? If so, where? Other staff seminary trained?
Were you in an FBC? County seat? Urban area?
Strong WMU? Highly supportive of the Lottie Moon Offering and the CP?
I’m guessing you were on the SBC’s moderate-liberal fringe, which was dominated by pastors trained in Ky or NC, and had a fairly higher educational level congregation.
ms
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YOu know what? I grew up SBC in the sixties and seventies in a not particularly liberal or out-of-step church, and I never felt that any of Michael’s “rules” were hard and fast rules. We discussed drinking and dancing, and some said the Bible taught that both were sinful. But most of us had dificulties finding a source for that belief.
And the dress code was fairly lax to nonexistent. I wore mini-skirts and lime green pant suits with the best of them (ugh!).
I never heard the theory that the SOuthern Baptist Church started with John the Baptist (that’s the way I heard it) until I was grown. And then I thought it was a joke.
No one ever taught me anything about the civil rights movement or the Vietnam war in church. We were taught that tithing was good, but not a requirement.
I just can’t find any of your “rules” that I thought were “rules” when I was growing up. Suggestions, maybe, even advice form older folks, but not rules.
I think hanging a legalistic system like that around the necks of the entire SBC is unfair when it was not universal.
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Don’t know if iMonk has read it, but re this issue I’d suggest reading Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920 by Ted Ownby. The middle section of the book is all about the rise of evangelical culture in the south during this period.
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@imonk: I thought this blog was your therapy?
It certainly can be for me sometimes, this post included. Thanks again and I’ll mail you my co-payment!
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“Question: “What will two Catholics do, that two Baptist will never do?â€
Answer: “Speak to one another in the Liquor Storeâ€.
Greg – Catholics in an off-licence? Scandalous!
They should be in the pub, as is the only right and proper way of doing it 🙂
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iMonk: “Fundamentalism loved me, didn’t abuse me, and taught me a bunch of nonsense that wasn’t true. Pretty much like any family.”
That perfectly describes my 2 year stint in a fundamentalist Baptist church as well. The people there love the Lord and have a heart for Bible preaching and street evangelism. They have too many rules and absolutely no sense of the culture that they are in (as if they were still in the 1950s).
My experience in that church was positive, I left there under friendly terms, and they consistently lead people to the Lord on a regular basis. The only reason I could think of to call them a cult, Willoh, is if you had experience regularly attending a particularly bad one that abused or twisted the gospel.
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“Mr. Welches paid churches to switch.”
?! Swerving very close to simony, I would have thought.
“And Baptists do not have a Catholic view of the LS.”
Ah, pardon me, I seem to have been unclear in what I was saying. That’s exactly the point I was trying to get at: since there is not the sacramental understanding, the elements used are of less gravity, so to replace the wine with grape juice is less of a jump than it would be in a sacramental view (see the tussles over gluten in Communion hosts for RCs!) and moreover, with this kind of cultural colouring in the back of the mind, it’d be easier to denounce *all* use of alcohol as wrong and sinful, and to make total abstinence a doctrinal mark.
Whereas with frequent Eucharists and the high view of the elements and the rubrics insisting on wine, it’d be tougher all round both as a matter of doctrine and as an expression of culture to remove alcohol altogether.
I get the impression that the Lord’s Supper was, in general, celebrated very seldom (quarterly or yearly) in most Protestant denominations early on as a deliberate means of differentiating themselves from Catholicism, replacing the emphasis on the sacraments with one on the preaching of the Word and so forth, and that it was only as time went by that communion services became more frequent.
I certainly would not presume to demand that Baptists should use wine instead of grape juice, or that they should change their theology; it’s just that casually tossing out remarks like “We’ve always done that since the beginning of time” is really giving hostages to (historical) fortune 🙂
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OK willoh, I appreciate the sentiment, but I wasn’t saved and ordained in a cult. I take it you are not familiar with Baptist fundamentalism. It’s not quite as sinister as your reaction would indicate. I’m sure any description of Catholic school in the 1950s could be painted in similar colors. I’ve read a few books to that tune.
