Further Updates On Nat’s Arrest (Updated)
I’m a little late on the news on this, and watching this closely and prayerfully. This is a good link to start.
This phrase hit me hard and it applies beyond this immediate reference! … “Please quit the bitching and the griping and do something for a change.”
Expecting miracles:The prosperity gospel in Africa
It’s here in Malaysia too …
It is no longer impossible but is it inevitable?”
When Is a Not-Church a Church? When It’s an “Ecclesial Community”
It’s been quite a while since I heard the term “churchy” used in a positive way.
There’s something powerful in a name … naming is about our identities and who we are …
The Way Forward for Evangelical Theology
“Could the Evangelical Theological Society ever adopt the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds as its doctrinal foundation? I don’t think it could happen right away. But I would hope that we could work toward that goal over the long term.”
I’ve been thinking about the role of the creeds lately.
I was pointed to this interview a while ago… looks like I’m catching up on lots of news lately.
” The demand from the West that his Church liberalise he sees as a gross reimposition of an old imperalism. “For God’s sake let us be. When America invades Afghanistan it is in the name of world peace. When Nigeria moves to Biafra it is an invasion. When England takes the Gospel to another country, it is mission. When Nigeria takes it to America it is an intrusion. All this imperialistic mentality, it is not fair.”ť”
Ouch! 🙂
Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th-century Danish writer and religious philosopher, wrote that the “Christianity of the New Testament simply does not exist.” He questioned how popular Christianity had strayed so far from the way of life described and practiced in the Bible.
Transformed by paganism
While the practices of the apostles were being banned, traditions from other religions were being incorporated and relabeled as Christian. “Subtly, so subtly that the bishops themselves had not seen them, the old gods had entered their churches like the air of the Mediterranean. And they live still in Christian ritual, in the iconography and the festivals of Christianity
Many people take for granted that the belief in a crucified and risen savior is faith in a historical person, usually of divine origin, usually of virgin birth or immaculate conception. Stories of crucified and risen saviors (there were many) dying for the sins of humanity have origins in myth.
In the days of the early Church, when the New Testament gospels were written (40-70+ years after the alleged time of Jesus), there were more than fifty other gospel stories written about Jesus– stories that often contradict the existing New Testament stories; gospels denying a physical, fleshly Jesus; gospels denying a resurrected Jesus; stories of a Jesus who was human and not divine, positing a Jesus who taught that salvation came from within, not from belief in him nor a God; such gospels were uncovered in Nag Hammadi Egypt in 1945 with their translation completed by 1980; the Nag Hammadi library consists of thirteen ancient codices that contain more than 50 texts, including other gospel stories about Jesus such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and more
Almost every event and character from the christian gospel story is a retelling of ancient hero-savior myths that have existed throughout all of time (including the virgin birth of a divine god-Hero, the Hero’s quests, the working of miracles, wise sayings, crucifixion/death, descent to hell, and resurrection/rebirth).
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I’m ok with creeds as descriptions of faith but has plenty of reservations for creeds as prescription to faith.
Steve F. how about Creeds as confessions of faith? That was what they were intended to be …