You Baptists are like nailing jello to a wall!

[b.hopeful]

Impossible to peg!

I have a very conservative aunt and uncle that are baptists. So my first view of baptists were the mean finger pointing non-drinking family members that told me I wouldn't see my beloved pet, Holly the fox terrier, in heaven because dogs don't have souls.

Then I realized that my favorite pastor/person ever, Harry Fosdick, was baptist.

So I've been conflicted about baptists.

Enter a local political candidate that is a retired baptist preacher. He recently came and gave a stump speech to our local democratic club. He said he's been deeply involved with a group for the separation of church and state. thud! I guess I thought most baptists were fundies that wanted public schools to open with daily prayers. So I come here and read up a bit about you guys and find the whole separation of church and state thing again. Who knew??

From my evil aunt and uncle(still hold a grudge...I loved that dog like a sister,lol) to my beloved Harry Fosdick....you guys are all over the place!

Just wanted to share...off to stalk your board some more!

 

[DeaconDean]

deleted since it being disregarded and to keep the peace

 

[GrampaJeff]

God Bless you sister! First and foremost, I am a Born-Again Christian. I hold to a lot of the Baptist teachings because to me,(my opinion only) the Baptist's teachings of the the Word of God is seemingly more accurate in it's scriptural representation.
I was saved in a small pentecostal church 27 years ago and felt I was being misled in certain areas, but that is a story for another time. Good to hear from you! God Bless! Jeff

 

[b.hopeful]

TY Jeff, what a glorious welcome. My mother grew up in a small pentecostal church. Her uncle was the minister. She and my father married in a baptist church...but never attended as a married couple.

 

[sealacamp]

B. I understand what you are saying and I have heard many things that do not necessarily coincide with the scriptures. My dad was a Baptist preacher and I was so very confused for so long that I just had to find out what the scriptures say about all things and that is what I weigh all things against, not what others tell me. For I have received much misinformation from well meaning albeit confused individuals. It would be well if we all remember that we are all fallible and imperfect even in our understanding. With that said I offer you this passage from Ecclesiastes and I would agree with Solomons assessment in that none of us really knows the eternal fate of living things. It is hard to imagine that God, in His love and wisdom, would destroy all that he has made. Anyway I think that each of us must come to terms with this issue between ourselves and God. I can honestly say that I am at peace over this and no matter what anyone says I will adhere to what God reveals in the scriptures.

I also thought about the human condition—how God proves to people that they are like animals. For people and animals share the same fate—both breathe and both must die. So people have no real advantage over the animals. How meaningless! Both go to the same place—they came from dust and they return to dust. For who can prove that the human spirit goes up and the spirit of animals goes down into the earth?

Sealacamp

 

[Vince53]

Good to hear from you, b.hopeful. The wifey-poo and I are Baptists who attend an Assemblies of God church here in Mexico.

 

[b.hopeful]

Sealacamp...that passage gives me much comfort and joy. I am quite a dog lover and I'm currently preparing myself for the passing of our nearly 12 yo rottweiler. She's the best dog I've ever had but age and cancer are going to take her soon.

TY Vince....while we are talking dogs and Mexico,lol, a few weeks ago my 9 yo daughter made plans to head your way. She was playing with our chihuahua mix, Frida, and they drew a map to plot their course to Mexico to find Frida's family. She came into the kitchen to ask what she needed to pack and all I could think of was sunglasses, bottled water and anti-diarrhea medicine,lol. Not the fairest assessment of Mexico, I'm sure.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

Impossible to peg!

I have a very conservative aunt and uncle that are baptists. So my first view of baptists were the mean finger pointing non-drinking family members that told me I wouldn't see my beloved pet, Holly the fox terrier, in heaven because dogs don't have souls.

Then I realized that my favorite pastor/person ever, Harry Fosdick, was baptist.

So I've been conflicted about baptists.

Enter a local political candidate that is a retired baptist preacher. He recently came and gave a stump speech to our local democratic club. He said he's been deeply involved with a group for the separation of church and state. thud! I guess I thought most baptists were fundies that wanted public schools to open with daily prayers. So I come here and read up a bit about you guys and find the whole separation of church and state thing again. Who knew??

From my evil aunt and uncle(still hold a grudge...I loved that dog like a sister,lol) to my beloved Harry Fosdick....you guys are all over the place!

Just wanted to share...off to stalk your board some more!

