The Church Thread: Chapter I Verse 2?

[CrimsonJazz]

@CrimsonJazz

Yes, my inlaws are cradle Catholics. It's all they've ever known. They've never personally challenged or tested anything they believe. Whereas, I do it all the time and over the years have changed my opinion and thoughts on things that I used to "hard core" believe in. But I never just take a pastor's word for it, without doing some form of study and researching myself.

Yep, they are setting themselves up for difficulty down the road, especially if they are going to insist on challenging the beliefs of others. I grew up in the Evangelical tradition, but I was a Christian insomuch if a cow was in a tree, it'd be a bird. (In other words, I wasn't a fanatic.) Late in my teenage years, I started noticing that none of these denominations agreed on everything and that was a dealbreaker for me. I would spend the next 30 years as an agnostic. I only became a Christian when I challenged myself to try and figure it all out. (Coming face to face with my own mortality after several heart procedures had a lot to do with that, too.)

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Yep, they are setting themselves up for difficulty down the road, especially if they are going to insist on challenging the beliefs of others. I grew up in the Evangelical tradition, but I was a Christian insomuch if a cow was in a tree, it'd be a bird. (In other words, I wasn't a fanatic.) Late in my teenage years, I started noticing that none of these denominations agreed on everything and that was a dealbreaker for me. I would spend the next 30 years as an agnostic. I only became a Christian when I challenged myself to try and figure it all out. (Coming face to face with my own mortality after several heart procedures had a lot to do with that, too.)

I'd already been through the heart procedures, including CABG, but it took life-threatening cancer for me...

 

[Bamabuzzard]

Yep, they are setting themselves up for difficulty down the road, especially if they are going to insist on challenging the beliefs of others. I grew up in the Evangelical tradition, but I was a Christian insomuch if a cow was in a tree, it'd be a bird. (In other words, I wasn't a fanatic.) Late in my teenage years, I started noticing that none of these denominations agreed on everything and that was a dealbreaker for me. I would spend the next 30 years as an agnostic. I only became a Christian when I challenged myself to try and figure it all out. (Coming face to face with my own mortality after several heart procedures had a lot to do with that, too.)

Welcome to the broken human race. Rarely do people seek God or have any care of whether there even is a god as long as they see no need for God in their personal lives. Their spiritual eyes tend to be blind to their spiritual reality when they believe they are in full control of their life and nothing is really so wrong that they don't think they can fix themselves. Usually, it is when life has Mike Tyson punched us, laying flat on our back (sometimes both physically and metaphorically) in a situation that no amount of our effort can change, that some start to realize how fragile life has always been. It is a sober reality that actually is a spiritual blessing, because it can lead you to God.

 

[AWRTR]

Yep, they are setting themselves up for difficulty down the road, especially if they are going to insist on challenging the beliefs of others. I grew up in the Evangelical tradition, but I was a Christian insomuch if a cow was in a tree, it'd be a bird. (In other words, I wasn't a fanatic.) Late in my teenage years, I started noticing that none of these denominations agreed on everything and that was a dealbreaker for me. I would spend the next 30 years as an agnostic. I only became a Christian when I challenged myself to try and figure it all out. (Coming face to face with my own mortality after several heart procedures had a lot to do with that, too.)

Searching for yourself in conjunction with participating in a solid church is the best. Never take anyone's word for it. Go study and seek for yourself. That's how real faith is built.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

 

[Padreruf]

"The unexamined life is not worth living" -- Socrates via Plato. Those of us who grow up in church usually take a step back and examine our religious background, some deeper than others. I have personally done that several times -- usually related to negative experiences in my life or in the lives of others close to me.

This is usually a very fruitful experience.

2 Corinthians 13:5 "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves"

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Yes, my inlaws are cradle Catholics. It's all they've ever known. They've never personally challenged or tested anything they believe. Whereas, I do it all the time and over the years have changed my opinion and thoughts on things that I used to "hard core" believe in. But I never just take a pastor's word for it, without doing some form of study and researching myself.

This is more up my alley.

Goodness gracious the number of "everyday in my life Archie Bunker" types who don't go to church on Sunday or maybe they do once in awhile, but they've got it all figured out. The somersaults people do to get around what words actually mean is a sight to behold. By Archie, I don't mean racist, I mean like the time he told Lionel and the Meathead that his parents names were David and Sarah, "Two names right out of the Bible, which has got nothin' to do with the Jews."

The fixation on setting up some sort of inviolable doctrinal point and interpreting everything through that has been one of the most "let me hit my head against the wall harder" points. And not only that, people get really mad over this stuff, too.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

 

[CrimsonJazz]

View attachment 58282

I think I've been here once or twice........

