Trump calls GOP health care plan "mean"

Post Reply New Topic

My biggest problem with the evangelicals is that they're not evangelicals. Some of the bilge that I hear from these groups usually come from those that are of a fundamentalist bent. Further, preachers like Creflo Dollar and Joel Osteen have bought into the so-called prosperity gospel. Others, like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr. have gone way too far with their preaching based on gross misinterpretations of both Five point Calvinism and Remontranism (as espoused by Arminius.)

I couldn't agree more.

Either we, or our representatives, have decided on taxation by majority vote. It is not a mugging.

If three of your neighbors vote on how to divide your property, that is still theft.

"We" have decided that you shall do something.

You are the two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner.



They're not supposed to say the rules or fundamentals of what they believe in...



Once-saved-always saved vs. being able to lose your salvation...



I am not sure what else that leaves, or why you should call yourself a Christian.

If you believe in something else, just say what it really is (on your own dollar). I don't think anyone, in this time and place, is going to burn you at the stake for that.

I think, as Christians, you expected people not to talk about grace or the law. That covers the Old and New Testament. What's the point of assuming this label, really.

You're conveniently forgetting Christ's dictum "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar..."









You left out the Calvinistic teaching of Salvation is for those that God elects to be saved. You also left out the Arminian teaching of resistible grace. I grew up in a church that taught the worst of both forms of these respective theologies. I left that church after I was 21, because I got tired of the asses in said congregation telling me I was going to hell because I didn't believe the same way everyone believed. Also, I got tired of all of the hypocrisy that went on in that congregation. I got tired of being told I was going to hell by the same people who were committing the same sins and were telling me I was not among the elect, while they were. "Judge not, lest Ye be judged."



As a Lutheran, we are to die to sin every day. Besides, salvation is a gift, freely given by God, with no strings attached. Not salvation for the elect. Salvation for everyone who accepts the gift, no matter if you're the richest man in the world, or if you're a serf. Not losing your salvation as quickly as you gained it. You can accept or reject the gift at your own risk, even though the is no risk for accepting the gift, and nothing but risk for rejecting the gift.

Like Martin Luther, I'm probably one of the worst sinners around (and I'm not the only one.). Therefore, we confess our sins daily, and try not to repeat that sin (though that is nigh impossible).

two competing memes here-

*every man for himself, first one in line gets the lions' share, and the devil [the poor/unlucky] take the hindmost,
versus
*I am my brother's keeper, we're all in this thing together.

the first one [aka "the prosperity gospel," objectivism et al] is winning by a longshot with a lead that grows exponentially in his hellworld.

No, because by that vote, your neighbors also have to pay. It is hardly the same as a theft.
You may believe that grace is resistible and conditional, but I do not. Salvation is entirely in God's hands, but we can reject the free gift at anytime. So, no, I don't believe in once saved, always saved. That sort of theology allows someone, thinking that they're saved, to believe they can get away with the worst sort of behavior and think there's no repercussions.

The analogy of two wolves and a sheep assumes that some will not have to pay.

You can't think of freeloaders, on either side of the cultural divide?

How about, not ganging up on people, and dispossessing them by force. I know it's counterintuitive, to some.

Is it acceptable, for me to find a mob of people, and make you participate in something, against your conscience? Sometimes, or not really?


predestination +1


predestination +1


free will +1


free will +1

As far as all your talk about theft is concerned, I think what that's really about is punishing those free loaders you speak of. As you can't take the wealthy free loaders to task, you go after those poor people you perceive to be taking from you.
Lutheran theology doesn't fit well with Calvinism (predestination), or Arminianism (free agency), which is why Lutheranism is it's own theology.