#Apostolic theology

[apilgrimpassingby]

What is it with Americans and reinventing ancient heresies?

Thinking the Son is a created being? Arianism in the ancient world, Jehovah's Witnesses in modern America.

Thinking the Holy Trinity is one God playing three roles rather than one God in three persons? Modalism in the ancient world, Oneness Pentecostalism in modern America.

Thinking there are modern prophets with equal authority to the Apostles? Montanism in the ancient world, the New Apostolic Reformation in modern America.

Thinking that Christians are mandated to live like Jews? Judaising in the ancient world, the Hebrew Roots Movement in modern America.

Thinking that we have a divine spark trapped in the body that needs to be freed with secret knowledge? Gnosticism in the ancient world, Scientology in modern America.

Why does this happen? I thought it was something about American Christianity for a long time, but then I realised that L. Ron Hubbard, who wasn't Christian and doesn't seem to have been one at any point in his life, straight-up reinvented Gnosticism. What is it about Americans?

[revryanfrench-blog]

What's the Difference Between Godly Sorrow & Worldly Sorrow

For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of but the sorrow of the world worketh death (2 Corinthians 7:10). The Difference Makes the Difference In his second letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul begins chapter seven by launching into a lengthy discussion about how to “perfect holiness” by “cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit (2…

[walkingthroughthisworld]

The Lure of Eastern Orthodoxy

Michael Horton and Scott Clark discuss why evangelicals and even Reformed are attracted to the claims and the church of the Eastern Orthodox churches in Office Hours from WSC.

[scobbe]

I’ve just been confirmed by the laying on of hands from an Episcopal bishop so I’m officially Anglican now. Dreams really do come true.

[mindfulldsliving]

Responding to Michelle Grimes: A Brief Look at the Melchizedek Priesthood for Latter-day Saints

Understanding the Melchizedek Priesthood is essential for members of the Latter-day Saint faith, especially in light of recent critiques from figures like Michelle Grimes. This article aims to shed light on the historical and scriptural foundations of this priesthood and how it continues to hold relevance today. Many may question how Latter-day Saints can hold the Melchizedek Priesthood amidst…

[take-note-of-this]

The Apostolicity of the Church

[biblepreacher]

War & Politics: Can Christians Serve in Political or Military Vocations?

Having argued that Jesus is Lord, which gives him alone the right to order his Kingdom, and that there is one authority over all to which we must answer, which means there aren’t different standards for “secular” and “religious” spheres, and having argued that God has both reserved vengeance for himself, now it’s time to ask the question that has divided how Christians engage with questions of…

[bristolchurch]

Ephesians 4:11 - Gifts NOT Offices

The interpretation of Ephesians 4:11 as gifts rather than offices is based on several arguments. Here are a few: The context of the passage: The broader context of Ephesians 4 emphasises the unity and diversity of the Church. Paul urges the Ephesian believers to maintain unity in the faith, while also acknowledging that each member has been given different gifts and roles for the benefit of the…

[whatisonthemoon]

The following post came directly from the FFWPU and their research. That said, there’s a lot of interesting information on the formal connections between the early Unification Church and western Pentecostalism. The Apostolic Church International was known to have been affected by the William Branham-associated “Latter Rain Revival,” where a number of doctrines were pushed, including the British Israelism-influenced “serpent seed” doctrine (which claims the fall of Adam and Eve was sexual, and was also racialized). The early practices of the Unification Church were also much more openly pentecostal, with tongues and interpretation, prophecy, etc.

A Man with a Mission – Part 3

▲ Pictured: Pastor Joshua McCabe (seated, center) with True Father (left) and Young Oon Kim. Behind ar Church President Hyo Won Eu (light-colored suit) and Hyo Min Eu (hands on his belt), among others; Pastor McCabe recorded his impressions of Father and the early church in an article that was published in his own church’s magazine, and reproduced here.

In 1954, the year our church was formally registered in Seoul, David S. C. Kim traveled to Britain to study on a UN scholarship at the age of 38. Even though True Father did not personally assign him to do so at that time, David Kim took every opportunity to reach out to other churches and witness to the truth. The following account records a remarkable and little-known result of that investment. (click here if you wish to read Part 1 or Part 2)

David Sang Chul Kim’s Testimony:

Not long after the founding of HSA-UWC in Korea, I was selected by the Korean government to study in Britain for two years as a UN scholar, along with other under-developed nations’ representatives at Swansea College, Uni­versity of Wales. Externally I was a UN scholar, but internally I had a mission to spread True Father’s message to Chris­tians overseas and around the world.

While I was in Wales I never neglected my heavenly mission and duty. Whenever I had spare time, I vis­ited many churches and small groups to look for people, and spoke many times at churches as a guest speaker. On those occasions I would introduce our Korean group and preach based on the contents of Divine Principle, which was available only as handwritten notes exchanged among the early members. Near the end of my stay in England, I succeeded in contacting a conserva­tive Christian organization called the Apostolic Church International, which was holding a World Convention in South Wales at that time. I was allowed to speak for 30 minutes, appealing to 3,000 participants at the World Conven­tion about the situation of Teacher Sun Myung Moon, our movement and the Korean government persecution.