I’m screwed up, but I did it after I left. Fundamentalism loved me, didn’t abuse me, and taught me a bunch of nonsense that wasn’t true. Pretty much like any family.
Where I work today isn’t much different. Fundamentalists haven’t changed much.
peace
ms
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My favorite experience from a fundamentalist Baptist church –
One of the older elders found out that I smoked. He approached me, lovingly as a concerned fellow Christian (God bless him) and read this passage of Scripture to me for why smoking cigarettes was unBiblical.
Isaiah 6:4-5
“And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips’…”
When I realized he wasn’t joking, I thanked him and, when finally back in my car alone, allowed myself to laugh – and almost died laughing (you cough hard when you smoke and laugh at the same time).
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Question: “What will two Catholics do, that two Baptist will never do?â€
Answer: “Speak to one another in the Liquor Storeâ€.
Sorry, I could not help myself…
Grace Always,
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Yes! you! Seek professional assistance! That is spiritual abuse! How you kept faith in God thru that muddle is a sign of His power.
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wiloh:
Who are you talking to and saying I was in a cult?
Me?
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Not one of the above positions can be found in scripture, King James or otherwise. I hate to be the one to break it to you, and no offense meant, but you were in a cult. Perhaps the cult belonged to the SBC, or the SBC encouraged cults, but get some therapy man. You were a cult victim. I mean it, all of you brought up in such a system best get some professional support.
Was there no revolution, or call to reform? If I tried to impose that stuff on my kids they would stone me! With rocks! I guess because I have been thrown out of a couple places so I expect like minds to be tossed out too.
Denominational hermeneutics, I find it dangerous.
Martha, We are baptist,although a few more posts from Imonk like this one and we will need to re-think that, we have communion monthly, I am working on it as I would like to join the Lord at His table Weekly.
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All: I did not include fundamentalist traditions or habits. I was listing what our church insisted was a Biblical and essential.
In the past, a lot of things were quite normal in most Protestant and Catholic churches that we might laugh at today, such as mixed swimming, etc.
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Martha:
SBC Lord’s Supper frequency varies from quarterly to monthly in most churches. Spurgeon took it weekly, but that is unheard of.
I’ve written a lot about Baptist views of the LS. Use the categories (Baptists) or search function to find them.
Many early Baptists used wine, but not for long. Mr. Welches paid churches to switch. Consult wikipedia. And Baptists do not have a Catholic view of the LS. Nor do I.
ms
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Dolan McKnight
“You left out dancing and mixed “bathing,†i.e. swimming. This went to the extreme that the church camp where we went each summer had two swimming pools …”
When a group of families went to a similar camp for an evening swim and then a camp out we had to wait for the ladies of a prior group to clear the pool as they didn’t allow mixed bathing so we couldn’t go in and change until they left. Someone asked our pastor while we were waiting what he thought of mixed bathing. He allowed how his shower really only had room for one so he hadn’t tried other arrangements. 🙂
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Christopher Lake:
Mark Dever’s Church is as fringe as possible in SBC life. There’s really nothing typically SBC about it.
That’s a good thing, btw, but Dever and the SBC Calvinists don’t represent the contemporary SBC as much as they represented the Reformed Baptist movement.
ms
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Aliasmoi
“Don’t forget that no Christian can vote Democrat.”
To expand on iMonk’s comment. In Ky up through the 60s and some of the 70s the only Republicans on the general election ballot were typically for President, Governor, Senator, and maybe your Congressman. Louisville and Lexington might have a few more but if you wanted a voice you registered Democrat so you could cast useful votes in the primaries. The civil war has a very long tail.
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“3. The Jesus had founded the Southern Baptist church, which had existed from Biblical times to the present day.”
I grew up at the same time as you in but in far western KY. I never really heard of this until much later. Was this something that died out in all but the mountains?
“4. That Christians must be teetotalers, and no one in the Bible ever drank wine.”