 

[Bamabuzzard]

Not to sour this thread and turn it into a prayer request thread. But, for those who are Believers, please pray for my four sons who are currently not Christians. My daughter, my oldest child, has made a decision of faith and is a Christian. However, my four boys have not and it has burdened me for years and continues to burden me and my wife. We pray for them constantly, have explained the gospel to them many, many times and continue to take them to church with us. But none of them so far have made a decision and one in particular just point blank tells us "I believe in God, I believe what the Bible says is true. But I have no interest in God or the Bible." That has burdened our soul for several years. If you're a praying person, please pray for my sons to come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. Thank you.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

Modern Christianity treats faith as a blind emotional leap. You close your eyes. You feel something deeply. You jump.

St. Thomas Aquinas would call that a catastrophe.

In Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 2, a. 1, Aquinas defines faith with surgical precision. He writes that faith is "an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth at the command of the will moved by the grace of God."

Notice what just happened. Faith is an act of the intellect. Not the emotions. The mind.

The object of faith is truth. And truth is what the human intellect was literally designed to grasp. Faith is not a psychological override of reason. It is the mind's highest perfection. It is your intellect finally reaching the reality it was made to see.

The modern fideist view gets it exactly backward. It treats faith as an anti-intellectual surrender. Stop thinking. Just feel. Just believe.

But Aquinas answers this with a principle that demolishes the entire framework: "Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it."

God does not short-circuit your mind to save your soul. He elevates your mind. The "light of faith" illuminates the intellect so it can assent to truths that exceed its natural power.

The will commands the intellect to assent. But the intellect does the assenting. Faith is rational submission to divine authority. Not blind. Not emotional. Illuminated.

Why did modern Christianity abandon the intellect when the greatest theologians in history insisted faith needs it?

https://twitter.com/x/status/2087935997103227030

I found this tweet growing in the wild and thought it would make an interesting entry into this thread. What do you guys think of this one?

 

[Bamabuzzard]

Modern Christianity treats faith as a blind emotional leap. You close your eyes. You feel something deeply. You jump.

St. Thomas Aquinas would call that a catastrophe.

In Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 2, a. 1, Aquinas defines faith with surgical precision. He writes that faith is "an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth at the command of the will moved by the grace of God."

Notice what just happened. Faith is an act of the intellect. Not the emotions. The mind.

The object of faith is truth. And truth is what the human intellect was literally designed to grasp. Faith is not a psychological override of reason. It is the mind's highest perfection. It is your intellect finally reaching the reality it was made to see.

The modern fideist view gets it exactly backward. It treats faith as an anti-intellectual surrender. Stop thinking. Just feel. Just believe.

But Aquinas answers this with a principle that demolishes the entire framework: "Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it."

God does not short-circuit your mind to save your soul. He elevates your mind. The "light of faith" illuminates the intellect so it can assent to truths that exceed its natural power.

The will commands the intellect to assent. But the intellect does the assenting. Faith is rational submission to divine authority. Not blind. Not emotional. Illuminated.

Why did modern Christianity abandon the intellect when the greatest theologians in history insisted faith needs it?

https://twitter.com/x/status/2087935997103227030

I found this tweet growing in the wild and thought it would make an interesting entry into this thread. What do you guys think of this one?

I would say modern Western Christianity has gotten this way. Christianity in other parts of the globe isn't like this. Western Christianity has gotten to the point where "faith" is nothing more than a decision one makes at one point in their life then they carry on living their life anyway they want without any consideration of the Bible's commandments about what goes along with faith. The Bible describes "faith" like that as not a genuine faith. In other words, it is a "faith" that isn't unto salvation.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

I would say modern Western Christianity has gotten this way. Christianity in other parts of the globe isn't like this. Western Christianity has gotten to the point where "faith" is nothing more than a decision one makes at one point in their life then they carry on living their life anyway they want without any consideration of the Bible's commandments about what goes along with faith. The Bible describes "faith" like that as not a genuine faith. In other words, it is a "faith" that isn't unto salvation.

I think it was in the first thread that I pointed out that I'm not the guy who goes around telling people, "you're doing it wrong." If dancing in the aisles with rattlesnakes hanging off of you is how your cup gets filled, you do you. And granted, I think being a true Christian should involve a certain amount of fervor, but it's getting harder and harder to find Christians who would even consider reading Aquinas, much less actually sitting down and doing it.

This is a problem for me because at some point we are going to have to defend our faith, either during evangelization or because some people find it great sport to try and stump a Christian on his or her faith. Being well-versed in what the Bible has to say on any given topic is great, but to someone who refuses to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, it will not move the conversation forward. It is at moments like this, reason and philosophy can turn the corner.....but not if one isn't taught these concepts. What do y'all think? Should church leaders try to promote these ideas more?

 

[Bamabuzzard]

I think it was in the first thread that I pointed out that I'm not the guy who goes around telling people, "you're doing it wrong." If dancing in the aisles with rattlesnakes hanging off of you is how your cup gets filled, you do you. And granted, I think being a true Christian should involve a certain amount of fervor, but it's getting harder and harder to find Christians who would even consider reading Aquinas, much less actually sitting down and doing it.

