I moved to the US 2 years ago, I am a legal permanent resident as I married my American husband 5 years ago. We attend a church here. I am a Sunday school teacher and I am in the cleaning ministry. My husband plays in the worship team. It is a little church. My husband is affectionate to this church, he has known the pastor for many years and I cannot deny there are kind people in here but I am not really bonding with anyone. It is probably my fault. But we are the poorest. They all live in mansions with swimming pools, we live in a very nice house (for me) but it is in the worst area of the town, they would not come here for their life. But it was what we could afford, besides it is a very quiet area, and I have kind neighbours. But we are the only one living there. For Christmas, the church organized a ladies tea. Everything was really cute. Table decorations, people all dressed up...it looked like a movie. I did not attend. I cannot afford a hairdresser, or very nice clothes. I would have felt terrible, besides during the tea I was working my side hustle. Am I envious? Maybe. But I just feel lonely in my church. I feel like I do not belong. All I do in church is working, I am not receiving, and it is probably me because I have this psychological block. I want to respect my husband's desires and I would never hurt him. But I would like to go to another church sometimes. A "poorer" church. Somewhere I can feel I belong. Do I need healing? Do I need to stop overthinking? I do not know. But I am here in church. typing this in my Sunday school classroom, and I would like to be elsewhere. The only one I bonded with a little are my students here at the Sunday school. I have to admit that this "not belonging" feeling overlaps in my work too, and it is all part of being and feeling a foreign and often misunderstood.

On Reddit you can apply 'flair' which lets people filter for specific topics. It would be good if we could do that here so all posts in certain forums like politics can be filtered out from showing on feeds.

Please pray that I can have a good sleep. tonight. need to have a blood test tmr. or have to defer it if sleep poorly
Pray for my parents their physical and spiritual health
Staying peace with God is a big healings for my sleep issues despite my sleep apnea

What does it mean - what does it look like in real life.

Pretend you are addressing a group of 12 years old children - how would you describe it?

I really don't want to ruffle feathers, stir up controversy, and rebuke anyone at my church lol.
That's never a pleasant thing but something tells me, today's churches are plagued with lukewarm christians
or a lukewarm christian-attitude that is making our churches suffer in silence and muddy waters.

Our dangers and challenges are not bombings, mass shootings, arson, and other physical attacks on the church.
Our dangers are people within the church living a lukewarm life with lukewarm attitude and thinking this is
OK and getting a pass by the church itself.

I say this with a grain of salt because I know that I cannot judge. I myself am not a perfect or model christian either.
But one thing I do seem to have that I find lacking in others is the "desire". I don't see or sense a great desire from
certain people who I should think would have it.

So in my church we have some "deacons". I noticed that one of the deacons doesn't even come out to church regularly.
This person comes out maybe once a month (because they say due to their job/career, they have duties/responsibilities).
That doesn't sound right. If God isn't first in your life, how the heck did you even become a deacon and get the privilege
to walk around with that title acting like you are higher than the rest of us and give prayers in services and yet do not attend
regular services or other weekly group meetings and functions. I realize they put in the hours and hours of studying, training,
reading books to pass the "exam" for becoming a deacon but when I look it now, it seems to me like that is just shallow and
superficial. I don't care if you read 100 books, and passed dozens of exams to get qualified to become a deacon or elder
in the church. If you don't live your life like a true christian should, you shouldn't be elevated to that position.

They take more pride in attending the church service when they are up at the front for prayer but the other 3 weeks they don't
show up to church and maybe show up only 3 or 4 times in the entire year for events. I'd rather they not dress up to stand before
us and give a nice pre-written prayer once a month, and instead come talk to me, pray for me, attend small group, take me out for lunch,
ask me about my life/struggles, minister to me from the bible or their own lives. Instead, all I see is this deacon come to church
once a month and that one time they come is for their turn to give a nice prayer at the front so he can dress up in his tie and suit
yet has ZERO presence in the ministry life and real lives of the members. This is bothering me a lot and I don't want to seem like
I'm jealous...maybe I am. Maybe I should apply and become a deacon myself but I don't want this to become a competition or
a, "I can do it better than you". Maybe this deacon does have a good prayer life, maybe he really loves Jesus at home and in his own
family...maybe....so I could be wrong....but even if that's true, I don't see or sense that level of love to us in the ministry on Sundays.
It honestly looks to me like he cares more about his career (which is a fun one, I won't say exactly what his job is but it's entertaining),
and he gets to work on all kinds of busy projects from many clients that requires time from him which is why he doesn't come to church
every Sunday and doesn't come out to ministry life functions/events (again, maybe just 25% of the time).

