A conversation about unity.

Xeno.of.athens · Friday at 6:46 PM

public hermit said:
It's quite the opposite. If our beliefs were shallow, it would be no issue for all of us to simply join your tradition since it wouldn't really matter.

well, tell us exactly what those beliefs are The ones that you say are not shallow. so far you keep telling us only what you disagree with, it's as if The Catholic Church is The source of doctrine, and you are The source of a critique of doctrine. 1. will never have Unity if that's The only role you want to play. it would be good if we could hear what you do believe and why you believe it and if you'd be willing to defend The things you believe - that is to say, if they matter enough to bother defending.

public hermit said:
The reason there is so much division is because most all particular churches have deeply held beliefs and practices that are not given up easily.

come on, tell us exactly what these deeply held beliefs and practises are that are not easy to give up. I await your reply.

public hermit said:
Happily, our unity does not need to entail an agreement on all of those differences. It needs only entail the things upon which we agree.

and if you don't wanna tell me what The deeply held beliefs are, then how about you tell me what these beliefs that you all agree upon are is it limited to just those two things you mentioned before Faith in The Risen Christ and something else - The something else escapes my mind at The moment at The moment there's been so many posts in this thread in The last few hours that it's hard to keep up.

public hermit said:
And, as I stated in a post above, that is actually quite a lot! Yay!!

well, tell us what this quite a lot is, list it out surely it's important enough to actually tell us what it is.

Xeno.of.athens · Friday at 6:47 PM

public hermit said:
Oh my, here we go. I have an idea, let's fight a theological war that ended over 500 years ago. Let's not go forward, that's foolish. Let's just retrace our steps and become even more irrelevant.

don't play this little game .this is not our field of battle, we are not re-enacting any 500 year old war we don't have guns. We're just writing stuff to each other your reply is a bit melodramatic, isn't it? that isn't going to help, is it?

ARBITER01 · Friday at 6:56 PM

Xeno.of.athens said:
so exactly how does it validate The reformation, I am presuming that by reformation you mean The Protestant rebellion, The only thing I can see is establishing or validating he said everybody's got an opinion. and that's probably why there are many thousands of independent Protestant churches, and a few hundred Protestant denominations and none of you agree about virtually any of The minutiae of Christian Church governance, sacraments, and "distinctives" as people say The doctrines that distinguish each of your denominations from all of The others. personally, I wouldn't be very proud of validating that.

I'm watching a prideful batch of folks think that their denomination is the only "assembly" that Jesus has ever established over the centuries, and that if we are not part of their particular denomination we are not Christian.

The Lord Jesus has never just made "1" assembly of Christians, He has always been busy establishing churches over the years. Paul wrote to many churches during his time upon the earth. Jesus in His revelation to John, mentioned many churches to John, and none of them were catholic. Greek orthodox, Syrian, etc.

Jesus is still busy establishing churches across the world. My denomination was established in the early 1900's by Jesus. We had our own outpouring of The Holy Spirit during that time, and have continued to grow and increase across the world ever since.

Fellowship is nice, but unity has never been a requirement in Christianity.

public hermit · Friday at 6:57 PM

Xeno.of.athens said:
well, tell us exactly what those beliefs are The ones that you say are not shallow. so far you keep telling us only what you disagree with, it's as if The Catholic Church is The source of doctrine, and you are The source of a critique of doctrine. 1. will never have Unity if that's The only role you want to play. it would be good if we could hear what you do believe and why you believe it and if you'd be willing to defend The things you believe - that is to say, if they matter enough to bother defending.

come on, tell us exactly what these deeply held beliefs and practises are that are not easy to give up. I await your reply.

and if you don't wanna tell me what The deeply held beliefs are, then how about you tell me what these beliefs that you all agree upon are is it limited to just those two things you mentioned before Faith in The Risen Christ and something else - The something else escapes my mind at The moment at The moment there's been so many posts in this thread in The last few hours that it's hard to keep up.

well, tell us what this quite a lot is, list it out surely it's important enough to actually tell us what it is.

I believe and confess the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. Don't you? That's quite a lot upon which we agree, don't you think?

