/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>830695

>and due to my lack of social skills I hold no interest in going to church or interacting with others in real life

Courage my dude.

>>830695

if you're catholic one is bound to go to church on days of obligation

>>830695

if you had social skills, would you still interact?

Hebrews 10:25-31 King James Version (KJV)

25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

>>830695

I've lived much like this for over 20 years. If you can find a house church or fellowship of some kind, then please go there. Otherwise, you're almost always better off alone. Some public churches are good and have escaped notice and State indoctrination, but they're hard to spot, especially for a new believer. Public churches are bought off by the government when they attain tax free status. It is a bribe, much like Judas' 30 pieces of silver. They are sellouts in every sense of the word. Not merely figuratively or vaguely sellouts. Absolutely real sellouts. That's why they're all impotent and lack authority. They're servants of the State now. Not God. People think "State servitude" is just a problem in China, but they are sadly deluded. They see the mote in one person's eye, but not the log in their own and don't realize just how much of a farce they live under. The same indoctrination happens in the West, albeit more subtly. This lack of divine authority is why this whole country has rapidly gone to hell for the past 50 years. These so called "churches" are muzzled and have their hands tied. 99% of the membership is fornicators, divorcees, and abortion enablers. And "good girl" that caught your eye is a whore. The Pastor himself is probably trying to get her attention, when he's not busy extorting the congregation and riding in his Caddy. The Pastor down the street in the other church is a kiddy diddler and likes his prey a bit younger. This is corruption like in the days of Elijah, where you're better off living in a cave and getting a church service from the birds of the air or a still breeze.

>>830709

>Public churches are bought off by the government when they attain tax free status. It is a bribe, much like Judas' 30 pieces of silver. They are sellouts in every sense of the word. Not merely figuratively or vaguely sellouts

Surely you're not talking about the US

Not being taxed isn't a bribe, and the IRS has never threatened to change a tax status based on the teaching of the church. Is a violation of the first amendment.

If you're talking about Denmark or something where the churches are funded via taxes I can't speak to that

>>830717

That's just a testament how weak US churches are. They don't even need to be strongarmed to toe the line. It's an implicit agreement to not make too much of a fuss, and generally adapt to liberal values and aesthetics and become irrelevant entities to the nation. The government simply plays the long game, and before you know it, they also corrupt all Christian institutions from the inside. Churches have queers in their pulpits and communist activists running formerly Christian universities and the choir is singing John Lennon songs.

I wish I was wrong. I want to be wrong.

>>830725

>Good news, you are wrong. That only happens in some mainline Protestant churches, or the very tiny fringes of evangelical churches.

No. Orthodox and Catholic are slowly resembling Mainliners a well… just with a more liturgical bent and better aesthetics Their very leaders (the Patriarch and Pope) are the biggest clowns of them all. You also have underlings in the Vatican praising China (or outright making deals with China.. at the expense of what the actual Christians in China want) and undercover stories of faggot orgies in the Vatican. Their scholarship is also a travesty and no different than Mainline scholarship. 90% of it is "Higher Criticism" that casts doubt on the bible. It has no authority or edifying power. Any given Catholic Bible commentary (New Jerome, Collegeville) is compromised with this stuff. In America, there's only a few outlets and colleges left for conservative Catholic scholarship, but they are largely ignored by the majority of Catholics and slowly being treated as fringe as Sedevacantists (they're not.. they're mostly the EWTN type of Catholics). Even the very study bibles (the NAB) in America pushed by the National Bishop's Conference is a near replica of the same trash as what you'd find in a New Oxford Annotated Bible. You might as well be reading an NRSV with commentary written by dyke Episcopalians. How the mighty have fallen! And you have delusional Catholics here still saying how great their NABs are. These Catholics, faithful though they may be, obviously don't read it or even know the scriptures well enough to spot the errors. They are useless and ignorant, and catechized by wolves. The only thing saving them is their sense of duty. Because it surely isn't their knowledge if they praise the NAB.