I'm getting kind of sick of this "show" where people ride behind their titles and appear like they are leaders but I ask myself, where the hell are
they in our lives? They don't exist outside of their sunday roles.

Thus far, the Justice Department’s endless pursuit of the president has been a whopping “nothingburger” that has served only to further erode the public’s trust in American institutions tasked with protecting the citizens of the U.S.

Trump remarked on Truth Social on Friday: “Under the Presidential Records Act and the very well established Clinton Socks Case, the raid of Mar-a-Lago by the FBI, and the taking of documents and many other items, was ILLEGAL. Everything should be returned, at once!”

(Orthodox Church opposition cited in this article in the National Review)


The NYT has a long article out promoting human composting as a means of final disposition. The idea is to quickly turn bodies into dirt and then plant flowers in the remains or return the compost to the forest as fertilizer.

I have no objection to composting the dead being legal, as it now is in five states, and soon, apparently, in New York. But the story illustrates how profoundly traditional Christianity has collapsed in the West, and indeed, the meteoric growth of what might be called a nature worshipping neo-paganistic ethos: Per the Times:

I visited another forest in Southern Washington. After decades of depletion by logging, this forest had been taken over by a conservation organization with a special mission. A golf cart drove me along a re-wilding logging path, up to a field of dark-brown compost. The soil in this compost had once made up the bodies of 28 different humans: now, all were one, part of the woods around them. These 28 people chose to donate their soil to help regrow native trees and eventually bring shade to a salmon-spawning stream.

Click to expand...

Notice the anonymity of the deceased. Notice that, unlike traditional Christian burial practices, with human composting, the body itself has no real meaning.

Yes, Christianity understands that, as Ash Wednesday has it, dust we were and dust we shall be. But that’s not all we are or will be in traditional Christian practice. Indeed, the dead body has value because the human person does. For example, the Orthodox Church believes:

Not only do the Orthodox revere the body, but we also acknowledge the part our physical bodies play in our salvation. Our bodies are just as valuable as our souls. According to Holy Tradition and Scripture, we will be resurrected in our physical bodies at the Second Coming of Our Lord. We must take care of our bodies, feeding them properly, getting adequate rest, and healing them with the Holy Mysteries.
Today, many Western Christians now allow cremation, in light of the fact that its association with paganism or Gnosticism is no longer a reality. However, the Orthodox Church asserts that voluntary cremation, regardless of its detachment from pagan thought or ritual, in every instance denies the value of the human body and of material creation in general. Hence, we as Orthodox Christians are to avoid it.

Click to expand...

How we treat our dead reflects our views on what we think about the living. In this sense, human composting — and even more so, another growing practice of liquifying bodies and pouring the remains into the sewer — reflects a disturbing mindset that denies ultimate meaning to human life and views us, essentially, as just another animal in the forest. At the very least, these innovations reflect a lamentable, accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian values that undergird Western Civilization.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 ESV


Right now in America the primary gospel which is permeating the church is not the gospel that Jesus brought to us and that he lived by example. It is not the gospel message that his New Testament apostles taught us, either. It has the appearance of the true gospel, but it is a half-truth gospel taught from Scriptures taken out of their context and twisted to say what the Scriptures do not teach. And it is being brought to us by charlatans and wolves in sheep’s clothing in high up positions in religious institutions.

Basically what it teaches is that we can “believe” (not defined) in Jesus Christ and now our sins are all forgiven and heaven is guaranteed us when we die, but regardless of how we live while we are still here on this earth. But Jesus said that if anyone would come after him he must deny self, take up his cross daily (daily die to sin and to self) and follow (obey) Jesus. For he said that if we hold on to our old lives of living in sin we will lose them for eternity, but if for Christ’s sake we die to our old lives, we will live.

