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» Ship of Fools   » Community discussion   » Purgatory   » Are the JWs announcing a gospel that can save? (Page 3)

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Source: (consider it) Thread: Are the JWs announcing a gospel that can save?
Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm just saying that the crossover between JWs and Brethren evangelicals is much closer than, for example, between JWs and RCs, who are culturally much further apart.

And I'm saying that's nonsense, first because in sociological terms JWs and RCs are quite similar, and secondly because the theological (ie cultural) gulf between RCs and evangelicals is minute compared to the cultural/theological gulf between evangelicals and JWs.

quote:
You've seriously not noticed the shape of Brethren buildings and thought that they're different to RC buildings.
Evangelicals meet in buildings ranging from "tin tabernacles" and severely minimalist functionalism, to full-blown Gothic Revival.

RC churches range from traditional cathedrals to modernist (le dernier cri when they were built in the 1950s/1960s) to shabby weatherboard bush chapels.

There is no architectural homogeneity in either tradition.

quote:
I said that they are what you get when you go out towards Brethrenish evangelicalism, and then keep going.
And I am pointing out that they clearly are not - they are qualitatively different, not just further along a spectrum.

Please try to listen to what people are saying.

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Gamaliel
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Steady on, Kaplan. I quite like my sacred sites ...

And since when have you been the arbiter of what is and isn't heterodox or heretical?

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Gamaliel
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Last time I looked, it was the nasty unbiblical bishops at a council called by that nasty Constantine who drafted the Nicene Creed.

That doesn't justify everything else they did, of course ... But no bishops no Creed. One might say no Constantine no Creed, but that might scare the horses ...

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Last time I looked, it was the nasty unbiblical bishops at a council called by that nasty Constantine who drafted the Nicene Creed.

That doesn't justify everything else they did, of course ... But no bishops no Creed. One might say no Constantine no Creed, but that might scare the horses ...

In a fallen world nothing good comes from an uncontaminated human source.

It's called providence.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Steady on, Kaplan. I quite like my sacred sites ...

I must admit I'm a bit partial to cathedrals myself, at least aesthetically and historically, if not theologically.

Must also admit that some evangelicals are capable of matching the looniest excesses of relic/icon/ image/sacred site enthusiasts whenever they get near Israel - bottles of Jordan water, anyone?

We knew a woman who claimed to have had seven (count'em) personal encounters with Jesus while visiting the Holy Land.

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W Hyatt
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quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
We may qualify the Watchtower organisation as non-Christian, but it strikes me that it could have quite a number of Christians in it.

I don't see how it can. The JWs are one of the groups* that espouse the doctrines of Arius, and chief amongst those is the belief that Jesus is not the Son of God. They are non-Trinitarian. That was the point addressed in the very complicated but very precisely worked out formulae in the Nicene Creed. Arius denied these and was condemned for heresy. If you accept the Nicene Creed, you cannot be a JW. Unless you accept it, you can't be a Christian.
Bolded italics mine.

I worship Jesus Christ as the one and only God, without accepting the Nicene Creed. How does that fail to qualify me as a Christian? All it does is make me non-creedal.

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Gee D
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Do you accept the Trinity though?

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
And I'm saying that's nonsense, first because in sociological terms JWs and RCs are quite similar, and secondly because the theological (ie cultural) gulf between RCs and evangelicals is minute compared to the cultural/theological gulf between evangelicals and JWs.

In what sense are the JWs and RCs "quite similar"?

quote:
Evangelicals meet in buildings ranging from "tin tabernacles" and severely minimalist functionalism, to full-blown Gothic Revival.
Yes, but Brethren meet in buildings that are almost always the same shape.

quote:
RC churches range from traditional cathedrals to modernist (le dernier cri when they were built in the 1950s/1960s) to shabby weatherboard bush chapels.
There is no architectural homogeneity in either tradition.

The more Brethren the evangelical church, the more homogeneity there is. AFAIU Closed Brethren buildings are almost identical.

It is true that RC buildings are diverse, but they have more similarities with each other than with the extremes when you get towards the Brethren.

quote:
And I am pointing out that they clearly are not - they are qualitatively different, not just further along a spectrum.

Please try to listen to what people are saying.

I am listening very carefully, but you're spinning what I'm saying to make me say what I haven't said and claiming that your opinion is a fact. My opinion is an opinion, yours is your opinion - that's the way of this thing, there is no objective fact about it.