This is a problem for me because at some point we are going to have to defend our faith, either during evangelization or because some people find it great sport to try and stump a Christian on his or her faith. Being well-versed in what the Bible has to say on any given topic is great, but to someone who refuses to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, it will not move the conversation forward. It is at moments like this, reason and philosophy can turn the corner.....but not if one isn't taught these concepts. What do y'all think? Should church leaders try to promote these ideas more?

IMO, it is a "can lead a horse to water but can't make him drink" scenario. Our church offers discipleship classes for new believers and discipleship classes for long time believers as well. However, the number of people who attend those classes or go to small groups designed for things like that is very small in number compared to the number of people in a corporate worship service on Sunday. People seem to want to get just enough church/God to give them a comfort level in their faith and that's it. For many, going to one corporate service one time per week, and never subjecting themselves to God's word the rest of the week, is all they want of God in their life. That may sound a little bit harsh but it is what I observe in the Evangelical world.

 

[Its On A Slab]

I grew up in the Southern Baptist faith. And saw how "awful" it was to enjoy the finer things in life. And people who would be frowning while smiling - which I never understood, save for they never thought they would ever feel worthy.

So you can guess why I am agnostic.

I've always adhered to Monty Python's quote about agnostics. "There's nothing an agnostic cannot do if he really doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not".

I would say that, if I were to choose a faith only because I liked the people, regardless of how crazy their dogma is: I would be a Mormon. I know I have a small subset in my life, but I have never met a Mormon who wasn't the nicest, most wholesome individual, good neighbor. But I would love to have a seer stone. And wear the fancy Holy undergarments.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

I grew up in the Southern Baptist faith. And saw how "awful" it was to enjoy the finer things in life. And people who would be frowning while smiling - which I never understood, save for they never thought they would ever feel worthy.

So you can guess why I am agnostic.

I've always adhered to Monty Python's quote about agnostics. "There's nothing an agnostic cannot do if he really doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not".

I would say that, if I were to choose a faith only because I liked the people, regardless of how crazy their dogma is: I would be a Mormon. I know I have a small subset in my life, but I have never met a Mormon who wasn't the nicest, most wholesome individual, good neighbor. But I would love to have a seer stone. And wear the fancy Holy undergarments.

There's so many NBC Datelines involving Mormons killing others over spouses, I'd recommend pick another one.

 

[Its On A Slab]

There's so many NBC Datelines involving Mormons killing others over spouses, I'd recommend pick another one.

You may be thinking of the off-shoot fundamentalist Mormon sect. The ones who still adhere to polygamy.

I wouldn't broadbrush them anymore than I would Christianity for the Christian Nationalists in their midst.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

You may be thinking of the off-shoot fundamentalist Mormon sect. The ones who still adhere to polygamy.

I wouldn't broadbrush them anymore than I would Christianity for the Christian Nationalists in their midst.

There are sects scattered all over the the SW and Mexico, almost all centered on polygamy, but with a spectrum of beliefs which are corruptions of their original doctrine (as modified in real time by God)...

 

[AWRTR]

I think it was in the first thread that I pointed out that I'm not the guy who goes around telling people, "you're doing it wrong." If dancing in the aisles with rattlesnakes hanging off of you is how your cup gets filled, you do you. And granted, I think being a true Christian should involve a certain amount of fervor, but it's getting harder and harder to find Christians who would even consider reading Aquinas, much less actually sitting down and doing it.

This is a problem for me because at some point we are going to have to defend our faith, either during evangelization or because some people find it great sport to try and stump a Christian on his or her faith. Being well-versed in what the Bible has to say on any given topic is great, but to someone who refuses to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, it will not move the conversation forward. It is at moments like this, reason and philosophy can turn the corner.....but not if one isn't taught these concepts. What do y'all think? Should church leaders try to promote these ideas more?

Yeah they should. I'm blessed to be in a church that does. We had a 5 week Hermeneutics class this past Spring, and will be starting a study on Christian Cults and World Religions soon. That will be on Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. We will break down each religions major teachings and compare them to the historical Christianity. This will allow people to understand what they believe and why compared to other faiths. We are then doing a study on where the Bible came from and following that one up with a study on evolution vs. intelligent design. There is also one planned on basic apologetics. We will deal with the problem of evil, the cosmological argument and so forth. The idea is to help people ground themselves in a Christian worldview.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

Yeah they should. I'm blessed to be in a church that does. We had a 5 week Hermeneutics class this past Spring, and will be starting a study on Christian Cults and World Religions soon. That will be on Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. We will break down each religions major teachings and compare them to the historical Christianity. This will allow people to understand what they believe and why compared to other faiths. We are then doing a study on where the Bible came from and following that one up with a study on evolution vs. intelligent design. There is also one planned on basic apologetics. We will deal with the problem of evil, the cosmological argument and so forth. The idea is to help people ground themselves in a Christian worldview.

That sounds fantastic! True, there are countless videos on Youtube that cover topics such as these, but I find that this works better in a group setting where we can bounce ideas off one another. Just as importantly, talking it out helps a persons capacity for reason and how to use it effectively.