And he also taught that not everyone who says to him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the ones DOING the will of God the Father who is in heaven. For many are going to stand before Jesus on the day of judgment claiming that they did this or that in his name, and he is going to say to them, “I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of lawlessness!” So, we can’t just “get saved” and then live however we want until Jesus returns to take his bride to be with him for eternity.

And the Apostle Paul taught that faith in Jesus Christ involves us being crucified with Christ in death to sin and us being raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. For if our salvation is genuine, our old self was crucified with Christ in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin but to God and to his righteousness. So we are not to let sin reign in our bodies, to make us obey its passions.

And he taught that if sin is what we obey, it ends in death, not in life eternal. And if we walk (in conduct, in practice) according to the flesh, and not according to the Spirit, it will end in death, not in life everlasting. For if our minds are set on the things of the flesh and not on the things of the Spirit of God, and thus we live according to our sinful flesh and not in accord (in agreement) with God’s Spirit, it results in death, not in life everlasting with our Lord. For the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those in the flesh cannot please God.

All throughout the New Testament we read that we must die with Christ to sin, not just once, but daily, and that we must live to him and to his righteousness in obedience to our Lord and to his commands (New Covenant) or we do not have salvation from sin and eternal life with God. And so we need to know what the Scriptures teach (in full context) so that we can reject the lies of Satan and embrace the truth, for our eternity depends on us knowing and believing the truth of the gospel of Christ.

[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:5; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

2 Thessalonians 2:13-15 ESV


But thank the Lord that not everyone who professes faith in Jesus Christ has bought into the half-truth (lie) gospel of Satan which gives people the impression that they can make some one-time profession of faith in Christ and that they are now good to go for eternity regardless of how they live. There is a remnant who are following the Lord Jesus in obedience to his word and who are walking in his ways, not necessarily in absolute sinless perfection, but in practice, as their regular life course.

Their faith is genuine of the Spirit faith because it aligns with the teachings in the Scriptures on what it means to be saved from our slavery to sin and what it means to have eternal life with God. And remember here that we can’t pull a few Scriptures out of context and make them say what the Scriptures do not teach, as a whole (at least in the New Testament). We have to interpret the Scriptures in their full context to truly understand their meaning. And then we should compare them to other like Scriptures.

So we need to be those who believe the truth of the gospel as is taught by Jesus and by his New Testament apostles in their fulness. We must die with Christ to sin, not just once, but daily, in the power of God’s Spirit. And we must now walk (in conduct, in practice) according to the Spirit and no longer according to the flesh, in walks of obedience to our Lord, and no longer in sin. And we must continue in those walks of faith and obedience to our Lord until we die or until Jesus returns to take us to be with him for eternity.

For, if we do not, and if we choose to believe that Jesus saved us from our sins so we can now continue in sin guilt free and punishment free, and so we continue to live in sin according to the flesh, then we must know that the Scriptures teach that we will not inherit eternal life with God, but we will die in our sins. For if sin is what we practice, and if righteousness, holiness, and obedience to our Lord are not what we practice, then we will not be saved from our sins when Jesus returns. So please take this to heart.

[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; 1 Co 6:9-10; 2 Co 5:10; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-11; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 10:23-31; 1 Pet 1:17-21; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

Our God Reigns

Song by Lenny Smith

How lovely on the mountains are the feet of Him,
Who brings good news, good news,
Announcing peace, proclaiming news of happiness:
Our God reigns, our God reigns!

Our God Reigns
Our God Reigns
Our God Reigns
Our God Reigns

It was our sin and guilt that bruised and
Wounded Him, it was our sin that brought Him Down.
When we like sheep had gone astray,
Our shepherd came, and on His shoulders,
He bore our shame.

Out of the tomb He came with grace and majesty.
He is alive. He is alive.
God loves us so, see here His hands, His feet, His side...
Yes, we know, He is alive!