2PhiloVoid · Friday at 6:58 PM

Xeno.of.athens said:
it's obvious Christian unity is contingent upon agreement about The sacraments, church governance, and doctrine. The practises that we have are determined by those things. and you can't have Unity, if you don't have The same views about doctrines and sacraments and The way to govern. The church. whenever you disagree about 1. more of those things. You will not have one church. You'll have several. Protestants have several churches they don't agree, they disagree about governance, sacraments, and doctrine - Some disagree about one of those things, some disagree about two, and some disagree about all three. that's The world of Protestant denominations for you.

And would it be accurate for me to also say that, in your RCC view, if I don't have unity as defined by the Magisterium (as you understand it), then I'm also outside of the means of grace?

I have to ask the above as a follow up to all you've already said to me earlier, especially being that you indicated I was on my way to Hell for daring to disagree.

I particularly disagree with the premise that "whenever you disagree about one or more of those things ---the Sacraments, Church Governance, and doctrine/dogma---," there will automatically be the presence of a heretical, non-entity, adrift from the upward call of Christ.

Moreover, WHY should I be coerced to agree with later, additional developments in doctrine made by Pontifical Constitutio apostolica beyond, say, what was received, thought or agreed upon during the first 100 years after Christ? This issue in and of itself is a problem in rhetorical obfuscation committed more than once by the RCC and no amount of doubling down can erase the fact that John Henry Cardinal Newman, and others like him, have attempted to side step (see chapters 3 and 4 of Newman's, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine as my case in point.)

public hermit · Friday at 6:59 PM

Xeno.of.athens said:
don't play this little game .this is not our field of battle, we are not re-enacting any 500 year old war we don't have guns. We're just writing stuff to each other your reply is a bit melodramatic, isn't it? that isn't going to help, is it?

I said, "theological war." It's a metaphor.

boughtwithaprice · Friday at 7:01 PM

public hermit said:
I didn't say, "tiny touch." I said something along the lines of *abide in the grace and love of God in Christ*. That's more robust, I think. You know, at least give me what I'm saying.

Your encouragement for me to "give up on the church altogether" seems extreme. But maybe I would see it that way if I were in your shoes. I don't know. At any rate, don't worry about me giving up on Christ. Since Christ is the head, there is enough body to go around. There's no need to be afraid or give up.

That's true in some churches but not all. If you think church polity should be the ground of our unity, then it won't happen. I think we've come to an impasse. Oh well, no such unity today, I guess. No worries. Although I doubt God is impressed with our inability to get it together, God is greater than the sum of our parts.

I have been trying to follow the logic in this thread. The point is made that the Catholic Church does not have a monopoly on baptism, and that is true in the even the Catholic Church admits it. The only thing that is required for baptism is proper matter, proper form and intention.
Proper matter is water. We cannot be baptized with other liquids. To understand why, we see in Genesis 1 that water was the first creation of God in the material world, even before light. That is why it is being born again, we go back to the beginning of creation and come out of the water a new creature.
Proper form is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirt. We cannot deny God’s essence and expect the baptism to be legitimate.
Proper intention is to desire to be baptized, either by the person himself or his agent, in the case of infants, the authority is his father who may give consent to be baptized. Otherwise, we cannot sneak up behind people, pour water on them, say the right words and expect God to welcome them into His kingdom.

As scripture says in Ephesians 4

5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all

So baptism is not owned by the Catholic Church and all those that desire to serve Jesus are baptized

We also read in Ephesians 4

11 And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ 13 Until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ 14 That henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive. 15 But doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in him who is the head, even Christ

We see in the book of Acts that Mathias was the first ordained Apostle, and on Pentecost the tongues of fire fell on Peter and the other 11.
The Apostles were given authority by God the Holy Spirit Himself for perfecting the saints, the work of ministry and edifying the body of Christ.
All those baptized are part of the body of Christ, but the Apostles were given authority over the body of Christ. We can see in the two thousand year history of the Church that the Catholic Church has Apostolic authority going back to Peter and then Jesus Himself
You can go your own way and try to learn about Jesus all by yourself or you can admit it is a daunting task, humble yourself and accept the wisdom of 2000 years of saints that came before you. Either way, I pray God has mercy on you
He loves all those that are called by His name

Carl Emerson · Friday at 7:02 PM

Xeno.of.athens said:
I do not know if their beliefs are shallow I am still waiting for some of them to explain what they are they've been so busy telling me that I'm wrong, but not explaining why. then it's left me wondering if they've got any specific beliefs that they are willing to defend or not.