I see non-conformist religion as a spectrum of belief with non-trinitarians the natural extreme in various directions. You don't. Meh.

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arse

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:

I worship Jesus Christ as the one and only God, without accepting the Nicene Creed. How does that fail to qualify me as a Christian? All it does is make me non-creedal.

Whilst noting what I said above about living Beatitude values, I'd also suggest that the majority of the church wouldn't consider Swedenborgians to be orthodox.

Is that a controversial idea? I thought the whole point of Swedenborgians was that they had some kind of new revelation and were building a "new church".

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arse

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DonLogan2
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Don't the JWs believe that Jesus is the same as Michael the Archangel?

I wonder where they got that. Any thoughts?

It is HERE ON THEIR WEBSITE

(Sorry for disturbing the punch ups with this tangent)

[ 31. March 2017, 07:21: Message edited by: DonLogan2 ]

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Gamaliel
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@Kaplan, I'm not just partial to cathedrals but to sacred wells, places like St Nubian's Cave and other sites associated with Celtic Saints and so on.

It's not that they are spiritually radio-active in some way, but it's a combination of their often very scenic locations and the associations we bring to them.

There's nothing particularly 'spooky' or outrageous about that. I've felt a strong sense of the 'presence' - for want of a better word - of Wordsworth at Dove Cottage and Rydal Mount for instance and of John Wesley in his old house in London.

Why? Because of the artefacts and associations in those places.

I had a profound experience at Little Gidding, for instance, alone in the church there and reading Eliot's poem as if it were some kind of Litany.

It's just a short hop from that sort of thing to venerating relics and so on. But hey ... I don't think we can separate out our theology from our aesthetic and affective responses. These things are all linked. I don't see why we have to try to disaggregate them in some kind of po-faced Puritanical way.

Besides, there are all sorts of problematic verses in the NT which, as we all know, was written by evangelicals and for evangelicals ... Ha ha ha

Peter's handkerchief anyone? What's all that about?

Hans Kung made the observation that whilst fundamentalist Protestants tend to latch onto particular idiosyncratic interpretations of verses and speculations about the End Times, fundie Catholics tend to fixate on particular Saints or relics and artefacts ...

There are extremes at both ends of the spectrum.

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Gamaliel
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That should be 'St Ninian's Cave' of course ...

On the Providence thing - without being too post-modern and relative about it, surely that's in the eye of the beholder?

If we've Trinitarian then we'd see Nicea as providential. If we're Arian then we'd see it the opposite way ...

There's an element of Paschal's Wager in all of this and I'm waging on the Trinitarian side ...

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Matt Black

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quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
We may qualify the Watchtower organisation as non-Christian, but it strikes me that it could have quite a number of Christians in it.

I don't see how it can. The JWs are one of the groups* that espouse the doctrines of Arius, and chief amongst those is the belief that Jesus is not the Son of God. They are non-Trinitarian. That was the point addressed in the very complicated but very precisely worked out formulae in the Nicene Creed. Arius denied these and was condemned for heresy. If you accept the Nicene Creed, you cannot be a JW. Unless you accept it, you can't be a Christian.


Steady now! I know quite a few eg: Baptists who won't say the Nicene Creed because they don't believe that baptism forgives sins, but are nevertheless kosher Trinitarian Christians (oxymoron intentional).

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mr cheesy
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There is also considerable diversity about what the parts of the creed actually mean. Being able to say it does not mean one actually agrees with it (or even fully understands the implications of the phrases).

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arse

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Anglican_Brat
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
We may qualify the Watchtower organisation as non-Christian, but it strikes me that it could have quite a number of Christians in it.

I don't see how it can. The JWs are one of the groups* that espouse the doctrines of Arius, and chief amongst those is the belief that Jesus is not the Son of God. They are non-Trinitarian. That was the point addressed in the very complicated but very precisely worked out formulae in the Nicene Creed. Arius denied these and was condemned for heresy. If you accept the Nicene Creed, you cannot be a JW. Unless you accept it, you can't be a Christian.


Steady now! I know quite a few eg: Baptists who won't say the Nicene Creed because they don't believe that baptism forgives sins, but are nevertheless kosher Trinitarian Christians (oxymoron intentional).
I suppose one could say that the Christological parts of the Creed are the most important because it relates to the most important person in our faith.

