You said: A37’s ongoing bar from creating new posts is semi-accidental. I don’t know why someone with admin powers hasn’t undone it yet, but it was intended to be only a few weeks, and every once in a while–including today–I remind them that this has not been fixed yet and ought to be. Granted, the odds are pretty good it isn’t a high priority because the admins don’t much like Aaron37–which I can sympathize with.
Aaron: I don’t appreciate you posting to the forum “the admins don’t like Aaron37 much” its disrespectful and immature regardless if it is true or not. Semi-accidental? 3 weeks? Auggy told me 6 months. I have approached Auggybendoggy multiple times for this ridiculous restriction to be lifted…His response was…Paraphrasing… “I gathered the 5 heads of the Evangelical Universalist Elitists leadership” and they voted to keep you restricted…Auggy continues to sympathize with me but says he is obligated by the majority vote. Hmmm, I’m starting to smell some hypocricy here. Auggy says one thing and Jason says another? What is going on here Auggy or Jason?
Btw, the adminstration ( the pharisee and sadducee) in Jesus day " didn’t much like Jesus neither" Let that sink in, Jason.
Not sure why neither of the quote buttons work for you, but in the last resort you should be able to type {quote=“whoever”}, enclosing that in square brackets [like this] instead of fancy brackets, and then at the end of the quoted material add {/quote} putting that in square brackets, too.
It’s important to make sure the quote marks are simple quotes “like this”, instead of auto-formatted quote marks, however (which many word processors do instead, creating clear ‘open’ and ‘close’ marks). Otherwise the BBCode won’t work.
Theoretically, you should also be able to take any typed or copy-pasted material in the reply composition window, drag select it with the mouse, and then click the Quote button just above the composition window on the left (fourth from the left, after the B, i, and u buttons.) That should enclose your selected material with the bracketed quote commands, to which you can then add =“whoever” afterward. (Make sure there are no spaces before or after the equal sign, however, or that will mess up the coding again. I do that by accident every once in a while myself.)
Here’s a screenshot showing what the format should look like:
I didn’t show all the composition window, of course, so that I could focus on the quote-format material and a little afterward for comparison.
Clicking the big quote button at the top of someone’s comment, ought to bring up the reply composition window with everything in the previous comment already formatted for quotation in one big lump (with the name of the commenter, too.)
It doesn’t seem possible to select a piece of text and then to get only that one piece of text by clicking the big quote button for that comment. (I just tried, it didn’t work.) This is why I usually just manually insert the code myself when I’m doing a reply. But the quote button shown above ought to work, too, on a piece of already-selected text.
Another, simpler option for distinguishing quoted material from your own, would be to put something around it such as double-fancy brackets {{like this}}. Once upon a time it was common on the internet to use greater/less-than signs, or square brackets, but then those started being used for html and BB coding, so freaky things result. I think it’s safe to use <> (testing there to make sure, it seems to work in my preview anyway!) on this forum (since it uses BBCode instead, thus single square brackets [like this], which are also usually safe to use), but I’ve gotten into the habit of using double fancy brackets everywhere just to be safe.
Thank you for the detailed illustration, but my bbcode is turned off( whatever that means) due to me being restricted. I have no means to turn it back on.The moment I was restricted posting New Topics …the smilies option was taken away and everything else is totally messed up.
you said: Third: even the apostles themselves had trouble understanding and accepting some doctrines of Christ; a trouble that persisted for at least one of them (St Peter) into the post-Resurrection apostolic ministry, and thus into the period of being taught by the Holy Spirit.
Aaron: the apostles (before Christ went to the cross) had trouble understanding and accepting some doctrine because they were spiritually dead and had to be taught by parables until Christ went to the Cross and they received the Holy Spirit at pentecost.
Peter did not have trouble with Paul’s doctrine but was referring to the unlearned and unstable…not himself.
I don’t know how restricting you from creating new posts would mess up your ability to use BBCode–sounds like a bug in the software–but hopefully when your new post abilities are reinstated the BBCode problem will sort itself out, too.