It seems that rightly dividing the body is a critical issue as failing to do so comes with the consequences of sickness, even death.

Some apply this only to personal introspection, but the greater meaning is the whole Body of Christ.

I have posted several scriptures that elicited almost zero comment - I assume this is because your tradition holds that the Word of Christ through the Church trumps the reading of Scripture.

For this reason the ground rules for discussion are a stacked deck.

Discussion is invited but a level playing field is not.

Xeno.of.athens · Friday at 7:11 PM

ARBITER01 said:
I'm watching a prideful batch of folks think that their denomination is the only "assembly" that Jesus has ever established over the centuries, and that if we are not part of their particular denomination we are not Christian.

clearly you are not seeing what I have written; at no stage have I said that people who are not Catholic are not christian that's your imagination. Not anything I've said.

ARBITER01 said:
The Lord Jesus has never just made "1" assembly of Christians, He has always been busy establishing churches over the years.

you are confusing words here, church does not mean assembly. church means The body of Christ The Community of Christians The House of The Lord, his temple that is built by The Holy Spirit. but you didn't listen when I gave you a definition before so I presuming you're not gonna pay much attention to what I've said now.

ARBITER01 said:
Paul wrote to many churches during his time upon the earth. Jesus in His revelation to John, mentioned many churches to John, and none of them were catholic. Greek orthodox, Syrian, etc.

once again, you are confusing words, Paul wrote to The church in this city and in that city but it was always The church that he was writing to. it's clear, at least it seems to be, that The church in Corinth was not The church in Athens or The church in Rome or The church in Jerusalem but it was part of The church that Jesus Christ established and it was founded on The teachings, The doctrines of The apostles and The prophets with Jesus Christ at its head. so if you stop confusing The words if you stop mixing up The church with The church in a specific location The confusion should dissipate.

ARBITER01 said:
Jesus is still busy establishing churches across the world. My denomination was established in the early 1900's by Jesus.

no your denomination was not established by Jesus in The 1900s, that's a fiction that is a fairy tale.

ARBITER01 said:
We had our own outpouring of The Holy Spirit during that time, and have continued to grow and increase across the world ever since.

it's my guess that you're referring to something to do with Pentecostal churches. I don't know which specific Pentecostal denomination you belong to, let's assume it's The assemblies of God, they're about The biggest, I think. when was that established? pilot gave me this answer:

It appears you may be referring to the Assemblies of God denomination.

️ Assemblies of God (AG) was formally established in the United States in April 1914, when approximately 300 Pentecostal ministers and laypeople gathered in Hot Springs, Arkansas to unify under a shared doctrinal and organisational framework.

The World Assemblies of God Fellowship (WAGF)—a global cooperative body uniting over 170 national AG fellowships—was later founded on 15 August 1989 to facilitate international collaboration, theological education, and missionary coordination.

ARBITER01 said:
Fellowship is nice, but unity has never been a requirement in Christianity.

you are mistaken, unity is 1. of The things that is definitely a requirement in christianity, John's Gospel in chapter 17, expounds on that at length.

Xeno.of.athens · Friday at 7:14 PM

Carl Emerson said:
It seems that rightly dividing the body is a critical issue as failing to do so comes with the consequences of sickness, even death.

Some apply this only to personal introspection, but the greater meaning is the whole Body of Christ.

I have posted several scriptures that elicited almost zero comment - I assume this is because your tradition holds that the Word of Christ through the Church trumps the reading of Scripture.

For this reason the ground rules for discussion are a stacked deck.

Discussion is invited but a level playing field is not.

take a good long look at The posts in this thread and it will be clear that we are not on a level playing field. fact it is not clear that we are on The same playing field. some of The posts make me think we may not be on The same planet.

public hermit · Friday at 7:14 PM

boughtwithaprice said:
I have been trying to follow the logic in this thread. The point is made that the Catholic Church does not have a monopoly on baptism, and that is true in the even the Catholic Church admits it. The only thing that is required for baptism is proper matter, proper form and intention.
Proper matter is water. We cannot be baptized with other liquids. To understand why, we see in Genesis 1 that water was the first creation of God in the material world, even before light. That is why it is being born again, we go back to the beginning of creation and come out of the water a new creature.
Proper form is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirt. We cannot deny God’s essence and expect the baptism to be legitimate.
Proper intention is to desire to be baptized, either by the person himself or his agent, in the case of infants, the authority is his father who may give consent to be baptized. Otherwise, we cannot sneak up behind people, pour water on them, say the right words and expect God to welcome them into His kingdom.

