If it's new it ain't true

[Luke2427]

You have a very poor outlook if not totally wrong view of both church history and Baptist history. "We ought to understand what it has historically meant."
That's true. A little study of church history on your part would do wonders for you.

This is an unwarranted claim.

Prove it or it is just meant to inflame.

Where am I wrong? Show us and cite your sources.

 

[Luke2427]

Tertullian is his Prescriptions Against Heretics wisely said:

It is clear that all doctrine which agrees with the Apostolic churches- those molds and original sources of the Faith,- must be considered true, as undoubtedly containing what those churches received from the Apostles, those Apostles from Christ and Christ from God. And all doctrine must be considered false which contradicts the truth of the churches and Apostles of Christ.

I think we need a revival of this thinking.

And we have so much more available to us today than Tertullian had.

The church has hammered out since Tertullian hypostasis, the Trinity, Grace, etc...

 

[DHK]

No baptists you'd have in your church existed before the Reformation.

And no Calvinists in your church existed before Calvin!
But we do have some pretty aged people sitting on those pews.

If you are referring to Anabaptists, I do not think there is any conclusive evidence that they existed before the Reformation.

There is plenty of evidence, especially taking into consideration the meaning of the name: ana-baptist--to baptize again. It was given out of hatred and disparagement. Those that baptized again (after conversion) were persecuted, and that happened hundreds of years before the Reformation, and for that very reason. These same people were also known as the Albigenses and Waldenses. The testimony of Cardinal Hosius is that the Waldenses existed for these last 1200 years right back to the Apostles. For being Bible-believers, Christians, Innocent III tried to wipe the Albigenses off the face of the map. There are many other groups but that is enough for now.

The Southern Baptist Convention recognizes that it is progeny of the Protestant Reformation.

I am not an SBC, nor do I subscribe to all their beliefs whatever they may be.

I imagine, though I am not certain, that the Northern Baptists were Protestant too.

That again means nothing to me. It is a claim you make. I don't know why. Which reformer do they come from?

Which means that IFB trace their roots, not to some mysterious, unsubstantiated prereformation group- but to the Protestant Reformation since they broke off from Northern and Southern Baptists.

We are independent. We are fundamental.
An individual came here and started this church. There is no successionism involved. The local church was started by a church planter (like Paul), and thus it exists. Most of the churches in our area have been started that way. We are independent, autonomous, not belonging to any denomination, association, etc. You can't try and associate us with "roots" because we don't have any, and neither did the churches that Paul started. Their foundation was the Word of God. The head of each church was Christ. This type of church has existed all throughout history.

Diversity is not condemned by holding in very high regard the Historic Christian Faith. What is condemned is new doctrine which has no historicity.

Then you shouldn't be condemning premillenialism, dispensationalism, etc. Diversity is good. BTW, taken into the general scheme of things these doctrines are not that new. Premillenialism is simply a natural outgrowth of the ECF's belief in Chiliasm.

EVERYBODY was Catholic for the first several hundred years of Church History.

This is where you are dead wrong. It is where you need to study.
The origins of the Catholic Church are closely tied to Constantine, and thus did not start until the fourth century. There was corruption in the early churches. Not all of them, but some of them. That is the reason Montanus (ca. 150) separated from them. His emphasis was on purity. He emphasized to his followers the importance of living a pure life separated from the corruption of the world. If you remember Tertullian became a Montanist near the end of his life.

Catholic just means universal or one.

Now you are playing a game of semantics. We aren't using the word that way are we.

To that end we are STILL catholic. We are part of the ONE Body of Christ- the universal Church which Christ came to build and against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.

No it doesn't. Are you advocating the ecumenical movement. I don't believe in the universal church. I believe in churches, as the word ekklesia means--or assemblies.

In that ONE CATHOLIC BODY are Baptists, IFB, Methodists, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, etc...

Your theology is flawed. There is no one Catholic body.

What many people do is mistake the word "catholic" for the Roman Catholic Church as she is today and as she has been since a few hundred years before the Reformation.

The word may mean 'universal' in some cases, but we haven't been using it that way.

That is a mistake. It is not accurate to think that way about the word "catholic".
We don't use it any more for good reason- but we ought to understand what it has historically meant.

