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re: United Methodist Church closing 26 churches in Alabama: declining attendance
Posted on 7/1/25 at 8:11 am to 4cubbies
Posted on 7/1/25 at 8:11 am to 4cubbies
quote:We are bursting at the seams. And many, many are boomers. Some of the dumbest takes I've seen on here. Churches bending to the gay crap is the reason people are leaving the Church. Find one that doesn't and you will find a full and vibrant Church. It's in the leadership. We left the United Methodist and couldn't be happier and have accepted many transfers (who were plugged in in big ways at their former Churches) that left because their churches chose to remain the heathenistic United Methodist. Simple, really. But blame the boomers - stupid, stupid stupid!
people in general just aren’t going to church anymore
This is another thing we can blame boomers for.
0
Posted on 7/1/25 at 8:12 am to DesScorp
Tubbs '26
Posted on 7/1/25 at 8:46 am to DesScorp
Haven't read the whole thread but I honestly don't get all of the fixation about good deeds not being necessary for salvation. What is the point of arguing so intensely about it? IMO that should be about the last topic to discuss if you truly are interested in living as a child of God.
Posted on 7/1/25 at 10:32 am to VolSquatch
quote:I'd be inclined to agree with you on that, but I don't see that as a function of Protestantism so much, but the overall lack of teaching in modern evangelicalism. Just as Catholicism has experienced periods of darkness, so, too is Protestantism in a dark place overall.
Having had experience in both, the VAST majority of protestants can't tell you what their denomination believes vs another.
With that said, there are still many Protestant denominations that are in the light, continuing to teach God's word faithfully, building Christ's one Church as He commanded.
quote:That could be true in this moment in time. However, the good thing about Protestantism is that reformation is possible when error creeps in.
Catholics aren't batting 1.000 either, but are better than protestants about it.
Posted on 7/1/25 at 10:37 am to tigerskin
quote:Well, good works are not typically something that Christians disagree over when it comes to whether or not they should exist in some form or fashion. Other than the antinomians (those who teach that God's law doesn't apply at all in any respect in the new covenant), all professing Christians agree that there is a place for good works in Christianity.
Haven't read the whole thread but I honestly don't get all of the fixation about good deeds not being necessary for salvation. What is the point of arguing so intensely about it? IMO that should be about the last topic to discuss if you truly are interested in living as a child of God.
What we are disagreeing on is that place for good works. Catholicism, for instance, teaches that good works add to our justification (salvation) before God as meritorious works, while Protestants teach that good works are necessary evidences of justification, rather than necessary contributors to it. In other words, Catholics see good works as part of the root of salvation while Protestants see them as necessary fruit of salvation.
At its heart, this is a gospel issue. How are we saved? By trusting in Christ's merits alone, or in His plus ours (and others)? That fundamental question is at the heart of the discussion.
Posted on 7/1/25 at 10:45 am to DesScorp
Their congregation is dying off, and younger generations aren’t attending.
Posted on 7/1/25 at 11:37 am to FooManChoo
quote:
That could be true in this moment in time. However, the good thing about Protestantism is that reformation is possible when error creeps in.
We are kind of seeing reformation now in some, and its coming in the form of LGBTQ+-!@# pandering, Gay pastors, supporting illegal immigration, etc.
They are making the same mistake big brands make when they pander to these groups... assuming these people in general won't just always hate you and want to change you, no matter what you do.
quote:
but I don't see that as a function of Protestantism so much, but the overall lack of teaching in modern evangelicalism. Just as Catholicism has experienced periods of darkness, so, too is Protestantism in a dark place overall.
With that said, there are still many Protestant denominations that are in the light, continuing to teach God's word faithfully, building Christ's one Church as He commanded.
I think there are a lot of great protestant churches out there for sure. And I don't believe it is a function or feature of protestantism, I think thats more just a feature of people in general. In Catholicism I think you are confronted with the belief system more often than you are in protestantism, so you are more likely to be familiar with it.