However, I will also point out that if Auggy said 6 months, and it’s only been 4 months, then frankly you’re going to have another 2 months to go. Unless you manage to impress the mods and admins with how much better you are now at adding valuable content to the site in other ways.
Considering that (as I previously indicated) I was prepared to let you off, myself, and would have done it already if I had admin powers (instead of only admin authority; technical glitch), believing it to have been an accidental problem, I frankly don’t care that you think it’s disrespectful and immature of me to explain why fixing an accidental problem for you might not be a priority for any of the admins.
Be that as it may, this is why the other guys made a rule that mod/admin decisions may not be criticized in public, only in private (by pm), including to mods and admins. If you don’t want laundry aired publicly, don’t bring up the subject publicly. I’m violating a forum rule myself by discussing it this way, instead of just shutting you down. Notably, the other admins (and mods) haven’t done so yet either. I’ll be curious to see how long our leniency lasts this time.
I don’t personally remember 6 months being the timeframe discussed, which is why I thought the continuing bar was at least partially an accident. However, it’s been 4 months now, so I probably just forgot. It’s entirely possible I agreed to it at that time, too, but whether I did or not I wouldn’t undo it after a majority decision without majority agreement on early release. I do recall you petitioning very early in that period for rescension, and I recall agreeing with everyone that it was too early (at that time) to reinstate you; primarily because, at that time, numerous threads you had previously started were still regularly active on the boards. That has obviously long-since changed, but Auggy said 6 months and that was what the majority of the leadership (possibly including me, at the time) agreed to.
Probably faulty memory on my part; not Auggy’s fault. Also, we don’t sit around talking about you and other people all the time, and we aren’t omniscient, so there’s a good chance a majority of letting you out early may exist without enough of us knowing about it yet.
Rather than crying oppressive conspiracy and hypocrisy, though, you might try being grateful and hopeful that at least two of us (including the one who officially leveled it) would be willing to undo it if we thought the majority was in favor. (It isn’t only a vote of three admins, so two in favor isn’t a majority, either now or back then.)
Btw, the Great Administration (Father and Son and Holy Spirit) in the Day of Judgment of the Lord to come, will permanently cast some people into hopelessly and forever enduring punishment, according to some people, and won’t even pretend to listen to pleas for clemency or mercy or early release or release at all, after a point of judgment for transgression has passed, regardless of whether they have repented of their transgression or not. A position which was held by the Sadducees and Pharisees in Jesus’ day (and long afterward, too), who expected God’s unmerciful judgment against others, not punishment against themselves for being (among other things) unmerciful.
Let that sink in, Aaron, when you ask us to do for you what you do not expect God (Who is Love Essentially, unlike us) to do for others: to persistently seek reconciliation with all transgressors, into forever, never giving up regardless of the circumstances.
you said: I frankly don’t care that you think it’s disrespectful and immature of me to explain why fixing an accidental problem for you might not be a priority for any of the admins.
Aaron: That pretty much says it all, Jason. You were purposely trying to humilate me by sounding off publicly that the “Evangelical Universalist Elitist Council” does not like me ( it did not have to be said)… nice… very nice work… Jason. Do you feel better now?
Aaron, the council has ruled. In another time, they would have burned you at the stack. Be happy. The Inquisition was an expression of God’s love - there is no end to religious spin. Really, it takes my breath away.
Actually, it doesn’t, since you conveniently ignored the two clauses preceding it. (I made a bet with myself that you would do so. Yay, I win!–yeah, I do feel pretty good about that. I am now making a bet with myself that you’ll ignore the context here, too, and only concentrate on the “Yay, I win” part as though that’s all I said. Let’s see if I can double my winnings, or make back what I lost…)
Not a problem; I was using it as a general description, not as a description of a particular denomination nor as a title. (Thus, little ‘p’ not capital ‘P’.) Your description afterward is still basically pentecostal in protocol, with the minor variation of believing that one can receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit and not pray in tongues for a while (with the delay being due to ignorance of how it happens). Nevertheless, you still believe that “the initial evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is praying or speaking in tongues”. A belief that, right or wrong, has certainly not been the majority belief throughout Christian history, and still isn’t (by far) today. (Which the book you quoted agrees with, by the way, though apparently you didn’t notice. More on that later.)
