Stormy Daniels lawyer says she was physically threatened

Post Reply New Topic

Since when? Are evangelicals now claiming to be mainline, now? If so, then the rest of us certainly haven't given that claim any credence. Because, yes, infant baptism is very much practiced by mainline Protestants, as it's a common practice among Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and others.
As far as being "born again" is concerned: most mainline Protestant theology doesn't believe grace is attained through a choice human beings make, but is a gift given freely by God. We Lutherans specifically believe grace is impossible for flawed human nature to accept, but is given to us by "means of grace," such as the sacraments of the eucharist (which can be given at any age), and the Lord's Supper - this specific belief can differ from denomination to denomination, but that's okay. So, no, not a whole lot of claims of having born again experiences among us. For myself, baptised as an infant and raised in the church, there was never I time when I didn't consider myself a believer.
Also, most mainline Protestants adhere to both eccumenical creeds such as the Nicene and Aptostolic creeds, as well as to specific creeds expounding their specific theology. Evangelicals usually are anti-creedal.
As far as "following the evengel" - It's commonly felt evangelicals have usurped the words evangelical and evangel, and so mainline Protestants rarely use those terms. Though the other major Lutheran body refers to itself as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Case in point, when Trump, who claims to be a Presbyterian, met with Presbyterian theologians, referred to them as evangelicals. When they corrected him and said they were mainline Protestants not evangelicals, a stunned Trump had asked: "But you're Christians, aren't you?"

Calvinism - Belief in a double predestination: God before hand chose who would be saved, and who would be damned, and this could never be altered. This lends itself to the notion that free will plays no part in salvation. There are actually few who practice pure calvinism anymore. Presbyterians and Congregationalists are of Calvinist theology, though moderated in more recent centuries, though many evangelicals claim to be of that tradition.
Arminianism - The belief that humans can accept God's grace as an act of free will. This is the central doctrine of Methodists and Wesleyans, and a great many evangelicals subscribe to this belief even if they claim to be Calvinists.

Right once saved always saved because it's predestined. Whereas with arminianism you can lose your salvation. And I think with once saved always saved also includes lordship salvation, where you're not really saved unless Jesus is really your lord, meaning obedience. But I don't know how they get around that not being a works based salvation.

Lutheranism in fact has only single predestination for grace. Also, we believe the elect can fall from grace, though it's not impossible to return to grace. Good works and obeying Christ are the fruits of grace rather than a means of obtaining it, in our opinion.

So if someone is not one of the predestined elect, they're predestined to suffer eternal torment.

The thing is, we Lutherans have always admitted we don't know. We're just going on passages from the likes of Paul, who had said (and I'm sure I'm paraphrasing): "Those who God saved he predestined. Those he predestined he foreknew."
Rather, we feel it's our part to spread the Gospel, and to take comfort in knowing that we are loved by God.

Did you know for about the first 400 years of the church, universal reconciliation was the main theology by a majority of about 75%? That was before catholicism and lutheranism and all the rest came into being.

I concede I like the sound of that. But is it actually based on scripture?