I also think the % of "true believers" in terms of the belief system of Catholicism tends to be higher in general. What I mean by that is that a higher % of Catholics would only attend a Catholic church, vs protestants who are generally a little less concerned about the denomination in my experience. The happenings within the UMC, some of the actions by the Episcopals, etc have started to shift that, but its just something that occurs more often here than in Catholicism and not some hard rule or anything.
Posted on 7/1/25 at 12:12 pm to FooManChoo
quote:
At its heart, this is a gospel issue. How are we saved? By trusting in Christ's merits alone, or in His plus ours (and others)? That fundamental question is at the heart of the discussion.
Still seems like a waste of time arguing about for a type of person truly interested in being saved.
"Oh guess what I don't need to do any good works."
Whatever though. Carry on
Posted on 7/1/25 at 12:15 pm to DesScorp
Some Methodist congregations have experienced growth since leaving the UMC.
Posted on 7/1/25 at 5:11 pm to Harald Ekernson
quote:They probably did, otherwise they wouldn't have worshipped them. The Bible is replete with examples of this, and why it happened.
Hey look it’s difficult to fathom all those Israelite elders and patriarchs meeting and seeing God face to face, seeing his power, seeing him strike their own people dead, and then worshipping what you call “false” gods. I have no doubt they thought those other gods were real and had power too.
What you seem to be advocating for, is that since there are many examples of idol worship, that Christianity was born from that very thing. Instead, Judaism had somewhat of a reformation after the return from exile where worship of Yahweh resumed and was the predominant Jewish expression. It was this context that Jesus was born into, where He was frequently interacting with the religious leaders of Judaism, who frequently misunderstood the teachings of God or were entirely hypocritical about them.
quote:Jesus and the Apostles quoted from the Jewish Scriptures regularly. Jesus didn't seek to overthrow Judaism but to reveal Himself to be the fulfillment of it. The Temple was destroyed both as a punishment to the Jews for their rejection of Christ and also as an unnecessary relic of prior revelation fulfilled in Christ, Himself. The high priest wasn't an imposter, but unnecessary after Jesus died on the cross.
Friend, I think you are mistaken. The first Christians believed the high priest in Jerusalem was an imposter and that the temple was corrupt and that the scriptures preserved in Jerusalem were not the correct scriptures. They looked forward to the temple’s destruction. If you are calling the Jewish Bible the revelation to the people of Israel, I think the first Christians would tell you that what became the Masoretic Text of the Pharisees is not the entire revelation from God and it is corrupted.
quote:I think you're off base in saying the book of Enoch was "a foundational book for Christian thought". It was referenced in the Scriptures, but so were pagan philosophers. Paul, Peter, and the other disciples of Jesus were Jews, and the first Christian church was made up of Jews. These Jews regarded the biblical Scriptures as authoritative, laying them up in the temple, while books like Enoch were not accepted as authoritative Scriptures.
There’s a book that hardly anyone knows about except flat earthers - it’s called the book of Enoch - that was a foundational book for Christian thought and in it Enoch prophecizes and laments how the Jerusalem temple kicked out the female deity spirit of Wisdom and so she went back up to heaven with the rest of God’s angels. She found no house in which to dwell - it reads as if they are saying the priests in Jersusalem are mistaken.
quote:No, I'm not committing the no true Scotsman fallacy. The NTS fallacy is arbitrary in that anyone can claim anything they want as a standard for what a Scotsman (or Christian) is. I'm using the Scriptures,themselves, as the authoritative standard to judge what a Christian is. It's also how Councils made their judgements regarding heresies like Gnosticism. They rejected teachings that were not passed down from the Apostles and preserved in Scripture, and condemned people who held to those false teachings.
