The Clergy Project

That list has been posted here before. It is a list of liberal clergy, not conservatives. Lutheran ELCA is the liberal wing of the Lutheran denomination, Lutheran Missouri Synod being the conservative; United Methodist is liberal, so are the Episcopal/Anglican churches and these are represented in great numbers on that list. I did a quick check of some preachers I admire to assure myself they would not sign such a thing, and as I knew would be the case, they didn't.There is nothing surprising about liberal churches backing evolutionism. What would be surprising would be Southern Baptists, Lutheran Missouri Synod, Reformed Baptists, Covenant Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians among others signing.Conservative Christian doctrine:What Conservative Protestants Believe - Beliefnet This message has been edited by Faith, 11-25-2005 10:12 PM

I know you reserve the right to pass judgment on absolutely everything and deny conservative Christians that right, but I must demur. Your list is something like 75% KNOWN liberal churches and many of the rest I just don't happen to know about, but the totally liberal to leftist National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches being on the list kinda sums it up. There is also a lot of overlap. Presbyterian USA is listed twice and there is no difference between Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists. And I'm not aware of any Methodist group that is not liberal. And the RCC is definitely not Bible literalist, besides having gone very liberal overall in recent years.I'm sorry to see a Reformed church on that list but I'm aware that there is a split in the Reformed arena on evolution. Also the Mennonites and the Moravians. But I can hope they eventually come to their senses.I named a number of other bodies that are definitely NOT liberal, solidly conservative Bible literalist churches, that are not on that list.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 03:42 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 03:44 AM

YOur spelling this out changes nothing. What I said about it stands.Roman Catholic Church --- very liberal these days, definitely not Bible literalist
Reformed Church in America --- temporarily confused I hope
United Methodist Church -- known liberal
Congregational Church -- used to be solid conservative, but I'm not up on them now.
The Old Roman Catholic Church in North America -- Catholics are not Bible literalist
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America -- known liberal
Orthodox Catholic Church -- Catholics are not Bible literalists
National Council of Churches in the U.S.A. -- liberal to leftist organization.
United Church of Christ -- I'm not up on them
Unitarian Universalist Congregation -- totally known liberal
Baptist Church --- American Baptists and anything other than Southern Baptists are likely to be liberal
Disciples of Christ -- Not up on them
Presbyterian Church PC(USA) - known liberal
Presbyterian Church (U. S. A.) - repeat of the above
American Baptist Churches USA --- American Baptist is liberal
Society of Friends --- not up on the Quakers
Lutheran Churchv -- If it's ELCA it's liberal as I said, and I'm sure it's not Missouri Synod
Community of Christ -- not up on this one
Russian Orthodox Church in America --- very Catholic in style
Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch- Malabar Rite -- very liberal wing of Catholic church
Church of Christ Uniting -- not up on this one
The Unitarian Church --- totally known liberal
Universalist Unitarian Church --- same as above
Lancaster Moravian Church -- sorry to see Moravians on the list
Mennonite Church -- sorry to see Mennonites on the list
Southern Methodist University --- Methodism is liberal these days
African Methodist Episcopal -- AME is even more liberal than most Methodists
Western Presbyterian Church -- not up on this denomination
Religious Society of Friends --- This is just a repeat of the Quaker entry
Southern Baptist -- apparently one congregation out of thousands?
Church of Religious Science --- not even Christian
Episcopal Presbyterian Church -- totally liberal
World Council of Churches -- liberal to leftist
Baptist Church of Christ -- not up on this one
Moravian Church in America, Northern Province --- Sorry again about the Moravians
Old Episcopal Church of Scotland -- Episcopal churches are liberal
The Progressive National Baptist Convention -- totally liberal. The word "progressive" says it all.If you aren't aware that there was a massive divide in the churches in the early 20th century between liberals and conservatives you don't know much about church history jar. You know nothing about the whole conservative wing apparently, the conservative seminaries etc.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 03:29 AM

My objection is that the list is regarded as representative of Christianity or of Protestants in particular when it is so predominantly a list of the liberal groups. I would rather keep the focus on Protestantism, but the list doesn't. I have been looking for a list of Conservative Christian and Conservative Protestant denominations online or a list of clergy or denominations that specifically affirm Biblical creationism against evolutionism, to demonstrate the unrepresentativeness of the pro-evo list, and haven't found anything specific enough for the purpose. I did list a few myself. The only thing that would be a fair comparison would be a petition signed by clergy AGAINST evolutionism and apparently this hasn't been done.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 11:21 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 11:22 AM

