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Author | Topic: Charismatic Chaos | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
To the average American, Protestant Charismatic Christianity is that which is broadcast daily by the Televangelists such as Joel Osteen and Benny Hinn. The radio preachers are better, but by and large, the message that we see resembles more of a huge infomercial, a warped prosperity gospel, and a form of self congratulatory exclusivity.
Were Jesus to return tomorrow, would He find contemporary public Christianity to be applauded or would He see it as reprehensible?
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
The type of charismatic nonsense of which I am referring:
Crazy crazier (I had a third link, but Kenneth Copeland Ministries had all references to it taken off of You Tube due to "a copyright infringement". ) Edited by Phat, : fixed my links Edited by Phat, : more foolin Edited by Phat, : No reason given. Edited by Phat, : new info
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Nemesis writes: You know....I'm not entirely sure! I'll bet these people don't even believe in God or the authority of the Bible. Because surely they would be extremely aware that they are crooks and swindlers, the same kind that Jesus warned about in the Bible. Would they be that bold to risk certain perdition, or are they merely trolls who act this way just so they can swindle your money? I used to think that they were on the level and perhaps taught to be overly emotional and zealous but that surely they believed. The fact that they are so good at passing the plate, however, leads me now to believe that they have fallen in with the dark side and, while perhaps initially sincere when they first started out, they now know full well what they are doing. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Brian writes: I'm not so sure that I would label anyone who claims to be "born again" in this same camp. You must remember that the televangelists, while the most visible of American Pentecostals and charismatics, are not examples of how the majority think and act. (the audience notwithstanding) Aren't these rockets just your typical 'born again' type? Many American Christians share in the emotional experience and pageantry. Few have actually been transformed, however. Even then, a fellow has to surrender daily.
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Nemesis writes: Is it not sad that so many turn away from the faith? That's what I think, too. They can't know the Bible that well and be so oblivious to not know when they are clearly in the wrong. I'll bet you they don't believe any of it, which allows them to alleviate their conscience. Even though I have seen many logical arguments against a personal relationship with God and even though I walk entirely by faith any more (I never see any supernatural stuff anymore! ) I think deep down that God is going to surprise a lot of people. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
AIG writes: Its a gift I have, this unintentional humor thing. "deep down" is a pun, right? Comedian Lewis Black also has an opinion on televangelists. One question, though. When Benny Hinn "annoints" the crowd, as seen here are they: 1) Brainwashed?2) set ups?(they are paid to pretend to fall?) 3) Power of suggestion? (One guy falls so everyone thinks they must fall?) Edited by Phat, : added Edited by Phat, : No reason given.
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Iano writes:
OK.
Any reason for not including a satanic option? 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 writes: And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.(Wycliffe Commentary)These Satanic ministers partake of their father's perversity (cf. John 8:44), parade in his theological paraphernalia, and perish in his predestinated perdition. How do such men, still with us today, disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness? (1) By rejecting God's righteousness while insisting on the merit of man's righteousness. (2) By denying the fatal effects of sin on man's original righteousness while insisting that man's nature is still basically righteous. (3) By nullifying the imputed righteousness of Christ (cf. 2 Cor 5:21) while insisting that his death still has some moral effect on mankind. (4) By questioning the absolute righteousness of Christ while insisting that his life, though imperfect, is still worthy of our imitation. Does that summarize a literalist view? I will agree that if we are in an actual spiritual war of sorts as a species on this planet, and if Satan is alive and is actively seeking to fight through us when we allow it, he would use ministers in the church to achieve his aims. I'm just not sure that I believe all of that any more. You would do well to pray for me, Ian. Edited by Phat, : fixed quote "All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."--C.S.Lewis * * * * * * * * * * “The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”--General Omar Bradley * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." -GK Chesterson
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
How many of the televangelists and radio personalities that claim to be ministers of the Gospel would you say are on the level?
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
I CANT writes: How then can they get the money? Now if a Church wants to have a TV ministry and pay for such a ministry that is great. If other churches want to help them that is great. If they ask for money they forfeited their job. The money issue alone doesn't condemn the preachers in my mind. If people want to give them money, that is on the people. Its no different than making some athlete or entertainer wealthy.
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
I CANT writes: Where do they get the authority to preach, teach and baptize from.The Church is the only one that has that authority. Matt. 28:16-20 So then do you believe in Apostolic Succession? I always wondered about that "who does one have to answer to" thing. If you and I and three other people started a church, would we not be accountable one to another? What makes a positional hierarchy any more powerful than fellow believers? After all, Bishops and cardinals can be just as corrupt or sinful as any other group of people....
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Nobody ever did it like Benny! (But he tarnishes the name of Christianity)
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Brian writes: I wouldn't group all of any group as being crooks and/or liars. John Shelby Spong is one example of a liberal Theologian with controversial, yet thoughtful views. I'd group all clergy as being the same, they are all crooks and liars. Here is a question from one of Spongs audience and Spongs response:
John Shelby Spong writes:
To me, that is not the type of response that a crook or a liar would give.
