I am well aware that there are Christians who believe that all of the bible is the words of Jesus and must be taken literally and totally without the possibility of error in every regard. On my very first post on this blog almost four years ago I was confronted by this belief by a person rather high up in the Lutheran denominations. I have … Continue reading About The Epistles….
I am going to start this post with an alarming story of Constantine’s involvement in the Council of Nicaea. It is from a book by Harvey Cox entitle The Future of Faith. If this doesn’t cast out any doubt of man’s involvement in the change from faith to rigid belief nothing will: Constantine, not Jesus, was the dominant figure at Nicaea, and it is … Continue reading The Decrees of Constantine…
Most Christians today only know of two creeds: The Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. In reality there were hundreds if not thousands of creeds generated during the 4th through the 10th centuries. It seemed that every time a bishop felt his power threatened he claimed to have another creed dictated by God. Here is what Harvey Fox said about that in his book the … Continue reading About Those Creeds…..
Jesus meant for us to look forward in the world to accomplish the tasks he gave us. If you read the red letters for what they are and not necessarily what others think about them then you will know that he didn’t intend for us to always be looking backwards to what he did for us. He gave each one of us who call ourselves … Continue reading Stumbling Forward….
Many of us Christians never seem to give up our childhood views of just who God is. We think of him as that white bearded guy up in heaven. True, we do add some things to this vision as we get older we see him as that guy who spends his day saying “You go to heaven; you go to hell”. We often view Jesus … Continue reading That Bearded Guy Up There…..
Yesterday I got the below email from Sojourners with responses from both presidential candidates on how they will address the problem of poverty in America. Given that our current study is “our responsibilities to the poor” it came at a very appropriate time. I am tempted to make some remarks about the two approaches but will refrain from doing so in this post. Click on … Continue reading Maybe…. Just Maybe….
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with … Continue reading The Love of God….
I am again an Apple computer guy so when I saw recently that Apple had won a court case against Samsung on their using things that Apple has patents on the thought of for the title above came quickly to mind. Many Christians seem to think that they have exclusive rights to who God is and what we are to believe about him. I believe … Continue reading Christians Don’t Have Exclusive Rights on God…
We in the U.S. know that one of the primary foundations of our democracy is freedom of speech. That is being able to say something different from our leaders and not suffer serious consequences. In my opinion this is what has allowed our country to remain so strong over the centuries. Many times criticisms lead to change and though we might not realize it at … Continue reading The Church Is Not a Democracy….
This is a cross post from one of my other blogs at RJ’s Corner. I thought it appropriate for RLL also. It is terrible to think what the churches do to men. But if one imagines oneself in the position of the men who constitute the Church, we see they could not act differently. The churches are placed in a dilemma: the Sermon on the … Continue reading God Is Not Dead But the Church Is On Life Support…
In recent days I have been getting frustrated by the progress I have made into the parallel studies of the Roman empire and the Christian church. It is not that I am not learning things it is just that it is taking longer than I originally anticipated. My wife claims that I always underestimate these sort of things and maybe I do 🙂 I certainly … Continue reading A New Direction…. Again….
Time Period: 573BC I am about three weeks into my study of the parallels between Christian church history and the history of the Roman empire. I was hoping to find a “people’s history” of Rome for a source but have been unsuccessful in that regard. I now have about five sources of info but there really is little documented evidence of how the common man … Continue reading The Beginnings…..
RedLetterLiving 