Mind you, in my years of ministry and church life, only one person I have encountered questioned the creed because it stated that baptism forgives sins.

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mr cheesy
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I think there is much to be admired about individuals, sects and movements which think for themselves and come up with solutions to theological problems that are not acceptable to the mainstream. That takes some guts and determination.

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arse

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Martin60
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I've been trapped in that kind of literalism. We need to lighten up.

I only accept 'he descended to the dead' and 'the communion of saints' figuratively for a start as they aren't literal regardless of what the original authors believed. Meaning is what we bring.

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Al Eluia

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quote:
Originally posted by Margaret:
[QUOTE]I believe there are still some First-day Adventist groups in America.

Yes. The one I'm familiar with is the Advent Christian Church. I once visited the Seattle congregation on a Sunday; I had an acquaintance who was a pastor. They seemed pretty normal.

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W Hyatt
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quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Do you accept the Trinity though?

Yes, although instead of a Trinity of three persons, I believe in a Trinity in a single person.

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W Hyatt
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:

I worship Jesus Christ as the one and only God, without accepting the Nicene Creed. How does that fail to qualify me as a Christian? All it does is make me non-creedal.

Whilst noting what I said above about living Beatitude values, I'd also suggest that the majority of the church wouldn't consider Swedenborgians to be orthodox.

Is that a controversial idea? I thought the whole point of Swedenborgians was that they had some kind of new revelation and were building a "new church".

It's not controversial at all - we know we're not orthodox. My point was just that Arianism is not the only alternative to orthodox Trinitarianism.

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Gamaliel
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Sure ... there are other 'isms' too and they're all deemed heretical from an orthodox/Orthodox perspective ...

Mercifully, nobody is going to burn you at the stake for that these days though.

The Swedenborgians are interesting. I'd heard of them but knew very little about them until I spent some time aboard Ship. I've met someone who grew up Swedenborgian but became a Methodist - purely because she preferred the singing - and who is now Anglican and a choir-director. She has a PhD in 18th century church music.

She's still quite 'non-conformist' at heart but doesn't appear to consider the Swedenborgians to be outrageously different to anyone else - she simply thinks of them as another nonconformist group ... which I found rather strange. I'd have expected some acknowledgement at least of the distinctive tenets of Swedenborgianism ...

When pressed, she said, 'Oh, Swedenborg had some of his own ideas of course ... like everyone else he was trying to work all this stuff out ...'

I like to think I'm thoroughly Trinitarian and thoroughly small-o orthodox ... with some Big O leanings ... but that's maybe not for me to say.

Nevertheless, like mr cheesy I do respect those who, for whatever reason, have ploughed their own furrow and drawn different conclusions ... even though I might not share those conclusions myself.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Brethren meet in buildings that are almost always the same shape.

The more Brethren the evangelical church, the more homogeneity there is.

AFAIU Closed Brethren buildings are almost identical.

Aha, so in an attempt to rescue the first two of these three statements from meaninglessness, now you have to bring in Closed/Exclusive Brethren, instead of the Open Brethren who are far more representative of evangelicalism and have an enormous range of architecture worldwide.

quote:
the extremes when you get towards the Brethren.
Now which Brethren are you talking about?

quote:
your opinion is a fact.
It's nothing to do with my "opinion".

It is simply a fact that JWs do not hold the orthodox, credal Trinitarian and Christological doctrines that evangelicals do.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On the Providence thing - without being too post-modern and relative about it, surely that's in the eye of the beholder?{/QB]

Not from the point of view of all the Christian traditions, which believe that God providentially revealed his truth in the Bible despite the faults and failures of its human authors.

It is slightly different, but no more difficult, to believe that the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed and Definition of Chalcedon articulated and defined that truth accurately despite the shortcomings of their authors.

Constantine's faith (or lack thereof), character, morality and politics don't come into it.

quote:
[QB} Paschal's Wager

Is that a bet placed during Easter?
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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On the Providence thing - without being too post-modern and relative about it, surely that's in the eye of the beholder?{/QB]

Not from the point of view of all the Christian traditions, which believe that God providentially revealed his truth in the Bible despite the faults and failures of its human authors.

It is slightly different, but no more difficult, to believe that the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed and Definition of Chalcedon articulated and defined that truth accurately despite the shortcomings of their authors.