Our God Reigns
Our God Reigns
Our God Reigns
Our God Reigns

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For those of you that have to do list, how do you go about your day or weeks getting things knocked out?

I figured I would create a thread because there is more than one way or style it getting things done. I get so distracted and lost and thought. It's a continual process in figuring how to accomplish things but also to taper back and relax.

We often hear that only Jesus, being fully God, was able to drain the dregs of God's cup of wrath in three hours on the cross. However, this seems to be only a popular belief.

I want to ask you Universal Reconciliationists (or whatever you prefer to be called), do you think it is possible that a reprobate can suffer God's eternal wrath in the same manner before reaching ultimate reconciliation? Like, Jesus paid in advanced our sins who believe, but those who don't, they would possibly undergo that sort of punishment quick, even though it would seem eternal? Does one have to be God-man to suffer in such a short period what would be eternal to endure? Is there any verses to back this up?

The AP Stylebook has now ventured into the political hot potato that is abortion, and is seeking to obfuscate the practice of late-term abortion by instructing journalists not to use the term at all in favor of “abortion later in pregnancy.”

If Universal Redemption is a heresy why was it not brought up as heresy for the first 500 years of the church? Several things were condemned as hereby the earthly church but this was not one of them. Would not those who spoke the native Greek language of that day call it heretic it was ? It seems that it became heresy only after Augustine and the influence of the Latin thinking.

I don't think this is the least bit controversial, but I am sure many do. From a facebook post I made a few months ago. Just curious to see what people will say.

Today's scriptural tidbit of truth. You can stick this one in the category of: “Jesus did not walk this earth as a demi-God.” Wait what, who says that? Actually most of Evangelical Christianity. They just never thought of it in those terms, but the word demi-God fits exactly within the framework of the teachings as to how Jesus preformed his miracles and walked a sinless life. I’m only going to talk about the miracles in this tidbit.
John 14: 10 Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak to you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake. 12 Truly, truly, I say to you, He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to my Father. 13 And whatever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
Jesus walked this earth as a human being. The miracles he did were done by God the Father and the Holy Spirit. That is why he says in verse 12 that the miracles his followers saw through his hands would be available to be worked through the hands of all who believe on him.
The entire Bible teaches that the Jehovah the Word would come, and did come to this earth as messiah, a human being, not a demi-God. In the book of Acts this is abundantly made clear in the Apostles presentation of the messiah to the world as they did not call him God one single time. Out of 159 times the word God is used in the book of Acts it was never used in reference to Jesus except twice in the phrase Son of God. This was used in witness to Jewish folks. Jesus was always referred to as a man that God was with and that God did miracles through. There are two reasons for this. One is because it is not true that Jesus walked this earth as divinity. He was divinity, he laid down the physical attributes of God and came to earth as a human, and then became divinity once more. Paul calls it a great mystery. I would suspect the other reason he was never referred to as God in the apostles evangelistic efforts is that Greek and Roman world are filled with idolatrous beliefs about demi-gods like Achilles, Hercules, Theseus and Perseus. The apostles were not going to present the messiah to that world as the Jewish version of a demi-god. Therefore they kept their teachings about the fact that Jesus is God pretty much in the churches to minimize confusion in their evangelistic efforts.
Why is this important to us? Just because it is true? Hardly. It is important to us because of all the roadblocks the world places in front of us to keep us from what the grace of God made available to his people. We do not need to place our own roadblock to the miraculous by believing Jesus did his miracles because he was divine. We are not divine, ergo we cannot do the works he did, like he did, that is the belief. That Jesus walked this earth as a demi-God, although not worded that way, is in fact the biggest roadblock to the miraculous the evangelical world is facing. The reason a lot of the Pentecostal world does not have an issue with this, and has for the most part accepted that Jesus somehow walked this earth a a human being is because they have experienced God doing miracles through them as he did through Jesus. We all need miracles, our families need miracles, our friends need miracles. Let's not deny them those miracles by not seeking that grace from on high because we don't think it is available to us.