My son’s 12 grade SS teacher gave his last lesson of the year on this. My son came home asking “What the ….” It’s nuts. My already low opinion of said teacher went through the floor at that point.
Of course growing up we knew we shouldn’t drink. It was printed in the front of the hymnals as a part of the SBC statement of faith as I recall. I never saw my dad take a drink but he always said this was nuts.
“8. The civil rights movement was wrong …”
The beginning of the end for the pastor I grew up with was when he allowed a business meeting to discuss what we’d do if “they” showed up and wanted to attend or GASP become members. This was about 69. Lots of politely heated discussion. I think the longest meeting we’d ever had. No decision.
“12. Sunday was a day when all businesses must be closed, and we should vote to impose that view on the community.”
As my dad would say. I guess we should really close everything down Friday through Sunday to take care of Muslims, Jews, 7th day, … We even had folks who said absolutely no one should have a job that required working on Sunday. But I noticed the church still turned on the lights, flushed the toilets, etc…
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You left out dancing and mixed “bathing,” i.e. swimming. This went to the extreme that the church camp where we went each summer had two swimming pools – one for boys and the other for girls. The only exception was a trip to the Brazos River near the camp where both sexes were allowed, but we had to wear a tee shirt over our bathing suits. At night, girls were not allowed to wear spaghetti strap dresses.
When we went on to college at Baylor, the girls could only wear shorts in gym. To get from the dorm to gym, they were required to put on raincoats.
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Martha – I didn’t grow up SBC but northern Independent Fundamentalist Baptist…and we had communion once a month, probably first Sunday evening of the month, if I recall correctly.
iMonk – Agree with your list, it’s extremely accurate. Of course there can be more added to it…any fictional book has to be either Left Behind or Pilgrim’s Progress or from a “pre-approved” publishing company; any videos watched need to be Adventures in Odyssey; Patch the Pirate is the only approved childrens’ music; you graduate high school, you go to Pensacola or Bob Jones only; guys and girls can’t sit on the youth bus together; no movie theatres while you are a member of the church; and it’s ok to snitch on other people if they are breaking any of the laws.
I had one youth pastor growing up who was great at contradictory statements. He’d tell us dancing is a sin, then say it’s ok for him and his wife to do alone. He’d say the only Bible is the KJV, then admit to using other translations for his sermons. Video games are bad, yet he played Nintendo64. Alcohol is bad unless it’s a glass of wine with his wife. Etc.
The people who grew up in these environments are gaining positions of authority in the church. Hopefully our experiences won’t be repeated ever again.
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Dan – why should Evangelicalism be any different from the rest of the world? 🙂
DaveMc – thanks for that. I am definitely wondering if this lack of emphasis on the Lord’s Supper did help contribute within the culture of the Baptists to the rejection of all alcohol, not just socially but within church, to the point of making it a distinctive for the denomination?
I’ve been Googling the use of wine in the Lord’s Supper and, skimming over various bits ‘n’ bobs is absolutely fascinating – there is one article by a certain person from a Baptist church laying out point by point why it’s grape juice not wine, and amongst the arguments pro-wine that he mentions and rejects is that Baptists used wine and it was only since the Temperance movements got off the ground that it was rejected; his counter to this is that using wine is (or was) a Baptist tradition and Baptist tradition can be just as wrong as Catholic or other traditions, and it would be wrong to go against God’s word in favour of tradition.
So, basically he’s saying that every Baptist congregation since the 1600s (if you accept that’s when Baptists got started, and don’t think they were there from the beginning) up to the 1800s when they ‘re-discovered’ the proper liquid to use (sorry if that sounds flippant, but I can’t think of any better way to put it) were not only in the same boat as the ignorant, benighted, superstitious Papists and the other Protestant sacramentalists who were nearly as bad as the Romans, they were actively opposing the will of God as revealed in Scripture.
Wow, is all I can say. Also, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to him, in his condemnation of tradition, that using grape juice is a *modern* Baptist tradition which they are trying to justify out of the Bible by saying “well, there is no actual use of the word ‘wine’ but rather ‘fruit of the vine'” and some very, I have to say, dodgy exegesis about the Israelites wandering in the desert having no wine but only the juice of the vine.
