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Bishop Robert Barron reflects on the 60+ years since the second Vatican Council started in 1962. What did it accomplish, has it failed, can it be undone? It's interesting.

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Transcript:
Welcome back to the word on fire show I'm Brandon Vaught the host and the senior publishing director at word on
fire we just passed the 60th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II the second
Vatican Council six decades later however can we say that the council was
a success or was it a failure or was it something in between lots of people are
discussing the relevance and the continued impact of the second Vatican Council and we'll continue that
conversation today with Bishop Robert Barron Bishop good to be with you hey Brandon always nice to see you I
want to ask you something that I always love to ask you but I haven't done it in a while namely what books are you
reading tell us any good stuff you've been into lately wait I read a lot of books at the same
time uh I'm reading Matt loveren's book that we just published we're on fire on Newman on doctrinal corruption uh
typical lovering book really good thorough serious scholarship and then he
and I both love new men's I'm reading that I'm continuing with um what's his first name is it Peter Adamson the
historian of philosophy uh you ordered a lot of those books for me uh I think I'm I'm still on the ancient philosophy I
read as one on medieval philosophy it's a history it's called philosophy without gaps so he's like covering absolutely
everybody but I'm enjoying that um I just finished John mcgreevy's book on the history of Catholicism from the
French Revolution to uh modern times and it's good it's a it's a very common
wheel Notre Dame sort of Center left take on on those issues so read them in
tandem let's say with uh George Weigel on Vatican II and you'd get you know it's kind of Center left versus center
right just finish that um what else I'm I'm going to get to
Chesterton on Aquinas and Francis because I'm getting ready for the Chesterton a meeting next summer they
asked me to speak on the uh on Saint Francis book right so you sent that to me I'm going to bring that with me to
um uh Chicago my next trip anyway those are a few things I'm reading how about I know when you were in California you
were driving so much and one of the things you would do is listen to audible books you got anything going on Audible
these days I'm doing that less because I I haven't had as many of those super long trips
but there was what was it there was something I was listening to oh I know I know um I got the Diary of a country priest
by George bernanos which I had tried to read many years ago and kind of got
bogged down in it frankly so I've got that in my car and and I was uh uh
plowing oh and also I got the constellation of philosophy boethius which I I will confess to you I'm a
master's degree in philosophy love but I had never read boethius I never read the constellation
philosophy so I'm listening to that in the car it's got the whole Wheel of Fortune thing which you talk about right then
that comes from boethia yeah yeah indeed right all right well let's turn from books to
the second Vatican Council again the the second Vatican Council opened officially on October 11 1962 which means we just
passed the 60th anniversary of its convening as expected there have been lots of Articles commentary reflecting
back on the council both pro and con and its continued relevance but I have
noticed within the past year a surprising number of these Reflections questioning whether the council was in
fact a net positive for the church whether it was better than worse for the church and I'm thinking in particular of
two recent articles that have gotten a lot of commentary by our friend Ross douthit Ross has been a friend of Word
on Fire for years and he uh actually appeared in one of our films right the new evangelization documentary years ago
but Ross is a op-ed writer for the New York Times and he recently had two op-ed
pieces one titled how Catholics became prisoners of Vatican II and then a
follow-up piece titled how Vatican II failed Catholics and Catholicism and I
wanted to talk through both of those articles with you all right and the first piece delphit
says this quote the council poses a continuing challenge it creates intractable intractable seeming
divisions and it leaves contemporary Catholicism facing a set of problems and dilemmas that Providence has not yet
seen fit to resolve he then lists three of these three statements that to him
encapsulate the problems and dilemmas of Vatican II the first one is this the council was necessary he says the Church
of 1962 needed significant adaptation significant rethinking and reform these
adaptations needed to be backward looking so getting away from throne and
alter Politics the rise of modern liberalism and the horror of the Holocaust all of which required response
from the church but they also needed to be forward-looking in the sense that Catholicism in the early 1960s had only
just begun to reckon with globalization and decolonization and the information
age and social Revolution touched off by the invention of the contraceptive pill
so let's stop there and get your thoughts on that that first statement would you agree that the council was
necessary in the first place why I say yes and relying not so much to my own judgment but that of those who
are involved um almost everybody who mattered around that time thought the church needed
something I go back to uh words Von Balthazar and the famous raising of the
bastians book he wrote in the 1950s that sums up the attitude of a lot of people
at Mid mid 20th century Catholicism that we were too defensive that we were kind
of crouching behind our own medieval walls that our our philosophical system
was sort of Arcane and outdated and that to engage the modern world which is a
major concern of Vatican II to engage the modern world certain adjustments and
so on in our in our thinking and in our practice had to happen you know I had the privilege Brandon
when I was a young priest there were still a number of priests around who uh
knew Vatican II very well one of them was a good friend of mine senior Bill Quinn of happy memory bill was was at
Vatican II I won't go into all the reasons why but he was a liaison between the Latin American Bishops conference
and our Bishops conference so Bill knew all the players and he was there for the obsessions of Vatican II and and Bill
would have been raised completely in the pre-conciliar church he was ordained about 1940.
knew it loved it loved all the truth and goodness and beauty of Catholicism love
Dante Aquinas Shard Cathedral the whole bit right but Bill would have said to me
you know we desperately needed changes we had to make adjustments so
the church could do its Mission second sort of empirical observation look at the votes
whenever people kind of either question the legitimacy of Vatican II or the needfulness of it here's by far the most
ecumenical council in the history of the church meaning the the one that represented the largest swath of
populations and countries ever you know you got east to west all over the world people are there Africa Asia Latin
America Europe North America they're all there look at the votes look at the votes
overwhelmingly in favor of a conciliary document obviously the vast vast majority of the
key leaders of the Church of that time felt that these changes in tone in
Behavior at some degree in thinking had to happen right so there I would say
yeah the empirical evidence is clear I trust the people who were there at the
time they judged that it was necessary so Delta continues that
um just because a moment calls for reinvention doesn't mean that a specific
set of reinventions will succeed and he says we now have Decades of data to
justify a second encapsulating statement and here it is the council was a failure
so that's doubt that's second claim he adds this isn't a truculent or reactionary analysis the second Vatican
Council failed on the terms that its own supporters set it was supposed to make the church more Dynamic more attractive
to Modern people more Evangelistic less closed off and stale and self-referential it did none of those
things the church declined everywhere and the developed world after Vatican II
under conservative and liberal popes alike but the decline was swiftest where
the council's influence was strongest would you agree with that claim that the council was a failure
no I wouldn't put it that way but I I want to give him his full do there
um I think it was George Weigel some years ago raised that question about any Council that you can say okay there's
the council the documents and the teachings and of course you know we believe in the guidance of the holy
spirit so you can't say these councils are saying you know heretical things but nevertheless you can ask was it
successful think of the famous lettering Council just before the Reformation that's everyone holds up as the most
famous example of a council that clearly failed because what followed immediately after was the Protestant Reformation you
know so yeah a council can fail it can fail to achieve what it wanted to
achieve and I'll give Delph that his his full do there uh I've said it for years following
Cardinal George and others it was a missionary Council meant to bring us out into the modern
world in an evangelically compelling way it wanted to bring more people back to
mass it wanted to revitalize the mass it wanted to bring people to the source and
Summit of the Christian Life moreover it wanted ecumenical Unity that's a major
concern Reed kongar's Diaries read delubach read all the major players at fatigue read rotzinger they they wanted
desperately to bring the the Riven Body of Christ together uh all good and Noble things articulated
beautifully in the documents yeah I would say now here's delphic giving him his do did any of that happen
...