Martin Luther's Preface to the Revelation of St. John (1522)
About this Book of the Revelation of John, I leave everyone free to hold his own opinions. I would not have anyone bound to my opinion or judgment. I say what I feel. I miss more than one thing in this book, and it makes me consider it to be neither apostolic nor prophetic.

First and foremost, the apostles do not deal with visions, but prophesy in clear and plain words, as do Peter and Paul, and Christ in the gospel. For it befits the apostolic office to speak clearly of Christ and his deeds, without images and visions. Moreover there is no prophet in the Old Testament, to say nothing of the New, who deals so exclusively with visions and images. For myself, I think it approximates the Fourth Book of Esdras; I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it.

Moreover he seems to me to be going much too far when he commends his own book so highly [Revelation 22]—indeed, more than any of the other sacred books do, though they are much more important—and threatens that if anyone takes away anything from it, God will take away from him, etc. Again, they are supposed to be blessed who keep what is written in this book; and yet no one knows what that is, to say nothing of keeping it. This is just the same as if we did not have the book at all. And there are many far better books available for us to keep.

Many of the fathers also rejected this book a long time ago; although St. Jerome, to be sure, refers to it in exalted terms and says that it is above all praise and that there are as many mysteries in it as words. Still, Jerome cannot prove this at all, and his praise at numerous places is too generous.

Finally, let everyone think of it as his own spirit leads him. My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book. For me this is reason enough not to think highly of it: Christ is neither taught nor known in it. But to teach Christ, this is the thing which an apostle is bound above all else to do; as Christ says in Acts 1[:8], “You shall be my witnesses.” Therefore I stick to the books which present Christ to me clearly and purely.

The 1522 “Preface to the Revelation of St. John” in Luther’s translation of the New Testament. Pages 398-399 in Luther’s Works Volume 35: Word and Sacrament I (ed. E. Theodore Bachmann; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960).

Been quite some time since I have heard anyone discuss, or even refer to it.
Discussions of conditions for God's love is all the rage; no mention of unconditional love lately. Currently out of fashion?

Differentiating agape' from phileo and eros was once important gospel discussion.

Do we apply unconditional love in all these situations?

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 13:34-35
A new commandment I give to you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

1 John 4:8
He that loves not knows not God; for God is love.

1 John 4:16
And we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.

1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love.

Romans 5:8
But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

The islamic world hates Israel. But why? You will find the answer in Revelation 17:16-17: "And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the prostitute and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire. For God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled."

A North Texas lawmaker filed a bill that would require all social media users to be 18 years of age to create an account.


The bill, HB 896, (pdf) which was proposed by state Rep. Jared Patterson, will force social media sites to verify a user’s age with photo ID and allow parents to request that their child’s account be deactivated.


I don't need the government's permission to exercise my constitutionally protected rights.

I am not obligated to identify myself to exercise my freedom of speech.

The law of the land does not grant the government any power to encroach on my unalienable, God given rights; because some parents have neglected their God given responsibility to raise their children.

Hey Everyone,


I’m back and unfortunately I’m reaching out again today for some support.Something that’s really bothering me,is these constant nagging doubts about my salvation which haven’t bothered me this badly in a minute.So I’m constantly examining my life for fruits and honestly I do see fruits but they’re all soaked in uncertainty.It’s this uncomfortable feeling of condemnation and sadness that’s overtaking me.And It’s really hurting me.Like I’ve said before in previous posts in the past,I cannot in any form wether it be emotionally,physically,mentally live without Jesus,my sanity as I know it rests on salvation,And if I’m not saved I’d fall into insanity.Everytime I find myself having committed a sin,I get on this constant worry cycle of despair if I’ve been saved or not.But what I find to be the most troubling at this moment is uncertainty on belief in Jesus,it’s like no matter how much I feel and claim to believe there’s always this nagging deep uncertainty on Wether or not I TRULY believe in Jesus,I don’t doubt that he is the way at all.It’s doubt on my ability or my soul really believing that scares me.

It’s just that finding fruits in my life and having the comforting conviction of salvation is something im lacking and it’s worrying so badly to me.