Another guy who addresses this topic also made a remark that “Baptists have been using grape juice since forever”, which I have to think is more down to hastiness in posting than actually thinking deeply since come on – the 16th and 17th century Baptists didn’t use wine? Seriously? So this 1689 declaration really meant to say “unfermented grape juice” not “wine”?
“The Lord Jesus has, in this ordinance, appointed His ministers to pray and bless the elements of bread and wine (so setting them apart from a common to a holy use) and to take and break the bread, then to take the cup, and to give both to the communicants, also communicating themselves.”
You can certainly argue about what the Hebrew term used meant – grape juice, fermented or not, or wine; but the English word ‘wine’ pretty much means, well, ‘wine’ 🙂
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Am I the only one who read the end of Goldie’s last message and started singing the “Sperm Song” from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life?
“We can have sex whenever we want because we’re Protestant!”
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Ugh, I hit Send before I remembered about the dress code. That was in a Baptist church I used to belong to. No pants on women whatsoever. In a Baptist church in Moscow, in a -30C degree winter, and I had a two hour commute where I had to change buses/walk several times. Oh, and they demanded perfect attendance. I wore a floor length wool skirt and three layers of leggings, and I was still freezing.
(timidly) are we going to say anything about all forms of birth control being forbidden, or is it inappropriate for this topic? That was another source of puzzlement for me at my Baptist church.
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Martha, in my SBC experience we celebrated the Lord’s Supper about once a quarter. Oh yes, and it was church members only, everyone else was instructed to pass.
To address Michael’s earlier comment, the Temperance movement in the 1800’s might have been headed by Beecher, Finney, et al, but was very definitely a women’s movement.
I think Michael has brought up an excellent but subtle point that these restrictions in the SBC church he describes were considered Biblical commandments, not helpful suggestions. Tithing, in particular, has and continues to be a handy commandment in most evangelical churches. As one pastor said, “We couldn’t turn the lights on if we didn’t preach tithing.”
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As a Baptist by conviction (from studying the Bible), I agree that many SBC churches do have “additional doctrines” that have come to be emphasized more than the Gospel itself. What a sad, tragic shame– and a situation with which Boyce and the other founders of the SBC would be *very* upset.
Much of what Michael describes in SBC life is, experientially, foreign to me. That is probably partially because the church where I was a member was in Washington, D.C., instead of the Deep South. It is also probably because the “ethos” of this SBC church was more what one might identify as “thoughtful Presbyterian” than “culture war Baptist.”
In this church, Capitol Hill Baptist, “additional doctrines” were guarded against very carefully. By the time that I came to the church, there had not been an American flag in the sanctuary for a long time (it was taken down at Mark Dever’s request). Members of the church enjoyed the arts, watching various kinds of movies, listening to many genres of music, and so on. I do remember tithing being taught in one particular class, but I don’t remember it being taught from the pulpit, and I’m not sure that the elders had a unified stance on it.
Speaking of elders, they did the preaching and teaching, while the deacons attended to the physical needs of the church body. The deacons definitely did not run the church. Regular attendance at Sunday morning and Sunday evening services was generally the order for church members, but exceptions were made for people in unusual circumstances. Even in this area, which was viewed as very important to the health of one’s Christian life (with which I agree), attendance at church was emphatically never seen as something that *saves* or *damns* a person.
Every sermon either specifically dealt with, or eventually focused on, Christ and the Gospel. Specific political statements were almost *never* made from the pulpit (other than in some indirect ways, with occasional statements on the sin of abortion, references to international Christian persecution, appeals to church members to help those with less, materially, and prayers for governing authorities, as the Bible tells us to pray).
Such was my experience of life at an “SBC church.” I know that there are all too many churches in the denomination that have the “additional doctrines” which Michael describes. It is beyond sad. I am thankful that the view of SBC church life that I saw was Christocentric and Gospel-centered. The parachurch ministry of Capitol Hill Baptist, “9 Marks,” is all about encouraging that vision for SBC churches, and really, for churches in general– many churches that are not SB participate in the 9 Marks ministry. I pray that this vision takes root and helps to grow more healthy, Gospel-centered churches!
