my new denomination how many would be interested

[David Kent]

Well think about it this way.... the Greek empire's were the Ptolamaic, the Seleucid, Byzantine, as far as Ukraine in modern day Russia there were Greek cities and even Afganistan, so all ancient books were written in Greek. The Roman empire collapsed around the 300s AD along with most books, there's podcast "Told in Stone"; now its not too apparent how dominant Greek over Latin was because the scribes could not continue to update the Greek books due to the Arab conquests, financing, the library of Alexandria was destroyed etc, but the whole Middle east and Turkey used Greek. However, at least in Byzantium they still had old Greek works lying around, the book "Sailing from Byzantium" goes over how Italian scholars used the Byzantine books that managed to survive in 1453 to spark the Renaissance, and Protestant reformation, because eventually the Lutherans (what would become Lutherans) could obtain these writings and study them to use in interpreting the Bible, so if we operated on the same premise as the reformers we would be conversant in at least Greek. Sure Melanchthon knew Latin and German too but the most essential was Greek. The advantage is you can literally pick up on the nuances in the Greek syntax that helps with interpreting certain prepositions, and connecting words that are hard to discern because each NT English translation differs on this and comes out with a different sentence structure, that's why Lutherans prefer ESV but a lot of Reformed follow New King James, it's all about the Greek--- so you can't make an informed decision for yourself unless you know Greek, you're trusting that the pastor of your denomination has figured all of this out.

Here in England, may official functions were in Latin or French, such as law courts, till Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s

 

[Jacque_Pierre22]

Secondarily, I forgot to include: I think there should at least be an option of their being an "amralydian church" if my denomination is not created. This is because there is nowhere for these people to go. My church would allow anywhere from infralapsarian, amralydian and Lutheran views on perseverance. This is because the early church tended to not believe in perseverance ; however on atonement, they clearly weren't universalist so they were at least Lutheran on atonement, (in that it was limited because not all would believe); however, my church according to #7 rejects the entire Lutheran debate between Eldona and other Lutherans because even if you hold to Eldona's view, it is still the same tautological argument as someone would make for "eternal election" (versus regular election in time) to claim that there is an objective/subjective distinction; it was created entirely to get around the fact that the atonement is still limited at least in the sense of infralapsarian/Amyradianism since neither are universalists. In Lutheranism, election is a cause not the cause of salvation in the Formula of Concord (which we won't hold to since we don't hold to such restrictive dogmatic texts). The elect are simply those finally saved. The "universal saving will" should be equated with the order of degrees being started by "creation" and this UOJ/ SJ distinction is just superfluous to me, no hackles intended (This is an Aristotelian arbitrary distinction). Most if not all church fathers could be viewed as Amyraldyian or infralapsarian but I've yet to see how the church fathers fall under "efficacious grace" and not "definite atonement" or "election of some", universal grace is never written about in books on Lutheranism as the topic of a whole book or a compare/contrast.
See the chart for comparison. to put the point more succinctly, I just find it really odd that Lutherans emphasize "universal grace" to safeguard God's omnibenevolence yet leave perseverance open, yet if you want to be open on the atonement issue, or leave it ambiguous that's somehow a problem. I don't think TULIP needs to be logical to believe in it , is what I'm saying. What really got me when I was officially Lutheran was how Lutherans were still being rationalists despite what they say because they are trying to uphold God's omnibenevolence, the same as al-Razi , when he constructed his cosmology, they tweaked TULIP in a rationalistic way but it is still just as illogical as a calvinist view--- the problem to me is not TULIP itself therefore, it is simply rationalism itself and not focusing on the actual text and exegesis. However, I do not believe in throwing off everything from Orthodoxy as "adiaphora" is right either, that's how I arrived at these beleifs.... no pews, monks, the liturgy as necessary in my view, no need to innovate or Westernize the church.

Infographic: The Order of Decrees denominational comparison chart - Apostles Creed

Below is an Inforgraphic chart that shows the comparison between general soteriological views taught in different Christian denominations. The chart is based off of the TULIP Calvinist theology. This is similar to the Order of Decrees chart made by B.B. Warfield in his book Plan of Salvation...

apostles-creed.org

I can't even tell what my point was when writing this. Every day I learn something new and modify my position. For example, once I learned that Anglicans believe in apostolic succession, that was a dealbreaker for me. Then, I learned that the Reformed "Westminster Confession" is intentionally ambiguous on double predestination to be a big tent statement, so you can hold to a Lutheran single predestination view and fit into it. So the main issue comes down to baptismal regeneration and it's relation to apostasy, because if Lutherans say that "regeneration" occurs with(at the moment of) baptism and that the elect are those who finally persevere, they should express that better in their dogmatics. My sense is after studying Lutheranism for a long time is that, Justification occurring as many times as needed is the biggest difference from the Reformed. While a Lutheran can "persevere" finally, they can lose their salvation after baptism or not be regenerated at all in baptism, but only by the Word later in life. Then there is no re-baptism. This can be subtle or obvious: someone who has doubts here and there who stops going to church and then comes back vs a rapid atheist who does debates and then reconverts later in life back to Lutheranism --- in neither instance would such a person be re-baptized. So justification and election are not linked like in the Presbyterian view, that's why I'd rather just go with the Presbyterian view of baptism/election but keep the Lutheran christology/real presence. All of the exegetical studies align with the Reformed or Presbyterian view, but the Lutherans I think go along with baptismal regeneration because of maybe the Church Fathers who were more Lutheran as far as I know. The Reformers and the Church fathers didn't have the tools like we do today to figure all of this out nowadays though. They take issue with the Presby view, which I found odd because "time" doesn't exist for God so really if you think about it that way, there is no difference between the Presby view and Lutheran view in terms of election as long as you hold to perseverance. If Lutheranism got rid of that argument that one can lose salvation, it would fit better with all of the modern exegetical studies. Limited atonement/grace, /how many "wills" God has, are still debatable but not grounds for a separate denom from my "modified Lutheranism"/Lucarianism ; it would still be more concrete on doctrine than ACNA.