I want to clarify that none of my worries now are as severe or terrible as there were months or a year ago.But right now the problem I find myself in I can’t overcome by myself,I’ve been,by the Grace of God been able to overcome almost every anxious fit these past 3 months,but as of right now I can’t.


Plus if anyone can,I’d be so grateful if any of you could pray for me.

@BillMcEnaney, a newcomer to Christian Forums, expressed an interest in exploring this doctrine typically associated with Seventh-Day Adventists, namely, soul-sleep. He was hoping that someone could explain this doctrine "because it confused me when an Adventist told me about it" in a private email exchange, he said, someone named Michael Scheifler. As I hold a very similar view, I was happy to engage him on it. We began discussing it in his introduction (here) but he wanted it moved to its own thread. For previous remarks and the lead-up to this post, see his introduction thread.

I began by explaining that Adventists are physicalists of a sort (which I would later have to clarify, in this post here). On their view, I had said, the human body is not possessed of an immaterial soul; rather, the human body just is a material soul. Adventists would disagree with substance dualists, who hold that the human mind is a product of an immaterial soul, but agree with property dualists, who hold that the mind is a product of (but is not reducible to) the physical human brain. So, it parallels but contrasts with reductionism, insofar as mental events are constituted by but not identical with physical events.

It gets a bit complicated because, in one sense,

• Adventists don't believe in soul sleep (since they reject the idea of immaterial souls surviving the dead human body)

but, in another sense,

• Adventists do believe in soul sleep (if we respect their belief that the human person is a soul).

It's in the latter sense that they believe the redeemed who die are said to "sleep" (because they await a resurrection to eternal life) whereas the damned who die are said to "perish" (because they await a resurrection to eternal punishment). Keep in mind: Adventists believe in conditional immortality, and so they believe eternal punishment is a death sentence that is forever.

By way of contrast, Martin Luther did believe in soul sleep in a Cartesian sense, that one has a disembodied immaterial soul that "sleeps" in the intermediate state, to be awakened by Jesus in the resurrection.

McEnaney wondered if Adventists and other soul-sleepers believe that "sleep" is a metaphor for death. Yes, I said, in a way. They believe it's a metaphor for physical death in the same sense that Jesus did. When Jesus told his disciples that Lazarus had fallen asleep and he was going to awaken him, Jesus realized that they took him literally. So, he had to tell them plainly, "Lazarus has died" (John 11:11-14; cf. 1 Thess 4:13-14).

The remainder of this post is my engagement with his response to the above, a discussion that will follow in this thread from here on out.

BillMcEnaney said:

After writing the post you just answered, I discovered my mistake. In that post, I argued that since physicalism presupposes causal determinism, it implies that rational thought is impossible. But I forgot that physicalism is false if God exists.

Click to expand...

The existence of God rules out physicalism only if we are dealing with ontological materialism, which assumes among other things that the Universe is a closed system. [1] Carl Sagan is an example of this, saying, "The cosmos is all that is, or was, or ever will be." Clearly, as an evangelical Christian, I am not talking about that. On my use of the term, physicalism refers only to the created realm; it says nothing at all about the creator thereof, who on my view is transcendent and spirit. Unlike ontological materialism, physicalism does not preclude metaphysical emergence, downward causation, holism and so forth, much less a transcendent creator. [2]

Even more precisely, I am speaking not of ontological physicalism but only anthropological physicalism, the object thereof being just humans. After all, you and I are talking about soul-sleep, especially as held by Seventh-Day Adventists, so we need to keep that specific focus in mind. The best argument for anthropological physicalism, in my opinion, was made by the Christian philosopher Lynne R. Baker, who argued for a constitution view of human persons (according to which we are not identical to but rather constituted by physical bodies).

I believe that the only real ontological dualism in Scripture is the creator–creature distinction, the contrast and relationship between God (as creator) and everything else (as his creation). This distinction is a fundamental safeguard for our interpretation of reality. "We should argue that intelligible predication is impossible," Cornelius Van Til said, "except one make the creator–creature distinction basic to one's thought." The creator is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, whereas creation is not infinite but finite, not eternal but temporal, not immutable but mutable in its becoming, as Lane Tipton of the Reformed Forum explained.