As can be seen above, I explicitly affirmed what you claim I denied. Meaning, by the way, that I would say “if the devil and religion” are trying to “confuse certain denominations to believe that this doctrine”, i.e. the baptism of the Holy Spirit, “no longer exists”, then the devil and religion hasn’t done all that good a job. On the contrary, I expressly find that the doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, per se, is adhered to pretty consistently by all denominations; and I made a point to say so. What it means is somewhat debated, but that’s a different thing.
What I don’t find, is that all denominations hold to the doctrine that true baptism of the Holy Spirit inevitably results in explicitly and obviously miraculous gifts in the lives of all true believers in this life, especially and first of all the gift of tongues. Perhaps “the devil and religion has done a good job confusing certain denominations to believe that this doctrine no longer exists” (or rather no longer applies, since only someone totally ignorant of the existence of pentacostals would think the doctrine no longer exists, if it ever did, i.e. that anyone ever has held it or still does). But that’s a rather more particular doctrine than the baptism of the Holy Spirit per se being essential for true Christianity. Specifically, it’s a doctrine particular to pentacostal congregations (whether part of an officially Pentecostal denomination or not), and indeed is one key way (maybe the key way) that they distinguish themselves from other congregations.
I never said I thought that speaking in tongues, or any other gifts of the Holy Spirit, passed away with the Apostles; and I absolutely never said that I thought belief in the baptism of the Holy Spirit passed away with the Apostles. Much the contrary. See quote above.
Frankly, neither would I say that a doctrine of tongues being “the initial evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit” for every true Christian (whether they evidence this immediately or not) passed away with the Apostles; partly because I don’t find that it originated with the Apostles (much less with Jesus) to begin with, and partly because I don’t have any problem believing it has existed for a long time throughout Christian history, even from very early on, including still today. I don’t find (yet) that this doctrine ever existed as a majority in any way, however. (Baptism of the Holy Spirit, yes. Charismatic gifts, yes. Explicitly obvious miracles, especially tongues, being a necessary sign of this baptism in the life of all true believers in this world, no.) Nor do I bother for a single moment to count its minority status against it.
Hopefully his accuracy and logic, concerning the data, is better than, for example, claiming someone said the exact opposite of what they actually did say. But that’s entirely possible, I suppose.
From the book’s description, it appears to be mainly about “disproving the theory of the cessation of miraculous signs, wonders and miracles at the end of the apostolic age”. (One of its Amazon reviewers, himself a charismatic, actually faults it for only doing this!)
You do realize that a belief in the continuing miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit is not necessarily the same thing as a belief that all true believers will necessary exhibit overtly miraculous gifts in this life, first and foremost the gift of tongues. Right?
Hyatt himself distinguishes even between pentacostal congregations (whose numbers he places at 65 million worldwide by the year 2000) and charismatic congregations–it is this combined total which he says, late in the book, totals 600 million worldwide with a growth of about 9 million per year. But as of 2000, pentacostals only made up 11 percent of that total.
And he adheres to what he calls “the classical distinction” between pentacostals (which would include variations thereof) and charismatics more broadly: namely, pentacostal groups (over 740 formed between 1901 and 2000) promote a doctrine of speaking in tongues as the biblical evidence of Spirit baptism. (A doctrine that he treats as having been formally formulated and activated, in modern times, in 1901.) Charismatic groups otherwise (and he throws that net pretty broadly in his survey!) don’t insist on tongues or any other overtly miraculous gift of the Spirit being necessarily exhibited in this life by true Christian believers. They only believe that such things do still happen with important regularity, especially for purposes of evangelism, and gladly expect and exhibit such gifts among their members.