"Fundamentalism" is the colloquial term that was applied to the group of conservative clergy and churches that resisted the liberal influences that had been growing in the churches through the last half of the nineteenth century. "The Fundamentals" was their statement of the conservative position against this encroaching liberal distortion of the Christian message. They were scholars, and a new conservative seminary, Westminster Seminary, came out of the dispute.Here's a link to The Fundamentals:It's Saturday!Here's a link to J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism which defined the conservative position against the liberals, and you can see by his title that he treated the conservative position as synonymous with Christianity itself, from which liberalism was a deviation.http://www.biblebelievers.com/machen/And since that will no doubt provoke all kinds of attacks on his character, here are a couple of biographical sketches of Machen: 404 Error - Page Not Found | Desiring God http://www.apologeticsinfo.org/papers/machen.htmlThis message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 11:55 AM

The "extreme conservative" is simply a Christian. The liberals have to reject parts of the Bible to embrace evolution. They are the deviants.AbE:
It would be nice to know the numbers or get a little closer to an approximation, and a petition to the conservatives would do that, but it doesn't matter how many really. As Jesus said "FEW there are that find it." In the end the majority will be the false Christians and the true Christians the decided minority.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 12:11 PM

Sorry to change it on you. I decided I didn't want to open that can of worms here but I guess it's opened. It's understood in conservative churches that a Christian is one who submits to God's word as the rule of his life. The Bible is God's word and God's word cannot be disputed. My own pastor reiterated this recently, when he said there is no other kind of Christian than a "Bible-believing" Christian, although we use that qualifier a lot in venues like EvC for the sake of discussion because so many claim the title.

Yes that is surprising but I also pointed out that there is a divide in the Reformed churches on the issue and the Covenant Presbyterians apparently are going liberal on this point. 4 Lutheran Missouri Synod are an extremely small number compared to the Lutheran ELCA on the list (did you count those?), and 6 Southern Baptists out of how many in that denomination? The list is overall and remains overall simply a list of liberals and the conservative clergy and congregations are not represented.

This is a complete non sequitur, Mike. And one that starts out with an ad hominem argument of the worst kind too. "Reasonable person" sure does address the facts of the argument there, huh? And "heavily biased?" Does that make sense? Somehow a literal reading is peculiarly biased? As compared to what? The evo reading isn't "heavily biased?" A literal reading is a reading that simply reads it straight as written. No fancy interpreting involved. So if somebody strongly asserts that you should respect the text as written, that's "heavy bias?" And no one can "claim to understand scripture this thoroughly?" As thoroughly as what? As thoroughly as the simplicity with which it is written? Simply reading it as it's written, taking what it says straight, is about some kind of difficult "understanding?" Good grief, that paragraph of yours is a nightmare of illogic. Yes he would Mike. Science is not omnipotent. Evidence is just evidence, it's not absolute truth. Scientists may be brilliant and clever of course, but God is the one who knows the truth and all they have is their finite and flawed intelligence.And I see Moose has nominated this Mike the Wiz post for a POTM, and I must second it as it is the most amazingly magnificent piece of illogic I think I may have seen at EvC. It can't be admired enough.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 02:11 PM

Not much, unless it might be that websites come in a variety of formats. That is, you seem to have the erroneous impression that the site I linked represents my views. Far from it, beliefnet is like the Religious Tolerance website, totally uncommitted to any particular belief system. Both are usually pretty good at giving objective information however.

Sure. Conservative clergy adhere to the Bible as God's own revelation even when it brings them into conflict with the ideas and fashions of the world, including worldly morality and science, while liberal clergy are willing to compromise the Bible with such worldly ideas and fashions, rejecting some parts of it if necessary, reinterpreting parts to fit the world if they can.

Didn't say one word related to evolution or origin at all. I'm talking about the definition of a Christian. Not by a genuine Christian. Yes, and if you read that statement in its Biblical context, it is clear that what that means is He is inviting His errant people to reason about their sins, to understand that although their sins are very bad He is a merciful God who will forgive them if they turn from those sins and obey Him. You are apparently reading your own idea of what "reason together" means into the Bible. "Catalyst" for what? And who said anything about emotion anyway? You are welcome to your opinion, but it has nothing to do with the definition of a Christian.

A Christian believes at least the basics as described in various creeds and confessions, and is a Bible-believer, the Bible being understood to have been supernaturally transmitted to the prophets by God Himself. All of it. I know this is disputed here, from many angles, so I don't usually get into it.AbE: People claim all kinds of things rightly and wrongly. Means nothing in itself.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 10:56 PM

Definitely.

Thanks Phat but I'm just making quick runs into EvC as it is, trying to get some work done in between, and chat would just be too much at this point.Not to mention that I'm not up to taking any heat at the moment. But thanks, some other time.