Moreover, I hold that the creator alone is supernatural while all of creation is natural—and I do mean all of creation, including angels. Consistent with this creator–creature distinction, only God is supernatural, existing outside of the natural world (without denying immanence). Obviously, our Standard Model of physics is still in its infancy and cannot account for things like angels—it can't even account for 95% of the observable universe (dark matter and dark energy)—but I expect that we could eventually, given a more complete understanding of fundamental physics that is yet to be developed. This is in addition to my belief that human souls are constituted by physical bodies, that there is no such thing as a disembodied soul. (I believe that our resurrection bodies will likewise be physical, whether baryonic or some other kind of matter.) On this view, neither angels nor humans, whether in part or whole, are supernatural (outside of the natural realm). God alone is supernatural, whereas his creatures are entirely natural.

BillMcEnaney said:

Anyhow, Michael Scheifler confused me when we emailed me about soul sleep because he quoted the [King James Version of the Bible]. In the KJV, Genesis tells me that Adam became a living soul when God breathed into Adam's [nostrils]. But some other translations say that Adam became a living being. That translation sounds compatible with Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphism and the belief that the human soul is immortal. The KJV's rendering of the verse seems to conflate the body and the soul or make those words denote a living body. That's why I hope someone will explain why one translation of that verse is better than the other, if it is better.

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There is nothing problematic about how the KJV translates that verse. Whether Adam became a living soul (KJV), a living being (NIV), or a living creature (ESV), at no point in this text is Adam ever a disembodied soul or being. The dust did not embody a soul or being, it became one. This fact, along with the KJV translation, is fully consistent with the biblical view of people being souls, not having one, wherein the term nefesh ("being") in the Hebrew Bible usually refers to the whole person (i.e., there is no conflation because there is no distinction) and never to anything immaterial or immortal. The concept of an immaterial and immortal soul, distinct from the body and surviving its death, did not appear in Judaism before the Babylonian exile; it was a later development resulting from interaction with Persian and Hellenistic philosophies. As the esteemed Old Testament scholar Brevard Childs said, a person "does not have a soul, but is a soul." (For more, see James D. Tabor, "What the Bible Says About Death, Afterlife and the Future," The Jewish Roman World of Jesus [website].)

BillMcEnaney said:

No offense to SDAs but even articles by [their] professional theologians seem theologically and philosophically superficial when I read them. Those writers seem to comment on proof-texts taken out of context. Those people remind me of fundamentalists who memorize Bible verses handwritten on index cards.

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That may be so (I cannot speak about your experiences), but it's not exactly relevant to our discussion. All I can do is try to assure you by our discussion that I'm representing their position in the strongest possible light, as someone who has very similar beliefs on this doctrine informed by extensive in-depth Bible study and philosophical debates. I hope that I know more than you think they did (a reference to something that was said earlier).

BillMcEnaney said:

In Romans chapter 3, Saint Paul seems to describe ancient Jews when he says, "None is righteous, no, not one."

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I don't think that was about only Jews. The first five chapters of Romans is about the desperate condition of all mankind, both Jew and Gentile alike, as sinners before a holy God, which chapters 2 and 3 make especially clear.

If you want to argue that some people are without sin, well, that's a very different discussion. (And please tread carefully.)

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Footnotes:

[1] I have capitalized the term Universe to indicate that it includes the totality of all that exists, whether that is the observable universe or a larger multiverse.

[2] As I understand it, ontological materialism, physicalism, and naturalism represent a nested hierarchy of views, from the strongest (ontological materialism) to the weakest (ontological naturalism). So, for example, while all physicalists are naturalists, not all naturalists are physicalists. James Ladyman, Philip Kitcher, and Sean Carroll are all examples of non-physicalist naturalists.

The death threat stated, “If our right to abortion in Bellevue is taken away due to the attempt to pass an abortion ban and it gets passed we will shoot up your Newman Center with our new AR14 rifles. Sincerely, Jane’s Revenge.” The letter was addressed to Newman Center director Rev. Dan Andrews.