"Your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes" - Matthew 5:20

There are accounts in the Bible that had strong parallels in historic astronomical events. It wasn't describing fallen angels with eyes and wings fighting mortal men but two galaxies colliding with one galaxy "victorious" over the other and completely absorbing it.

It seems to paint the picture that celestial bodies are alive in extremely long timescales that we are way too short-lived to observe any evidence of sentience.

If stars could talk, the entire thousands of years of human existence must have only existed with only vowel being enunciated, not even a word! Absolutely nothing to analyze and we'd assume, they're nothing more than lifeless matter in space.

That God and the angels are any one of those massive celestial bodies in space.....If we are created in His image then we'd also be like stars but we are not. We are flesh and bones and limbs then who are we?

Did we simply receive a copy of the scriptures for celestial bodies and decided to adopt it as our own that we humans are the ones it is talking about?

When we read a passage of Scripture like this it is always good if we can read it in context, asking ourselves to whom this applies. For it does not apply to everyone who makes a verbal profession of faith in Jesus Christ. It does apply to everyone who is in Christ Jesus, yes, but by God-persuaded and God-gifted faith in him (John 6:44; Ephesians 2:8-10), who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For if our minds are set on the flesh, the end result is death, not life everlasting.

So, for us to claim these promises of God, we must be those who are walking (in conduct, in practice) according to the Spirit, and not according to the flesh, who are walking in obedience to our Lord and to his commands in holy living and no longer in sin, in practice, although not necessarily in absolute perfection. And we must be those who, by the Spirit, are daily putting the deeds of the flesh to death and who are now being led by the Spirit of God in how to live (see Romans 8:1-14).

For God is for us who are for him, and we show that we are for him by our submission to him to his will and purpose for our lives, and by our walks of faith in obedience to his commands and in holy living, and no longer in sin. And this isn’t teaching that no one will be against us, for that would be contrary to what Jesus and his NT apostles taught us all throughout the New Testament. For they taught us that we will be hated and rejected and persecuted for the sake of the name of Jesus and for his righteousness.