Constantine's faith (or lack thereof), character, morality and politics don't come into it.

quote:
[QB} Paschal's Wager

Is that a bet placed during Easter?
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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't think we can separate out our theology from our aesthetic and affective responses.

Yes and no.

My wife and I read together Peter's confession of faith at Caesarea Philippi when we were in Banias a million years ago backpackng around Israel.

It didn't make it any more true or meaningful, but it seemed a good thing to do.

Likewise my visit to C.S.Lewis's grave in Oxford made no difference to my appreciation and criticisms of his writings, but again I felt an urge to do it.

The dangers of "aesthetic and affective responses' are twofold.

First, they can replace or undermine sound theology rather than complementing it.

Wordsworth's (I am quoting from memory) "Each impulse form a vernal wood/Can tell us more of man/Of moral evil and of good/Than all the sages can", for example, is unmitigated bullshit.

Secondly, there is the danger of turning superstitious (or harmlessly fanciful) notions of sacred spaces and objects into dogmas and imposing them on others.

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Martin60
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On the Providence thing - without being too post-modern and relative about it, surely that's in the eye of the beholder?{/QB]

Not from the point of view of all the Christian traditions, which believe that God providentially revealed his truth in the Bible despite the faults and failures of its human authors.

It is slightly different, but no more difficult, to believe that the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed and Definition of Chalcedon articulated and defined that truth accurately despite the shortcomings of their authors.

Constantine's faith (or lack thereof), character, morality and politics don't come into it.

quote:
[QB} Paschal's Wager

Is that a bet placed during Easter?

I got it the first time. It was very good.

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Love wins

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Martin60
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quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Do you accept the Trinity though?

Yes, although instead of a Trinity of three persons, I believe in a Trinity in a single person.
A trinity of what? Modes? Can they be concurrent? Or do the masks have to take turns? Oooh, and while you're at it, maybe you can reconcile God the Son, or God in Son mode, with the Son of God. No one else here can.

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Love wins

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W Hyatt
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Do you accept the Trinity though?

Yes, although instead of a Trinity of three persons, I believe in a Trinity in a single person.
A trinity of what? Modes? Can they be concurrent? Or do the masks have to take turns? Oooh, and while you're at it, maybe you can reconcile God the Son, or God in Son mode, with the Son of God. No one else here can.
Not a Trinity of anything - modes, masks, persons, or otherwise.

The Holy Trinity is the original Trinity that creates the trinity constituting each each of us: soul, body, and spirit. God the Father is the Divine Soul, which is Life itself. God the Son is Christ as the Divine Body or Logos who manifests God to creation, and God the Holy Spirit is God's effect on creation.

As a finite image and likeness of God, our soul is what allows us to receive a sliver of life from God (without our being aware of it so it feels like our life and so we can't mess it up). Our body is what allows us to manifest that life and decide what we do with it. And our spirit is the life we are living and the effect it has on the world around us.

God is a single Divine Person in the same way each of us is a single person, albeit finite and imperfect. Hence "I and the Father are one" and "He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, `Show us the Father'?"

What makes you think there's anything to reconcile between God the Son and the Son of God?

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Gee D
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Martin60, you beat me to it. 1 godhead of 3 persons I can sort of vaguely understand but as your example shows, you otherwise run into modalism.

[ 01. April 2017, 01:23: Message edited by: Gee D ]

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W Hyatt
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How can a single person can be modal? Are we all modal?

In any case, there's still the question as to whether you can accept my non-Trinitarian beliefs as being correctly labeled as Christian. If not, then what other label would you offer for the belief that Christ is the one and only God?

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Jamat
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Do you accept the Trinity though?

Yes, although instead of a Trinity of three persons, I believe in a Trinity in a single person.
A trinity of what? Modes? Can they be concurrent? Or do the masks have to take turns? Oooh, and while you're at it, maybe you can reconcile God the Son, or God in Son mode, with the Son of God. No one else here can.
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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Mind you, in my years of ministry and church life, only one person I have encountered questioned the creed because it stated that baptism forgives sins.

Except of course it doesn't say that.

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Gamaliel
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't think we can separate out our theology from our aesthetic and affective responses.

Yes and no.

My wife and I read together Peter's confession of faith at Caesarea Philippi when we were in Banias a million years ago backpackng around Israel.

It didn't make it any more true or meaningful, but it seemed a good thing to do.

