Religion

Joe,

Would you by chance consider yourself a post-modern thinker? Do you identify with many of the teachings of the Emmergent Church Movement and Brian Mclaren?

Joseph Botwinick

 

You are treading on really, really dangerous ground.

Leviticus 20:27 (ESV)
"A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them."

Deut. 18:10-12 (ESV)
There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer [11] or a charmer or a medium or a wizard or a necromancer, [12] for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

1 Chron. 10:13 (ESV)
So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance.

 

Dangerous ground indeed. Humanity has one saviour.

 

Moreover, I don't believe one can be saved and think like you do.

And I believe your claim of communication with the dead to be baloney.

 

Joe's profile seems to be pretty generic.
Short personal statement of faith. BELIEVE.

May I ask? Believe WHAT?

If I may quote you, :"Perhaps if humanity could somehow integrate all these religious belief systems toward the goal of one spirituality with God, we could finally begin to see the emergence of world peace."

And then show you this, "Mt 10:34
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."

Apparently you have endeavoured to accomplish something which Jesus never intended. There will BE no peace until Jesus comes in His glory to establish the coming Milleniel Kingdom.

Perhaps sir, rather than trying to syncretize all the world's religions, you would be of better service to others by proclaiming the true Gospel. It is explained here:
1Co 15:1
¶ Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
1Co 15:2
By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
1Co 15:3
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
1Co 15:4
And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

In HIS service;
Jim

 

Perhaps time would be better spent reading another Book ?

 

Amen to that!!!!!

 

I'm praying for the Holy Spirit to come into religion.

 

Religion has already been a "spirituality" thing since the beginning. God warns us about that stuff umpteen times in Scripture.

Faith in God's Son is a totally different thing.

In HIS service;
Jim

 

I have no use for religion in the common usage of the word.

I simply have faith in Christ. Pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this:
1- to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction
2- to keep yourself unspotted from the world

That's my kind of religion.

 

Joe, you are really playing with fire here. There is a demonic realm out there waiting to get you in its clutches and one of the ways it seeks to do that is through so-called consultations of the dead. For your own sake, please turn around and turn to Christ - He is the only one who can save you, as He has saved me and countless others here on this board. Your search for true, authentic spirituality is commendable, but it can only be found in Jesus Christ.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Sadly - I think this kind of thing is EXACTLY where the planet is heading! It uses spiritism to combine all religions and it uses "testimony" gained at the feet of the supposed "dead" to back up its own "world view" and "life view".

In 1 Tim 4:1 we are told that in the last days some will "fall away from the faith giving accpetance to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons".

In Rev 16 we find that unclean "spirits" like frogs come out of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet.

If the beast truly is that Rev 13 and 17 entity that controlled the world for 1260 years of the dark ages persecuting the saints etc -- then the prediction about these agents of "spiritism" includes their activity inside of Christianity as well as the pagan systems of the world.

Joe's post may seem "silly" to us now -- but so did the idea of America being the one super power on the planet to people in the 1800's.

So also did the idea of protestantism in the America eventually dropping its strong objection to Catholicism back in the 1800's.

I am sure that a flood of water falling from the sky seemed silly to the people of Noah's day.

In Christ,

Bob

 

JOEBIALEK said:I've also communicated with a deceased friend by way of a psychic medium.

Joe, your medium might have really heard from"something", but it was not your deceased friend. Satan and his demons are the ones who answer that kind of quest!! Outside of God, some local demons know just as much or more than you do about your friend, and are more than happy to share it with you through a medium!!

I would echo the sentaments of others and urge you to come to Jesus and repent and then you can know that heaven is your home.

Selah,

Tam

 

Just an fyi about what Brian McLaren has to say about religious relativism.

I agree with other posters that the use of mediums is playing with fire in the spirit world and is explicitly warned against in the bible.

 

"Throughout history and even still today, most religions claim to be the one true religion and all others are considered either phony imitations or some sort of heretical sacrilege."
"
See that's a common misconception.
Not all religions are based around a revealed 'TRUTH'.
Some are based on doing the right 'DEEDS'.
Others are about getting access to 'POWER'.
In scientific terms, that would be, orthodoxy, orthopraxy and magic.
Many religions mix elements of the 3 in different amounts.
Judaïsm&Islam for example are religions based mostly around orthopraxy with a dose of orthodoxy added.
Christianity is the quintessential orthodoxy religion, although in certain forms it has elements of magic (the prosperity gospel) and orthopraxis (no pants for women 'cause da Good Book says so) as well.
The religion of the ancient Romans is a perfect example of a magical religion. Making a sacrifice to Jupiter in the hope of receiving some tangible benefit (say, good weather for the next season) in return.

 

So making a pilgrimage to gain benefits for a dead loved one or doing favors for one of the family gods -- dead ancestors - saints to get a favor back --- eh??

It is actually a very simple exercise - scripture says not to communicate
with the dead (righteously deceased or otherwise) on BEHALF of the living
stating that we should be communicating with God instead (in Isaiah 8).

By contrast we have the following prayer to the "dead in Christ" – St. Francis