We were not discussing the word "catholic". We were discussing the RCC. There have always been opponents of the RCC, many of whom have been Baptistic in nature, right from the Apostles onward. That you don't seem to accept. Baptists don't come from the Reformation. From which reformer do you think they came from?? They were well before the Reformation and have always protested against the heresies of the RCC.

 

[menageriekeeper]

I have changed a GREAT DEAL doctrinally over the span of my Christian life.

I used to be a THOROUGH Arminian. I was educated at a Free Will Baptist Bible College.

I used to be dispensational premil.

I used to be King James ONLY- and I mean that in the worst sense of the phrase.

I used to be a fierce preacher of IFB type doctrines and philosophies. I even helped establish a very legalistic, cultic IFB church with a friend of mine who went to the Free Will Baptist college with me.

I am almost the dead level opposite now, and I thought I'd share part of the reason why.

Wow Luke, I understand a lot more about you after this post. I too was raised for a time in the FreeWill Baptist Church and even considered attending college at the Nashville campus. But by that time, I was already rejecting the overt attempts at legalism that was invading the denomination (early 80s). My grandfather in fact had been an itinerant Free Will preacher (among other things) during my mother's childhood (40's & 50'). As a child I sat for many hours just out of sight of the men listening to them argue over this point or another of doctrine. Then as I got older and began to read the scriptures for myself, I learned they were ALL wrong on one point or another. And it didn't matter if they were Free Will or not (and quite a few of my uncles were not!)

Among the cults and heresies we battle today, I noticed a common thread that tied them together. It was a total lack of concern for the historic Christian Faith. Whether it is Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, United Pentecostalism, etc... each one could not care less about what the church has always believed. They do not care that their beliefs are new (or at least have only been espoused by cults sporadically throughout history). The UPC's, for example, are convinced that we baptists are all going to hell because we have not been baptized in Jesus' name and we have not spoken in tongues. Certainly that is not exegetically supportable. But we would not even have to battle over texts, it would not have even gone that far if the people who started the UPC had stopped in the origin of the movement and said, "Wait a minute guys. So almost EVERYBODY in the history of the Christian church is in hell? And we are the first ones, besides the heretical Sabellianists which existed for a short time, to come to the truth on this? And all of those Christians- Spurgeon, Carey, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Knox, John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Huss, John Wycliff, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine of Hippo, etc...- ALL of them and those that followed them are in hell!? And we alone are right??" It seems to me to be UNSPEAKABLE arrogance that moves people to keep right on preaching beliefs that undermine and even DAMN the whole history of the Christian church. How much authority must one think he has to have the right to do such a thing?

"He who disregards history is doomed to repeat it." (Churchill?) But while this is a good point, you can't say that just because a people have believed something for centuries or millenia even that everything they espoused can be held sacred. We have a Guide Book that we are to compare our doctrines and our beliefs too. And while we can consider what the ancients thought, we have to determine for ourselves whether or not they were or rather are still correct.

Cultural understandings change. Just as those early theologians believed heartily that the earth was flat, they may also be just as wrong in how they hold more important doctrines/beliefs.

So I began to seriously scrutinize anything that is new. For example, dispensational premillinealism. It is new. There is a historic premil that is old. But dispensational premil is very new (Darby established it in 1830), so I began to really question my confidence in this doctrine since I was, myself, for years a premil dispensationalist. And I concluded that this was not biblical and THAT'S WHY the Body of Christ never saw it before- it is not there.

The historic Body of Christ is not STUPID. If the Church has not discovered a major doctrine with two thousand years at her disposal to do so- guess what- it probably isn't there. You and I are not more brilliant or more spiritual than the whole of Christianity put together for 2,000 years. It requires untenable arrogance to think otherwise.

I think we ought to give great credence to the importance of historicity of doctrine before we embrace it. And I think we ought to examine any doctrines we hold to now, which we got in this hyper autonomous age and culture in which we live, which have no real historicity.

A doctrine can most certainly EVOLVE over 2,000 years of history. That is fine and good. But when it has no roots- it is probably BAD WRONG.

The RC is a good example of bad doctrine evolving over 2000 years of history. But where they went wrong was on doctrines that were CLEARLY opposed to the scriptures. The RC continued on, because during those times they had the power, the military might to force their beliefs on people who didn't know any better.

We can't just look back and say, "well this doctrine is x amount of years old so it must necessarily contain some truth". We also can't reject a doctrine just because the RC was the first to propose it. We must compare all doctrine, new or old, to the plain reading of scripture and the guidance of the Holy Spirit within us.