Likewise my visit to C.S.Lewis's grave in Oxford made no difference to my appreciation and criticisms of his writings, but again I felt an urge to do it.

The dangers of "aesthetic and affective responses' are twofold.

First, they can replace or undermine sound theology rather than complementing it.

Wordsworth's (I am quoting from memory) "Each impulse form a vernal wood/Can tell us more of man/Of moral evil and of good/Than all the sages can", for example, is unmitigated bullshit.

Secondly, there is the danger of turning superstitious (or harmlessly fanciful) notions of sacred spaces and objects into dogmas and imposing them on others.

You're doing it again. Whilst I'm broadly in agreement with the points you raise here - and I don't think I ever said that there weren't 'dangers' - you seem to be suggesting that you (or I) are some kind of arbiter of what constitutes 'sound theology'.

We aren't.

Or at least, we are to the extent that we hold to the received tradition which we've inherited and which has been passed down to us.

I have absolutely no idea at what point reciting Peter's confession of faith at the location it was made or visiting C S Lewis's grave or whatever else topples over into superstition .... but we all draw the line somewhere.

Heck, my RC friends are more than happy to tell me about the 'superstitious' practices they've observed among Catholics from other cultural backgrounds to themselves - Romanies, say, or people from Eastern Europe ...

It's always someone else's practices that are superstitious and not our own.

Equally, I know Orthodox priests who are quite outspoken about renouncing Greek ideas about 'the evil eye' as sheer superstition ... whereas a fruit-cake convert I've come across on-line is convinced that they are only doing so to dilute the Faith and make it more acceptable to a Western audience ...

[Roll Eyes]

It's always easier to spot superstitions in other people, less easy to spot them in ourselves.

I'm thinking aloud here. At what point does a superstition or whacky-idea undermine 'sound theology' and who decides?

I remember hatless saying something on these boards once about Spanish villagers whipping statues of St Anthony for apparently failing to find lost sets of keys and other objects ...

Clearly, most of us - RC, Protestant, Orthodox - would probably find that rather 'out there' and iffy ...

On the Wordsworth thing, no it's not bullshit - he was being Romantic and we should allow him some poetic licence ... and, of course, to tick your 'sound theology' box, he also moved away from his youthful pantheism to a stolidly respectable orthodox Anglican position in later life. Arguably to the detriment of his poetry ...

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Gamaliel
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Meanwhile, on the providential thing ... yes, I do believe that God providentially 'arranged' the circumstances that led to the definitions agreed at Nicea and Chalcedon - and also in the process of discussion / discernment that led to the formation of the canon of scripture ...

That's not the point I was making.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Aha, so in an attempt to rescue the first two of these three statements from meaninglessness, now you have to bring in Closed/Exclusive Brethren, instead of the Open Brethren who are far more representative of evangelicalism and have an enormous range of architecture worldwide.

I consider Brethren to be on a spectrum of Evangelicalism - which extends from the Gospel Hall (and various other kinds of independent Evangelical) through the Open to the Closed. The further out you go in this direction, the more uniform the architecture becomes, until at the furthest extreme there is very little variety and very little difference to the JW's Kingdom Halls.

And I didn't "just bring it in", I was always talking about JWs being close to the Brethren end of Evangelicalism.

quote:


It is simply a fact that JWs do not hold the orthodox, credal Trinitarian and Christological doctrines that evangelicals do.

Where did I say anything otherwise?

The "simple fact" is that you think the only measure of how close different religious sects are is whether or not they are trinitarian, whereas I'm using a multi-dimensional model. It is fairly obvious that this is beyond you, so I don't see anything to be gained by continuing this discussion.

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mr cheesy
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Meanwhile, I observe that those who hold fairly extreme views, even amongst the wide panoply of views available within Evangelicalism, delude themselves to believe that they're actually representatives of authentic Evangelicalism and in the centre of orthodox Christianity - when the reality is that they're really at the extremes, that their beliefs on various historical doctrines are generally weak, and that they couldn't tell you what the Creeds actually said anyhow.

It's a fairly remarkable thing when (for example) someone at the more extreme end of the Brethren tries to make out that they're as orthodox as the RC - when in other circumstances they'd be calling the latter out as apostate.

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Gamaliel
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Steady on, mr cheesy ...

Whilst I agree that there is a continuum across Protestant evangelicalism from evangelicals within the mainline historic Churches and denominations through independent evangelicalism to those on the outer limits of that ... I'm not sure I'd place Kaplan at the 'extreme'.

