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For a long time i tougth of the holy spirit as a pretty straigthforward metaphor for the good social vibes in a congregation worshipping together,no more, no less. But thats clearly heresy. So the next question is, should we think of the holy spirit as a entity with will, or more like a force of nature we can call upon trough prayer etc?
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Oct 6, 2016 18:15
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Baudolino posted:For a long time i tougth of the holy spirit as a pretty straigthforward metaphor for the good social vibes in a congregation worshipping together,no more, no less. But thats clearly heresy. So the next question is, should we think of the holy spirit as a entity with will, or more like a force of nature we can call upon trough prayer etc? Is deffo a "person" within the trinity, though how exactly that works is *mysterious*, and the Bible by itself doesn't go into a lot of detail. The Chinese translation along the line of "Holy Spirit Wind" made it sound very impersonal, which helped Taiping doctrine regarding the Holy Spirit get very weird/blasphemous.
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Oct 6, 2016 18:39
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Bel_Canto posted:The Gospels each have different emphases, and they don't need to be read in a particular order, although people usually advise reading the Matthew, Mark, and Luke first: they're called the Synoptic Gospels, because they take a pretty similar view of Christ: a man who did extraordinary things, claimed He was the Son of God, and then showed this to be true when He rose from the dead. Can you elaborate on what the differences between Matthew, Mark, and Luke are?
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Oct 6, 2016 18:58
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Bel_Canto wrote well. I'll add that the reason for there being four gospels in the Bible is probably trustworthiness. For the first decades there were likely several different eyewitnesses of Jesus who told their stories and people started writing them down eventually. When it was time to decide on the Bible canon, four of those writings/collections survived the scrutiny and were included. There's a metaphorical exercise where a group plays a match of, say, football and later the leader of a group asks four members of the group to tell what happened in the game. The point is that their stories will likely be mostly the same at least when it comes to major things like goals and fouls but different people will remember (or value) different things and some details might even be contradictory. All agree they're describing the same game though, so given the lack of a visual or auditory recording it's probably best to keep all four stories side by side and read them all.
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Oct 6, 2016 18:58
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I've heard from several different anecdotal sources that there's one gospel of Jews, one for gentiles, one for Greeks, etc -- it's about conveying the message of Christ in different cultural and historical contexts, and emphasizing things that would be important to that audience, not just to the writer.
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Oct 6, 2016 19:08
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I've heard from several different anecdotal sources that there's one gospel of Jews, one for gentiles, one for Greeks, etc -- it's about conveying the message of Christ in different cultural and historical contexts, and emphasizing things that would be important to that audience, not just to the writer. Those are the epistles, a collection of letters written to early church communities (traditonally ascribed to have been written) by the Apostle Paul. A few were written by others and included.
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Oct 6, 2016 19:17
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Having said that, it's pretty well accepted that the Gospels also had particular audiences in mind.
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Oct 6, 2016 19:26
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Re: Holy Spirit I was just reading a book on the doctrine of creation by Veli-Matti Karkkainen who describes the Spirit, in part, as the animating force in the universe. The Spirit is the person of the Trinity who infinitely collaborates with every finite event across time and space.
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Oct 6, 2016 19:32
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SirPhoebos posted:Can you elaborate on what the differences between Matthew, Mark, and Luke are? One difference is simply which stories and events you can find in each gospel, as well as how passages in Synoptic gospel A might be in a different order or "moved" several chapters compared to Synoptic gospel B. I don't know if this is a good or accurate website, but here is a page where you can get the basic idea about this, as well as an idea of why John is considered the odd duck compared to the other three: http://www.gospelparallels.com/ Another big difference is in terms of literary techniques and ideological/editorial decisions made on the part of the author(s). For example, Matthew is very big on making Jesus look like Moses. What Luke calls "the sermon on the plain", Matthew calls "the sermon on the mount", possibly to draw the parallel of Moses going up onto the mountain to talk to God and receive the Ten Commandments. Another example is how Luke focuses a lot more than the others on social issues, often framing things in an almost proto-socialist manner. The sermon on the mount/plain is again a good example of this difference: where Matthew says "blessed are those who are poor in spirit", and "blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness", Luke says "blessed are the poor" and "blessed are those who are hungry now". Italics are mine.