But the inference, I believe, is that those who are against us cannot take away from us what God has provided for us. They have no real power over us in light of our salvation and eternal life with God. Although they will oppose us and persecute us, the Lord is our strength, and he will sustain us if we are willing and obedient. So even if they bring charges against us, and even if they condemn us, if we are following the Lord in obedience to his commands, he will not bring charges against us, and he will not condemn.

Also, if Christ is Lord (Owner-Master) of our lives, and if we are walking according to the Spirit, and not according to the flesh, nothing and no one can separate us from the love of Christ. We can, if we choose to, separate ourselves from his love if we choose to walk in sin and not in righteousness and holiness, and if we turn our backs on him and we go our own way and not his way. For the Scriptures teach that if we claim to know God and to be in fellowship with him while we walk in sin and don’t obey him, we are liars.

[1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Matthew 7:21-23]

But if we are walking in his ways and in his truth, and not in sin, then we are more than conquerors through him who loves us. We can have victory over sin, Satan, worldly influences, opposition, persecutions, and temptations, trials, and tribulations – all in His power, strength, and wisdom, and because of his grace to us. We do not have to cave to (give into) our circumstances or to how others treat us or view us. We can rise above it all and live for Jesus, and do his will for our lives, despite all else that comes into our lives.

Courageous!

An Original Work / December 24, 2013
Based off Various Scriptures

The Word of God throughout taught.
Some people heard but did doubt.
Still others had faith in Christ.
By grace He purified them.

They turned from sin
And they obeyed Christ.
He opened up their blinded eyesight;
Turned them from darkness
To the true Light;
Forgave their sin by His might.

He strengthened them in their faith.
He said, “Remain my faithful.”
He called them to obedience.
By faith, they were so grateful.

By faith, they were to follow Jesus;
To daily sit and listen to Him;
To have such faith
That mountains could move;
To love those whom He gave them.

Be on your guard; courageous.
Stand firm in faith. Be thankful.
Take up the shield of your faith;
Protect against all evil.

Do not move from
The hope that you have.
Your faith in Jesus let it endure.
Hold to the truth;
Your conscience be clear.
Endure with perseverance.

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To me it seems that many evangelical preachers that I have listening to (with extended loyalty to His ministry) do not have the confidence in Christ's once and for all atonement for our sins to preach it. They communicate that His work of justification may be negated or overturned by our lack of sanctification. I have often heard from then of Jesus's warnings in parable form about the bridesmaids' unfilled oil lamps or the workers of good deeds being told that "He never knew them". I take those warnings to refer to those who Jesus genuinely never knew, not those who had a saving faith but somehow missed the mark and took the Lord's rejection.
Much preaching seems to me to be compromised, intended to keep the people from antinomianism or worse keeping them through guilt committed to the pastor's ministry. It's playing the authority card rather than releasing the people with the Good News. When was the last time I was reminded of the wonderful saving plan of God, through His glorious son, to deepen my love for Him and walk with Him.
I am in a Methodist church now (we are in a rural setting) and even Wesley with his arminianism would be perplexed by the social gospel/legalism/ we are all on the same road theology we are getting now. But that's a slightly different problem, but again the atonement and the wonder of Christ is put so far on the backburner I am surprised it hasn't fallen off.

After the recent "right-wing" riots in the UK, there has been amazingly quick justice dispensed and a team was put together to find social media posts that "encourage violence and riot"
It seems to me that there may now be an easy slope to judging certain Christian posts as hostile and hateful to other religions or ideologies, solely by affirming what Jesus said. For example, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life". No-one comes to the Father except through me.
Should this be a constraint on what we express about our beliefs. Is this a sign of the nearness of Christ's return?

Erickson Douglas Lee (inset), 25, of Charlotte, North Carolina, is accused of sexually abusing multiple minors connected to a youth group connected to MorningStar Ministries in South Carolina. | York County Sheriff's Office; Screenshot/Google Earth

A lawsuit filed against MorningStar Ministries earlier this month accuses founder Rick Joyner, along with several top officials of the organization and multiple other staff members, of gross negligence for allegedly engaging in the cover-up of multiple incidences of sexual abuse in the ministry.

A copy of the 40-page lawsuit, shared by The Roys Report, names as defendants: Joyner, MorningtStar Fellowship Church, Joyner's second in command David Yarns; the former volunteer, Erickson Douglas Lee; the volunteer's father and MorningStar Fellowship Church's head of security, Douglas Lee; Erickson Douglas Lee's assistant, Chase Portello; along with unidentified defendants James Smith 1-10 (any other agents and/or employees of the ministry associated with the complaint).