As scripture says in Ephesians 4

5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all

So baptism is not owned by the Catholic Church and all those that desire to serve Jesus are baptized

We also read in Ephesians 4

11 And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ 13 Until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ 14 That henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive. 15 But doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in him who is the head, even Christ

We see in the book of Acts that Mathias was the first ordained Apostle, and on Pentecost the tongues of fire fell on Peter and the other 11.
The Apostles were given authority by God the Holy Spirit Himself for perfecting the saints, the work of ministry and edifying the body of Christ.
All those baptized are part of the body of Christ, but the Apostles were given authority over the body of Christ. We can see in the two thousand year history of the Church that the Catholic Church has Apostolic authority going back to Peter and then Jesus Himself
You can go your own way and try to learn about Jesus all by yourself or you can admit it is a daunting task, humble yourself and accept the wisdom of 2000 years of saints that came before you. Either way, I pray God has mercy on you
He loves all those that are called by His name

What is it with the threats from you guys? You have been promoting fear for centuries; it doesn't work anymore. And what do you know about what I do or don't accept from 2000 years of saints? Don't you see how far you are reaching, how much you are assuming, and how your judgments are not warranted? Maybe not. But yes, please pray for me just as you pray for each other because there is no difference between us in Christ.

Xeno.of.athens · Friday at 7:16 PM

public hermit said:
What is it with the threats from you guys? You have been promoting fear for centuries; it doesn't work anymore. And what do you know about what I do or don't accept from 2000 years of saints? Don't see how far you are reaching, how much you are assuming, and how your judgments are not warranted? Maybe not. But yes, please pray for me just as you pray for each other because there is no difference between us in Christ.

I'm still waiting for you to tell me what these beliefs are. That you share, so far only two have been mentioned and they did not include The Holy Trinity or The incarnation of Christ.

public hermit · Friday at 7:21 PM

Xeno.of.athens said:
I'm still waiting for you to tell me what these beliefs are. That you share, so far only two have been mentioned and they did not include The Holy Trinity or The incarnation of Christ.

Go back a few posts #224 because I've already answered your question. Your response tells me you haven't yet seen it.

Xeno.of.athens · Friday at 7:21 PM

public hermit said:
Go back a few posts because I've already answered your question. Your response tells me you haven't yet seen it.

tell me The post number and I'll go back and have a read of it.

public hermit · Friday at 7:22 PM

Xeno.of.athens said:
tell me The post number and I'll go back and have a read of it.

#224

Xeno.of.athens · Friday at 7:22 PM

public hermit said:
I said, "theological war." It's a metaphor.

it is a metaphor. But an I'll placed one it certainly isn't going to help The discussion towards unity.

Carl Emerson · Friday at 7:28 PM

Xeno.of.athens said:
take a good long look at The posts in this thread and it will be clear that we are not on a level playing field. fact it is not clear that we are on The same playing field. some of The posts make me think we may not be on The same planet.

Exactly...

ARBITER01 · Friday at 7:29 PM

Xeno.of.athens said:
clearly you are not seeing what I have written; at no stage have I said that people who are not Catholic are not christian that's your imagination. Not anything I've said.

you are confusing words here, church does not mean assembly. church means The body of Christ The Community of Christians The House of The Lord, his temple that is built by The Holy Spirit. but you didn't listen when I gave you a definition before so I presuming you're not gonna pay much attention to what I've said now.

once again, you are confusing words, Paul wrote to The church in this city and in that city but it was always The church that he was writing to. it's clear, at least it seems to be, that The church in Corinth was not The church in Athens or The church in Rome or The church in Jerusalem but it was part of The church that Jesus Christ established and it was founded on The teachings, The doctrines of The apostles and The prophets with Jesus Christ at its head. so if you stop confusing The words if you stop mixing up The church with The church in a specific location The confusion should dissipate.

no your denomination was not established by Jesus in The 1900s, that's a fiction that is a fairy tale.

it's my guess that you're referring to something to do with Pentecostal churches. I don't know which specific Pentecostal denomination you belong to, let's assume it's The assemblies of God, they're about The biggest, I think. when was that established? pilot gave me this answer:

It appears you may be referring to the Assemblies of God denomination.