If that's what you are inferring ...

Kaplan doesn't seem any more 'extreme' to me than figures like F F Bruce and other of the more ecumenical and moderate Brethren at the centre of the movement.

I would agree that Kaplan is perhaps over-stating his case by asserting that the Brethren are 'closer' to the RCs than they are to the JWs ... but in terms of the issue in hand then he is right insofar as both RCs and Brethren adhere to a shared understanding of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ whereas the JWs most certainly don't.

The sociological issues around sectarian forms of Protestantism is probably a secondary one in those terms.

FWIW I think you are right to draw attention to that continuum/sliding scale - and yes, as you get towards the more extreme end of it the architecture, dress-codes, external expression etc etc become more homogeneous - but as a broad generalisation I'd suggest that there is much greater range and variation among the Brethren than there would have been even 20 or 30 years ago.

The same applies to independent evangelicalism per se.

Now, I do think Kaplan is being a tad hyper-sensitive. But at the same time I can't see how he can be considered 'extreme' - if that's what you are saying.

Of course, whether someone is 'extreme' or not depends on where we stand. To a very traditional Anglican, say, a fairly moderate Baptist is going to look 'extreme' ... To a highly traditional RC then most Protestants are going to look fairly 'extreme' - let alone evangelical ones.

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mr cheesy
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I've no idea where KC lies in the Evangelical spectrum, but I was trying to observe some features of Brethren as they go to the extremes. They're unlikely to consider the RCC to be Christian, they're unlikely to worry too much about creeds, and so on.

Of course, I'm also conflicted on this because on any given day I'm less orthodox than others.

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Martin60
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Yes Jamat, I like.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I was trying to observe some features of Brethren as they go to the extremes. They're unlikely to consider the RCC to be Christian, they're unlikely to worry too much about creeds, and so on.

That's a ridiculous and ignorant generalisation about Brethren in particular and evangelicals more broadly.

For a start, all believe the central doctrines of the creeds (unlike JWs) whether they know about them or not.

And there is no consensus whatsoever about whether RCs are Christian - my guess is that nowadays only a minority would go that far.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I was trying to observe some features of Brethren as they go to the extremes. They're unlikely to consider the RCC to be Christian, they're unlikely to worry too much about creeds, and so on.

That's a ridiculous and ignorant generalisation about Brethren in particular and evangelicals more broadly.

For a start, all believe the central doctrines of the creeds (unlike JWs) whether they know about them or not.

And there is no consensus whatsoever about whether RCs are not Christian - my guess is that nowadays only a minority would go that far.


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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The further out you go in this direction, the more uniform the architecture becomes, until at the furthest extreme there is very little variety and very little difference to the JW's Kingdom Halls.

So:-

Closed and Exclusive Brethren, which are on the fringe of evangelicalism, sometimes share a similar architecture.

JWs, who are not evangelical - or for that matter, Christian - at all, share a similar architecture.

Ergo....?

What are your thoughts about similarities between Hindu temples?

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On the Wordsworth thing, no it's not bullshit - he was being Romantic and we should allow him some poetic licence

To use Sellar and Yeatman's terminology, he was Wromantic but Wrong, and not just from a Christian, but also from a secular standpoint.

Deriving morality from nature brings to mind hearty bands of Hitler Youth hikers marching along in the forests and mountains and open air absorbing Kraft durche Freude.

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anteater

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Well I was raised a JW and disfellowshipped (aka excommunicated but the JW term) when I was about 24, and had the experience of a long time close friend walking by me with one of the most self-righteous looks I've ever seen - eyed consciously averted lest he gaze on the unclean thing.

Mind you he died a hopeless alcoholic. Drinking has tended to be the "winked at sin" in the JWs.

The JWs do have problems. I thought that they would abandon their 1914 dating of the establishment of Christ's kingdom, since the "generation that sees these things" will go through Armageddon. So they have had to soften up, and I expect that they are becoming a bit more user-friendly. My alcoholic friend's son has worked openly for a department of the UN,
which would have not happened back in the day. He claims to be a "liberal JW" but wouldn't meet to talk with me - out of fear I suppose since if you talk to a disfellowshipped person you get disfellowshipped yourself - that was my crime.