(Although Hyatt himself is at pains throughout most of the book to also explain why such gifts of the Holy Spirit were nearly absent throughout most of Christian history!–meaning that the belief such things happen with important regularity cannot in fact be anything like a majority throughout Christian history. As he relatedly admits, prior to the 20th century there was not one pentacostal or even charismatic congregation of the sort that exist today.)
Anyway, Hyatt does not seem to confuse the broad doctrine of charismatic activity continuing (and increasing) in the present day, with the much more specific doctrine of explicitly obvious supernatural phenomena, first and foremost the gift of tongues, being a necessary exhibition of any true Christian in this life; he correctly treats this latter as being a (very particular) sub-variant of the former.
So, roughly speaking, as of his figures for the year 2000, the number of Christians doctrinally insisting on tongues (or other obviously overt supernatural phenomena) being exhibited by any true Christian in this life (whether immediately or sometime afterward), would be 65 million (as he makes clear near the beginning of his first chapter) out of, let’s say, 1.5 billion. Assuming a 2% growth per year (proportionate to the growth of charismatic congregations overall, i.e. his figure of 9 million growth per year expected after 2000 for the 600 million estimated Christian charismatics), that would be a little more than 79 million this year, out of an estimated 2 billion.
Or about 4 percent.
Do I count that percentage against them? Nope, not in the slightest. Neither do I take that percentage as Gospel truth (so to speak); it’s a rough estimate. I wouldn’t be surprised to find it’s somewhat larger in real life. Or smaller, either. (Whether formally or, more likely, as a practical matter.)
And the numbers of those who insist on the doctrine of overt supernatural phenomena (especially tongues at first) being sooner or later a necessary evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in this life, might also be multiplying every day at exactly the same rate! But even if they’re multiplying somewhat faster than the rate of the overall group, the actual numbers are relatively still pretty small–much smaller than 700 million.
And that 4 percent includes the belief that explicitly obvious supernatural exhibitions (first and foremost tongues) occur immediately on receiving on the Holy Spirit. The belief that this exhibition might be delayed a while due to whatever-factors (like ignorance on how to do it), is itself a fraction of that fraction. Meaning you’re actually advocating something that less than four percent of Christians today accept as doctrine.
So, maybe you should think twice about picking on a smaller group because it’s small as evidence of its incorrectness. Sauce for their goose is sauce for your gander.
While I agree someone should do (or rather receive) all three, I consider Christ to be the One Who does #3 (except in the special case of Christ Himself perhaps), and I wouldn’t consider anyone to be a true Christian without that, which I would also consider to be tantamount to #1 (baptism into Christ). #2 I consider to be quite optional, though it ought to be received where feasibly possible. #2 without the other two is completely worthless (maybe worse than worthless!), and I don’t consider the other two to be separate from one another (though they may in some way be distinct perhaps).
Charismatic exhibition of #3, I consider to be the provenance of the Holy Spirit, depending on how He chooses to assign and activate various gifts according to the purpose of God at any time and place. I don’t restrict those gifts to either one or even both of the two Pauline lists (which, not being entirely identical, show that he was mentioning examples and not trying to be exhaustive in either case.) And, like most charismatics, I don’t consider tongues to be specially necessary as evidence of such baptism. I don’t consider overtly obvious spiritual gifts in this life to be a necessary factor of being saved in and by the Holy Spirit at all. (I do consider fruits of the Holy Spirit to be necessarily evident sooner or later, as exemplified by the list in Galatians, but I also recognize that in God’s reckoning a bare two cents of those may be greater in His eyes than heaps of treasures of them in someone else. Including if I happen not to like those people very much. )
For what it’s worth: the rest of us were perfectly fine with the notion that someone not born again can understand spiritual things intellectually (and more importantly accept them) without needing to have yet been born again before being able to do so. Had that been what you were saying, there would have been no problems or disagreements at all. (Well, okay, we still wouldn’t have considered that a reasonable excuse not to discuss spiritual matters, including scriptural interpretation, with Jeff or anyone else not currently a believer. So in that regard there would have been some disagreement I suppose. But not nearly as vocal.)
