Santorum says the 45,000,000 Protestants in America are not Christians

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A review of Santorum's book essentially referred to him as having a 'great mind for the 13th Century'.

That's really quite unfair on the 13th century.

Roger Bacon and William of Ockham must be spinning in their only nominal graves.

I'm beginning to think Aquinas would have to run significantly to his own right on economics and law-and-order in Republican primaries these days.

Hell, there are medieval theologians who would have to run the right on homosexuality in Republican primaries these days.

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What does Rick think of Greeks? Since we are the true religion after all.

We actually have an Eastern Christian on the forum? I was unaware of this.

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To be fair to Bob, a lot of what went on at Re-Imagining was theological woo of the sort that's incredibly damaging to the reputation of feminist theology.

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To be fair to Bob, a lot of what went on at Re-Imagining was theological woo of the sort that's incredibly damaging to the reputation of feminist theology.

Fair enough. But it's pretty amusing to characterize the event as having led to the overturning of centuries' worth of doctrine for several major denominations.
Or it would be amusing, if it weren't pernicious.

Oh, I completely agree. It went over like a lead balloon. It was probably the most pointless theological exercise of its kind in decades, up there with the career of Mary Daly.

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Random conference, indeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-Imagining:_Christian_feminist_conference

Note that the conference led to the firing of the highest-ranking Presbyterian woman of the time.

Not a single mainline Protestant denomination withdrew the Nicene Creed from regular liturgical use as a consequence of the Re-Imagining conference. All still use it today.

Here's another link for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong

John Shelby Spong was a bishop.  You can't simply dissociate his church from him as you attempted with the re-imaging conference. [Nor, is pointing out the fact that someone was fired an answer to the question why in the heck did the Presbyterian Church sponsor the conference in the first place?] Spong clearly was advocating the rejection of Nicene Christianity. The schisms are occuring for a reason.

As an Episcopalian, may I explain what happened here?

Spong represents the extreme left wing of Episcopalian thought, a fact a lot of which came out after his consecration. He wrote a few relatively anodyne books before then. He wrote like a dozen extremely reconstructionist books while in office. It's hard to depose an Episcopal bishop and nobody wanted to go to the trouble. Nobody wanted to go to the trouble with Bob Duncan either until he unilaterally initiated schism. When it's known that somebody holds these sorts of views before they are consecrated, they tend to not get through (this is why Kevin Thew Forrester is not Bishop of Northern Michigan, never has been, and never will be). People whose consecrations have been flash-points who have gotten through, such as Gene Robinson, have usually been relatively inoffensive in terms of their actual liturgy and theology.

Obviously people are leaving the church in some number over this--there have been a few schismatic dioceses, although they were quickly reestablished by loyalists--but structural problems related to younger age groups drifting into secularism, non-Christian religions, or BRTD-style hipstertypal churches are a much greater concern, since people who leave over ideological disputes and people who join from the Catholic Church or whatever over the same sorts of ideological disputes are about at parity.

The Presbyterians sponsored Re-Imagining because they didn't know beforehand what it was going to turn into, obviously.

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I'd be quite surprised if a majority of US Catholics were pro-choice or pro-gay marriage.

This is people who identify as Catholic, not necessarily practicing Catholics.

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What I do believe is that those who profess themselves to be Christian ought to follow what Christ teaches. Christ is pretty clear on homosexuality, that it is sinful and disordered. If that makes me a bigot, then I'm in pretty good company.

I'm not sure how exactly one reads that into Christ's statements (some of Paul's, I'll give you), but I understand what you mean, and I sincerely hope my admittedly highly personal (not myself, but my best friend among other people) position on this particular issue and the fact that my politics are very different from yours do not alone hinder you from considering me a brother. I certainly consider you one.

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Matthew 19:4-5

"From the beginnning, the Creator made them male and female, and for this reason a man will leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

The interesting word here is proskollethesetai, used nowhere else. NIV renders it 'unite', but KJV renders it cleave. It means the complete spiritual and physical union. Men and women were made this way to join with one another in this fashion.