"The negligent, grossly negligent, reckless, willful, or wanton acts, omissions, and liability of Defendants includes that of their agents, principals, employees, and/or servants, both directly and vicariously, pursuant to principals of non-delegable duty, corporate liability, apparent authority, agency, ostensible agency, and/or respondent superior," the lawsuit filed on behalf of one of the minor victims, John Doe #1 and his parents listed as James Roe #1 and Jane Roe #1 charges.

Continued below.

During recent a visit to the Hecht Museum in the city of Haifa, a 5-year-old Israeli child accidentally broke a rare 3,500-year-old ancient jug, Israeli media reported.

“This is an ancient jug from the Middle Bronze Age. It is indeed rare, but we chose to present it without display cases. This choice stems from the method of the museum and its founder, Dr. Reuven Hecht,” the museum director, Dr. Inbal Rivlin, told Ynet News.

She continued, “He said that the museum is not a mausoleum, it is not a coffin, but a living and dynamic place. The museum is open, for free, to families with children.”

The rare jug dates to the Middle Bronze Age, or the period between 2000 – 1500 B.C., which means it predates the reign of King David and his son Solomon. It was typical for the region and used to store liquids like olive oil.

Continued below.

More than 16,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria in four years between 2019 and 2023 as more followers of Christ were victims of violence than adherents of other religions, according to data collected by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa.

ORFA released a four-year data project Thursday documenting 55,910 fatalities from 9,970 attacks, including both civilians and combatants, across Nigeria. Of those killed, 30,880 were civilians. Christian victims totaled 16,769, significantly outnumbering the 6,235 Muslim fatalities — the ratio of Christian to Muslim deaths being 6.5:1. Radicalized Muslim Fulani herdsmen were responsible for 55% of the Christian deaths.

"For over a decade atrocities against civilians in Nigeria have been downplayed or minimized. This has proved a major obstacle for those seeking to understand the violence," the researchers wrote in the 136-page report shared with The Christian Post.

Continued below.

Hi, I'm new to this place and I came looking for some guidance, and a place to vent out my grief , I am not affiliated with any denomination, I'm just a guy from new york who wants to know Jesus but I feel cold.. Please someone help me. I have been neck deep in a bad addiction of lust and sexual immorality of all types. And one night when I've seen multiple videos about Jesus coming soon, I've had enough and wanting to be free from this bondage and cried out to Jesus to save me, to help me and to guide me through a different direction, to be my Lord and Savior. This was in October of 2023. It's September of 2024 and it feels like I got nowhere at all. I'm still stuck doing the same stupid things over and over and over again. Repeatedly I've asked the Lord to renew my mind and heart, to cleanse my heart of this filth as well as other sins of pride and arrogance, of ego and laziness and slothfulness. But I feel falling to the same vices and temptations as if I didn't learn anything. My heart feels cold and I dont feel the Holy Spirit due to being such neck deep in porn addiction even when I constantly try to repent away but I keep falling. I keep failing and I keep grieving the Holy Spirit. Has the Lord left me to a reprobate mind. Am I hopeless....i hate myself and my sin. ..Jesus have mercy..i. feel like a false convert. A liar that sheds crocodile tears every week wondering when this will end and if the Lord even hears me anymore, I know I wouldn't with how many times I've said I wanted to stop this and will focus more on Him only to get lazy again, and again, and keep falling again, and again, and again..

I dont want to be seperated from Jesus but I am having such a hard time dropping and letting go of this porn addiction. As well as the guilt from my past when I did so many attrocious, disgusting things that'd get me locked up for that no one will forgive (mans perspective anyway), . I am so lost and I want to change...am I just a doomed liar..I really am scared and about to cry once again today from just the mere thoughts of hearing Depart from me, I never knew you, you worker of iniquity", that I was never His, that I was never in his flock and only meant to be burned because I couldn't surrender my whole heart to Him. I don't understand why I can't just obey, why I can't just follow Him and focus on Him. What does it really mean to have faith and believe in Him, to Trust him with my everything. Do I have to die to show it in the great tribulation, I don't know anything..I just wanna be with Jesus and I really am in such depression and grief over my own failures and iniquity that I wonder if I was ever truly saved to begin with, that I was just never His. Or maybe I was left to a reprobate mind that's stuck on sin and death. I don't know..I want to know..I want to be free in Christ and to follow Him and be with Him forever, to be born again and into God's family forever. I don't wanna lose salvation, if that's even possible, I want Him. Please, what do I do..