Instead, you laughed at us (as if we were idiots) for holding to this position, and stuck to denying that someone not born again could understand and even receive spiritual things at all, when we tried to point out that this made no sense whatever (as well as making a total hash of evangelism, even by the Holy Spirit Himself).
You may have eventually gotten to that more reasonable understanding during your extended conversation with Auggy afterward. (I don’t know because I was off doing something else, and haven’t read through all that yet.) But it certainly wasn’t what you started with. You started with something that you thought would give you an excuse not to discuss spiritual topics (including scriptural interpretation) with Jeff at all, and you tried to hold to and defend that position for a while. Maybe it was an honest mistake, but to everyone else it looked like a ploy to avoid having to reason with him.
No, I agree, he probably didn’t do so much; although we don’t really know, because the texts don’t show much specific evangelism by him to Gentiles at all (despite that being his special calling). We do know, from Acts, that (whatever his opinion might be of Gentile philosophy, apparently pretty poor as throughout 1 Cor) he was perfectly willing to debate philosophy and culture with them (leading up to Christ and Him crucified), and we do know that Gentiles were led to accept Christ with this help. (Including the man traditionally believed to be the first bishop of Athens.)
There isn’t any intrinsic reason not to discuss and debate the meaning and relevant accuracy of the scriptures with unbelievers, though. It’s just easier, and makes more sense, to do so with people who already accept the relevant accuracy of such scriptures (as the Jews of Paul’s day did for the scriptures he did debate and discuss with them). This is why I myself usually focus on other matters than scripture, when dealing with unbelievers, when I’m trying to help them believe in Christ and Him crucified.
But then, as an apologist, I consider what gifts I have to be secondary to, and supportive of, final evangelism. Which I would also say ultimately and primarily has to be evangelism by the Holy Spirit Himself (in conjunction with Christ Himself), not primarily by any lesser person. But I sure don’t look down on people who have been especially assigned that gift, for having that gift; far from it!
(I admittedly don’t have a very high opinion of someone insisting on being received as a teacher who routinely messes up getting data and logic correct; but that only means they weren’t given that gift and so should stop trying to claim the position of teacher. It might even mean that, despite having previously been given the gift of teaching by the Spirit, the Spirit has temporarily and/or locally deactivated it for some reason. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable, but that doesn’t mean He always has to have them active in every situation.)
You said: Actually, it doesn’t, since you conveniently ignored the two clauses preceding it. (I made a bet with myself that you would do so. Yay, I win!–yeah, I do feel pretty good about that. I am now making a bet with myself that you’ll ignore the context here, too, and only concentrate on the “Yay, I win” part as though that’s all I said. Let’s see if I can double my winnings, or make back what I lost…)
Aaron: Actually, when you tell someone “you don’t care” about what they think of a deliberate immature act you displayed publicly( when you did not have to) for no other reason but to humiliate them…it does speak volumes… It speaks larger volumes your condescending attitude justifying your immature actions and not apologizing for them. I forgive you, Jason. I will leave it at that.
I would respond to all your responses but I have not figured out this quote feature… yet…getting there.
I actually often pray that the Lord will show me where I’m wrong. In other words, I assume that some of my beliefs are errant, I just don’t know which ones. And concerning UR, over the last year as my beliefs were changing, I often asked God to show me the truth, if UR was wrong, to help me understand that or put someone in my path to show me the truth. And such has not yet happened. In fact, the more I pray about it, the more I study scripture concerning salvation, the more I study various writtings that attempt to disprove UR, the more I discuss this with others whom I respect, the more firmly I’m convinced that Jesus truly is the Savior of all humanity, especially we who believe.
Could I go back to believing in the certainty of damnation for others? It’s possible, but very unlikely - even though going back would make my life a lot easier right now. It’s always easier to live so as to please people than to please God. And in my case, accepting UR caused, is causing, me a lot of trouble in my family, amoung friends, and with the ministry in which I work. In fact, though it is an interdenominational ministry and I have not tried to promote UR amoung my fellow ministers, and though the ministry’s statement of faith does not include that one must affirm belief in the certainty of damnation for others, some have still attempted to have me removed.