As for Orthodox, granted, Greeks and others don't have much of a institutional presence in the school system (outside of seminaries), but even some of the internal clubs within existing schools write nothing but "woke" trash. For example, the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham. Here's just one taste of their nonsense. A "gender studies" paper and it's relation to Orthodoxy. These will be the new priests if something drastic isn't done. You're no more immune than what has happened to Catholics and Mainliners. https://www.fordham.edu/download/downloads/id/14010/BV_Report.pdf

Even the so called leading clerics and public voices are cowtowing to it. Like Bishop Timothy Ware in Britain, who now is advocating for queers to receive the Eucharist. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54d0df1ee4b036ef1e44b144/t/5b199e5f03ce64a767c66c7f/1528405608178/%2313%3A14+Foreword.pdf

^ This is the same man who has one of the most popular "intro to Orthodoxy" books out there, and now he himself is compromised.

Last thing: If anything, I'd say Evangelicals are better off than most, just because they don't care to be ridiculed by those in power or the media or culture in general. They accept the "redneck bible thumper" insults and move on. Mainliners, Catholic, and Orthodox tend to want more respect and prestige than that - and that's the death knell. About the only Catholics and Orthodox you can trust are the ones who don't care to look odd or uptight.

Not to say Evangelicals are entirely immune though. A lot of that Hillsong crowd isn't immune.

>>830737

You are confusing evangelical with fundamentalist

Besides, what you're boo hooing about is the idea that ALL churches are comped in favor of globobomo, after you moved the goalposts from the state causing the manipulation

Rick and Morty style edgy pessimism. Find a healthy church and share the gospel.

>>830739

I'm boring and in my 40s and don't know your pop culture references. After a quick search, I don't care to learn more.

As for pessimism, it depends on what we're talking about. I'm more pessimistic about the Western churches than, say, the churches in Syria that have gone through a beating the past year. There's more that warms my heart seeing them than anything here. Or the house church in China that holds services the whole day and shed tears just to receive bibles. All of these people take Christ's words seriously, to the point of death, and lack even a hint of smugness.

Just because I'm disgusted with the West doesn't mean I have a pessimistic character in general. You don't even have to point a gun at it's leaders, and they'll bark like a dog if asked to.

>>830739

Also, I didn't say all btw. I said some "public churches are good and have escaped notice". But even most of those often are part of overseeing denomination authorities that can turn things sour very quickly. It doesn't take much.

Since we're on the subject of State pressure, let me just leave here with this instead of making a new thread about it:

I wouldn't be surprised if this new

"crisis" ends up with a vaccine push in a year or so (considering how much they're demonizing simpler pill solutions, it almost definitely sounds like they want to market a vaccine). And I wouldn't be surprised if churches started urging it on their members and even contributing to the drives - and even resort to shaming or coercion if questioned.

I'll eat crow if that doesn't happen and will reevalute things. But not before then. God willing that I'm still here by that point.

>>830774

Well, I'm not trying to be edgy from my perspective. I just think I'm better off in isolation. I barely even talk about this and barely even socialize with anyone about anything anymore. But the OP's question somehow set me off. I apologize.

There are a lot of great individual Baptists, I'm sure, but they're not any more immune than others (they do have a Mainline branch too, but I don't need to mention that). Would you believe it was a neighbor's SBC church that set me on this path of isolation decades ago? I became a Christian at 17, and my peers at that church were not entirely different than what I was trying to avoid from my previous life. I don't say this out of a need to be self-righteous, but just out of sadness: It didn't take long to see that people were sleeping with each other, partying, etc.. in their off hours. Telling my neighbor the gravity of his actions did no good. He thought he was already saved. The girl he was sleeping was convinced that she was in "love" with him and therefore it was OK to have sex… because she was going to marry him anyways (this is how it starts, isn't it?)… which she didn't.

I could go on, but consider that anecdotal.. not the totality of my experiences there. And at this point, it's not important. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just crazy. I'm a virgin in my 40s. This is what I get for taking Christ seriously. Who does that anymore? It's completely impractical and will send you down a lonely path. This is what I get for begging for him to meet a pure woman: Nothing. Nothing, but eventual resignation and isolation. I'm beyond edgy, I think.

