A Glaring Example Of Vaticanese

[Fides_et_Ratio]

Acts 17:22-23 "Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said: 'You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious. For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, 'To an Unknown God.' What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you."

I won't give in to pushing my point with a big, bold, flashy font. I only ask you to read carefully this account. Paul is recognizing the PAGAN god and proclaiming that the "unknown god" is GOD-- our God, the Christian God. The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. Paul IS using the pagan altar, and the pagan god. Paul is claiming that the pagans worship the Christian God. Read the last sentence again:

Acts 17:23 "...what therefore YOU unknowingly WORSHIP" ... i.e., the PAGAN "unknown god" to which there is a PAGAN altar.. "I proclaim to you

[Church Punk]

I think we need to get bigger fonts on Phatmass!!!

Please Dust???

[Aloysius]

oh goodness, perhaps we can disable the font-enlarging scripts completely.. but please no bigger fonts!

the ultimate goal IS to convert the pagans.

buddha, shiva, and all the pagan gods are NOT the same as our god only with flaws.

some of their messages, on the other hand, are universal human messages with flaws.

the allah of the mohammadans and the yhwh of the rabinnic jews are both the Christian God viewed with many flaws and veils.

the Jesus Christ of the protestants is our Jesus Christ with many flaws and veils obscuring their view of Him

but if we face a common enemy-- secularism, poverty, war, evil-- then we may come together and pray in the same location, not as a communion with those things about them which we find reprehensible, but as an alliance against far worse things in the world. and the ultimate goal, let me assure you, even if it is not always spoken is to convert every last one of them. the Catholics at these meetings pray for that; for you see how they are not praying with their prayers, but praying on their own seperately to the True Christian God and asking Him to also look upon the intentions of these non-Christians who also want to defeat secularism and poverty and war and listen to all of his creation gathered there even if they fail to recognize Him... and to reveal Himself to them.

there are, of course, non-catholic christians assosiated with these prayer meetings... but of course you don't have to assosiate yourself with anyone you don't like (you can just excommunicate them outside of your tiny little concept of who you think is areal christian)... I do believe that your standards for true Christianity would probably disqualify 1/2 to 3/4 of protestantdom at the very least... wow, that bible alone is really leading you all to the same belief, huh?

but I digress... I should start a new thread if I wished to discuss that.. the main point is: you took an artical in which a Catholic Bishop was expressly forbidding worshiping along with the worship of pagans, praying along with the prayers of pagans and saying that instead, we can get together with the same intentions but must pray distinctly different prayers, must keep ourselves and our communion seperate from them.... and took it to mean that we were all devil-worshipping pagans. absolutely brilliant.

I mean, what the artical is here saying is basically the same thing you are saying (except for your fundamentalist twirk to it that says we can't even be in the same location as them). it says to keep the Christian Communion and the Christian Prayers seperate from the pagans prayers.

And, to use the same condescending you apply to us but this time rightly: even a second grader grammer school student could understand the difference in the two phrases he used.

[journeyman]

[quote name='Budge' post='1059087' date='Sep 8 2006, 01:12 PM']

QUOTE
The more than 200 religious leaders had not come to "pray together" -- that would be theologically problematic, since, according to Vatican officials, joint prayer presupposes agreement on the nature of the God being addressed -- but "to be together and pray."



<snip>
[/quote]


Let us imagine that we are at a remote oasis in an unnamed desert. It has not rained in 90 days, and the well is going dry.

In attendance are Budge, Winchester, Eutychus, and Fides.

"Let's pray for rain" says someone.

"We don't pray the same way" says someone else.

"So do you want it to rain, or not," says the third.

"I'll try it as long as you don't make me pray your way" responded the fourth.

So, even though they did not "pray together" the four agreed "to be together and pray."

Edited September 9, 2006 by journeyman

[Winchester]

I have the conch!

[brandelynmarie]

well spoken journeyman! But if one wants to split hairs over words...don't we need to go back to the ORIGINAL languages that Scripture was written in? Just wondering...

[Eutychus]

[quote]In attendance are Budge, Winchester, Eutychus, and Fides.

"Let's pray for rain" says someone.

"We don't pray the same way" says someone else.

"So do you want it to rain, or not," says the third.

"I'll try it as long as you don't make me pray your way" responded the fourth.

So, even though they did not "pray together" the four agreed "to be together and pray." [/quote]

Catholic response, PRAY FOR RAIN TOGETHER.

REAL Evangelical Christian response, who cares about rain? Let me tell you about hell, how you can avoid it, who Jesus Christ is, what He did, and why YOU need to find Him.

Your way, MAY end up with five people on a wet island.

Christ;s/Evangelical's way, ends up with FIVE followers of Christ, saved for all eternity.

AMEN??

[brandelynmarie]

how about a ?