Are you not committing the no true Scotsman fallacy? I’ve met people like you who claim that others who don’t share their exact beliefs about Jesus aren’t real Christians. About Jesus’ body- many Christians believed Jesus’ body was not flesh but was made of spirit (pneuma) but they believed spirit was physical.
As far as my own beliefs go, there is a very broad range of beliefs that can be held by people and still be considered part of the one Church of Jesus Christ, however the outer limits tend to be controlled by the early creeds, like the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. You can have very different beliefs on baptism, for instance, and still be considered a Christian. You cannot, however, deny the deity or humanity of Jesus Christ and be a Christian.
Docetists, for example, were Gnostics who believed that Jesus didn't have a physical body at all, but it only seemed like He did.
quote:Dominant? I don't think so. Marcianism was never "dominant" in any sense. Marcian did develop a strong following, enough so that the Church had to take up the issue of the Trinity and defend it publicly against him, however Marcianism was never the majority view in any sense. Arianism had political dominance for a time due to Roman Emperial preference, but it also theologically dominant in the Church. Athanasius had to defend against that heresy, including against the Pope that flip-flopped on it.
Early on from about 150AD to 600AD or so, those brands of Christianity - whoops - Heretical False Christianity for you, were the dominant forms of the religions which claimed to follow the teachings of Jesus. They were dominant over the original Roman church, and later were dominant over the Trinitarian Roman church until the time of the Muslim conquests.
Regardless, you act as if those heresies were "true" from a historical perspective and the minority "false" view won out. That makes you sound like a conspiracy theorist.
quote:While not everything in the Scriptures are equally clear, all that is necessary to be believed for salvation is clear. The Trinity is certainly one of those teachings, as trinitarian language permeates the Scriptures. It most certainly is not against the clear teachings of Scripture.
Trinitarian Christianity is obviously against the clear teachings of scripture and you don’t have a problem with it. If any of it were truly clear, we wouldn’t have thousands of Christian sects today or tens/hundreds in the first millennium.
quote:God, ultimately, through His word. The Church, though, has been given the keys to bind and loose (according to God's word), so the Church can determine heresies according to the Bible.
Who gets to decide who is a heretic?
quote:There is nothing in the "flat earth" view that necessitates grammatically that such a view is what the Scriptures teach, while there is sufficient evidence of a young earth grammatically and contextually based on specific literal teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, in addition to Moses saying that even the Sabbath day is based on the creation week. There isn't anything like that for a flat earth.
I don’t know man. It seems if one is to not be a chicken shite hypocrite, if you accept and embrace flat earth, one would have to embrace the young earth too. Either they’re both allegorical or they’re both literal. The flat earth is better supported than young earth in the Bible in my opinion. The flat earth is all over the old and New Testaments. Both are heavily attested.
Posted on 7/1/25 at 5:24 pm to VolSquatch
quote:I agree. Modern evangelicalism has going off the rails because of the seeker-sensitive movement in combination with a de-emphasis of the Scriptures as authoritative in our modern culture. Many churches want to emphasize God's grace over teaching against sin and the need for repentance because they want to tickle ears and get backsides in pews.
We are kind of seeing reformation now in some, and its coming in the form of LGBTQ+-!@# pandering, Gay pastors, supporting illegal immigration, etc.
They are making the same mistake big brands make when they pander to these groups... assuming these people in general won't just always hate you and want to change you, no matter what you do.
The Bible teaches that the gospel is naturally offensive to those who are unregenerate; the "natural man" does not and cannot understand why it's good to realize that we are sinners who are undeserving of God's good graces but that He gives them to us anyway in Christ. Being told we are sinners that should repent of sin and trust in Christ is offensive, so many churches are shying away from that message and going after "natural" messages that appeal to most people, such as love and forgiveness without repentance, and acceptance of everyone no matter what they are doing or how they are living.