>>830777

You're jaded

I believe that you had that experience at an SBC church. Theres a lot of lukewarm.

If you're an obedient Christian, there's not an excuse to exist in spiritual isolation save for exceptional disabilities.

If you're in your 40s you might have been feeling the effects of the pre-conservative resurgence SBC. There was a time when southern Baptists were ordaining women.

>>830782

If there is a conservative resurgence, why is the "Ethics" head (of all things) of the SBC now saying (as of January 2020) that he wishes his wife was more like Hillary Clinton?

https://pulpitandpen.org/2020/01/25/sbcs-russell-moore-says-he-wishes-his-wife-was-a-democrat-more-like-hillary-clinton/

In any case, I've long since moved from entertaining any Sola Fide based churches at this point. The root cause for many problems in the first place is "easy believism". Most mainliners and evangelicals share this flaw alike. The same thing that drives the queer priest Episcopalian to spew blasphemies is that which gives the fornicator and a Evangelical divorcee a clear conscience. They're all brainwashed from singing hymns like "Just As I Am", but do not teach about Jesus telling the Rich Man to give up everything and the high cost of following him.

Not to say I'm Orthodox or Catholic either though (as I pointed out earlier).

>>830786

My apologies. The Pulpit and Pen article itself is from 2020, but Russell Moore's statement is from 2009.

>>830786

Dude the SBC is a highly liberal denomination. They use a modern version called the CSB translated in 2017 that includes gender neutral language (they call it "inclusive").

That doesn't represent congregational Biblical churches that use the Authorized version and refuse to adulterate it. If someone was fornicating in my church they'd be put under discipline according to 1 Corinthians 5:9-13. You should find a Biblical church in order to follow the works that were before ordained for you to walk in and not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Here:

http://militarygetsaved.tripod.com/

>>830790

I like the KJV, but I'm not a KJV Only-ist. Nothing is preventing a CSB from conveying the words of Christ (I don't read it myself, but I'm familiar enough with it to not put the blame on it). It'd be different if it was a travesty like the Catholic NAB, with skeptical commentary injected on every other page, but the CSB is fairly benign, relatively speaking. It isn't that the word of God is unknown. People are aware enough with his words. They just make excuses and create theological loopholes to not follow it.

On a related note, kids could watch a cartoon of bible stories, for that matter, and still get a good message from it. The Word of God exists even within that. And the entire medieval age was full of Christians who only learned from basic teachings and artwork… and they still didn't stoop to degeneracy and took their vows to God seriously.

>>830792

>The Word of God exists even within that.

I'm reading 1 Peter right now where it says the following,

<Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

<For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

<But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

So would you say that something that conveys a similar message is that word which Peter describes as never fading away and enduring forever? Would it be considered as the word of the Lord whereby the gospel is preached? The prophecy that came whereby holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost? Is the paraphrased story that?

>And the entire medieval age was full of Christians who only learned from basic teachings and artwork…

I found here a full accurate translation of the four Gospels into Old English, and it has none of the corruptions of modern versions.

https://archive.org/stream/dahalgangodspelo00thor#mode/2up

Evidently, someone was keeping the original words preserved and knew them well enough to make this translation even in largely preliterate days. They kept the full ending of Mark, the pericope adulterae, the original Greek form of John 3:5 (without the added word "again" infamously added by the Vulgate), the original form of Matthew 6:11 which says daily bread and not supersubstantial bread, so on. Apparently someone thought that the purity of the word of God was worth preserving. As it says in Psalm 119, Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it. As it also says in Proverbs 30:5, "every word of God is pure:", and "he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him."

>Nothing is preventing a CSB from conveying the words of Christ

I respectfully disagree. Consider Matthew 5:22. In the received New Testament, Jesus says that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement. But the CSB removes the words "without a cause." It simply makes him say, and I'm quoting verbatim "But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment."

