re: United Methodist Church closing 26 churches in Alabama: declining attendance

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Rather than ad hominem attacks, why not address the subject matter? Maybe you are incapable of having a logical discussion.

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Your subject is ridiculous conspiracy theory.

It's lamer than if you believed the DaVinci code.

There is nothing of substance in your claims.

Hence there is nothing to debate.

I'm not going to debate a flat earth with you either.

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Your subject is ridiculous conspiracy theory.

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So Origen’s direct quotation of an ancient Gospel of the Hebrews is a ridiculous conspiracy theory, according to you. What is the conspiracy? What is the theory? Sorry dude but you aren’t making a lick of sense.

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Methodists should come home to the church founded by Jesus Himself almost 2000 years ago.

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Surely you're not referring to the Roman Catholic Church, LOL. That organization didn't come about until the time of Constantine several hundred years later. If you would read your bible and count it as the final authority rather than what your church leaders say, you would find that so many things the Catholid church promotes as doctrine doesn't agree with the bible. I believe the only indirect reference you'll find to the Catholic system in the bible is in Revelations 17 and 18 where God is going to destroy that "Great Whore" that sits on 7 hills.

your like that kid in my freshman new testament survey class at ouachita baptist university that his "preacher at the schitstain missionary baptist church told him the baptist were the first christians only know body knew about. it." to which dr. sutley (who graduated from southwestern seminary in dallas and then spent 4 years studying in the vatican archives in an exchange program with SBC) he laughed and said "son if not for the catholic church no one would know who christ was today"

you're welcome.

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I often see people quote this passage as if Jesus was declaring Peter himself to be the rock on which the church would be built. But when I read it closely, it seems more likely that Jesus is referring to Peter’s confession,

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I used to think that too. Then I read the early church fathers and realized my interpretation was a novelty compared to the consensus of the people who lived and wrote within living memory of the apostles and their successors.

What also helped me changed my interpretation is the fact that every single name change in scripture was significant and signaled a change in the course of that persons life. Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, which means rock. Then said he would build his church on the rock. If Peter isn’t the rock, his name was changed for no reason whatsoever and at the most confusing placement in scripture ever.

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I used to think that too. Then I read the early church fathers and realized my interpretation was a novelty compared to the consensus of the people who lived and wrote within living memory of the apostles and their successors.

What also helped me changed my interpretation is the fact that every single name change in scripture was significant and signaled a change in the course of that persons life. Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, which means rock. Then said he would build his church on the rock. If Peter isn’t the rock, his name was changed for no reason whatsoever and at the most confusing placement in scripture ever.

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This isn’t a new interpretation. Several early church fathers like Origen, Chrysostom, and even Augustine said the rock was Peter’s faith or confession, not Peter alone. So the idea that the church is built on the truth that Jesus is the Christ has been around since the beginning. Peter’s name change highlights the importance of what he said, not just who he was.

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your like that kid in my freshman new testament survey class at ouachita baptist university that his "preacher at the schitstain missionary baptist church told him the baptist were the first christians only know body knew about. it." to which dr. sutley (who graduated from southwestern seminary in dallas and then spent 4 years studying in the vatican archives in an exchange program with SBC) he laughed and said "son if not for the catholic church no one would know who christ was today"

you're welcome.

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You have an unhealthy hate for people who worship differently than you. In this thread alone, you’ve called Protestants “white trash hicks” and “schitstains.”

In a conversation about religion, it’s rather ironic. And unfortunate.

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You’re conflating Paul’s condemnation of works of the law with a blanket rejection of all cooperation with grace.

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I'm rejecting all sense of meritorious works, as Paul was doing. His entire point was that salvation comes by Christ's merit, received through faith, not by the works performed by the individual.