My wife has been going for massages for many years. I always assumed it was a spa setting with multiple people in the room. Turns out she is alone with a man for 50 minutes, door closed and shades drawn, covered by a sheet except for the body part being massaged, wearing only her bikini briefs, massage oil, everything except her bikini area and breasts are fair game for his hands directly on her skin. He is a licensed "massage therapist" and I have been assured it is completely non-sexual, just for relaxation and, as needed, working out a stiff back or sore neck, that sort of thing. This has me upset. I feel like I should have been told years ago exactly what the circumstances were. Does this make anyone else uncomfortable? Am I just too insecure? I don't believe it will lead to any actual impropriety or infidelity, but I don't like the idea of another man running his hands all over her feet, legs, thighs, shoulders etc. in private using massage oils. Thoughts?

Six major book publishers have teamed up to sue the US state of Florida over an “unconstitutional” law that has seen hundreds of titles purged from school libraries following rightwing challenges.

Since it went into effect last July, countless titles have been removed from elementary, middle and high school libraries, including American classics such as Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Contemporary novels by bestselling authors such as Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume and Stephen King have also been removed

The suit contends the book removal provisions violate previous supreme court decisions relating to reviewing works for their literary, artistic, political and scientific value as a whole while considering any potential obscenity; and seeks to restore the discretion “of trained educators to evaluate books holistically to avoid harm to students who will otherwise lose access to a wide range of viewpoints”.

DeSantis has attempted to portray the issue as “a hoax”, arguing that because the state has empowered parents to make objections, and is not directly making the challenges itself, it is not responsible for books subsequently removed from shelves.

See also this (I believe ongoing) case:

Penguin Random House sues Pensacola-area Florida school district over book bans​

Prayers for Turkey, a country that only has 0.5% Christianity of the 84 million people in Turkey according to the religious demographic. Prayers for the conversion of the Turks to Christ.

Data:

Scientists and Creationists alike, believe our planet earth will be destroyed.
Creationists use 2 Peter 3:5-7 as the basis for their belief that our planet earth will be destroyed.

What does the Bible say about planet earth, and it's purpose?
God created the earth for mankind to live on. To be man's dwelling place - their home.
Isaiah 45:18

For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens - He is God; He formed the earth and fashioned it; He established it; He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited: “I am the LORD, and there is no other.

Click to expand...

Psalm 115:16

The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth He has given to mankind.

Click to expand...

Has God changed his mind about his purpose, for the earth?
God answers:
I, the LORD, do not change. Malachi 3:6
The righteous will inherit the earth and dwell in it forever. Psalm 37:29

Has God decided that planet earth is too bad to live on, and so decides to totally destroy it?
God answers:
A generation goes and a generation comes, But the earth remains forever. Ecclesiastes 1:4
He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever. Psalm 78:69
He established the earth upon its foundations, So that it will not totter forever and ever. Psalm 104:5

Thus, the earth remains forever, and righteous mankind will inhabit it, forever.
God's purpose for the earth will be a reality.

What will conditions be like on the earth, when the righteous inherit it?

The internet has some web sites discussing this topic so - I would like to explain why independent reviewers such as Walter Martin in his book "Kingdom of the Cults" argued as a non-SDA scholar - that the Adventist church is NOT a cult.

1. He admits in his book that doctrinal differences do exist between Christian denominations of every kind - but those doctrinal differences do not suffice to call them a cult.

2. Most often when attacks are made against Adventists they settle for finding that one denomination differs with another on some point instead of making a case that the difference amounts to forfeiting the Christian faith entirely.

3. Martin condemns the idea of taking some obscure unpublished statement, or a one-off statement from this or that person, or x-church-member as the main foundation of substance for the claim that a given group is not Christian, or does indeed hold to some odd belief, or is a cult. Since it is true that dissenters.. and one-off accusers are common in all denominations.

4. Martin argues that one must take the published denominational doctrinal statements - endorsed as such - for the group's agreed upon statement. He also accepts a formal request and response to specific questions - sent to the denomination itself - as a reasonable claim for what the denomination actually teaches/believes.

This is helpful since it avoids the empty round-and-round that can be had from straw-man arguments.

================================

Adventists do teach that;

1. IN the OT "The Angel of the Lord" is very often (in fact always) a Christophany -- it is YHWH - God Himself. Adventists make this same claim about Michael the Archangel - that it is He who is also God the Son, who is called THE Angel of the Lord.

So then one may differ with Adventists and make their own claim that Michael is not "The Angel of the Lord" etc - but that would be "another Michael" and not the one that Adventist speak of since Adventist most certainly to not argue that God the son is a created being , it not YHWH etc.

We also note that in Gen 18 - God the Son and two angels appear to Abraham as "three men walking". But that does not make them humans.

2. Adventists teach the pre-advent Investigative judgment found in Dan 7 where -- the entire time that judgment goes on in God's throne room courtoom in heaven -- saints are being persecuted. They teach that as Dan 7 says - the judgment does not start until after the fall of the fourth beast - pagan Roman empire.

So then one may view the details on Dan 7 differently but that is merely a difference between groups.

