Tag Archives: Apostate

Commentary

Are Democrats sincere when they profess to be religious?

15 Comments

Here’s an article from the American Thinker about the Mormon Harry Reid and the Catholic Nancy Pelosi. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

It is beyond ironic that a Mormon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and a Catholic, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, are in charge of passing ObamaCare. If passed, the legislation will federally fund elective abortions in every state. Reid’s and Pelosi’s respective religions, both of which (at least according to the churches’ official doctrines) ardently oppose abortion, are letting them get away with it. Apparently, in this day and age, the powerful are exempt from following God’s laws.

What about Nancy Pelosi:

Nancy Pelosi, purportedly Catholic, has long been an open proponent for abortion and today is the leading champion for nationally funded abortion. Pelosi was granted an audience with the sitting Pope. The Pope merely criticized Pelosi for her position and failed to take any disciplinary action for Pelosi’s open “propaganda campaign in favor” of abortion. Meanwhile, Pelosi’s local priest in San Francisco continues to give her communion — even though the Pope has stated that those who support abortion should not take part in the Catholic sacrament.

Harry Reid has a “Temple-recommend” in the Mormon Church:

Only the most obedient of Mormons are given “temple recommends.” These recommends allow faithful members access to the Church’s sacred temple ceremonies. Harry Reid, despite his vocal and public support for legislation that provides federal funds for abortion, is known to have such a “temple recommend.”

The author of the article condemns the churches for refusing to discipline these two pro-abortionists. But I think the more significant point is that Democrats think that church is just a club. They don’t really go to Church to subject themselves to a set of moral standards and moral obligations – it’s all for show.

Podcasts

Is the Bible we have now the Bible they had then?

24 Comments

OK, I think Dan Wallace is the best guy out there on the reliability of the New Testament documents. He even debated Bart Ehrman and cleaned his clock.

One of the set of 32 lectures I just ordered was given by Dan Wallace on the reliability of the New Testament.

So what does Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 do?

He finds you a free version of that same lecture!!!

Here is the MP3 file.

I had to pay $5 for mine, but Brian found you a free one! Not fair!

Here is my post on Bart Ehrman, a prominent skeptic much loved by the media and liberal Christians, who argues against what Wallace says in the lecture.

UPDATE: This thing is 42 minutes long and it is AWESOME! Filled with humor, really entertaining. If you guys want to get the 2008 debate between Dan Wallace and Bart Ehrman, you can get it here. I got the MP3s, they’re cheap!

By the way, check out the topic for 2010 Greer-Heard debate: atheist John Dominic Crossan vs Ben Witherington.

News

Has the Episcopal church gone completely crazy?

4 Comments

Story from the Associate Press via the American Spectator. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church called the evangelical notion that individuals can be right with God a “great Western heresy” that is behind many problems facing the church and the wider society.

Describing a United States church in crisis, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told delegates to the group’s triennial meeting July 8 in Anaheim, Calif., that the overarching connection to problems facing Episcopalians has to do with “the great Western heresy — that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”

“It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus,” Jefferts Schori, the first woman to be elected as a primate in the worldwide Anglican Communion three years ago, said. “That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being.”

…Jefferts Schori said “heretical and individualistic understanding” contributes to problems like neglect for the environment and the current worldwide economic recession.

I wonder if the Bishop has ever encountered this passage:

32“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.

33But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.

34“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

35 For I have come to turn
” ‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law –

36a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

37“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

That statement is also in Luke. So it originates in Q, the source of Matthew and Luke, and it is therefore very, very early, and very, very reliable. And it’s worse than that – you can find something similar in the earliest gospel, Mark. So it is pretty clear that what is required to be saved is the individual decision to acknowledge Jesus and follow Jesus.

Here’s one more story from OneNewsNow about the Episcopalian church.

Episcopalians are moving toward affirming an open role for homosexual clergy in their church despite pressure from fellow Anglicans not to do so.

Episcopal bishops voted at a national meeting yesterday for a statement that says “God has called and may call” homosexual men and women to ministry. Delegates to the meeting already approved a nearly identical statement. This latest version is likely to be approved by Friday.

Episcopalians caused an uproar in 2003 by consecrating the first openly homosexual bishop, Vicki Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. That decision has nearly split the world Anglican Communion, which includes Episcopalians.

To calm tensions, Episcopal leaders three years ago had urged restraint by dioceses considering homosexual candidates for bishop. No openly homosexual bishops have been consecrated since then.

And don’t forget my previous post about the Rev. Ragsdale, another Episcopalian, who thinks that abortion should be made into a sacrament. She is the new Dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.