oddXian: Challenge the Consensus

Skepticism is classically defined as: 1 : an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object 2 a : the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain b : the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism characteristic of skeptics 3 : doubt concerning basic religious principles (as immortality, providence, and revelation) So basically, Christian Skepticism adopts the first two definitions with the proposition that God's reason is greater than Man's and is the only source of truth, that Christ as revealed in Scripture is the revelation of God's character, will and truth, thus Christ is the foundation of all truth, so all truth claims must be examined and measured by this framework. Net Effect - We are skeptical and doubt any knowledge that does not originate from and glorify God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) or detracts from Holy Scripture. I would really like this to become a team ...

III. Statement of Goals 1. Our primary vision is to strive to worship God in Spirit and Truth, in loving unity as well as to be broadly appealing to the bride of Christ (both those that are currently in the body and those God is calling to Himself) . 2. We will take the resources we have and develop them to more and more skillfully worship God - acknowledging the insufficiency of our righteousness and God's work of perfecting our worship ( Hebrews 12:2). 3. We will run the race and move forward - not backwards - laying aside our personal preferences on traditional/non-traditional styles in order to focus on feeding the sheep, edifying the saints and going into all the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. 4. We will, with fear and trembling, train up the children of God (Proverbs 22:6) to worship according to biblical principles with the understanding that some will reject these principles. see this for the rationale and Scriptural support

from here Elders After the initial case of discipline, the church went through sixteen months of decline and struggle. After that, things really began to take off. The respect and admiration for myself from the body began to grow so much that I knew this was not healthy. I simply had almost no accountability. The deacons were only servants to the body and had no authority to oversee. The pastor was viewed as a benevolent dictator. I knew I needed help to lead and oversee the church. I was convinced that a plurality of elders was the most biblically healthy model of church leadership. I devised a plan. I would preach a series of messages on biblical elders and then ask the congregation to nominate men for the office. I would then examine the top nominees and exclude any one who was not biblically qualified. The remaining twelve would be presented to the congregation for a two-week examination period. If anyone had any concerns, they had two weeks to bring them to my attention. After tw...

Al Mohler's response to the Wired Magazine article on "The New Atheism" The Sacred Sandwich defends Christian satire. Not finding Advent and Christmas explicitly named in the Bible, many of our Evangelical forebears refused to celebrate it. Some of my heroes, the Calvinistic Baptists of the 18th century, are a good example in this regard. But while we must learn from the past—a deep-seated conviction I live my life by—we don’t live in those days. It is today we must seize for Christ. And it is Scriptural to set apart days—even seasons—to reflect on God’s goodness and mercy, and to seek his face. And the Advent—blessed are all those who long for Christ’s appearing—and Christmas seasons are a marvellous time for such reflection and such seeking. from here

New Testament Deacons serve the Lord by conducting the caring ministry of the church-doing the benevolence work, visiting the sick, being alert to the spiritual needs of the congregation-for the purposes of freeing the pastoral staff to focus on prayer and the ministry of the Word, promoting unity within the church, and facilitating the spread of the gospel. http://www.baptiststart.com/print/role_of_deacons.html

Great booklet on properly interpreting biblical texts: http://www.desiringgod.org/media/pdf/booklets/BTBX.pdf From the booklet: It is precisely at this point that I believe the Holy Spirit performs a crucial role in the exegetical process for the reliant believer. He does not whisper in our ears the meaning of a text. He cares about the text which he inspired and does not short circuit the study of it. The primary work of the Holy Spirit in exegesis is to abolish the pride and arrogance that keep us from being open to the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit makes us teachable because he makes us humble. He causes us to rely wholly on the mercy of God in Christ for our happiness so that we are not threatened if one of our views is found to be wrong. The person who knows himself finite and unworthy, and who thus rejoices in the mercy of God, has nothing to lose when his ego is threatened. ... It was a life-changing revelation to me when I discovered that Paul, for example, did not merely make a ...

This was the Original Post (OP) in a thread on the Internet Infidels Atheist discussion forum - I thought this was worth capturing. Rational reasons to believe in Christianity by BadBadBad I was hoping that in this thread we could capture any rational reasons for believing in the Christian religion. Angela2 prompted this thread. She criticized athiests for "espousing atheism" for emotional reasons. I corrected her that for me anyway it's not promoting atheism, but criticizing religion. I do that for emotional and rational reasons. Yet I have yet to hear a single rational reason for believing in Christianity. So, hopefully we'll be able to sort through the best ones here and sort out emotion from rationality. Let's have the rational reasons for believing the Christian story as presented in the Bible. I replied that experience was one reason. The poster replied that this rationale could be used to support belief in Santa. I replied that experience was one factor of ...

"There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures." 2 Peter 3:16 "Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.’ - Dr William B. Provine, Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University I have recently decided to pop back into the Internet Infidels discussion forum, but have decided to set a couple of ground rules for myself (subject to change): 1. Not to engage in more than 2 or 3 threads at one time 2. To discriminate between responding to genuine attempts to dialogue and attempts to begin a "flame war" - this includes...

" God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him. This is the motor that drives my ministry as a pastor. It affects everything I do." I have had great difficulty finding modern men to which I would align myself with - doctrinally and spiritually. I have found this man to be a true sojourner in the Way. His website: Site link Audio Sermons

But somebody did a cool video of what it might have been like...shout out to Unlocking the Truth!!!