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#1 – so true! This was how I was converted in ’89, only in my case it was the Four Spiritual Laws booklet. I was so naive though, it took me a few years to ask myself, Why, in order to be saved, do I have to read these exact words out of this particular booklet? And why, once I’ve read them aloud, I’m saved for life? A lil magicky, dont’cha think?
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😀
I was wondering where the comment would be-so I’m adding it- where you had to carry a gold-edged, red-letter KJV Study Bible with you on Sunday AM.
Not to get too snarky, but I remained puzzled as to why such Bibles get lugged to church by some folks: the covers always look the same: bright and shiny: like the thing has never been opened…
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Okay, this is probably swerving off at a tangent, but historically, what was the Baptist practice of celebrating the Lord’s Supper?
By which I mean, was it celebrated only once a year or quarterly? in other words, infrequently – at least by Catholic standards 😉
(Yes, there is a point to this). I know one part of anti-Catholic polemic back then (and I’m not singling out Baptists for this) was that they were wine-bibbers, especially the clergy, who were no better than drunkards because they were *compelled* to use wine for Communion, and since the laity only received under one species, the priests drank the wine and so were – yes, wine-bibbers and drunkards.
I’m wondering if this absorption of extreme temperance into a rule for church membership and as a defining sign was more easily accepted because there wasn’t the same significance attached to wine as sacramental? So did early Baptists use wine in communion services? What did they do before there were conveniently available grape juices?
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Imonk,
I would be very interested in hearing more of your thoughts on “evangelicalism [becoming] a movement of women telling men what to do”.
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Imonk,
I grew up in an extremely similar environment, except that the rules were even stricter:
No Santa. No Halloween. No music with a beat. No denims (jeans, jackets doesn’t matter). No dating – ever – God showed you who you are going to marry – no contact till after the ceremony. They even censored the Sound of Music (No I’m 16 going on 17..). No dancing (obviously – but also for married couples). Heck, AFTER I got married, I was told that a man and his wife should maybe not hold hands in public…. No sex-ed.
On the other hand, I experienced Communion once or twice in 17 Years! Saw (believers) baptism once. But had to confess my sins to a “councilour” regularly. Had to watch Estus Pirkle’s “The Burning Hell” often – anybody remember that?? Scared the pants off me – because you see, almost never saw movies, and TV was bad…
And folks wonder why I get my knickers in a twist when legalism comes up…. because this kind of legalism almost always boils down to pelagiansim – often it is just well hidden.
Jesus words about little ones, stumbling, rocks and the deep blue see come to mind.
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So the Baptist explanation for the miracle at the Wedding Feast of Cana is that Our Lord turned the water into grape juice?
How does that work, without a lot of fudging that “Well, when they say ‘wine’, they don’t actually mean ‘wine’, they mean ‘unfermented grape juice'”, especially if there might be in some places also an emphasis on every single word of the Scriptures proceeding directly from God and inerrantly transcribed by the human authors?
It is interesting to me as another example of something uniquely American in religion; over here we also had horrendous alcohol abuse during the 19th century (ach, we still have it to this day) and in response there was a temperance movement initiated by Fr. Matthew in 1838 which was one of total abstention from drink – but there was never any attempt to ban all alcohol, or make it a matter of church membership; the abuse and intemperate use of alcohol was condemned, but a social and medical role was acknowledged.
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On the KJV, can anyone remember the SBC using Good News for Modern Man in the 1960’s? What a firestorm that caused!
To amplify the iMonk’s commentary above, the Temperance movement came largely as a result of Lyman Beecher and his efforts to convert not only people but culture to Christianity. Not without some reason, since the average American in 1825 drank 7 gallons of alcohol per year, mostly hard cider and whiskey. Now, the average is 2 gallons, mostly beer and wine. Beecher’s position was considered an innovation, since traditional Christianity had not discouraged drinking up to that time.