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In Romans 3:20 and 7:7, Paul isn’t drawing a line between ceremonial and moral law simply to exclude one. He’s showing that the law in its entirety (even the moral law) reveals sin but does not provide the power to overcome it. Yet that’s not the same thing as saying no obedience or cooperation plays a role in salvation. Paul is rejecting justification by the law, not justification with no transformation or obedience whatsoever. If Paul meant to eliminate all human cooperation with grace, then verses like Romans 2:6–7 (where God rewards those who by patience in well-doing seek glory and honor) would directly contradict his theology—which they don’t. They clarify it.

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Rom. 2:6-7 follows vv 4-5, which speaks of repentance, not penance. The judgement comes from continuing in a state of unrepentance, and that unrepentance stems from a dead heart, not made alive by the Spirit.

I think you're the one conflating something: justification with sanctification. Catholicism teaches that sanctification (the setting apart by God to good works that flow from one's justification) and justification (the declaration of forgiveness of sins due to Christ's meritorious works in His active and passive obedience, received by the sinner by faith) are essentially the same. Protestants rightly see them as different, wherein justification is the declaration of being righteous before God and sanctification is the continued conformity of the sinner to the image of Christ as sin is mortified by the Spirit.

Paul isn't saying a person is justified (declared righteous before God) due to the combination of faith and works, as he specifically contrasts those two things. He is saying that both faith and works go together as flowing from the same Spirit which justifies and sanctifies. We do not cooperate with grace. Grace is called grace specifically because we do not deserve it (rather, we actively merit judgement, instead). It's why grace is often defined as "unmerited favor". If our good works contribute to our salvation, then our salvation is not of grace alone, but by grace and works, which would mean that our works actual impose upon God and require Him to save us as a debt that He owes us, rather than Him paying the debt of sin that we owe. It's why Paul says that faith is a gift, and that works are a wage (Eph. 2:8-9)

God most certainly does reward good works and punish bad works, but our reward for good works is not salvation, but the treasures, crowns, and mansions in Heaven that we will be rewarded with. We cannot earn a righteous standing by good because no amount of good works can offset the sin we commit, and if Christ did not accomplish a full pardon for us, then there's nothing we can add to what Christ has already done to earn salvation for ourselves.

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Abraham, cited by Paul as the example of justification by faith, is in fact the best argument for a Catholic or Orthodox view as opposed to a Calvinist one. His faith “was credited as righteousness,” but not because it was passive or intellectual.

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It seems you don't understand the Calvinist position. We don't believe that faith is "passive or [merely] intellectual", but that a saving faith will produce fruits of repentance and obedience precisely because those fruits (sanctification) flow from the same grace that provides justification/salvation.

With all due respect, I'd suggest spending some more time studying Reformed/Calvinist theology. Catholics are keen to point out with Protestants don't have the nuances of their teaching correct, and yet you don't seem to know what Calvinism teaches.

That aside, "credited as righteousness" actually militates against your position, because faith receives a credit (we call it "imputed righteousness") apart from meritorious works. That was the point Paul was getting at and even says as much by saying it was Abraham's faith prior to the demonstration of it that resulted in a credited righteousness. As I'll mention in response to James 2, James is saying that Abraham's faith was evidenced or proved (a different use of the word "justified" than Paul) by his works.

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Hebrews 11 says that Abraham obeyed by faith. Yet, this doesn’t occur in Genesis 15. It occurred in Genesis 12. Why was he only first justified in Genesis 15, which comes after 3 chapters full of good works, if he already had faith that pleased God in Genesis 12? It’s because works completed his faith.

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His works "completed" his faith in the sense that they proved his faith was genuine or alive. James defines what a dead faith is, namely a merely intellectual assent to facts, as demons have. Intellectualism does not produce good works because good works are only such if they are done by faith (that is, saving faith).

That, again, was the point of Romans 4, when Paul expressly says that Abraham was not justified (counted as righteous) by works, because then he would have something to boast about. If good works flow from a free will rather than from the work of the Spirit, then good works can certainly be boasted about before God, which Paul rejects. However, if good works actually flow from the Spirit's work in a person, then it is God alone who can boast even in those works. Paul goes out of his way to say that works are a wage which would make God a debtor, but salvation is God's grace freely given as a gift.

