Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Your hysteria is unfounded.

I have studied Comparative Religion for 39 years, consequently, I must deny your accusation of being ignorant as untrue.

I don't hate anyone, never have, never will.

Denouncing a church's teaching as unbiblical is not hatred for it's members.

I am not now, nor have I ever been a bigot.

I have never been, nor am I now a heretic, nor have I received instructions from such a one.

To see such a one, look ye mirrorward.

Never, have I condemned anyone. There will be one judge at the end of the age. Every knee will bow before Him.

Everything I believe about Christianity, I learned at the feet of Jesus Christ through His Holy Word.

Why that makes you froth at the mouth is not my doing, but should be well within your own control.

Denouncing teachings that contradict written Scripture is not condemnation of any human being on my part. To so interpret it is deliberate fallacy.

Written in Christian love and sympathy,

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

No offense taken...

I have never heard a Christian use the term...

My Sunday was quite busy.. But wonderful as well...

Hope you are well..

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

So, Canuckus,

Has your experience with Christians been somewhat narrowly limited then? -

otherwise, I would surmise your Christians of encounter to have been stereotypical?

The little old church lady of Saturday Night Live comes to mind...

An example of characterization by a stereotype: "Elderly Americans are the neglected sector of the fashion industry, stereotyped by blue hair and polyester pantsuits."

Pulleeease, don't, not the polyester pants suit!

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Not sure how I should answer that question...

As a youth I hung out with a group of Baptists and several of my friends were Catholic.. I spent time at both churches... I also went to the United church for a while... Really like their pasteur... But stopped when he switched to the Lutherans... No bias against the Lutherans.. Just further from my home... Dated a mormon girl for a few months... Wasn't overly enamoured by the Church... And I used to have coffee once a week with an older JW fellow... I still visit him when I go home in the summers...But didn't particularly care for his church either... If I attend church services Now while visiting I usually go to the Catholic church with one of my friend's mother...
Over here I go to Bible services at the foreign dormitory every now and then, but am not fond of the churches in the city... I occasionally take my best friend's mother to services at the Korean (ethnic) church... Not particularly fond of them either... Lots of Christians at the university from different nations and backgrounds... Used to be a pair of born again evangelicals at the university, but they moved to southern China... The husband was excellent fun... Lots of good talks and very knowledgable concerning scripture...

That is about the sum of my experiences with Christians... Have family that are Catholic, Protestant and JW... But my mother never cared much for organized religion and it wasn't until I was almost an adult that I found my faith...

Hope all is well with you Zemirah....

Sorry.. I haven't watch SNL in many a year... But I am not fond of pantsuits

padremike Loc: Phenix City, Al

Not trying to diminish your freedom of speech. Pull your head out from underneath your arm and take a deep breath. How can I help you if I don't allow you to speak up? (Go ahead and smile. I want to see your face break.)

Jesus knew you. I say this because He, as God, was wise enough not to actually pen His own Gospel but to let His Apostles do it instead. Their slight differences guarantee its authenticity. If Jesus had written His Gospel people like you would have taken every jot and tittle and reinterpreted it and the Pharisees of His day would seem like amateurs compared to folks like you. Pharisees made the faith so difficult to keep the common man could not do it. Your sort, on the other hand, have watered down the faith and worship and diminished it to the point that reading the bible and believing in Jesus is all one needs to do. And you came up with crazy theology like "once saved always saved" because some bloody fool interpreted scripture apart from the Body of Christ that wrote it. Once saved always saved! "Salvation in a second," no amendment of life, no turning away from sin, in fact, to some, sin no longer matters. Fortunately not all Protestants believe this heresy. Within the thousands of Protestant denominations today they celebrate everything from dancing with poisonous snakes as worship to a denial of the necessity of Baptism. All this conflicting information comes from the very same scriptures. Yet "you know" that YOU personally have interpreted scripture correctly because you have read some modern Protestant bookseller biased investigation while completely disregarding the writings of Ancient Church fathers, etc. Explain why other Protestants disagree with your interpretation?