I weary of the efforts to define a brand called christianity, but if you are going to do it, I don't think pouring over the sayings of the Watchtower is relevant. FWIW nothing in that article would have been controversial in the 50's and 60's when I was in the movement. It's just extreme Arminianism. You are saved by "exercising faith" (not just having faith) and that involves good works as per the Epistle of James.

The larger issue for me is that of fellowship and mutual recognition of others as Christian and here the JWs fail. All other religions, including the several off-shoots of the JWs, are enemies of God. Period. They don't burn in Hell because JWs don't believe that. They are conditionalist.

A second major problem is the degree of freedom to think, and this is severely restricted in the JWs. They isolate dissent by removing the dissenter and anyone who speaks to him. And they never have open Bible studies, they study their books and people are only allowed to answer by rephrasing the answer in the paragraph. I'm not saying no questioning is allowed, but it is severely limited, and no open espousal of a view which contradicts any official view of The Organsation is allowed. Truly Stalinist.

Oddly, the period they nearly opened up was about 40 years ago, under the influence of a group at Bethel led by Raymond Franz. They did then espouse some more orthodox views - not many. And softened their line on those like me who had been cast out. But the hardliners moved against him and he was removed.

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Gamaliel
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On the Wordsworth thing, no it's not bullshit - he was being Romantic and we should allow him some poetic licence

To use Sellar and Yeatman's terminology, he was Wromantic but Wrong, and not just from a Christian, but also from a secular standpoint.

Deriving morality from nature brings to mind hearty bands of Hitler Youth hikers marching along in the forests and mountains and open air absorbing Kraft durche Freude.

Yes, but that's only in retrospect and with the benefit of hindsight. It's certainly true that what my old English teacher used to call 'degenerate Romanticism' fed into the whole Nazi thing ...

But I still think you are taking Willie Wordsworth rather too literally at this point ...

And, as I've said, he later moved towards a fairly staid and 'safe' Anglican position ...

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Martin60
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Meanwhile, on the providential thing ... yes, I do believe that God providentially 'arranged' the circumstances that led to the definitions agreed at Nicea and Chalcedon - and also in the process of discussion / discernment that led to the formation of the canon of scripture ...

That's not the point I was making.

How G?

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Mudfrog
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It seems to me that the JWs, like the LDS people, are more concerned about what Christians say about them than what 'the unconverted people' who have no religious vocabulary.

If therefore the Watchtower Society are using vocabulary that is more and more akin to evangelicalism, it's because they have listed to what we say and have appropriated it. They use all the same phrases as we do - but do they actually mean the same thing?

It's all well and good to talk about 'God' but is he the same 'God'?
A case in point would be the Mormons who talk about God in terms like we do, but when you scratch beneath the surface you discover that the Mormon god was once a man like me and was given this planet to be the god of.

When I die, according to the Mormons, the same fate will befall me - I will be given a planet and I will rule as its god.

Therefore, it doesn't matter what words the JWs or the others use - they mean entirely different things.

The problem is that when they come to the doorstep of a faltering Christian or a Western person who knows just enough about Christianity to be dangerous, when they spout all their stuff, it sounds just like what the 'Christian' thinks he knows and he will swallow it completely because he doesn't know enough in order to discern th truth from the lie.

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Martin60
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Can we quantify how dangerous they are?

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Stetson
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Anteater:

Thanks for the long post. Always good to have the perspective of someone with direct experience.

quote:
The JWs do have problems. I thought that they would abandon their 1914 dating of the establishment of Christ's kingdom, since the "generation that sees these things" will go through Armageddon.
Just to clarify, they STILL teach that 1914 has some eschatological importance, right? My understanding is that for a long time, post-1914, they had been saying that the events of the end-times would come about when people who were alive in that year were still alive. Since at any given time, there are usually people alive who weigh in at around 117, their credibility(such as it is) could probably coast for another decade and a half on the year 1914.
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Gamaliel
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How Martin?

I have absolutely no idea. It's a Paschal Wager thing.

On the JW's appropriating evangelical sounding language, I'm not so convinced that this is a conscious strategy or ploy. It's more a case of a kind of parisitic growth outside but alongside more mainstream forms of evangelical-style religion.

Culturally and sociologically, JWs are very similar to the demographic one finds in Pentecostalism and independent evangelicalism. Back in my door-knocking days it always struck me how hard it was to evangelise without coming across like a JW ...

The commonality is probably more down to a common modus operandi than anything else.

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