The Reformed position can harmonize both faith and works flowing from the same source (God), while Catholics and other Arminians see salvation as a wage owed by God as the logical conclusion of their positions.

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Furthermore, James 2 flatly states that Abraham was justified by works when he offered up Isaac, and that “faith was completed by works.” This is what I said above.

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I responded already, but there is a massive contradiction if Paul, who expressly states that Abraham was justified by faith apart from works, and James, who says we are justified by works along with faith, where they both mean the same thing by "justified" and "faith". The Reformed positions clearly uses the full biblical data in a cohesive way to demonstrate that faith is a saving trust in Christ (not merely an intellectual asset), that is the gift of God by His unmerited grace, and that when this gift is imparted to a Christian by the Holy Spirit, that the Christian will demonstrate evidence of such a faith by performing good works. The works are not meritorious, but evidences of the gift of God.

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So no, Paul isn’t saying faith excludes cooperation—he’s saying we aren’t saved by legalistic, self-sufficient works, especially those tied to the Mosaic Law. Grace comes first, but grace isn’t opposed to obedience—it enables it. The problem isn’t that humans do something. The problem is boasting in doing it apart from grace.

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That's quite the interpretation. Paul isn't condemning boasting for its own sake, but because it is not warranted because grace comes from God who saves sinners, rather than sinners saving themselves.

What you seem to be hung up on is the cooperative work, but the real issue is not mere cooperation but meritorious cooperation. The question to answer is whether or not we contribute anything to our salvation, and Paul is clear that we do not.

Ditched FUMC a few years back. My dad told me to “get the hell out of it”.

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This argument self-destructs under basic historical context. First, Jesus did affirm at least one oral tradition explicitly—when He refers to the “chair of Moses” in Matthew 23:2, a phrase found nowhere in the Old Testament but well-attested in Jewish oral tradition.

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Ironically, I think you just "owned" yourself here. First, I didn't say that Jesus never affirmed any traditions as good, but that Jesus didn't affirm them as authoritative. The example you provided of the chair was actually a command to obey God's law as proclaimed by the Scribes and Pharisees. For one, it's called Moses' seat, not the seat of the Scribes and the Pharisees, and secondly, Jesus elsewhere and repeatedly warns against the teachings of the Scribes and the Pharisees, so clearly Jesus isn't giving a blanket statement to honor and obey every word or teaching, but only that which comports to the law of Moses (which was from God, as found in the Scriptures). So in this example, while the name of the seat may have come from tradition, Jesus is actually upholding the ultimate authority of the Scriptures even over and against any traditions and customs that contradict the law. That's why Jesus said to do what they say, but not follow their actions, which were contrary to the law.

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Second, Jesus rebuked corrupt traditions, not oral tradition as a category. He upheld true tradition (see Matt. 5:21–48) and taught authoritatively outside of written Scripture—something no mere “sola Scriptura” teacher would do.

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Jesus, as God, can provide additional revelation that will become authoritative to all God preserves it for, however Jesus wasn't upholding mere tradition in Matt 5, but expositing what the Scriptures actually teaching by going beyond there letter of the law to the heart of it.

And you're wrong about authority outside of Scripture. Sola scriptura does not deny any authority but Scripture, but it denies that there is any equal or superior authority to Scripture. Reformed Christians actually do teach that there are many authorities that Christians are bound to obey, with the exception of any commands that go against the Scriptures, which is the highest authority for the Christian.

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Also, the idea that Jesus holding leaders accountable to Scripture proves Scripture alone is circular. He’s appealing to Scripture because they claim to follow it, just like a Catholic might quote the Bible to challenge a Protestant.

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Where does Jesus put tradition above the Scriptures? He doesn't. He does frequently rebuke the Scribes and Pharisees for rejecting or twisting the Scriptures or by making the Scriptures null because of traditions. You'll have to show me where Jesus upholds tradition as an equal or higher authority than the Scriptures, because my point is that Jesus judges truth against the ultimate authority of the Scriptures, as He did with Satan in the wilderness.