This is important because of what the apostle Peter also said regarding the fact that His word is whereby we are born again. As the apostle Paul also said:

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. - Romans 10:17

Then we know assuredly a falsified version of God's word, something unargueably altered by man will only lead to deception. We are "born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God." So we should make due diligence to find the non-corrupt word of God. According to Hebrews 11:6, he is a rewarded of them that diligently seek him. Also In the book of Genesis, one of the first things the serpent did was to slightly corrupt what God said very subtly while he was talking to Eve.

>>830786

Because Russell Moore represents the neocon wing of the SBC

>They're all brainwashed

There you go overgeneralizing again

>>830790

There's nothing liberal about the csb and Holman isn't a denominational entity

The gender neutral decisions of the csb really aren't controversial. When the Bible says adelphoi sometimes it's assumed that means brothers and sisters, an easy reader translation like csb doesn't require the reader to already have that knowledge

>>830799

>There's nothing liberal about the csb

Assuming that God's word was lost until some guy unburied it in the 1800's is very liberal.

>>830695

>I hold no interest in going to church or interacting with others in real life.

Iron sharpens Iron. God said love your neighbor, that means getting to know him. :-D

>>830800

strawman

>>830808

See: Tischendorf, Westcott, Hort, et. al.

>>830810

Ok, I see them. What do they have to do with the idea that God's word was hidden if you are a fan of the more recently discovered manuscripts?

>>830817

I'm saying that the new manuscripts don't constitute additions to God's word previously lost. I'd like to find you one credible figure who argues that.

>>830855

I appreciate the good write up but you're not showing people making the claim that the critical text constitutes a finding of God's word previously lost (and thereby unpreserved), you're making a more reasonable case to doubt the manuscripts.

Just don't deal in oversimplifications like that. Instead of saying "anyone who disagrees with me is a liberal and thinks God's word was hidden" (a strawman), say "you should use Byzantine for x, y, z reason"

All this was to try and find problems with the csb. Dumb quibble. Nothing about the CSB lends to a liberal doctrine.

>>830862

>anyone who disagrees with me is a liberal and thinks God's word was hidden

Well to be fair what I said in truth was that the denomination itself was liberal, pointing to the acceptance of the CSB translators' methodology as a prime example.

To wit: It is reasonable to think the individuals behind the decision to officially endorse and switch themselves and their churches to the 2017 translation were aware of and agreeing with the translators of the version they are officially endorsing. And the translators of the version, surely were aware of the arguments used in support of making eclectic minority texts (I won't say they represent a single source because each one makes up its own eclectic source) which their translations represents as well as their choice to use "gender-neutral" language. Accordingly, the translators, the CSB itself, and the officials that knowingly approve its use (as we shouldn't assume they are ignorant of this) are all in the same boat as far as being aware of this is concerned.

Now whether a person wants to join a denomination not knowing what it really thinks about the Bible, makes them a liberal as well, I'm not sure if I would go that far. They should be made aware of it and warned.

Unfortunately, their own leadership neglects to inform them of these facts.

>All this was to try and find problems with the csb.

The only problem I need to have with it, is that it contains serious corruptions. The reason behind that is due to wanting to choose between multiple fundamentally different versions of scripture on a given day to find what's right for them as opposed to everyone else. They are offended only at the notion that God only gave us one uncontradicting word, as that would imply taking it much more seriously, looking into the fine details and so forth. It's much easier to have skeptical commentaries telling you to doubt whether it says various things, which in turn casts doubt on the whole enterprise. And this is where the majority is today, thanks to a few people who worked really hard to normalize corrupted modern texts in the 1960's and 70's. Now they're normalized. And look at where we're at. The average case is now very liberalised! We're talking about millions of people accepting female church leadership now. But I guess the de-emphasis by modernists on maintaining Biblical accuracy (hey as long as it works for you) and the number of people that no longer take any of it seriously is just totally unrelated to that.

>Nothing about the CSB lends to a liberal doctrine.

Like I said before the gender neutral construct is a direct result of that. Even if it didn't, I would still say all modern "critical text" versions take a liberal approach at the core due to the above explained reasons. Yet the Scripture says: "Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever."