Sunday, November 25, 2007

Now...this is how a Christian handles himself on Larry King Live!

5 comments:

Isaac said...

The link is broken.

Isaac said...

Oh ok, now it works. Wow! I can't believe these "Christians"! Fr. Manning is the perfect example of what's wrong with American Catholicism-- the relativism, the hipster-ism, the total disregard for his own tradition's understanding of "jus in bello."

And then the Methodist guy (oh, excuse me, "bishop") was just completely off of his rocker. It pains me to think that there are still Methodists who believe in Christ as the only Way to Salvation who have leadership like this deluded man.

The main guy who stood up for exclusivity of Christ was good, although he misquoted Scripture (Paul says "another Gospel")-- which no one on the show even caught! This just goes to show you that Larry King's people don't know how to pick actual Christians when they do a Christian segment on their show. Oh well.

irreverend fox said...

Hey Zac!

No doubt about it! This is why I laugh at my Roman Catholic apologist friend who constantly talks about how his "church" has always and consistently taught the same thing, LOL! How can you watch something like this and stay faithful?

That Methodist is no Methodist...I think Wesley would spin in his grave.

Now...as for the Reformed guy...lol...maybe I should have posted a better clip of him. That is the renowned Dr. John MacArthur! Lol...he did indeed misquote the Bible which did surprise me...maybe he got a bit flustered and nervous? While at times I do find him a bit of a legalist, I do know is that he is a bulldog and a great Bible teacher...and he doesn't care what anybody thinks. Despite that fumble...he is a brilliant thinker and author. In fact, his study Bible has quickly becoming a modern classic...and he also has a vast library of Bible commentaries which are real gold mines in the Reformed world.

lol...now I'm sorry I put a clip of him sounding like such a buffoon!

Here is what amazes me..."churches" or "religions" that teach people they can get to heaven by grace apart from the “born again” experience (personal, genuine and life changing faith in Christ in this lifetime) are plummeting in attendance numbers! From a purely pragmatic standpoint one would think somebody would stand up and suggest "hey guys...maybe we should re-enforce our backbones". The message of tolerance is not inspiring. “Stay the way you are…nothing is essentially wrong with you…we are all God’s children…God loves you just like you are” doesn’t really create any urgency to “do” anything…why should I do anything differently if God loves me just like I am? Why fix something that isn’t broke?

Roman Catholicism, Mormonism and Evangelicalism were all at one point uncompromising in their message of exclusivity. I'm not at all sure about how ridged Eastern Orthodoxy has been since the Schism...the "we know where The Church is but we can't say where The Church is not" attitude does seem to reach far, far back into Eastern Orthodoxy. Of course Eastern Orthodoxy is filled with crying for mercy…you guys cry for mercy CONSTANTLY, at least at Vespers you do! People who have it together and are essentially “ok” with God do not need to cry for mercy do they? Ok people who have it all together need not humiliate themselves before a priest and God and confess all their sins either, do they? So I would not suggest that Eastern Orthodoxy is “liberal” in that sense of the word at all…but I am concerned with the EO teaching which seems to indicate the unevangelized/heathen “might” be someday saved…or that we “just don’t know” about the unevangelized/heathen…but we can get into that another time.

My point is that this tolerance we find in some circles is counter productive because nobody is inspired to live anything. "Oh...you mean if I'm a nice person my whole life I should be ok when I die...cool...see ya..." does seem to be a logical conclusion many have made.

If works has nothing at all to do with salvation then why work, right? This "justification by physical mortification" doctrine is not only nonsense and heresy...it has also killed many "denominations" numerically and pragmatically! For every Joel Osteen there are probably 1,000 dying liberal churches who are being kept alive only by bingo, fundraisers and renting out their halls.

Isaac said...

Gary,

These are good points and worth serious consideration. Orthodoxy does hold to an exclusive ecclesiology-- we claim to be the one Church which Christ and the Apostles founded, and we also confess that without Christ no one can be saved.

And yet, for Orthodox (of all ages) this does not mean that Christ is not also working in heretical or schismatic groups as well, in order to save those people-- not because of their heresy/schism, but in spite of it. Those remnants of Orthodoxy to which these groups adhere are a cause for rejoicing-- Orthodoxy does not believe that outside her canonical boundaries there is simply undifferentiated darkness.