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And ironically, the very canon those leaders used wasn’t fixed—there was no universally agreed list of Old Testament books in Jesus’ day, yet He never handed them a table of contents. So if anything, Jesus’ approach assumes some living authority behind the text, not sola Scriptura.

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Not at all. The various sects of the Jews didn't have to agree on what was Scripture in order for Jesus to hold them accountable to it. Josephus, the Roman-Jewish historian, does provide a list of books that he claimed the Jews accepted and placed in Temple as authoritative. Jesus also didn't have to give a table, as He quoted or references books from both the "law" and the "prophets", and He quoted from both the major and minor prophets, and He did so authoritatively.

I also find this argument to be interesting considering you and other Catholics frequently cite the LXX as evidence that the RCC uses the same Bible as Jesus and His disciples.

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I never said it used every single writing that appears across the various manuscript traditions of the various LXX copies. I simply said we use the Septuagint, which is true.

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You said they used the same OT as the Catholics and Orthodox and referenced the LXX as evidence of that claim. Now you seem to be backtracking, but I'd just remind you as well as others that you can't have your cake and eat it, too. You can't say that the Catholic Bible is the true Bible (over and against the Protestants) because of the Septuagint while also conveniently ignoring the LXX books that the Catholics rejects. That's dishonest, and I was pointing that out to you.

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This is a clever rebrand, but still flawed. Saying Scripture is the only infallible authority while allowing fallible ones still guts the biblical model. Nowhere does Scripture teach “Scripture alone” as the final infallible rule. In fact, 2 Thessalonians 2:15 commands believers to hold fast to both written and oral traditions, it doesn’t rank one over the other.

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It's not a "rebrand". Confessions that originated during the Reformed like Westminster Confession of Faith and the Belgic Confession speak to the Scriptures as the ultimate and/or only infallible authority by which all other authorities are to be judged by. That's not a rebrand at all. I think you just have a misunderstanding about it.

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Ironically, the very New Testament that sola scriptura appeals to came from the Church’s tradition and wasn’t canonized by Scripture alone. So appealing to Jesus holding people accountable to God’s word doesn’t support sola scriptura.

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Of course it does, as I already stated. The issue is about authority, and the Word of God is supreme.

And no, the Scriptures didn't come from the Church's tradition, at least not how you are referring to it. They are the self-authenticating word of God and were received as such by the Church, not declared as such according to the authority of the Church. Just as John the Baptist was not an infallible witness of Christ (and he didn't need to be), neither does the Church need to be infallible to recognize the word of God.

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You’re confusing ontology with epistemology. Saying “God’s word is what it is” answers what Scripture is but not how we know what counts as Scripture. You’re begging the question. You’re using an ontological claim to dodge an epistemological problem.

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It's not an epistemological problem. The Scriptures are self-authenticating and bear marks of being God's word. It's not as if the Church just picked the writings at random and then put their stamp of approval on them. There was a method for determining what was authentic, and that process included recognizing what was already recognized by Scripture by the churches from the 1st century, who received the writings from the Apostles or those close to the Apostles, or from their personal messengers.

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Yes, letters were circulated, but the early Church disagreed for centuries on which books belonged. Hebrews, Revelation, James, and even 1 and 2 Peter, and some of the Johns were hotly debated.

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Lack of full disagreement doesn't mean Gods word wasn't already God's word. Again, it's the difference between what is God's word and what is accepted as God's word. There was disagreement even with Catholicism as to which books were authoritative/canonical all the way up until the Council of Trent, when dissenters could no longer dissent. That doesn't mean disagreement as late as the 1500s meant to Rome that they didn't have God's word.

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Some churches accepted books later rejected. others rejected books we now call canon. If the Church isn’t infallible, then fallible people are making fallible judgments about what is supposedly an infallible book.

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Yes, and like I said about John the Baptist, he didn't need to be infallible in order to recognize the infallible God-man in Jesus as the Messiah.

I ran out of characters.