I asked the same question as you - not that many moons ago to a seminarian and he could not answer my question. I eventually came upon this myself in my own investigations and I find this whole Matthew chapter 19 to really be an amazing chapter that encapsulates so many things.

As for politics, I could give two hoots about someone's politics. So long as they teach what Christ taught to the best of their understanding then they are my brother. Even if they fall - you are still my brother and sister in Christ and I have an obligation to help you back.

I actually really like Matthew 19. You're right that it's a really great chapter that as you say takes in quite a lot of Christ's teachings on how life is to be lived. In this case, I certainly agree with your basic interpretation of that phrase but there are aspects of verse 12 that I interpret to moderate this as regards sexual orientation (perhaps not to the extent of condoning specific sexual practices, since it seems to be discussing what today would be viewed as variances in expression of gender and socialization rather than any actual acts; this too I will grant). I of course understand that there are received interpretations that do not view 19.12 this way in many churches.

We don't have to discuss this now, though, since it's getting rather off-topic. I admire your intellectual honesty and moral courage as you understand it on these subjects.

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Ben, have you ever heard of the Kakure Christians ('secret Christians'), i.e. the Christian tradition in Japan during the early-modern isolationist period, in which after many generations of enforced physical separation from Rome (and without the Bible having ever been translated into Japanese; the introduction of Catholicism in the sixteenth century was all Jesuit missionaries) the doctrine mutated into something...uh, shall we say, 'distinctly Japanese', but still resolutely monotheistic and at least accepting a 'Jizusu' as the Son of God? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the status of that and the people who followed it (of whom a few are still alive, mostly nonagenarians), considering that it's such a perfect example of a heretical schism that was absolutely nobody's fault except the non-Christian government's.

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Not all are called to marriage. There are other ways to serve God. That's what eunuchs is referring to, and why he says that some choose to live celibately rather then engage in marriage.

"The one who can accept this - should accept this."

That much I understand. I'm just inclined to take a sociological/anthropological view of it, because that's the language that I speak (so to speak).

My question about your feelings on Japanese Christianity was as regarded the spiritual state of the people whose entire lives were lived out in the more repressive parts of the Tokugawa bakufu. While it's true that most Japanese Catholics have been restored to full communion and orthodoxy there are still some scattered outposts where people follow this mimetically received and mutated form of the faith because, one images, their families/communities simply 'always have'.

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During the 200 years or so that they were cut off?

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From my understanding, there are only very few.

I understand the concerns. I guess we have to look back at it and ask - is this going to impair their understanding of Christ - how he is the Son of God? How deep is the individual understanding? I can't speak for any of these folks - that's God's role and not mine to determine.

If you want a Catholic to tell you - hey you're saved, you'd probably be better off asking one of the evangelicals

I certainly don't need you to tell me I'm saved (all respect to you), and I doubt these Japanese folks do either, but I'm, shall we say, academically interested in different strands of Christians' thoughts on these issues.

Good answer, by the way. And for what it's worth, I certainly don't think that the travesty that was made of the Bible through no fault of their own cut out that which was necessary for faith in God, and I've been studying this for a couple of years now.

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Ben, you might want to start a new thread on the religion board.  I'm sure many on here would be interested in discussing the bible's claim that the New Coveant will include the laws of God written on people's hearts.

You would be extremely valuable on the Religion Board, which is in desperate need of new blood.

I agree. Ben, a conservative Catholic perspective would be very welcome on Religion & Philosophy, which is currently dominated by a sola scriptura Protestant arguing with a somewhat radical Anglo-Catholic and a bunch of non-theists.

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I'm honored you consider me a Conservative Catholic, as opposed to an Anglo-Catholic. That is my background - but I converted before the establishment of the Ordinariate, and I'm just a regular Latin Rite Catholic.

Oh, you misunderstand me, I say 'conservative Catholic' as in 'Catholic who is theologically and politically conservative'. When I say 'Anglo-Catholic' it refers to the faction of Anglicanism by that name, which is my theological home (not referring to Anglicans who have been switching over to the Catholic Church in recent decades). I wasn't saying it 'as opposed to' you, it's just what my own background is.

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Eh, I'm similarly disturbed by the fact that there are Christian denominations that don't have some equivalent to the points of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, so.