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Oct 6, 2016 19:46
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SirPhoebos posted:Can you elaborate on what the differences between Matthew, Mark, and Luke are? The differences between the Synoptic Gospels are usually put in terms of their Christological emphases: what does each one emphasize about who Jesus was? Mark emphasizes his status as Messiah and One Who will judge all things, and a recurring theme is that the major disciples don't understand who He is, but many minor characters do: the Messiah has come in secret and gradually reveals Himself to those who believe. Matthew is big on Jesus being the Son of David, King of the Jews, and a successor to Moses and giver of a new Law. This is about His fulfillment of the prophecies in the Old Testament. Luke positions Jesus Himself as a prophet, transgressing ecclesiastical authority and preaching the forgiveness of sins and the salvation of all people, but especially of the poor and marginalized; for this reason Luke is often called the "social Gospel." And for completeness, John is, as I said before, deeply mystical. It emphasizes Jesus as the Word Made Flesh, the origin of all things, the One sent from the Father, and the Passover Lamb Whose sacrifice effects the redemption of the entire world. John is also the primary Gospel from which the more fleshy doctrines of the Eucharist are derived (mostly Orthodox, Catholics, Lutherans, and some Anglicans).
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Oct 6, 2016 19:53
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Bel_Canto posted:*The definition and scope of "inerrant" is one of the most hotly-contested points in the entirety of Christian theology, particularly among American Protestants, whose views range from "the core message is holy but you have to throw out a lot" to "every word and comma of the King James Bible is completely true and without any error whatsoever, please come visit the Creation Science Museum." This is interesting, are there non-crackpot versions of the bible being the inerrant word of God? Another question regarding biblical law: Do protestants regard the old covenant as important, and does this include the ten commandments?
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Oct 6, 2016 20:13
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Tias posted:This is interesting, are there non-crackpot versions of the bible being the inerrant word of God?  In the context of the quote you were responding to, it would be kind of a trap to fixate on the word "inerrant". That word gets used a lot when talking about biblical authority and biblical interpretation, and its meaninng can vary depending on the context in which it is being used, as well as who is using it. One way to think about it that I have found helpful personally, is to consider the history of all the schools of biblical interpretation. For example, the biblical "literalism" that is popular among certain conservative American protestants, this traces back only two or three hundred years, and was at least partially a reactionary movement against the rise of things like scientific rationalism and the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation.
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Oct 6, 2016 21:17
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Here are my mental signposts for the gospels. Mark: Considered the earliest of the gospels and supposedly collected by Mark from Peter and then drawn upon as a source by Matthew and Luke. It tends to be very punchy and active with Jesus doing stuff then high tailing it to his next destination and it's all over before you know it. Matthew: Probably the one you heard referred to as the the one targeted at the Jews. Goes into the story of Joseph and the genealogies involved in Jesus's conception at the start. Luke/Acts: Luke was probably designed to be read before Acts as the author and style is consistent and there are a number of connections between the two and provides the story of the Church from Jesus up to Paul's Roman imprisonment. Luke mentions at the beginning that he was funded by a wealthy roman to research the stories around Jesus' life and death and so people believe he took the time to actually go around and gather eyewitness accounts to elaborate on Mark and arrange it all logically. John: The literary gospel. This one is perhaps the most mystical of the gospel accounts and is the source of phrases such as being born again and Jesus inviting people to eat his flesh and drink his blood (before the institution of the Lord's supper).
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Oct 7, 2016 08:23
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To add a small bit on what was said already: my favourite bit about Mark is how “human“ Jesus is presented in there. It's the only Gospel afaik that describes Christ as “hungry“ or “sad“ which doesn't sound like much, but is quite a lot when compared to the other three (this is probably because Mark's the oldest of the four by quite a bit and therefore could draw on the recollections of people who had known Jesus personally, or so I'd guess)
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Oct 7, 2016 09:03
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Late, but wanted to shout-out to my fellow possibly-atheist still-Catholics. I am in the middle of a long slow process of working out what the hell I believe at all, but I'm certain cultural Catholicism is a thing because that's what I am. Also the phrase 'prosperity gospel' makes me want to set things on fire.
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Oct 7, 2016 12:41
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HopperUK posted:Late, but wanted to shout-out to my fellow possibly-atheist still-Catholics. I am in the middle of a long slow process of working out what the hell I believe at all, but I'm certain cultural Catholicism is a thing because that's what I am. I can identify with that. I was raised Lutheran and by the time I graduated from high school I was sick to death of Luther's Catechism being shoved down my throat. I deliberately stayed away from church-related stuff through college to give me time to sort out what I actually believed from what I was simply parroting from Lutheran indoctrination. When I got back into it, I joined a Methodist church and have been happy there since. Wesley's concept of the "four-legged stool" of Methodism - Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason (STER) - along with his quote, "But as to all opinions which do not strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think" are what hooked me.
