Recent content by ViaCrucis

The point is that I have my suspicion that Pope Francis wasn't suggesting human beings are inherently righteous before God. -CryptoLutheran

I'd prefer to understand and know the context before saying anything else. As a Lutheran, attacking a Pope for saying something that sounds deeply theologically at odds with the essence of Original Sin/Total Depravity and the need for Grace in the Gospel would be very easy. Low hanging fruit as...

In the United States at least there is a complicated history of politics and religion; the most significant time period is probably the mid-to-late 20th century. The history of American Evangelicalism is itself fairly complicated, because we can differentiate between what we might deem...

As a confessing Lutheran I maintain that a number of the things in the list are heretical and flatly incompatible with Christianity. I'm uncertain how my engagement with this topic constitutes crying in my beer, however. Is there anything in what I've said that you consider invalid or would...

I think it is important to let other people reading this, who are here to learn about Christianity, that nothing in the above is representative of historic, orthodox, or mainstream Christianity in any of its traditions, denominations, or various churches. -CryptoLutheran

Like, NASA NASA? One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind NASA? I feel like maybe something has gone right over my head. -CryptoLutheran

But, and I say this just for the sake of making discussion, if we were to flip this, would we be able to come up with a summation of "Conservative Christian" beliefs? I guess where I'm going with this is that I think we are confusing subjects by conflating theology and doctrinal positions with...

In much the same way, I think, that "Conservative Christianity" has little intrinsic meaning, "Progressive Christianity" often seems to have little intrinsic meaning. The term "Progressive" seems like it's actually pretty hard to define here, as it relates to Christianity. Something about...

Is probably a modern forgery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Gospel_of_Mark#Debate_on_authenticity_and_authorship -CryptoLutheran

The context makes it very clear that He's talking about wine. Had, at the Last Supper, Jesus been handing out freshly plucked grapes then this would make sense, but He wasn't. And when we come together to celebrate the Holy Eucharist/Lord's Supper, we aren't taking and eating grapes, we are...

This is nonsense. -CryptoLutheran

Modern witches are Neo-Pagans. Neo-Paganism simply being a term to describe various modern forms of Paganism and Pagan revival. That makes modern witches no different than any other adherent to a religious or spiritual tradition that isn't Christianity. I do not believe that witchcraft, as...

Nope. -CryptoLutheran

I'm not even scratching the surface here. Like I said, this is literally a subject that could fill multiple books. In one sense, there is no definitive great answer in a philosophical sense. But we acknowledge this: That because of human sin the world itself has become fallen, creation itself...

It is this continuation, a rather strong historical record of interconnected people, sharing the same beliefs, practicing their religion together, and how it all gets traced back to Jesus Himself; with those writings which make up the New Testament at the core of this, that is a central...