Ultimately, this is denying the power of the Holy Spirit to change hearts and minds by the preaching of the gospel, and relies on man for everything.
quote:I disagree but I won't argue it. I will, however, say that there are too many Protestants that either don't join themselves to a visible body of Christ in a local congregation, or they seek out churches that purposefully don't teach them anything but focus on "worshiptainment".
I think there are a lot of great protestant churches out there for sure. And I don't believe it is a function or feature of protestantism, I think thats more just a feature of people in general. In Catholicism I think you are confronted with the belief system more often than you are in protestantism, so you are more likely to be familiar with it.
I also think the % of "true believers" in terms of the belief system of Catholicism tends to be higher in general. What I mean by that is that a higher % of Catholics would only attend a Catholic church, vs protestants who are generally a little less concerned about the denomination in my experience. The happenings within the UMC, some of the actions by the Episcopals, etc have started to shift that, but its just something that occurs more often here than in Catholicism and not some hard rule or anything.
I wouldn't be surprised if the number of true, saved Christians in Protestantism overall is 25% or less, given so many don't actually want to be taught the truth from Scripture any longer.
I think it's less than 1% in Catholicism, but I'm sure we'll disagree there, too
Posted on 7/1/25 at 5:25 pm to tigerskin
quote:We'll have to agree to disagree on this, then. It's a gospel issue, which is why I think it's important.
Still seems like a waste of time arguing about for a type of person truly interested in being saved.
"Oh guess what I don't need to do any good works."
Whatever though. Carry on
And if anyone says that they don't need to do any good works at all, I'd question whether or not they are truly saved.
Posted on 7/1/25 at 5:33 pm to FooManChoo
quote:
I agree. Modern evangelicalism has going off the rails because of the seeker-sensitive movement in combination with a de-emphasis of the Scriptures as authoritative in our modern culture. Many churches want to emphasize God's grace over teaching against sin and the need for repentance because they want to tickle ears and get backsides in pews.
The Bible teaches that the gospel is naturally offensive to those who are unregenerate; the "natural man" does not and cannot understand why it's good to realize that we are sinners who are undeserving of God's good graces but that He gives them to us anyway in Christ. Being told we are sinners that should repent of sin and trust in Christ is offensive, so many churches are shying away from that message and going after "natural" messages that appeal to most people, such as love and forgiveness without repentance, and acceptance of everyone no matter what they are doing or how they are living.
Ultimately, this is denying the power of the Holy Spirit to change hearts and minds by the preaching of the gospel, and relies on man for everything.
The major thing they shy away from is the absolute authority of God.
"I know nice old lesbians who feed the poor, God would never throw them in hell"
"Those teens are just trying to be their true selves, it's not their problem that they were born in the wrong body"
"Her Body Her Choice"
It's wall to wall in the messaging that people can put their values and feelings over any "Word of God"
That's the main message of progressive Christianity.
Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
Posted on 7/1/25 at 6:11 pm to Narax
quote:Amen, and amen.
The major thing they shy away from is the absolute authority of God.
"I know nice old lesbians who feed the poor, God would never throw them in hell"
"Those teens are just trying to be their true selves, it's not their problem that they were born in the wrong body"
"Her Body Her Choice"
It's wall to wall in the messaging that people can put their values and feelings over any "Word of God"
That's the main message of progressive Christianity.
Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
Posted on 7/1/25 at 8:51 pm to FooManChoo
quote:
They probably did, otherwise they wouldn't have worshipped them. The Bible is replete with examples of this, and why it happened.
Maybe those other gods aren’t “false”. Maybe they are real. The Israelites who had every reason to believe the Lord was real - because they had seen him, ate with him, wrestled with him, etc. - had some reasons for believing the other gods were also real. The Lord repeatedly told the Israelites he was jealous… of what exactly? Was the Lord jealous of fake or false gods that did not exist? That wouldn’t make any sense.
quote:
What you seem to be advocating for, is that since there are many examples of idol worship, that Christianity was born from that very thing
Nice try! But no. The Christians were born of a sect of Judaism that didn’t reject the Queen of Heaven (reforms of Josiah, allegedly). Hence, we Christians (at least the real Christians and true church) continue to worship the Queen of Heaven to this day (Jesus’ mother).
quote:
Judaism had somewhat of a reformation after the return from exile
Sure, and in 1776 in Pennsylvania and Virginia there was somewhat of a reformation there of the government.