By involving church with culture (and for a lot of other reasons), church membership rose to twice 1776 levels by the mid-1800’s. Out of this also came the anti-tobacco movement, the Sunday School movement, the beginnings of suffrage, and eventually the anti-slavery movement. So, they had a positive impact on culture. Seems like there is a difference between taking on the problems of culture and enmeshing oneself in it.
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What do the “only-scripture-and-no-alcohol” folks do with Proverbs 31:6-7?
(I’m not being snarky… just really wanting someone from that tradition to share an explanation with me that makes sense of their aforementioned commitments for scripture and against alcohol.)
I’m not a fan of the proof-text game (the early church didn’t have the New Testament for a good long time, so they can’t play), but it seems appropriate in a conversation with those who would take a sola scriptura perspective.
And, speaking of moralism, it seems worse to put words in God’s mouth than to not uphold the words that He gave. Shouldn’t we just stick to the (relatively few) “rules” that are given, acknowledge our inability to keep them all perfectly (or even barely), and run to Jesus (as opposed to making additional rules!?!)
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The logic is fairly simple.
The teetotal position was a response to the abuse of alcohol on the American frontier. There was no tradition of moderation a la Europe. It was abuse and all the terrible consequences throughout America. So the revivalistic denominations bought strongly into the teetotal movement, even though their Puritan ancestors drank. It was a way of supporting home, family, marriage, decency, etc. And it was roughly the same time that evangelicalism became a movement of women telling men what to do, which is pretty much what vast tracts of it are today, at least in churches and on the ground. Don’t be fooled by what things seem to be. The moralism of today’s evangelicalism is a woman’s movement.
Today it has become a post prohibition stand against the counter culture, a stand against any kind of substnace abuse and a cause that people in the south can relate to. But it’s sheer hypocrisy- I’ve written on that there at IM in the past but better not link right now- Baptists drink all the time.
Now we have a whole hermeneutic with a teetotaling Jesus and no real wine actually mentioned in the Bible. Just Welches.
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Lots of those things are just social/cultural constraints we Catholics would call “tradition”, not doctrines defined explicitly and taught as an essential part of the faith. I don’t think they compare in dimension and consequence to Marian or Papal doctrines.
Of course I still don’t understand where the no drinking rule comes from. It always struck me as obviously contra Biblical and so it’s a mystery how that got shoehorned in given the Solas.
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I got this type of “additional doctrines” inflicted on me back in the Seventies. The end result was the distinct feeling of the promised “Freedom in Christ” becoming more like getting sold a bill of goods. (Either that, or they defined “Freedom” along the same lines as North Korea.)
P.S. The graphic at the top of this post has it wrong. In this context, that list should be only one or two “You Can”s and hundreds of “You Can’t”s, with more “Can’t”s being continuously added.
Specific comments/snarks:
1. The only way to receive Jesus Christ and be saved was to walk the aisle at the end of a sermon and repeat a prayer provided by the preacher.
AKA “Say the Magic Words”. Christian Shahada.
12. Sunday was a day when all businesses must be closed, and we should vote to impose that view on the community.
Among other, additional views to be imposed.
13. All true believers had a “born again†experience which they could recall and describe.
Down to the exact day, hour, minute, and second; and if you couldn’t remember that exact day/hour/minute/second, you weren’t REALLY born again. See #1.
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Actually, in my church we all voted Democrat. But this was the 60s and early 70s.
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Don’t forget that no Christian can vote Democrat.
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This ties in nicely with the previous posts. We’re back to the authority problem that “Bible-believing” churches have and the poor quality of the way we often interpret the Scriptures. I hesitate to deny anyone their opinions or convictions on some of these matters, but why do we need to hold them so tightly, as if they constitute divine commands?
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Although I disagree with many of the extra biblical teachings of the Catholic tradition, they seem to have a much better rational for filling in the blanks. I don’t think it’s legit, but it sort of maks sense at first glance.
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