Elmo Hoffman, via the Internet, writes: I have read much of your work and met you once at Stetson University in Deland, Florida, at a pastor's conference. It was the same venue where I also met Marcus Borg. I am a retired civil trial lawyer and a late-life seminary graduate, now an ordained Disciples of Christ minister, although before seminary I was a lifelong Presbyterian (USA) from the same time frame and section of North Carolina as you. My question, which gives me a great deal of trouble, is: What is your basic understanding of petitionary prayer? I believe you have said, "A God who would save the life of one prayed-for cancer-stricken child and not another would be a monster." This makes sense but gives me a great deal of trouble in considering petitionary prayer. (I have read your book Honest Prayer I find no answer to this problem there.)Spong replies: Dear Elmo, Thank you for your comments and for your question. Your question on petitionary prayer is almost always the first question that comes up wherever I go to lecture. People can talk about their understanding of God until the cows come home, but nothing really changes until they translate their understanding of God into their prayers. More than anything else, our prayers define our understanding of God. So to talk about prayer, we have to define who the God is to whom we pray. To say it differently, "Who do we think is listening?" Most people, quite unconsciously, approach the subject of prayer with a very traditional concept of God quite operative in their minds. This God is a personal being, endowed with supernatural power, who lives somewhere outside this world, usually conceptualized as "above the sky." While that definition has had a long history among human beings, it is a definition of God that has been rendered meaningless by the advance of human knowledge. This means that for most of us the activity of prayer does not take seriously the fact that we live in a vast universe, and that we have not yet come to grips with the fact that there is no supernatural, parental deity above the sky, keeping the divine record books on human behavior up to date and ready at any moment to intervene in human history to answer prayers. When we do embrace this fact then prayer, as normally understood, becomes an increasingly impossible idea and inevitably a declining practice. To get people to embrace this point clearly, I have suggested that the popular prayers of most people is little more than adult letters written to a Santa Claus God. There are then two choices. One says that the God in whom I always believed is no more, so I will become an atheist. People make this decision daily. It is an easy way out. The other says that the way I have always thought of God has become inoperative, so there must be something wrong with my definition. This stance serves to plunge us deeply into a new way of thinking about God, and that is when prayer itself begins to be redefined. Can God, for example, be conceived of not as supernatural person, but as a force present in me and flowing through me? Then perhaps prayer can be transformed into meditation and petitionary prayer becomes a call to action. The spiritual life is then transformed from the activity of a child seeking the approval of a supernatural being to being a simultaneous journey into self-discovery and into the mystery of God. It also feeds my sense of growing into oneness with the source of all life and love and with what my mentor, Paul Tillich, called the Ground of All Being. It would take a book to fill in the blank places in this quick analysis, but these are the things that today feed my ever deepening discovery of the meaning of prayer.— John Shelby Spong
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
The point I am trying to make, Brian, is that you somehow have this fanatical aversion to all religious people. Over at Dreamcatcher we have a topic on John Shelby Spong and here is a short YouTube clip about him:
Brian, why do you have such an almost fanatical disdain for Theologians? The man certainly had an education. He did not graduate from some mail order diploma mill. True, he does sell books, but when did that become a crime?
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
GrannyMagda writes: So this brings up an interesting question: What is a Christian?
The god described in both Old and New Testaments is, quite clearly, a big-supernatural-father-figure-in-the-sky. He is emphatically not some hippy-dippy energy field. Spong has thrown out the entire Bible and yet he still pretends to be Christian. As far as I can tell, he isn't. He (God) is emphatically not some hippy-dippy energy field. NIV writes: John 15:26-27-- "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.(...) John 16:5-11 "Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. Next question: What is the difference between the Holy Spirit, otherwise known as the Counselor, and your alleged hippy-dippy energy field? Edited by Phat, : fixed quote
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Brian writes: Perhaps on a logical level Christianity makes no rational sense. In my mind, agnosticism is the most logical position to hold, since none of us knows anything for certain. Furthermore, Christian Beliefs can and are an emotional crutch for those who are grieving and who are depressed. I believe, however, that this is where irrational spiritual beliefs have some value to society. They give people hope. People need hope when logic shows us hopelessness. This does not mean that society should not try and improve itself. Why cant he just admit that Christianity is wrong? And yes, all religious people have something missing.Are you trying to tell me that he is a Christian? I am not an advocate of hiding in a cave waiting for Jesus The Magic Sky King to come back and rescue all of us pitiful sinning humans who were unable to save our own planet. I believe that humanity should try and do our very best at making our world a better place and I agree that much of organized fundamentalist religion can hold people back from becoming educated and rational enough to make a difference. As for Spong being a Christian, I believe that if he was in fact an Episcopal Bishop for many years, that in and of itself would validate his status as a Christian. Having checked his resume, I find that he was in fact an Episcopal Bishop. Finally, in order to make a claim that Christianity is wrong, we would have to conclude that everyone abandon all forms of belief and stick with logic, reason, and reality. (Got that from jar ) In the context of this old topic of mine that I have reopened, we can see why Charismatic Christianity and unthinking hyper-emotionalism is wrong, but we should not dissuade the freedom of people who choose to have hope beyond our natural lives. Should we?
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