 

[Luke2427]

And no Calvinists in your church existed before Calvin! :rolleye

s:

You've already admitted that that isn't true.

Get your story straight.

But we do have some pretty aged people sitting on those pews.

There is plenty of evidence, especially taking into consideration the meaning of the name: ana-baptist--to baptize again. It was given out of hatred and disparagement. Those that baptized again (after conversion) were persecuted, and that happened hundreds of years before the Reformation, and for that very reason. These same people were also known as the Albigenses and Waldenses. The testimony of Cardinal Hosius is that the Waldenses existed for these last 1200 years right back to the Apostles. For being Bible-believers, Christians, Innocent III tried to wipe the Albigenses off the face of the map. There are many other groups but that is enough for now.

I'll deal with this later.

But for a quick response go to my thread in the fundamentalist forum.

I am not an SBC, nor do I subscribe to all their beliefs whatever they may be.

Did your churches not split from SBC or the Northern Baptists?

The church where you were saved, was it not an IFB church and did it not split off from one of the major protestant denominations?

If not, was it not started by someone who is from a church that split off of a Protestant denomination?

 

[Luke2427]

Wow Luke, I understand a lot more about you after this post. I too was raised for a time in the FreeWill Baptist Church and even considered attending college at the Nashville campus. But by that time, I was already rejecting the overt attempts at legalism that was invading the denomination (early 80s). My grandfather in fact had been an itinerant Free Will preacher (among other things) during my mother's childhood (40's & 50'). As a child I sat for many hours just out of sight of the men listening to them argue over this point or another of doctrine. Then as I got older and began to read the scriptures for myself, I learned they were ALL wrong on one point or another. And it didn't matter if they were Free Will or not (and quite a few of my uncles were not!)

I can relate.

you can't say that just because a people have believed something for centuries or millenia even that everything they espoused can be held sacred.

But no one is arguing that. No one has said that if it is old it IS true.

What we are saying is that if it is NEW (in the sense that it has no historical roots) then it is almost assuredly NOT true.

It is rejection of this fact that gave rise to Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jim Jones, David Koresh and every other heresy we battle in our day.

Doctrines that are not damnable like those listed above still must be submitted to this scrutiny- If it is new, if the Christian church NEVER believed anything close to this- then it is PROBABLY VERY wrong.

 

[Luke2427]

You are absolutely right. I concede that Calvin himself admits that he got many of his ideas from Augustine. In essence therefore, Calvinism is simply Augustinianism. And Augustine was one of the founders of the RCC.

_________________________________________

 

[Amy.G]

But no one is arguing that. No one has said that if it is old it IS true.

What we are saying is that if it is NEW (in the sense that it has no historical roots) then it is almost assuredly NOT true.

It is rejection of this fact that gave rise to Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jim Jones, David Koresh and every other heresy we battle in our day.

Doctrines that are not damnable like those listed above still must be submitted to this scrutiny- If it is new, if the Christian church NEVER believed anything close to this- then it is PROBABLY VERY wrong.

I think church history is important for many reasons, but the first place we should go to scrutinize doctrines is to the word of God. What does God say? Then we can research the historical teachings.

 

[Robert Snow]

DHQ, where do you get these things? First, you are going off topic but secondly you are espousing a genetic fallacy and a strawman argument in one post. I know you hate us and our doctrine, but please at least get the facts right and use proper logic.

The response was:

Yes Augustine preached the tenets of Calvinism, but he was also a Catholic.

I believe this is accurate. Why does the modern day Calvinist refuse to acknowledge this fact. Both Luther and Calvin were Catholics.

I believe the true church goes back much farther than this. It goes back through the Apostles all the way to Jesus and the doctrine he preached. It's true that Luther started the Reformation with his 95 thesis, but he only returned to the idea of justification by faith, which the true church had never left.

Other than this, both Luther and Calvin did little except muddy the waters and start an elitist sect that continues to this day. Some here on this site constantly mention how important advanced theological education is to the point of disdain toward those who disagree. It is almost like a return back to the Catholic Church from whence some of their doctrine came. Next these posters might be advocating a return to infant baptism, something both Luther and Calvin never got away from.

 

[Luke2427]

The response was:



I believe this is accurate. Why does the modern day Calvinist refuse to acknowledge this fact. Both Luther and Calvin were Catholics.