️ Assemblies of God (AG) was formally established in the United States in April 1914, when approximately 300 Pentecostal ministers and laypeople gathered in Hot Springs, Arkansas to unify under a shared doctrinal and organisational framework.

The World Assemblies of God Fellowship (WAGF)—a global cooperative body uniting over 170 national AG fellowships—was later founded on 15 August 1989 to facilitate international collaboration, theological education, and missionary coordination.

you are mistaken, unity is 1. of The things that is definitely a requirement in christianity, John's Gospel in chapter 17, expounds on that at length.

Sorry, your denomination is not the only one from Jesus on the streets. I know you want to think differently, but we are not listening to you, we are listening to Jesus.

Unity with Jesus is a requirement, not with other denominations.

Carl Emerson · Friday at 7:31 PM

Xeno.of.athens said:
take a good long look at The posts in this thread and it will be clear that we are not on a level playing field. fact it is not clear that we are on The same playing field. some of The posts make me think we may not be on The same planet.

Paul was adamant that central to Truth was the Gospel - maybe we should start there for some sense of unified agreement.

Dan Perez · Friday at 7:31 PM

boughtwithaprice said:
I have been trying to follow the logic in this thread. The point is made that the Catholic Church does not have a monopoly on baptism, and that is true in the even the Catholic Church admits it. The only thing that is required for baptism is proper matter, proper form and intention.
Proper matter is water. We cannot be baptized with other liquids. To understand why, we see in Genesis 1 that water was the first creation of God in the material world, even before light. That is why it is being born again, we go back to the beginning of creation and come out of the water a new creature.
Proper form is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirt. We cannot deny God’s essence and expect the baptism to be legitimate.
Proper intention is to desire to be baptized, either by the person himself or his agent, in the case of infants, the authority is his father who may give consent to be baptized. Otherwise, we cannot sneak up behind people, pour water on them, say the right words and expect God to welcome them into His kingdom.

As scripture says in Ephesians 4

5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all

So baptism is not owned by the Catholic Church and all those that desire to serve Jesus are baptized

We also read in Ephesians 4

11 And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ 13 Until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ 14 That henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive. 15 But doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in him who is the head, even Christ

We see in the book of Acts that Mathias was the first ordained Apostle, and on Pentecost the tongues of fire fell on Peter and the other 11.
The Apostles were given authority by God the Holy Spirit Himself for perfecting the saints, the work of ministry and edifying the body of Christ.
All those baptized are part of the body of Christ, but the Apostles were given authority over the body of Christ. We can see in the two thousand year history of the Church that the Catholic Church has Apostolic authority going back to Peter and then Jesus Himself
You can go your own way and try to learn about Jesus all by yourself or you can admit it is a daunting task, humble yourself and accept the wisdom of 2000 years of saints that came before you. Either way, I pray God has mercy on you
He loves all those that are called by His name

And I see that you referenced Eph 4:5 that says

ONE //HEIS , LORD. , ONE // HEIS , FAITH , ONE // HEIS , ONE // HEIS , BAPTISM , and is not what the Greek means .

Here is what it really says !!

One Lord , ONE FAITH , ONE BAPTISMA and this Greek word is written 22 time beginning first in. Matt 3:11 and in

Eph 4:5 and in Rom 6:4 and ends up in Peter. 3:21 and just check. the Greek TEXT. !!

Also notice Paul does not preach BAPTISM !!

And. in. 1. Cor 10:2 it reads And all were BAPTIZED together with unto Moses in the CLOUD and in the SEA ??

And. it does says WATER // HYDOR does it meaning. WATER BAPTISM does it ???

And how were some 200,000 Israelites WATER BAPTIZED. into Moses into the Cloud and BAPTIZED into the SEA ??

dan p

A conversation about unity.

I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.

I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.

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Feel'n the Burn of Philosophy!

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I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.

I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.

social troglodyte

I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.

social troglodyte

I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.

social troglodyte

I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.

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Legend

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