3. Adventists teach the 1 Cor 12 and Eph 4 idea of spiritual gifts continuing - until the point that Eph 4 identifies.

4. Adventists teach that prophets speak with prophetic authority and that includes people like Agabus in the book of Acts who writes no scripture at all - but still gets messages for the church - given to him by God.

5. Adventists teach that the Ten Commandments were never down-sized to nine and that the Sabbath commandment has never been deleted or edited by God to point to something other than the 7th day of creation week being remembered. We also teach the Is 66:23 doctrine that for all eternity after the cross in the New Heaven and New Earth - that "from Sabbath to Sabbath shall all mankind come before Me to worship". (Since the Sabbath was MADE for mankind Mark 2:27 when it was made, Gen 2:3-4)


============= That is a small sample - I will add more for those who think it should be included

My point is that "difference are fine" and they do exist - but all the examples above are things that Dr Walter Martin knew already about the Adventist church and still he affirmed that they do not constitute an example of a cult.

=======================

This thread is not intended to address the impossibly large scope of "all things that I agree or differ with regarding the teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination".


IT is also not about "so-and-so person in the 1800's believed this in an unpublished letter".

I am just trying to keep this to the subject of difference that do not constitute a cult - vs ones that do.

They're taking over the University of Michigan

What all good purpose can such a destructive emotion bring ?

A new lawsuit accuses the Internal Revenue Service of selectively enforcing a law intended to prevent tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations, including churches, from weighing in on politics as it seeks a ruling declaring the law unconstitutional.

National Religious Broadcasters and Intercessors for America, along with the Texas-based Sand Springs Church and First Baptist Church Waskom, filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division on Wednesday.

The lawsuit, which names the IRS and its Director Danny Werfel as defendants, begins by explaining that “The Internal Revenue Code [‘IRC’] prohibits only one class of nonprofit organizations from communicating their views about political candidates—those organized under § 501(c)(3) of the IRC.”

Continued below.

I don't really want this post to be an anti-Catholic screed, but I was raised a Lutheran and have recently been approached with anti-Catholic sentiments. On another forum, I received the following, and I replied. So if it is on the "harsh" side, I wish only to represent history as I read it, and present my feelings as I've felt it...

netchaplain said:

Just wanted to share with you that Luther's primary goal was to expose Catholicism's false teachings. He was the former of Protestantism, which is the way for true teachings of Scripture. Catholicism has numerous anti-Christian teachings that needed to be brought out. There are so many false teachings in this religion that renders it non-Christian.

Teachings like "Immaculate Conception," which (if you look in the dictionary) teaches Mary was sinless, which is probably their most decadent doctrine. It has always been masquerading as a Christian religion and has many teachings that are not Christian; many do not read and study the Scriptures thereby not seeing the truth of this denomination.

Click to expand...

I would only differ slightly. Luther's original purpose was not anti-Catholic. But it ended up being there specifically because Catholics vehementy opposed what for Luther was explicit biblical doctrine.

Luther felt he found the key to avoiding Christian Nominalism, aka a "dead faith." To know Christ personally by faith was central to the Christian faith, and took place simply by submission to the fact Christ can do what we ourselves cannot do. We accept his Justification by his Atonement, and not by anything we can do without him.

Catholics doubled down on their opposition to Luther's complaints, in particular his concern about "Indulgences." Even worse, they were duplicitous and tried to maneuver Luther into coming into a trap where he would be burned at the stake.

Luther realized how corrupt Catholic leadership had become in his time, and perhaps wrote off all Catholics for all time at that point? He identified them as "the Antichrist."

Those who departed from this Nominal Faith, replete with "substitutes for Christ," could find regeneration in his doctrine of "Faith Only." In other words, Salvation by "Christ Only," and not by the Works and Traditions of Catholic exclusivity.

My own view of Catholicism is that it is not "the Antichrist," though some elements of it are, to me, Antichristian. As you suggest, Mary's Immaculate Conception is non-Christian and can lead some to a virtual antiChristian proposition that any non-Catholic view is corrupt and lost. That is "Antichristian."

There are a number of wrongs in the Catholic Church, the absolute authority of the Pope when he speaks "from his throne," the exclusivity of the Catholic Church, the perpetual virginity of Mary, Mary being the "Queen of Heaven," prayers to the saints, and the veneration of religious tradition as a substitute for genuine Faith, etc.

However, many churches have problems with their congregations and with their own exclusive traditions. Where do we draw the line? A "High Church" is a State Church and naturally includes believers and unbelievers in its Congregation!

I would say that Protestants did the right thing in drawing a line between them and the Catholic Church. One must reform traditions that create non-biblical guidelines to living in Faith.