I have two of Fosdick’s books in my home library,

The Man from Nazareth, as His Contemporaries Saw Him
A Great Time to be Alive

One of Harry Emerson Fosdick’s most famous quotes is,

“I believe in the personal God revealed in Christ, in his omnipresent activity and endless resources to achieve his purposes for us and for all men.”

In his famous sermon of May, 1922 (John D. Rockefeller liked it so much that he paid for the printing and distribution of 130,000 copies of it to be printed and distributed to every Protestant minister in the United States!), he castigated fundamentalists as being “bitterly intolerant.”

The intellectual fundamentalist J. G. Gresham Machen wrote, “The question is not whether Mr. Fosdick is winning men, but whether the thing to which he is winning them is Christianity.”

The range of Baptist beliefs include a wide spectrum of beliefs, everywhere from ultra-conservative theology to ultra-liberal theology, traditionalism to modernism, hyper-Arminianism to hyper-Calvinism; covenant theology to dispensationalism; free grace theology to Lordship salvation theology; premillennialism, amillennialism, post-millennialism, millennial exclusionism (and even various forms of millennial exclusionism); a wide range of beliefs regarding the authority and inspiration of Scripture; and to a growing extent, even differences of opinion regarding the significance of water Baptism.

Fosdick was a liberal modernist who staunchly opposed Christian fundamentalism.

 

[b.hopeful]

Excellent! I have The Meaning Of Faith, The Meaning Of Prayer, The Meaning of Service, On Being A Real Person and a collection of sermons titled The Hope Of The World. Hope was the book that brought me to God. It opened my eyes to the fact that one could love God and not be a fundamentalist...which I knew I could never reconcile myself to be. I found Hope at a rummage sale held by an Episcopalian church,lol...in the "free" bin. The title grabbed me...so I picked it up. This book is literally falling apart...I've re-read it regularly for over a decade now.

BTW....the passage in your sig is one I'm quite conflicted on. So often, that "behold" gives the impression of great joy....like Whopee!!! I have that scripture mounted behind my computer screen. Recently....I began to read it a whole new way. Not every renewal is a pleasing experience. With every new thing, something old is left behind...and sometimes, with change, there is great loss and confusion. That passage now carries a mixed message for me.

Peace.

 

[Vince53]

My friend b.hopeful writes: "TY Vince....while we are talking dogs and Mexico,lol, a few weeks ago my 9 yo daughter made plans to head your way. She was playing with our chihuahua mix, Frida, and they drew a map to plot their course to Mexico to find Frida's family. She came into the kitchen to ask what she needed to pack and all I could think of was sunglasses, bottled water and anti-diarrhea medicine,lol. Not the fairest assessment of Mexico, I'm sure."

True. If she has bottled water, she won't need anti-diarrhea medicine. Incidentally, I walk dogs once a week at the animal shelter, and about twice a month I'll take kids from the church or the orphanage to the animal shelter.

 

[Zoness]

There are liberal arminian baptists? I seriously didn't know (can't believe) that

 

[Robissaved]

GENESIS 1:30 and to every animal of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth on the earth, in which is a living soul, every green herb for food. And it was so.

One of the definitions of Soul is, containing breath, when breath leaves the body, so does the Soul. My best friend left me on October 26th of this year and is waiting with the Lord for my arrival. He was a 3 1/2 pound, 6 year old Yorkie named Maxx, I am still a broken man. My little buddy is, Without Question in Heaven. I am a fundamental Baptist and knowing your Bible will clearify many questions you have, so tread lightly on us Baptists.

 

[b.hopeful]

Amen Robi.

 

[icamewithasword]

I don't know for sure.

I will preface by saying I am a dog-lover!

.God is Spirit
.Worship in spirit and in truth
.Man is created with both a soul and a spirit

One of you much smarter and learned people; please state the difference between soul and spirit; and which of them goes to be with Jesus.

Just a question: Do animals repent, and believe in Jesus Christ?

 

[b.hopeful]

Can the mentally impaired or incapacitated repent and believe in Jesus Christ? Is there not grace for them? Would animals fall under that same grace?

BTW...I was just sort of breaking the ice with the dog/soul issue. It's not a stumbling block for me. I was curious about Baptists because of the vastly different (albeit limited) experiences I've had. I thank you all for the fellowship though. I'm glad I asked.