There are heretics who willfully embrace error and then there are those victims of heresy who are simply deceived and oppose the Church out of ignorance. The Church can only judge those inside of her, and to the rest she commits to Christ who will judge the nations and separate goat from lamb on that great day. Until then we pray for them and for ourselves.

"Not knowing where the Church is not," is simply a way of expressing the idea that while the Orthodox Church is the Ark of Salvation, there might be those who did not have the benefit of its teachings, who nevertheless attained to salvation through what parts of Orthodox Christianity remained in their particular sect. We believe God desires the salvation of all men, and so we do too. Nevertheless, no one can be saved apart from knowing Christ as both Lord and Savior. None can be saved except through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. And mysteriously, none can be saved except in relation to Christ's body, the Church.

Orthodox also do cry out to God for mercy. I should help you to understand this. Mercy for many protestants simply means "pardon" or something similar. It only refers to the kind of mercy that a governor can give to a prison inmate on death row at his last hour before the switch is pulled.

But "mercy" for the Orthodox is much more. The word in Greek is "eleison" ("to have mercy") and is related to the Hebrew "hesed," or loving-kindness. The Church asks God to "have mercy" which really means that we are asking Him to be as He is, to do as He does... to "have mercy" for God means to do as He wills in the world and in our lives.

Mercy, in that sense, doesn't mean something like a "special favor" but instead means something like "let Thy Kingdom come." We do not know why, but the Sovereign Lord of the created world has deigned to act in response to our prayers, and so "we are God's fellow-workers" (1 Cor. 3:9).

So we are asking God to have loving-kindness on us and on His creation. We are asking God to manifest His presence in our lives and to unite us ever more to Him.

We do not wish to preach sermons with our prayers or wow anyone by their profundity-- this would only serve to oppose God since He opposes the proud. Rather, it is the cry of faith and experience that when the Church comes together and asks the Lord for mercy, things happen. The only thing we desire is the Lord and His Kingdom, which is all contained in this simple prayer:

Lord, have mercy.

irreverend fox said...

to everyone...

I found this qoute by Spurgeon and it seems fitting to add it here as his comment about the topic:

""...You might go into a Roman Catholic chapel now-a-days, and hear as good a sermon from a Popish priest as you hear in many cases from a Protestant minister, because he does not touch disputed points, or bring out the angular parts of our Protestant religion. Mark, too, in the great majority of our books what a dislike there is to sound doctrine! the writers seem to fancy that truth is of no more value than error; that as for the doctrines we preach, it cannot matter what they are; still holding that 'He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.'

"There is creeping into the pulpits of Baptists and every other denomination, a lethargy and coldness, and with that a sort of nullification of all truth. While they for the most part preach but little notable error, yet the truth itself is uttered in so minute a form that no one detects it, and in so ambiguous a style, that no one is struck with it. So far as man can do it, God's arrows are blunted, and the edge of his sword is turned in the day of battle. Men do not hear the truth as they used to. The velvet mouth is succeeding to the velvet cushion, and the organ is the only thing in the building which giveth forth a certain sound. From all such things, "good Lord deliver us!"

"...Oh! if we had some of the old Scotch preachers! Those Scotch preachers made kings tremble; they were no men's servants; they were very lords, wherever they went, because each of them said, "God has given me a message; my brow is like adamant against men; I will speak what God bids me." Like Micah, they said, "As the Lord my God liveth, whatsoever my God saith unto me, that will I speak.

"...Most churches are shielding themselves behind an ignominious bulwark of extreme caution. You never hear their ministers spoken against; they are quite safe behind the screen. You will be very much puzzled to tell what are the real doctrinal views of our modern divines. I believe you will pick up in some poor humble chapel more doctrinal knowledge in half an hour, than in some of your larger chapels in half a century. God's church must be brought once more to rely upon the pure truth, upon the simple gospel, the unalloyed doctrines of the grace of God. O may this church never have any bulwark but the promises of God! May he be her strength and shield! May his Aegis be o'er our head and be our constant guard! May we never depart from the simplicity of the faith!"