I don't know of anybody denying it. So what?

I believe the true church goes back much farther than this.

It does not matter what you believe- it only matters what is true.

It goes back through the Apostles all the way to Jesus and the doctrine he preached. It's true that Luther started the Reformation with his 95 thesis, but he only returned to the idea of justification by faith, which the true church had never left.

Where is this "True Church"?

See, I think the problem folks have here is that they don't understand what it has historically mean to be catholic.

They hear the word "catholic" and they think Mariolatry, and ex cathedra and indulgences, etc...

That is a very uninformed way to think of the word "catholic".

Other than this, both Luther and Calvin did little except muddy the waters and start an elitist sect that continues to this day. Some here on this site constantly mention how important advanced theological education is to the point of disdain toward those who disagree. It is almost like a return back to the Catholic Church from whence some of their doctrine came. Next these posters might be advocating a return to infant baptism, something both Luther and Calvin never got away from.

These kinds of comments are exactly why thinking people advocate advanced theological education.

 

[Luke2427]

I think church history is important for many reasons, but the first place we should go to scrutinize doctrines is to the word of God. What does God say? Then we can research the historical teachings.

But I don't think anybody is arguing otherwise.

What we are saying is that we NEED help from one another to properly understand the great truths of Scripture.

God never intended for the whole Bible to be fully understood by one man interpreting it in a vacuum.

God always intended for the Body of Christ to have to work together to do everything it does.

The hand NEEDS the foot and the eye needs the arm etc...

And you and I need the help of Christians who span the ages to properly understand the great truths of Scripture like the Trinity and the Incarnation, etc...

So when one person comes along and says, "God speaks to me and I don't care what the Church says- this is true and here are my proof texts..."

We say, "You are a dangerous person."

If ALL OF US would do that- Joel Osteen, Rob Bell, Mormonism, etc... could hardly thrive in this culture.

But it is when we STOPPED doing that, when we started thumbing our nose at the Historic Christian Faith that we invited these heresies to thrive in our culture.

 

[seekingthetruth]

Hey Ruiz

I don't know of anybody denying it. So what?



It does not matter what you believe- it only matters what is true.



Where is this "True Church"?

See, I think the problem folks have here is that they don't understand what it has historically mean to be catholic.

They hear the word "catholic" and they think Mariolatry, and ex cathedra and indulgences, etc...

That is a very uninformed way to think of the word "catholic".




These kinds of comments are exactly why thinking people advocate advanced theological education.

Ruiz, ask Luke if there was any church other than the RCC for 1200 years.

You ask me for one example...here it is.

John the cultist

 

[Luke2427]

Ruiz, ask Luke if there was any church other than the RCC for 1200 years.

You ask me for one example...here it is.

John the cultist

You don't understand the nature of the RCC.

It had a secular nature as well as a spiritual nature.

Within both natures there were all kinds of beliefs about all kinds of things.

Within the secular RCC were thousands of real Christians who made up The Church.

Illustration:

The SBC has 16 millions members. Adrian Rogers, a once president of the SBC, said that eighty percent of the SBC is unconverted.

So within the SBC were all kinds of people who believed all kinds of things.

But among those people are many real Christians who, along with others, make up THE CHURCH.

Illustration 2:
There are denominations which ordain homosexuals, like the Episcopalian denomination.
WITHIN the ranks of that denomination are people who are against this. Some of them are very vocal and some of them are not. But many of these people in this movement are as saved as I am. Those people are in a movement that has gradually gone astray and they hope to reform it from within.

These people, along with others, make up THE CHURCH.


THE CHURCH in 1517 was held captive by a movement which had gradually gone horribly astray for many years.
Then POST TENEBRAS LUX! After darkness, LIGHT!

In similar fashion as God brought light to his people who'd for hundreds of years been in bondage in Egypt, God brought light to his people again.

Like our episcopalian brethern who wish to reform the backsliding, perhaps even apostate, Episcopalian church from within, Luther, wished to Reform the Catholic Church.

God had other plans for Luther.

And here we are.

 

[Robert Snow]

Ruiz, ask Luke if there was any church other than the RCC for 1200 years.

You ask me for one example...here it is.

John the cultist

This is why I don't respond to posters like Luke2427, it is a waste of time to argue with someone who is as devoted to advanced theological education as much as to the simple teachings of the Word of God.