 

[NickH]

I think God is just and fair. I don't think, for example, that aborted babies go to hell because they did not choose. The subject of "age of accountability" seems logical and fitting with the justice of God. A local pastor made the point that he thinks anyone who died before the age of accountability, is resurrected to populate the millennial kingdom and thus be given the chance to choose. I wonder that this also applies to anyone that lacks the mental capacity to make that choice now in this life. All of us must choose who we will serve. Remember, that the millennial kingdom is full of people, and not just those of us resurrected in our glorified bodies. Some of those people eventually rise up and AGAIN fight against God at the end of the millennium before he seals Satan in hell permanently. Ref. Revelation 20:7-10 (NASB)

7When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, 8and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore.
9And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.
10And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Now, the age of accountability is not directly mentioned in the bible, but the logic seems to fit.

 

[mlqurgw]

I think God is just and fair. I don't think, for example, that aborted babies go to hell because they did not choose. The subject of "age of accountability" seems logical and fitting with the justice of God. A local pastor made the point that he thinks anyone who died before the age of accountability, is resurrected to populate the millennial kingdom and thus be given the chance to choose. I wonder that this also applies to anyone that lacks the mental capacity to make that choice now in this life. All of us must choose who we will serve. Remember, that the millennial kingdom is full of people, and not just those of us resurrected in our glorified bodies. Some of those people eventually rise up and AGAIN fight against God at the end of the millennium before he seals Satan in hell permanently. Ref. Revelation 20:7-10 (NASB)

7When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, 8and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore.
9And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.
10And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Now, the age of accountability is not directly mentioned in the bible, but the logic seems to fit.

We must never impose our idea of fairness on God. As far as infants and the mentally impaired go the Scriptures are not clear. We simply must admit that we do not know rather than to lay upon God something He hasn't shown us. The "age of accountability" is a construct that has no basis in Scripture and is only designed to get around a subject that we can only conjecture on. From what God has revealed of Himself in the Scriptures we can hope for the infant and mentally impaired but cannot say anything concrete. The secret things belong unto the Lord but the things revealed belong to us. Deut. 29:29 For us to seek to know what God has deemed secret is to overstep our bounds and presume upon the revelation of God and assume more knowledge than we are given.

 

[Vince53]

When David's baby died, David said that he would go to the baby someday.

When Jesus said "You must be born again," He was not talking to babies. Statements such as "The goodness of God leads you to repentance," and "I will draw all men unto Myself" are clearly not referring to babies.

Babies who die go to Heaven, and there are no Biblical commands for them to repent.

 

[NickH]

We must never impose our idea of fairness on God. As far as infants and the mentally impaired go the Scriptures are not clear. We simply must admit that we do not know rather than to lay upon God something He hasn't shown us. The "age of accountability" is a construct that has no basis in Scripture and is only designed to get around a subject that we can only conjecture on. From what God has revealed of Himself in the Scriptures we can hope for the infant and mentally impaired but cannot say anything concrete. The secret things belong unto the Lord but the things revealed belong to us. Deut. 29:29 For us to seek to know what God has deemed secret is to overstep our bounds and presume upon the revelation of God and assume more knowledge than we are given.

I agree that we must not impose anything on God. We can't. Which is why I put that last sentence in there, specifically "the logic seems to fit." I am not sure and won't know until I join my Lord in Heaven. I'm inferring based on several passages and what I have learned of the character of God. Specifically the passage about David's child. David was a man after God's own heart. Conversed with Him directly. It is comforting to me to know that his anguish ended when his child died because he knew he would see the child again.

 

[mlqurgw]

I agree that we must not impose anything on God. We can't. Which is why I put that last sentence in there, specifically "the logic seems to fit." I am not sure and won't know until I join my Lord in Heaven. I'm inferring based on several passages and what I have learned of the character of God. Specifically the passage about David's child. David was a man after God's own heart. Conversed with Him directly. It is comforting to me to know that his anguish ended when his child died because he knew he would see the child again.

I agree that that passage gives hope but we cannot build doctrine from one obscure passage. There are other passages such as the imprecatory Psalms and when God commanded even the children of the idolaters were to be destroyed that offset it. Add to that that the Scriptures make it clear that there is no such thing as an innocent child. We all come forth from the womb speaking lies and are infected with the nature of fallen Adam. Paul makes the argument in Rom. 5:14 that infants die because of the sin of Adam. If they were innocent they would not die. Death is the penalty for sin. The idea of an age of accountability is unscriptural and therefore false. So we must bow to God keeping secret that which He keeps secret and say we do not know. We hope and take comfort in the things revealed but cannot take a stand on the subject other than to say we do not know. I am not saying babies go to Hell but that I do not know whether they do or not. The Scriptures don't tell us.