I wonder if you would ever be able to consider that it was The Holy Spirit Who actually led the Christian Church in the formation of her orthodox worship of Christ, and that a certain Sunday set aside to correspond with the Jewish Passover was chosen to worship and remember the sacrifice Christ paid for all mankind on Easter? Worship! An action for mankind to give honor and worth ship to our Creator, our Savior and Redeemer, our Lord and our God. And you've grown so small as to criticize others who worship Jesus in ancient acceptable ways. Most Christians, both Protestants and catholics won't listen to you. They know that on Golgotha there was once a world wide convention of sinners, you were there and I was there because Jesus, as God, could pass through time and bring all our sins to that place of redemption. "O lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world have mercy upon us." Three days later He arose. You better believe that Christians celebrate that glorious day in communion and with their fellow Christians. And the priest turns to the congregation at the end of the service and says "The Lord has risen" and the joyful people SHOUT back at him, "The Lord has risen indeed!" You criticize what spiritual blindness and hardness of heart causes you to not understand. But you're free to make you own choice so stop criticising those who choose to worship differently. You claim your freedom of speech - we claim our freedom to worship. Remember, that your bible of yours is not a club.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

I've never cared for "organized religion" much either, Canuckus.

Rather, I thrive on spontaneity.

I'm surprised you answered my question, but you did so beautifully, with a mini bio-sketch, no less.

As a wee youth, I hung out with my family who attended a Missionary Baptist church full of good will toward most everyone. After university and seminary, my father was ordained a minister and became a missionary with one of the country's oldest non-denominational missionary outreaches, aimed at the poorest rural areas in the Midwest.

He was a circuit preacher in that he was assigned multiple churches in multiple counties.

Each Sunday for months, we visited a different church building, a different congregation with a different "personality," and worship style. Some approaching Pentecostal in fervor, others much more staid, all based on the gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in Scripture.

I understood at a very young age that the Body of Christ, the universal Christian church is composed of all those who truly believe all over the earth. We're all tied together with an invisible bond by the Holy Spirit. We're not divided, or shouldn't be, by competing or opposing denominations. The truth unites us.

My husband was a law student, then an attorney, then a sitting judge, duly elected for four year terms, multiple times, running as a Democrat (although my own convictions were always rightwing conservative). Campaigning was meeting and greeting multiple people, conversing with each in their own socio-economic/academic terms.

We separated (he's now deceased).

Subsequently, I worked as an accountant for seven years for an Arab Muslim Oil Company Scholarship program for Sunni Muslim youth in the U.S. from the Persian Gulf. One gave
me a copy of the Qur'an, which I studied to learn the difference from the Bible, which was profound.

Later, I worked as an accountant for B'nai B'rith Hillel, the nation's largest Jewish student organization. They alternated their weekly student worship services between the four largest branches of Judaism: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist. Again it was a learning experience, which I loved...

I learned HTML and maintained a World Religions, Occult & Cult Awareness website online for ten years.

Never stop learning.

Life is an adventure.

Thank you for your wishes for my health.

padremike Loc: Phenix City, Al

I can tell you never cared for organized religion. You've proven time and again you like your religion unorganized. This "organized religion" denial flies in the face of Christianity and most often used by those who have hand crafted their own beliefs.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Hi Zemirah...

It Sounds like you have lived an interesting life... Certainly a full one...

I agree that we should all strive for unity... There is much joy in mutual understanding and love....

I too have read the Koran, although I came away with a different understanding of Islam from you...
I have known very few Jews in my life.... A neighbor couple from the Ukraine... Very decent people... And some of the students at the university from Russia... Although they don't practice their faith much...

Sorry to hear about the passing of your husband.... I hope that the years together were joyful for the most part and that the Lord blessed and raised him up among His angels...

Is your website still going? I did a search, but the program I use (Baidu) isn't the best for finding foreign websites..

Hope that you are happy and healthy this fine day...

Your friend, Kyle

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

padre, I am realizing your entire vocabulary is geared toward the military, your prior "occupational therapy," I presume.

Consequently, it hardly applies to me, as the closest I ever got to anything applicable was a beginning course in Judo years ago. The only thing remaining from that is the ability to relax and slump onto an exercise mat, as taught, without injuring myself.

There are no "folks like me." I, like you and all other humans, am unique, an original creation of Gods, never to be duplicated.

Jesus knows the end from the beginning.

He assigned the New Testament writing to His Apostles before His crucifixion; He couldn't hang around afterward as He had an urgent assignment to complete in the Holy of Holies in the sky.

You are attempting to put words in my mouth. I have sufficient words of my own. Those cute little old platitudes mean nothing to me.

Let it be known that rattlesnake handling hillbillies are grossly misinterpreting Scripture.

God clearly did not command anyone to prove their faith by picking up rattlesnakes, he said rather, that if anyone accidently picked up a poisonous snake, as Paul later did, while gathering firewood, the poison would not be allowed to affect them.