I don't believe God needs any help; you would think a Calvinist would agree. The reason the don't is obvious. According to some we would not be able to read the Word of God and be saved. We need their theological help to even believe the Gospel. We both know that few, if any, would read the bible and come up with Calvinism without outside influence. Unfortunately, this is true of many things served up as necessary by the church today.

Personally I believe that God is able to bring conviction through the preaching and reading of the Word of God without any help at all from man. Perhaps that is the difference between a theology that relies upon our educational ability and one that doesn't.

 

[Luke2427]

This is why I don't respond to posters like Luke2427, it is a waste of time to argue with someone who is as devoted to advanced theological education as much as to the simple teachings of the Word of God.

I don't believe God needs any help; you would think a Calvinist would agree. The reason the don't is obvious. According to some we would not be able to read the Word of God and be saved. We need their theological help to even believe the Gospel. We both know that few, if any, would read the bible and come up with Calvinism without outside influence. Unfortunately, this is true of many things served up as necessary by the church today.

Personally I believe that God is able to bring conviction through the preaching and reading of the Word of God without any help at all from man. Perhaps that is the difference between a theology that relies upon our educational ability and one that doesn't.

This indicates that you don't understand what advanced theological education is.

IT IS THE STUDY OF THE WORD OF GOD.

How anybody could be against that is beyond me.

 

[preacher4truth]

This indicates that you don't understand what advanced theological education.

IT IS THE STUDY OF THE WORD OF GOD.

How anybody could be against that is beyond me.

...same here.

How someone can call the Word of God "simple" seemingly hasn't done much real study of it. The more you learn, the more questions you have, and the more complex it becomes.

 

[Ruiz]

The response was:



I believe this is accurate. Why does the modern day Calvinist refuse to acknowledge this fact. Both Luther and Calvin were Catholics.

I believe the true church goes back much farther than this. It goes back through the Apostles all the way to Jesus and the doctrine he preached. It's true that Luther started the Reformation with his 95 thesis, but he only returned to the idea of justification by faith, which the true church had never left.

Other than this, both Luther and Calvin did little except muddy the waters and start an elitist sect that continues to this day. Some here on this site constantly mention how important advanced theological education is to the point of disdain toward those who disagree. It is almost like a return back to the Catholic Church from whence some of their doctrine came. Next these posters might be advocating a return to infant baptism, something both Luther and Calvin never got away from.

There is so much to address on this issue. First, while Luther and Calvin began as Catholics, no one can doubt they left the church and were willing to die for their doctrines.

Next, to say that they were an elitist sect goes beyond all the historic evidence. Rather, if you read Calvin you note that he is meticulous to tracing his doctrine both historically and Biblically. Calvin agreed that if there was not a historic understanding of these doctrines, that he invented them, then he needed to reconsider his view.

I don't think they muddied the waters, but clarified them. Have you read the Institutes or Luther's Bondage of the Will? Extreme care and detailed clarity exists in these works.

As for Paedo-Baptism, I disagree with both of them. However, I do not view their belief as Catholic as it predated the Catholic church by a long stretch. Calvin's and Luther both rejected the Catholic view of Baptism, but they kept paedo-baptism.

Yet, all this is begging the question. If it is new, it is not true.

While Calvin and Luther rejected adamantly the Roman Dogma, they embraced theology that was historic.

While I believe there were true churches in existence when the Reformation began, I also believe God brought out true Christians from the Catholic church at that time too.

 

[Luke2427]

If your theology is new, doesn't that bother you?

KJVO is new.

Teetotalism is new.

This idea that God speaks to you apart from Scripture is new.

Mormonism, JW's, Jim Jones, David Koresh, Rob Bell's universalism, are all new.

Does this not concern you?

Do you not see the importance of making certain that what you think is consistent with the Historic Christian Faith?

 

[Ruiz]

Some believe this is a strictly calvinistic experience, but I got this from Liberty where I attended Seminary.

Secondly, are we advocating that new theology is acceptable? Really?

We will embrace something that has not been scrutinized throughout history?

 

[Amy.G]

What we are saying is that we NEED help from one another to properly understand the great truths of Scripture.

God never intended for the whole Bible to be fully understood by one man interpreting it in a vacuum.

God always intended for the Body of Christ to have to work together to do everything it does.

I agree 100%.