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Oct 7, 2016 13:55
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Apocron posted:Matthew: Probably the one you heard referred to as the the one targeted at the Jews. Goes into the story of Joseph and the genealogies involved in Jesus's conception at the start. Wait back up: I know that the New Testament claimed that Jesus was Because...how does that work alongside Immaculate Conception and Virgin Birth? Or is this a case of "It's God, I don't have to explain poo poo"
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Oct 7, 2016 17:30
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SirPhoebos posted:Wait back up: I know that the New Testament claimed that Jesus was The very first chapter of Matthew is a patrilineal genealogy from Abraham to Jesus, through Joseph. Mary is generally assumed to have Davidic ancestry as well, so the fact that Joseph was only Jesus' father by adoption doesn't affect His status as Son of David.
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Oct 7, 2016 17:54
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Keromaru5 posted:No, he means Joseph, Jesus' stepfather. Joseph of Arimathea doesn't come into the narrative until the crucifixion -- he donates the tomb for Jesus' burial. Yeah it's important to remember that for Semitic culture (Arabs still do this) it isn't traced necessarily by blood but by house. Edit: I just realized this sounds rude because you are Jewish therefore Semitic. What I meant was it was the culture at the time of the Gospels being written and surviving today in Arab culture. Thirteen Orphans fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Oct 7, 2016 |
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Oct 7, 2016 18:10
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Pellisworth posted:I'm so proud of The Phlegmatist, he seems well-prepared to further infiltrate Protestant-think into Catholicism. The stealth canonization process of Saint John Calvin of Geneva has begun... Mo Tzu posted:Ideological colonization, yeah Francis I'm sure two spirit native Americans find that hugely ironic. Same with Hijra Indians. That term was coined (as far as I know) by Cardinal Robert Sarah from Guinea. Because, yeah, actually it turns out that Africans are pretty pissed off about the not so subtle noblesse oblige coming from the western world. I mean, it's really not hard to see how "welp, we gotta go culture those Africans again since we decided LGBT rights are okay now even though we told you differently in the past" is kinda gross.
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Oct 7, 2016 20:03
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Well there's the American preachers pushing for kill the gays laws in Africa today so I find it a little suspect when someone chooses to be postcolonial only when it comes to LGBT rights Course I could probably write a book, or at least a chapter in a book, about the racism and neocolonialism inherent in LGBT activism so who am I to talk. I think promoting the idea of African sovereignty and "don't kill gay people" are necessarily mutually exclusive but there's certainly a lot of poison in that there well
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Oct 7, 2016 20:48
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DO YALL WANT A
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Oct 8, 2016 00:14
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Lutha Mahtin posted:DO YALL WANT A 6/10 didn't name names or hit the pulpit with his fist my uncle russell would shake his head at how tame this protestant rage serman was
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Oct 8, 2016 00:37
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Smoking Crow posted:didn't name names or hit the pulpit with his fist #JustMinnesotaThings
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Oct 8, 2016 01:02
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my students are reading genesis and exodus for class right now, and their next assignment is to write a sermon. i sent them some samples, and made sure to include some jonathan edwards for the sake of good american fire and brimstone. that was a really good sermon though, thanks for sharing it
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Oct 8, 2016 01:52
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That's a thing I miss from Protestantism, fire and brimstone angry preaching that and the phrase "on fire for the Lord"
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Oct 8, 2016 01:54
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Smoking Crow posted:That's a thing I miss from Protestantism, fire and brimstone angry preaching Oh hey, that reminds me. There's a song my preschooler likes on the Christian radio station where the singer says he knows God is active because he sees people "standing on the truth". What does that mean in liturgi-speak? 
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Oct 8, 2016 02:15
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If the preacher doesn't aspirate furiously when he says "God," making it sound like "God-DUH," I just get up and walk out.
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Oct 8, 2016 02:44
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Bel_Canto posted:my students are reading genesis and exodus for class right now, and their next assignment is to write a sermon. i sent them some samples, and made sure to include some jonathan edwards for the sake of good american fire and brimstone. I love that Jonathan Edwards was apparently a terrible public speaker. He would read his sermons word for word and in the monotone voice, yet his writing was so good that when people heard "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" they started crying out in fear and shrieking.