Don’t sugarcoat it. It was an entirely new religion the elite Persian-Jewish aristocrats brought to Jerusalem. Only “real” Jews were from Babylon (like Abraham). All the filthy commoners - with their worship of the Lord, the Queen mother, and god most high, and their solar calendar were exiled from Jerusalem into the countryside. The “reformed” religion began to use a lunar calendar, and the aristocracy called the ones they kicked out “Canaanites”. Those “Canaanites” were the sects that eventually formed Christian thought and they couldn’t wait for the whore on the hill - the corrupt temple - to be destroyed and remade to be a restored temple of Solomon.
quote:
Jesus was born into, where He was frequently interacting with the religious leaders of Judaism, who frequently misunderstood the teachings of God or were entirely hypocritical about them.
Yeah because Jesus and the Pharisees were using different “Jewish” scriptures. You know we have Baptists and orthodox and Catholic and Lutherans today? They had the same type of thing but all claimed to be Jews. Not all “Jews” were the type you call Jews.
quote:
Jesus and the Apostles quoted from the Jewish Scriptures regularly.
Oddly enough they quoted from the Greek translation of Hebrew Scriptures that were more original than the scriptures used by the Pharisees. Plus they quoted and used concepts from the book of Enoch (more than the other scriptures).
quote:
Jesus didn't seek to overthrow Judaism but to reveal Himself to be the fulfillment of it
Tell that to the folks who think they don’t have to live by the Torah including every iota and dot.
quote:
The Temple was destroyed both as a punishment to the Jews for their rejection of Christ and also as an unnecessary relic of prior revelation fulfilled in Christ, Himself
No, the temple was destroyed because they rebelled against their government.
quote:
The high priest wasn't an imposter, but unnecessary after Jesus died on the cross.
Not only was he an imposter but corrupt and illegitimate and of an inferior lineage (Aaronite/Zadokite). The true high priest was Melchizedek of the first temple, before it was destroyed. The priesthood of Melchizedek was the superior and truly legit priesthood. And of course Jesus, the messiah, was Melchizedek.
quote:
think you're off base in saying the book of Enoch was "a foundational book for Christian thought". It was referenced in the Scriptures, but so were pagan philosophers
Jude quotes from the book of Enoch as a prophesy. Do you know what a prophesy is? Do you believe Jude is canon and authoritative? Not one NT author referred to pagan Greek writings as prophetic.
quote:
Paul, Peter, and the other disciples of Jesus were Jews, and the first Christian church was made up of Jews. These Jews regarded the biblical Scriptures as authoritative, laying them up in the temple, while books like Enoch were not accepted as authoritative Scriptures.
Man you should learn some history before you write stuff like this. Who preserved Enoch? The same ones who preserved Josephus…. The Christians. The book of Enoch is referenced all throughout Paul’s epistles while he rejects the Torah outright.
quote:
Dominant? I don't think so. Marcianism was never "dominant" in any sense. Marcian did develop a strong following, enough so that the Church had to take up the issue of the Trinity and defend it publicly against him, however Marcianism was never the majority view in any sense.
Marcion only compiled Paul’s letters and published the very first Christian Bible and after being initially accepted in Rome, he was rejected and went on to form churches more numerous than the Roman church for over a century. But sure, his brand wasn’t dominant. Are you a joke or a troll? Why do you say stuff you have no idea about?
quote:
The Trinity is certainly one of those teachings, as trinitarian language permeates the Scriptures.
I don’t know if you’re lazy or brainwashed or a troll, but I’m out.
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