We should begin by making sure we don't metaphorically burn each other at the stake or label
each other as heretics when we honestly disagree.
Do we have to label
each other as heretics over differences of beliefs other than Christ as our Savior?
Then, they focused on murdering
each other as heretics for a millenium plus.
Not exact matches
Some Muslims perceive Ahmadiyyas
as heretics because of their view that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a 19th - century thinker, was a prophet sent by God - something the
other branches of Islam reject.
The libertine and ascetic Gnostics strike us
as being incompatible
heretics, however in the act of day - by - day living each may have slipped into the
other's territory.
But we do not condemn the
other person
as a
heretic, to burn forever in the lake of fire.
We were viewed
as heretics when we tried to tell
others in our ministry about it.
For purposes of classification, therefore, it would perhaps be most accurate to think of Davies
as a writer of Christian apocrypha: a novelist who finds himself uncomfortably restrained by the canon of Christian thought, but who is not, on the
other hand, a
heretic; a self - proclaimed moralist who holds that while we reap what we sow, it is often difficult to know the nature of the seed or the outcome of the harvest.
«Until we know the power of divine grace, we read in the Bible concerning eternal punishment, and we think it is too heavy and too hard, and we are apt to kick against it, and find out some
heretic or
other who teaches us another doctrine; but when the soul is really quickened by divine grace, and made to feel the weight of sin, it thinks the bottomless pit none too deep, and the punishment of hell none too severe for sin such
as it has committed.
The evidence of the Rabbinical literature, which is mostly of late date and uniformly hostile to Christianity, adds little of historical worth, but confirms that Jews who became Christians formed a community to some extent separate from
other Jews, and by the end of the first century at least were regarded
as heretics.
We shall see how important the creeds and
other summaries of belief have been to many Christians, who have unchurched those with whom they disagreed and at times persecuted people whose opinions were regarded
as unorthodox, whom they called
heretics.
So my question is: how did the backlash against open theism shape you, what did you learn from it, and what would you say to those who would dismiss you (and
others)
as heretics for your views?
Ironically, many in Free Grace circles condemn Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo, and
others in their camp
as heretics.
As Christians, we judge gays, lesbians, the rich, the homeless, people of
other religions, atheists,
heretics, criminals, drunks, drug addicts, prostitutes, pimps, politicians, and anybody else we can think of to point our finger at.
She condemned the
heretic not to punish him but to save him, not to protect herself or society against him but to lead him back to the truth; for on the
other side of his heresy,
as it were, she loved the person she put to death to deliver him from his heresy.
We
as christians need to show a better way, but how can we when the Church is divided (
heretics) no wonder
other beliefs laugh and scorn us.
This is not how the Bible uses the term, and in fact, since condemning
others as «
heretics» is divisive, this behavior itself is the true biblical «heresy.»
For several generations the Popes invoked it, partly against Moslems and partly,
as in the case of the Cathari, against those whom they labeled
as heretics or against
others of their foes.
On the
other hand there seem to have been Christians at this period, nicknamed «Alogi» (= anti-» Word» men, also — anti-Reason men) by their opponents, who rejected the Johannine authorship of the gospel and the Apocalypse, but were not generally regarded
as heretics.
From time to time thinkers and pastors, identified at the time by authority
as «
heretics», seen by
others as prophets, and by some historians now
as social revolutionaries, reached the conclusion that the Christian Gospel spoke of a body of Christians, of an incipient «Church», of a kind far removed from the type of political and economic structure maintained by Roman Canon Law.
In light of my previous post on Luther, and my opening post for this blog about being called a
heretic, I thought I might comment on some recent articles and books which condemn me (and
other speakers and writers)
as someone who teaches a crossless gospel.
Giordano Bruno, the wandering monk who influenced Spinoza and Liebniz, was burned in 1600
as a
heretic, for (among
other things) speculating about life on
other planets, much like scientists do today.
The scientists among you, start finally accepting offers for real debate with «skeptical» scientists on scientific grounds a. (People like Judith, von Storch and a handful
others are certainly open for this, although some may consider them «
heretic» or even «skeptic» because of their openness or because they don't declare every single bad weather event
as proof of AGW).
Richard like
other religions it also uses the concepts like «
heretics» used for those that fail to believe in the «right way» and creation of «evil «which explains way they need to paint AGW sceptics
as not merely wrong but «mad or bad» And above all its amazing how often the word «belief» are seen in what is supposed to be science.