" ...Phelps-Roper is a case study in this error....Obviously, this is a very extreme case of doctrinal abuse, but I wonder if the rest of us Calvinists ever sound this way, at least to some ears. After all, these are our doctrines she is perverting. Do we teach that everyone deserves to suffer God's wrath? Yes, we do -- and must. But do we teach that in a context that presents God truly? Not if we extract it from other of God's attributes, such as mercy, love, long-suffering, and goodness. Despite the shards of "truth" in Phelps-Roper's words, the God she presented looked essentially like the twisted killer who murdered those precious girls -- indeed, worse. And do we teach that man is a totally depraved sinners, a "child of wrath" who deserves to suffer eternal torment? Yes, but that truth is not true without the context of man's dignity and glory as created in the image of God and without the incarnation of God the Son. The Christian message i...

John 4:10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." Romans 6:23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Matthew 25:46 46"These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Romans 5:21 21so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 8:38 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, Romans 8:39 39nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Acts 2:38And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, a...

Just want to make sure I get my 2 cents in here. No honorable man would twist and turn a debate into such a tangle guaranteed to cause the opposing team to justifiably pull out of a debate. See: http://aomin.org/index.php?itemid=1566 and http://aomin.org/index.php?itemid=1568 and finally http://aomin.org/index.php?itemid=1569 for more details of the cowardice. -JD

Recently, I was reading some posts and comments over on the Founder's Directors blog and the post on "Calvinism as I see it" and the problems that it causes - some very interesting discussion there - some not so interesting - but someone posted some Scripture that support the doctrine that God is sovereign over all things (I know, an amazing concept!) and I wanted to capture them here: Genesis 50:20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. Exodus 9:16 "But, indeed, for this reason I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth. Exodus 14:4 "Thus I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will chase after them; and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD." And they did so. 1 Samuel 2:6-7 The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings dow...

"Success in evangelism is not dependent on my persuasion, my skill, my programming, my personality. Success in evangelism is in God's hands. He alone can open a Lydia's heart. He alone can transform a Saul of Tarsus. He alone can bring repentance to a captive (II Timothy 2:25). We plant and water. It is God alone who gives the increase (I Corinthians 1:30). It is solely of Him that we are in Christ Jesus (I Corinthians 1:30)-and nothing of ourselves. He makes His people willing in the day of His power (Psalm 110:3), and causes the man whom He has chosen to come to Him (Psalm 65:4). Whether men reject or receive the gospel, the faithful gospel-sower is a victor (II Corinthians 2:14-17). Our first and last duty is to be faithful in the sight of God as a diffuser of the fragrance of Christ to all around us. In this we triumph, not in the securing of results (decisions) ourselves. What a great encouragement! We know that God will save His people." Robert B. Selph (Taken...

http://sovereigngraceministries.org/music/projects/valleyofvision/ Someone might ask, "Why produce a CD inspired by the prayers of a bunch of dead guys?" That's an easy one. Puritans like John Bunyan, Thomas Watson, Richard Baxter, and Isaac Watts knew their hearts, their Bibles, and their God much better than we do. Many of them wrote down their prayers not to be published, but to assess their own spiritual growth and to encourage themselves in times of spiritual dryness. These prayers reveal a personal, humble, passionate relationship with an awesome God, a living Savior, and an active Spirit. Reading their meditations inspires us to pursue the same level of reality as we worship God. WOO!WOO!

Modern physics is troubled by the anthropocentric character of the universe. For instance, had gravity been only a teensy bit stronger or weaker, planets and stars could not have formed. So, does the fortuitous value of gravity for planets and stars show that a higher power is manipulating physical law? .... In recent decades it has become essential at the top of academia to posit utter meaninglessness to all aspects of physics. .... But string theory seems to contain significant helpings of blather designed to intimidate nonscientists from questioning the budgets of physics departments and tax-funded particle accelerator labs. .... Yet the very sorts of elite-institution academics who snigger at creationists for revealing their ignorance of scientific terminology by calling evolution "just a theory" nonetheless uniformly say "string theory." ... String theory is blather...Slate Magazine Very interesting article...helps build my skepticism of scientific ideals. -JD

IN ESSENTIALS UNITY, IN NON-ESSENTIALS LIBERTY, IN ALL THINGS CHARITY. On the Origin of the Sentence: "In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis (or, dubiis) libertas, in utrisque (or, omnibus) caritas." This famous motto of Christian Irenics, which I have slightly modified in the text, is often falsely attributed to St. Augustin (whose creed would not allow it, though his heart might have approved of it), but is of much later origin. It appears for the first time in Germany, A.D. 1627 and 1628, among peaceful divines of the Lutheran and German Reformed churches, and found a hearty welcome among moderate divines In England. The authorship has recently been traced to RUPERTUS MELDENIUS an otherwise unknown divine, and author of a remarkable tract in which the sentence first occurs. ... Necessary dogmas are, (1) articles of faith necessary to salvation; (2) articles derived from clear testimonies of the Bible; (3) articles decided by the whole church in a synod or symbol; (4) ...

I lifted this article in toto from the blog of Joel Barnes - Many thanks to him for this excellent summary! Calvinism Fact Sheet Below are explanations of TULIP (an acronym representing Calvinism’s main tenets) followed by supporting biblical texts. Remember that not all supporting texts will explicitly teach a given tenet. In such instances, the tenet of Calvinism in question will be, to borrow from an old confession, “by good and necessary consequence deduced from” the supporting texts. Total Depravity (or Total Inability) ( 1 ) When Calvinists speak of man as being totally depraved, they mean that man’s nature is corrupt, perverse, and sinful throughout. The adjective “total” does not mean that each sinner is as totally or completely corrupt in his actions and thoughts as it is possible for him to be. Instead, the word “total” is used to indicate that the whole of man’s being has been affected by sin. The corruption extends to every part of man, his body and soul; sin has affected...