Also, based on my studies of scripture, my beliefs concerning God have significantly changed. No longer do I see Him as either arbitrarily choosing who will be saved, or as impotent to save all whom He loves; rather, I see God as much bigger, much more loving than I ever dreamed. And I’ve come to accept that love truly never does fail and that God will accomplish and is accomplishing all that He’s intended from the beginning of our existance. It would be difficult for me to change back to my previous view of God.
Agreed. His love and His will cannot fail - why send His only son to take away the sins of the world, only to pile them back on at some point and KEEP them on forever? I cannot conceive of a God who could work against Himself like that - I tried, for years, to find some symmetry in that conception but the attempt was never satisfying.
Meaning, you still don’t care about any of the contexts, including the immediate one to that clause, that indicate this wasn’t at all why I said what I said. It’s more important to you that I be found in the wrong against you, at all costs, regardless of evidence or logic.
In other news: your new-post abilities have been reinstated. (Doubtless you’ve noticed already; that’s for the benefit of any readers following this hugely off-topic soap opera. )
Clearly it wasn’t done because you were kissing up to us; so Ran won’t have any ground for accusing you of being one of the running lapdogs of the fascist totalitarian Holocaust regime or whatever.
btw Jason and Aaron, I didn’t mean any of that post to be personally against Aaron. I was speaking in generalities from other experience I’ve had, though, I suppose it could be interpreted that way.
As to “Going Back” from UR to believing in the Certainty of Damnation for Others, for me it would be like going back from being baptized in the Spirit to believing that such had ceased with the Apostles and those they personally laid hands on - something that is not likely to happen.
Actually, I think Aaron is more a victim of the anal retentive thought police (I know, it’s redundant). The ARTP. Yeah, it’s pretty sinister and I would say more but, you know… they’re watching.
As a “universalist”, I have been (indirectly) accused of trampling underfoot the blood of Christ. The irony is that it is exactly the opposite that’s true. If we don’t give that blood all the credit it’s due, that’s the true heresy.
Universalism is non-negotiable to me. Without Universalism, the New Testament becomes a vast contradiction:
God is love, yet He (on some level) is OK with some people eternally lost in Hell.
Why are you fixated on the gifts of the spirit rather than the fruits of the spirit which even my feeble and unregenerate mind can see counts for far more with Paul (clanging cymbals)?
You seem to wear your gifts as a badge of honour and any fruits seem to be banished to that bushel over there (along with Ran’s)
Unless of course as a wishy-washy fence-sitting agnostic I’m not allowed to make such observations; being no better than the beasts of the field.
I still pray it. I try to stay open to learning and changing.
Only sound biblical and theological arguments could convince me. That rules out Aaron’s having any input.
If I were convinced on biblical/theological grounds that ECT was true, I’d embrace it with joy. There’s an irreducible joy to believing and resting in what you’re convinced to be Scriptural truth. If I were convinced ECT was true, then it would be because I found ECT to be the most beautiful consummation imaginable of God’s love and justice toward the wicked. Coming to see ECT in this way would constitute what it would mean to have become convinced that it’s true. Perceiving ECT positively would be part of coming to see its truth.
So if you “became convinced” that ECT was true, it would only be because you had come to see that God is not “mean” or “unjust” to forever torture the wicked. On the contrary, you’d rejoice in the goodness and beauty of it. I think being unable to perceive ECT in such terms is part of why it’s unbelievable. The same is true for those who prefer ECT to UR I think. ECTers find ECT to be a more beautiful all around worldview than UR. It’s all aesthetics–well, not all, but far more than we realize.
I am now making a bet with myself that you’ll ignore the context here, too, and only concentrate on the “Yay, I win” part as though that’s all I said. Let’s see if I can double my winnings, or make back what I lost…)
)