I won't call all Catholics non-Christian. But I would warn them of the sectarian spirit within Catholicism, because clearly, Paul condemned that!
Randy

I find alot of people talk about God coming through for them, blessing them all which he can do but I feel enduring and preserving isn't talked about nearly enough.

How do you endure, not get mad or blame God when you don't get what you want or even need? How do you keep a good heart posture in the face of suffering whether it be death, scorn, poverty, abuse...

Can we talk about it?

The ad features a narrator saying this: “Attention seniors: Kamala Harris has promised amnesty for the 10 million illegals she allowed in as border czar, making them eligible for Social Security. Studies warn this will lead to cuts in your Social Security benefits.” A quote shown on the screen, which the ad attributes to the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that favors reduced immigration, says this: “Harris’ amnesty imposes large cost on Social Security.”

Two problems:

#1: The CIS report doesn't contain that quote
#2: Harris has not proposed any such amnesty

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Transcript:
If you’ve ever opened a Protestant Bible, you’ve likely noticed a major difference
from our own Catholic Bible: their Old Testament has fewer books than ours.
Well, that, and their Bible actually looks like it’s been used before instead of sitting
on a shelf for years… but that’s a different topic.
Whereas the Catholic Bible contains 73 books, the Protestant version only contains 66.
Making things even more confusing, Orthodox Bibles contain 76, 78, or even 79 books, depending
on the Tradition.
Where does this discrepancy come from, and who’s ultimately right?
This is Catholicism in Focus.
While it may seem entirely foreign to us today, there was actually a time in the Church before
the Bible existed.
For centuries, in fact, the Church was guided by the Hebrew Scriptures and a random bunch
of recently written texts that varied from place to place.
God most certainly inspired many texts throughout our history, but we weren’t exactly given
a table of contents to know which ones they were.
Which is why, for more than three centuries, there was no “official canon” of scripture
but rather, every local area had its own versions of the Bible.
Some included books that would later be removed—things like 1 Clement and the Didache—while others
originally excluded certain books we consider canonical today—such as James or Revelation.
As the Church began to develop in many different directions over this time, heretical ideas
like Arianism and Docetism forced the Church to work together beyond the local level, convening
councils and promulgating doctrine.
There was a growing desire, particularly in the West, to formalize and legally assert
the teachings of the Church.
To do so, the Church set three criteria for accepting works into the New Testament.
To be considered inspired and worthy of entry into the canon, a text must, one, be associated
with an Apostle, two, be widely circulated and prominent in liturgies, and three, contain
theology consistent with our understanding of God.
Many lists can be found dating back to as early as Marcion in the year 140, but the
earliest extent list of books as they appear in the Catholic Bible today can be found in
a letter from St. Athanasius in 367.
This list was later included at the Councils of Carthage in 397 and 419, and reasserted
1000 years later at the Council of Florence in the 15th century.
At least in the Western Church, that is more than 1600 years of consistent teaching on
the canon of scripture.
So how is there still so much discrepancy in the Christian world today?
The issue can be understood on two fronts for two very different reasons.
We’ll start with Orthodox Churches.
One thing that is often forgotten about the relationship between the Eastern and Western
Churches is that the East simply doesn’t share the same level of legalism that the
West does.
Whereas Catholics want to define and categorize everything, setting rules for everything under
the sun, the Orthodox Churches have always placed a greater emphasis on mystery.
And so, while the Council of Carthage listed the 73 books of the Bible in 397 and the Eastern
Church had no objection to this, it also didn’t treat this teaching as definitely closing
the canon either.
Particularly in Antioch, local customs continued, and texts like 3rd and 4th Maccabees, the
Prayer of Manassah, and Psalm 151— things that were not listed at Carthage—continued
to be a part of their liturgies.
For them, there is no need to make definitive distinctions between inspired and uninspired
books, as if it were a black and white issue.
Instead, they recognize a gradation of inspiration over a wide range of texts.
It’s why even today, believe it or not, there are many individual Eastern Churches
in communion with one another that have slightly variant versions of both Testaments.
It doesn’t make sense to our Western, legalistic mindset, but it is a Tradition that is as
old, if not older than our own.
This is quite different, however, from the issue with the Protestant canon of Scripture.
Rather than add to the canon of the Council of Carthage with a more ancient Tradition,
the Protestant Bible has removed from it.
To understand this, we must look to the formation of Old Testament.
For those in the ancient Greek-speaking world, Christian or Jew, the only version of the
Old Testament available was the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament compiled
during the Greek occupation of the Jews in the centuries before the birth of Christ.
It was the version of Scripture that Jesus himself would have known, and is cited by
rabbis for centuries.
But just as there is an affinity for the Latin language in the Catholic Church, so too, is
there an affinity for the Hebrew language for some Jews.
The original scriptures were written in Hebrew, not Greek, and so in the early middle ages,
there was a growing desire among Jews to recapture what was seen as the more authentic version
of the text.
Between the 6th and 10th centuries, Jewish scribes called Masoretes began compiling,
translating, and preserving their scriptures in Hebrew.
Because the books of Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Sirach, Wisdom, First and Second Maccabees
were written during the Hellenistic period, a time when Jews spoke and wrote only in Greek,
these books were never recorded in Hebrew, and thus, seen as inauthentic, and thus, removed.
When Luther came along and began studying Scripture, seeking to reform the Church to
its earliest roots, he naturally looked to the Jews of his day, believing that they had
the oldest, most authentic version of Scripture.
This was unfortunately not correct, as the Masoretic Text is actually about 1000 years
younger than the Septuagint, and so he falsely concluded that the Catholic Church must have
added inauthentic books to justify our doctrines.
And so, following medieval Jews rather than the ancient Church, when Luther and the other
Protestants issued a translation of the Bible, they removed seven books that had guided Christians
since the beginning, leaving their total at just 66.
A decision, unlike the Orthodox Churches, that signifies a distinct break from Tradition.
It’s an example of how, even though Catholics and Orthodox Christians can disagree on some
things, we’ve never really too far apart.
While we would argue that the canon was set in 397 and we have remained faithful to that
tradition for more than 1600 years, we can also recognize some truth in the plurality
of ancient canons: technically speaking, the canon was never actually promulgated at an
Ecumenical Council until Trent, and so the East has always had its own distinct and completely
valid method from ours.
The idea of REMOVING texts from the canon, however, of taking it upon oneself to revise
the local councils of one’s own Church, going against a tradition that had existed
since before the time of Christ… that’s a bit more problematic, and ultimately the
attitude that doomed the Reformation.
Who are we, especially when dealing with Scripture, to believe that we know more than our spiritual
mothers and fathers that came before us and compiled this incredible book?
God may not have given us an official list, but when Christians do the same thing for more than
1000 years… it’s probably good not to mess with it.