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Oct 8, 2016 07:19
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Even better, he would stare at a point somewhere in the back of the church while speaking because he was terrified of making eye contact with anyone
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Oct 8, 2016 07:22
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Smoking Crow posted:Even better, he would stare at a point somewhere in the back of the church while speaking because he was terrified of making eye contact with anyone Jonathan "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Goon" Edwards Edit: Christianity Thread II: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Goon Thirteen Orphans fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Oct 8, 2016 |
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Oct 8, 2016 07:25
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Smoking Crow posted:That's a thing I miss from Protestantism, fire and brimstone angry preaching
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Oct 8, 2016 10:45
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zonohedron posted:Oh hey, that reminds me. There's a song my preschooler likes on the Christian radio station where the singer says he knows God is active because he sees people "standing on the truth". What does that mean in liturgi-speak? http://www.kathyhoward.org/6-steps-for-standing-firm-on-gods-truth-when-everything-around-you-is-shaking/
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Oct 8, 2016 10:46
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HEY GAL posted:one catholic priest explicated some aristotle for us once, that was fun My man.
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Oct 8, 2016 10:46
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I've been listening to a lot of sermons from Messianic Jewish congregations, I absolutely love it I think the best way to be a Christian is to practice living and worshiping like a Jew after all, christians are considered to be 'grafted in' to the olive tree i've begun trying to learn Hebrew and i hope to live my life according to God's law as a means of spiritual growth and worship and glorifying Him
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Oct 8, 2016 12:08
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I watched one of those Jew for Jesus televangelists on TV while getting my first filling. 25 years without a cavity and here comes a bearded guy from Michigan in a yarmulke talking about the merits of Jesus Christ. Maybe I *should* floss more.
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Oct 8, 2016 14:39
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HEY GAL posted:yeah, the catholodox don't know poo poo about oratory right now, although i've attended some good catholic homilies none of them have been good in the way that'd really get you het up. one catholic priest explicated some aristotle for us once, that was fun We have a short little Mexican priest at our parish whose English homilies are pretty good but quiet, short, and not very exciting. By the end of a Spanish homily you're ready to charge tanks and I don't even speak Spanish.
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Oct 8, 2016 15:30
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HEY GAL posted:yeah, the catholodox don't know poo poo about oratory right now, although i've attended some good catholic homilies none of them have been good in the way that'd really get you het up. one catholic priest explicated some aristotle for us once, that was fun I'm convinced Catholic priests mostly go to seminary to learn sports analogies. Mo Tzu posted:Well there's the American preachers pushing for kill the gays laws in Africa today so I find it a little suspect when someone chooses to be postcolonial only when it comes to LGBT rights Well, they definitely shouldn't be doing that, but that movement comes mainly from Protestant Dominionists and not Catholics. It's actually a pretty complicated issue where a lot of Africans see the very existence of homosexuality as a byproduct of colonialism, so they want to stamp it out in order to return to what they see as traditional African culture -- and this mindset that they have is actually a product of colonialism itself. That's why I'm just wary when missionaries treat Africa like a gigantic sandbox to play around in, since we're sort of in the unenviable position of saying "yeah we screwed you up but now we're gonna fix you!" I'm not really sure what the best answer is here, but our Dominionist friends convincing the Ugandan government to execute homosexuals is definitely not it.
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Oct 8, 2016 17:17
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HEY GAL posted:yeah, the catholodox don't know poo poo about oratory right now, although i've attended some good catholic homilies none of them have been good in the way that'd really get you het up. one catholic priest explicated some aristotle for us once, that was fun i used to go to Catholic mass with my ex girlfriend when we'd go visit her family, and the monsignor at that parish gave sermons that were engaging and had jokes. on the other hand i think every one i ever heard was mostly an explanation of church doctrine, which for me was a very different experience. maybe it's a traditional Protestant thing, but i would say that 99% or more of the sermons I've heard in my life were primary based on the lectionary readings of the day
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Oct 8, 2016 17:36
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Lutha Mahtin posted:i used to go to Catholic mass with my ex girlfriend when we'd go visit her family, and the monsignor at that parish gave sermons that were engaging and had jokes. on the other hand i think every one i ever heard was mostly an explanation of church doctrine, which for me was a very different experience. maybe it's a traditional Protestant thing, but i would say that 99% or more of the sermons I've heard in my life were primary based on the lectionary readings of the day In my experience Orthodox sermons try to link the Gospel reading to explaining an element of doctrine. John Chrysostom's Pascal address is the apex of this of course, and imo the only sermon you ever need.
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Oct 9, 2016 03:36
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