There you go again. I am reinterpreting nothing. I am believing it as originally recorded.

Even the early so-called church fathers do not support your traditions. I have their books, and I have read them.

I am not criticizing you, I am telling you the historical source of that worship.

The Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself, ever.

padremike Loc: Phenix City, Al

I would have been so disappointed if you had not taken another backhanded swipe tonight. "The military, my previous occupational therapy." Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, you old gas bag you make me laugh. I love it. Thank you. Now go put on the armour of Christ, get off your dead end and on your dying feet and join the Army of Christ and instead of thinking you're a general and a leader, be a faithful foot soldier. OMG a military reference to Christianity. Got your sword of righteousness handy?

You do not have the extant writings of the early father's. If you possess anything of the sort I expect it's a book of excerpts critiqued by some Protestant so called scholar whose sole purpose, much like your own, is to diminish someone's faith in order to prove and exalt his own. The proof is ridiculously loaded against you long before your protestant concept of faith and practice were known.

I realize you do not approve of snake handling. Good grief woman, I give you a lot more credit than that. My point is that within Protestantism there are literally a thousand points of differences. How can these things be? You broke away from Rome only to find more disagreement now amongst your own brethren than you originally did with Rome. And this you call being led by the Holy Spirit?

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

padre,

There was no "backhanded swipe" either intended or received. On March 19th, you enjoined me to "join with all Christians in the Church Militant to fight against sin, the world and Satan." In addition, you have listed Military retired in your profile.

Soooo. when I then refer to your "military experience," you pretend I am off the wall? Now you're insulted? Really?

Your propensity to dissolve into common vulgarity when presented with unwelcome truths belies any authority bestowed upon you and besmirches your claims that you were "ordained in valid apostolic succession" by the Creator of the Universe. Where did that man go?

My home library of almost 6,000 volumes does indeed include the early writings and opinions of those you would distinguish as "church fathers," men who missed the cut of being included in the sacred cannon. Their writings, although of historical interest are not sacred Scripture, but they do in many important subjects, completely disagree with you... and the distorted doctrines you defend.

Your conviction that I could not own such books is most peculiar. I have them in hardback, but anyone can now access them online, and in many instances download them free of charge in the form of e-books. They include ecclesiastical Church history--Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600.

They also include study of "the Christian Church," the origins of Christianity, its relationship to Jesus, its role in salvation, its polity, its discipline, its destiny, and its leadership.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library
[Search domain www.ccel.org] https://www.ccel.org

Classic Christian Library
[Search domain classicchristianlibrary.com] classicchristianlibrary.com

That is all the time I have for you, whoever or whatever you are.

padremike Loc: Phenix City, Al

You've got a great imagination! You think I was offended by your referencing my military service? I, in turn, referenced St.Paul comparing Christian service to military service. I know about the 40 Roman Christian Soldiers who refused to honor Caesar as a god who were stripped naked and forced to stand on a frozen lake until they relented. 39 froze to death. One returned to shore. The commander of the Roman Guard seeing the great faith of the 39 was converted. He then stripped down and stood on the ice until he, too, died. You have nothing in common with any of the early Christian martyrs, they are not part of your history or your heritage. There have been many brave and faithful soldiers with nothing to be ashamed about and neither am I.

I have no idea what your library contains or who authored them. I am very familiar with the course of study called Patristics without annotations or contribution by so called heretical protestant scholars. There existed no reason to embellish or redefine the Fathers in the patristic age like protestants must do since the Reformation. There is no question, none whatsoever, by canonical standards, as to the faith of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church agreed upon by the fathers of the early church. That is not to say that the church didn't have their own problems with individual clergy misinterpreting scripture apart from the mind of the church. They either complied or were excommunicated. There were areas of disagreement, to be sure, but the faith was found and kept in that which was agreed upon. I am 100% confident you are wrong and you've tied into some anti-catholic bigot to be your mentor and teacher. As a church, you never legitimately existed until post Reformation. Your history began in 1517 and you've been in conflict with all Christians, both protestant and catholics, ever since.

Radiance3

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Thank you Padre Mike. The wisdom of God is with you. May you have a happy and blessed Holy Season of Lent. Our time to walk with Jesus on the cross.
"We adore You. O Christ, and we praise You, Because by the Holy Cross, You have redeemed the world." Amen!

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

A beautiful post Radiance....

A blessed Lent to you as well...

Hope you are in good health and high spirits...

Radiance3

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Thank you. I know God loves you also. I count my blessings every day.