Someone claiming to be part of the pro-abortion group allegedly also threatened Christ Community Church — just under six miles from the Newman Center — later that Saturday, according to a local report. “The note threatened violence and also mentioned Jane’s Revenge,” the Scottsbluff Star-Herald wrote.

Eric Wahl was emotional when speaking about his brother, a well-respected soccer reporter who had been covering the World Cup.

Eric believed foul play was involved after claiming his brother was receiving death threats over wearing a rainbow shirt in support of the LGBTQ+ community.

“I am the reason he wore the rainbow shirt to the World Cup,” said Eric, who is gay.

“My brother was healthy. He told me he received death threats. I do not believe my brother just died. I believe he was killed and I just beg for any help.”

On November 21, Grant Wahl said he was detained upon entering the stadium for his T-shirt and refused to change out of it.

Can someone help me shed some light on this issue? I have been depressed and sinning for 7 years now, and nothing is helping... I feel as if I am dead on the inside, I have committed innumerable mortal sins. I go to confession every week, but it's not helping. I feel as if God has abandoned me due to my sins. My (material & spiritual) life is a joke. I pray almost every day without any results. Even though I pray prayers of repentance, I never experience the conviction of the Holy Spirit anymore like I did before. I feel as if the Holy Spirit has left me without any chance of him returning. Help me please, what am I supposed to do?

Liberalism *is* mainline Protestant Christianity.

The Protestant Church had its origin in a cohesive, collective, social movement away from the ideology of the Roman Catholicism. The Protestant Church was defined by their unified separation from the religion of Rome.

Today there is not a hint of Protestant Christianity collectivizing in any kind of resistance against the ideology of liberalism or the liberal democratic order that forms the ruling ideology of western nations. Liberalism is not even recognized by the church as a separate ideological or moral system, and this is because both things, Liberalism and the Protestant Church, are the same ideological framework.

Throughout the 18th-20th centuries, Protestant Christianity was basically diffused into secular progressive liberal government. This is why churches have no concept of organized resistance to progressive ideology, because it is their own system. Liberalism now operates as a kind of non-theistic Christianity, where the human liberty offered by the modern democratic order is unconsciously viewed as a kind of eschatological fulfillment. It is as if history has ended. All the necessary reformations and social movements of the past have reached their end goal, and there is nothing left to protest. The Church is now at rest in the kingdom of liberal democracy.

This is why there is such a strange resistance to churches organizing on a political basis, and a general church mandate to "never bring politics into the church"... Since the church order *is* the liberal order, it would be like dividing a house against itself. You do not socially organize against yourself.

Actually the Protestant Church is still allowed to collectively organize politically, but only against elements that are a perceived threat against the kingdom of democracy (e.g. Vladimir Putin and the Russian Government) Protestant Christianity instinctively circles the wagons when the true ideology of Liberalism is perceived to be under threat... but notice these churches are completely unable to organize this way in defense of Biblical theology. (e.g. a collective socio-political movement against abortion or the promotion of homosexuality) ... again, this is because Protestant Christianity *is* Liberalism, and it is a liberal democratic human right to abort children and teach homosexuality to children. We are all allowed to have our individual political beliefs in a liberal order, and this is the governing ideology of the Protestant Church.

This is also why there is such a knee-jerk reaction among mainline churches to the concept of 'Christian Nationalism'.... it is *not* because the church actually has a problem with the combination of church and state. The real reason is because the Church *already* combined with the national and international state of liberal democracy. We are *already* doing Christian Nationalism + Internationalism and this is now called Liberalism. See the Battle Hymn of the Republic, the World Wars, and the Cold war. These were all great theocratic-political wars framed as the divine forces of heaven conquering the forces of tyranny and evil, and what has resulted is the shining city on a hill; liberal democracy. Any new forms of Christian Nationalism are seen as a threat to an already established theocracy: the moral therapeutic state of liberal democracy.




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On this forum, I have come to realize that Protestants don’t just disagree with the Catholic Church, they also disagree with the Protestant Reformers for being too Catholic.

I think it’s clear that 22nd century Protestants will look back on you guys and say, “Those 21st century Protestants meant well, but they were still too Catholic.”