Edited September 9, 2006 by brandelynmarie

[Aloysius]

it's a desert oasis, not a desert island...

you have been culturally influenced by gnosticism and platonic dualism if you are so willing to abandon this world and focus solely on spiritual things.

we are called not to worry about things in the temporal order because God will provide, but we are still supposed to ask God to provide, and we are still supposed to live our lives tending after our proper domain in the physical/temporal order.

Jesus said to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, et cetera et cetera. To preach to all nations as well, sure, but to do both things and not to exclude the necessities of human living in favor of trying to save them from hell.

[XIX]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1059777' date='Sep 9 2006, 04:35 PM']
Catholic response, PRAY FOR RAIN TOGETHER.

REAL Evangelical Christian response, who cares about rain? Let me tell you about hell, how you can avoid it, who Jesus Christ is, what He did, and why YOU need to find Him.

Your way, MAY end up with five people on a wet island.

Christ;s/Evangelical's way, ends up with FIVE followers of Christ, saved for all eternity.

AMEN??
[/quote]
Yeah that's a great witness to the faith. Those pagans really wanna be like those Christians who let people dehydrate to death.

What if my roommate is a Jew?

I'd be done.

[quote name='Budge' post='1059087' date='Sep 8 2006, 01:12 PM']
Like changing the order of those words changes the meaning of those words.[/quote]
Changing the order of those like words changes the meaning of those words.

[Fides_et_Ratio]

At first I was going to protest that I was the only girl on this desert oasis (and what would I be doing there with 3 guys?) but then I remembered Budge is also a girl, so my objection subsided.



And don't worry, Eutychus, if we were really stuck at a remote oasis in the desert, I wouldn't neglect neglect your physical needs. It would be an opportunity to minister to Jesus (cf. Matthew 25:35-40). Instead of arguing about Hell, I'd be praying for the Lord to provide water for you, and Budge, and Winchester.

[Budge]

Why would I pray for rain?

I would witness to the lot of you because your eternal destination would be a lot more important rather then getting physical needs met. Especially if we were all facing near death.

I would ask God then praying with whatever other Christian there was, {not praying with Catholics} to 1. Bring you folks to Him, 2. to send us RESCUERS.

BUT YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT JESUS rescuing YOU FROM HELL first....

Why think so small?

[What you going to catch the rain in, one of your shoes? guess if someone had a knife on them you could hollow out a bowl real quick out of a tree limb....]



This is the problem with Catholicism it looks to this world.

Selling out the gospel for WORLD peace, focusing on social work. Building treasures in heaven or the final eternal destiny of folks is ignored.

Oh by the way water can be found on a desert osasis, if plants are there usually means water can be found, get a twig and start digging..

Edited September 9, 2006 by Budge

[Farsight one]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1059777' date='Sep 9 2006, 05:35 PM']
Catholic response, PRAY FOR RAIN TOGETHER.

REAL Evangelical Christian response, who cares about rain? Let me tell you about hell, how you can avoid it, who Jesus Christ is, what He did, and why YOU need to find Him.

Your way, MAY end up with five people on a wet island.

Christ;s/Evangelical's way, ends up with FIVE followers of Christ, saved for all eternity.

AMEN??
[/quote]You've witnessed to people before, right? Can you honestly say that doing so in this situation is going to result in sucess? You really think you'd end up with five followers of Christ? Let me tell you about real life. Depending on who you're witnessing to, you MIGHT get one convert, but most likely you'd only get a bloody nose, or worse.

I've said it plenty before, and I'll say it again. Become a friend first, then they'll listen to you. By not becoming their friend first, YOU greatly reduce the chances of conversion as well as build up a wall for them so that they are less responsive to evangelization in the future. It becomes YOUR fault that they refuse to believe. All because you wanted to take the easy way out skip a couple of important steps.

When a chef prepares pufferfish, skipping only one of the 43(ish) steps required to make it edible, their patron will at the very least be sick for a couple of days or quite possibly die from it. Do you really want that weight on your shoulders? The knowledge that you could have done better, but the little red guy on your shoulder told you to skip a bit and you listened to him?

Trust me, it smells of elderberries big time.

[Budge]

[quote] Depending on who you're witnessing to, you MIGHT get one convert, but most likely you'd only get a bloody nose, or worse.
[/quote]

YEAH that stopped Paul, that bloody nose threat...

{stoned, scourged five times, beaten with rods three times}

Edited September 10, 2006 by Budge

[Farsight one]

Getting punched in the face, or even stoned and scourged shouldn't deter you. I definitely agree with that. But, it is a sign that that particular way of doing things isn't working, and it might be a good idea to try a different approach.

So, while youre getting stoned and scourged and building up their resistances to your's and anyone else's words of evangelization, I'm becoming friends with the sinners. And while you're still getting stoned and scourged and beaten up for attempting to convert people, I'm friends with these sinners and they'll actually listen to what I have to say about God and understand why I'm telling them this and not stone me or scourge me, but in fact thank me. Not only is my method [i]on average faster[/i], but I also get more converts than you.