What does it mean to deny Jesus? Is it simply not accepting Him as your Savior? Could it be something more like the example of Peter's experience in which he denied that he knew Jesus three times (see Matthew 26:34-35; 75)? I believe either of these would certainly qualify as a denial of Jesus. But what about our actions. Can we, by our very actions, be denying Jesus? Let's take a look at what Paul has to say:

The above is Paul speaking with regard to a "rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception" and who are "teaching things they ought not to teach." He says to "rebuke them sharply so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to . . . the merely human commands of those who reject the truth." This is a group of people apparently in the church otherwise there wouldn't be much point in rebuking them so they'd be "sound in the faith." These people "claim to know God," but their actions reveal a different story. Paul says, "by their actions they deny him." Just because a person claims to know God doesn't mean that person in fact has a relationship with Him. God has revealed that our love for Him is to be manifested in our obedience to Him. Jesus says, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. . . Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching." That's pretty simple, isn't it?

Likewise, the apostle John writes, "We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did." Do you know Jesus? Are you living as Jesus did?

Jude writes about people secretly slipping in among true believers. About these pretenders he says, "They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord." In this case Jude concludes that a denying of Jesus Christ is tied to those who make God's grace into a license for immorality. This is ǝpısdn uʍop World thinking on display. Paul addresses this pretender's mindset asking, "Shall we continue to sin, that grace may abound? He immediately answers his own question saying, "God forbid!"

In 2 Timothy 3, Paul describes what people will be like in the last days. He says they will be "lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." These same people, he says, will also have a "form of godliness" (2 Timothy 3:5) while at the same time they are "denying its power." The pretenders can be identified in how they reject the power of God to overcome what the flesh desires (Romans 8:5).

What do you suppose would be the opposite to denying Jesus? Jesus provides the answer: "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." To deny self is a denial of our flesh and what our flesh desires. To deny self would mean obedience to Jesus. Taking up our cross means we crucify "the flesh with its passions and desires." (Galatians 5:24) If you are living according to the Spirit you will not be in a state of denying the Spirit's power to "put to death the misdeeds of the body" so that "you will live."

ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR

• Works Relation to Salvation​

• Ten Reasons I'm a Sabbatarian​

• Another jesus. Another gospel.​

I pray this helps.

But for the grace of God go I,cyspark

Are there any video games that teach new languages?

This person was hired because the government has decided Christianity is swamped with white supremacists.



If you only need one piece of evidence the current administration is heavily wasting tax payer money and hemorrhaging money for absolutely useless and worthless government spending look no further than the fact they have an actual government position called "national faith engagement director".

This person is undoubtedly being paid well to do what exactly? Why does the government need to worry about who is a Christian and who isn't? What possible purpose could that serve our nation?

This is just yet another total waste of money and an grossly over extension of government into business that is none of theirs.