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| Xanga's kind of lame so here you go, my new blog:
http://rodionromanovichraskolnikov.blogspot.com/ | | |
| At the request of Megan and Grant I have decided to make a new post.
This post will concern the issue of Lord's Supper. It has come to my attention that many Protestants are upset that Catholics will not allow them to take Eucharist. I find this interesting for the fact that most Protestant confessions and catechisms not only refuse Catholics admission at eucharist but also do not allow Protestants within their denomination to take eucharist in a Roman Catholic church.
Thus, I usually ask the question when a Protestant complains about the Catholic policy, "Do you really want to take eucharist in the Catholic church?" To which they say, "Yes." But I take them further, I explain that Protestantism claims that what Catholics do at Mass is idolatry and a profaning of the name of Christ. Because of this Protestant teaching says that you should not have the desire to participate in Roman Catholic eucharist even if Catholics would allow them. So I just turn it around and show them that it is not only a Roman Catholic problem, it is also a Protestant problem.
The Catholic church should not be condemned because they have closed eucharist, because both Protestants and Catholics agree that Roman Catholic eucharist should be closed to Protestants. However, on the practical level most Protestants who want to take eucharist in the Catholic church do not really agree with the teachings of the Protestant church regarding Catholic eucharist. So I ask them why they don't just become Catholic then. Which they won't do because ultimately they do disagree that they could be in full communion with the Catholic church and we are back to my question, "Do you really want to take eucharist in the Catholic church?" To which their tacit answer now must be "No." And they should also no longer be upset with the Catholic stance on closed eucharist. | | |
| Typically, I don't care what is said for or against this book. People ask me if I have read it and I tell them if it is still around in 100 years I might think about it. Besides my complete distaste for pop culture in general, it is also my opinion that pop culture has horrible literary taste and, thus, if it is popular at Wal-Mart then I'm not going to read it.
Yet, I am not with the Christian camp that seems to think that since this is a work of fiction that there is no need to avoid it or teach against it. Pop culture, besides it's taste in literature, has a propensity for believing non-truths as truth. I have personally spoke with many nominal Christians and non-Christians who believe the story of the DaVinci Code to be fiction but do believe that when Dan Brown says things like "Historians say..." or "Scholars believe..." or "The early church never believed Christ to be divine..." to be true statements. I can't help but understand how people would think these statements are presented as fact.
To read this better than I can put it, check out this site: http://www.saintelizabethchurch.org/default.cfm/PID=10.42 | | |
| I think most Christians tacitly believe that Jesus died for their sins because they believe that he did. This is not so, rather he died for your sins because God is faithful to his promises. Atonement was either real or it wasn't, to have faith means a life of participation in the atonement but the atonement is not a subjective reality that only occured if you believe it did. In the Greek we like to call this the problem of pistus Cristu which has been translated as a subjective genitive since the reformation meaning "faith in Christ." However, Paul usually uses pistus to mean faithfulness, often refering to the faithfulness of God. Thus, if this is the more correct reading, Paul is actually arguing that we have been given God's righteousness because of "the faithfulness of Christ." Not only is this the dominant view based on what we know of the Greek language, it also makes much more since out of Paul's view of cosmic sanctification (Rom 8 and elsewhere). It is hard to imagine the whole world being made new and the sins of Adam that effect the entire cosmos being done away with if this cosmic santification is based solely on if you and I believe or not. Instead I believe that God has acted definately in the world through the cross of Christ in order to bring restoration because God through Christ was faithful to his promises. Our choice is if we are going to trust the fulfillment of this promise that has been effected but not fully realized. Paul seems to argue that we should because God has always been faithful to Israel and we have no reason to think God will stop now. This is where our faith comes in. I think the question Paul poses to us is this: The restoration of the world has been guranteed in the cross of Christ, do you want to be a part of that? | | |
| Today I heard the story of Alex Aronis. Alex is a successful Baptist minister who graduated from Fuller. He needed to take a leave of absence from his church because he was dealing with some deep spiritual issues. He came back to Fuller to seek some spiritual guidance from some of his professors. At the end of his rope, he decided to go to the House of Prayer which is ran by the Catholic Archdiocese of L.A. He was hoping that spritual direction from a trained spiritual director would provide a quick fix to his problems. His spiritual director promptly placed him into The Spiritual Exercises by Ignatius of Loyola. These exercises are a 30-day boot camp so to speak for spirituality. At the end, Alex was feeling some better but still felt something was missing. His spiritual director, who had been supervising him this whole time, told him quiet frankly, "Your problem is that you need a personal relationship with Jesus." Alex, being a Baptist minister, was absolutely shocked. He knew all about having a personal relationship with Jesus, yet at the same time he knew the spiritual director was right. The spiritual director also knew that Alex knew what the problem was but wanted him to go through the dark nights so that he would come out the otherside ready to take on the rest of life that lay ahead. | | |
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