In 1956, the Apostolic Church Inter­national’s Australian mission headquar­ters sent one Pastor Joshua McCabe to our group in Seoul, Korea. He studied the Principle for eighty days and helped with Professor Young Oon Kim’s English translation of Divine Principle. Seven hundred copies were completed and distributed throughout the world even before the Korean edition was published. Mrs. Won Pok Choi, Miss Young Oon Kim and I, as a trinity, worked together to teach the depth of Divine Principle and take care of Pastor McCabe as a special guest of the church.

From our own research into Pastor McCabe:

One day, after speaking to a group at a Baptist church in a small town thirty kilometers from Swansea, a couple who attended the Apostolic Church (a Pentecostal denomination) met and befriended David Kim. This led to his appearance at their annual church convention. In a letter to his flock that was read out in churches a few weeks later, then president of the Apostolic Church, Hugh Dawson, mentioned “a Korean brother by the name of Sang-chul Kim,” whom he said, “made a strong appeal to us in the Convention to send a missionary to his land.”

In June 1956, the Apostolic Church dispatched Pastor Joshua McCabe in response to David Kim’s expressions of affinity between our church and theirs. McCabe was a Scotsman who had been sent by his church to Australia in 1932. He had been at the convention in Wales and remembered that while there David Kim had “received the Gift of the Holy Spirit.” Pastor McCabe flew from Melbourne and arrived in Seoul, a city that “still had lots of buildings reduced to rubble.” He stayed for nearly eighty days, lodging in the home of a member. He interacted with the English- speaking members, especially David Kim (1915-2011), Choi Won-pok (1916–2006) and Kim Young-oon (1915–1989). And he met and conversed with True Father. It has to be said that over time, Pastor McCabe found that our beliefs did not coincide with those of the Apostolic Church – though there were interesting parallels. For example, the Apostolic Church had a strong tradition of revelation plus a firm belied in the reality of Satan. Pastor McCabe returned to Australia with an early English translation of at least some of what would later be published as an early version of Divine Principle. However, it appears that no further contact between the Apostolic Church organization and our church ensued.

▲ Pictured: The cover of the November 1956 edition of the Apostolic Herald in which Pastor McCabe’s testimony appeared, which pictures David S. C. Kim with Pastor McCabe

Although Pastor McCabe’s later letters indicate slightly more jaded memories of his experience, he was certainly the first foreign observer of our church, and he witnessed the early, spirit-filled services that we have heard testimony of by our own elders.

The following is the major portion of the article Pastor McCabe wrote for the Apostolic Church’s own magazine some two and a half weeks after his arrival in Korea in 1956 (printed some months later):

From the Apostolic Church’s magazine Apostolic Herald, November 1956 Edition

Many of you will remember meeting Mr. Sang Chul Kim, who studied at Swansea University as a United Nations student and attended the Ammanford1 Assembly of the Church, later coming to the Penygroes Convention in August 1955.2 He sent an invitation for a representative of the Church to go and visit the group of Christians to whom he was attached and the invitation was passed on to the Australian Missionary Advisory Board. At our Quadrennial Council at Easter I was chosen to make the journey of 8,000 miles from Headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, to Seoul in Korea. I arrived here on June 22nd after three days’ journey by air…

On the following Tuesday I was warmly welcomed at a representative party, when leaders of the group, Mr. Moon and Mr. Yoo [Church president Rev. Hyo Won Eu], together with others arranged a Korean welcome and meal in honor of their Western visitor. Among the members who attended were two college professors, two doctors of medicine and lecturers, an ex-Minister of Labor, a colonel of the Korean Air Force, and a number of businessmen who are all members of the group. Speeches of welcome from various members were delivered, and Mr. Kim made the speech of the evening in English. Others welcomed me in Korean, and I spoke on behalf of the Apostolic Church in the Motherland and Australia. The group of Christians to whom I have come are not Pentecostal or Apostolic as we know it, and yet the Spirit of the Lord is manifest among them, as some have visions, others have tongues and interpretations, while a spirit of prophecy is exercised by others in private….

The fervor and sincerity of the worship, the soul stirring preaching of Mr. Moon, a born orator who stirs his congregation to response both in praying and preaching is wonderful. Almost without exception the members are there because they longed for something deeper.… To this hall come between 300 and 400 people. There are no seats as in other churches; everyone sits on the floor. Half an hour before the service is due to begin we have a time of singing, and the place is packed. Many parts of Seoul are bomb damaged and there is not sufficient money to repair the city. The result is that accommodation is at a premium, and the group here is glad to have their hall.

It is a hive of spiritual activity. Mr. Yoo, the lecturer, gives lectures on the “Principles,” as they term their beliefs, for four to five hours a day. He covers their doctrine in two lectures, and this he does three times a week to enquirers who number as many as thirty to forty, and sometimes as few as five or six. At the end of each half year an examination is held. One hundred and thirteen from four different centers sat the examination on Sunday, 1st July. Of these twenty-eight passed with 80% or more marks. Seventeen diplomas and eleven certificates were presented to successful students who ranged from High School students to older people about fifty years of age, and including a professor from a college and a medical doctor. This week a lady doctor and a congressman attended the lectures. There are eight centers stretching over the three hundred miles from Seoul to Busan in the south, and the total membership is variously quoted at 600 to 1,200. There are always about 300 at the Seoul service on Wednesday and between 300 and 400 on Sundays.

Their doctrines are divergent from ours on several points. I am studying their principles, and though I have been here for eighteen days I have only given one address, due to having met with a slight accident when returning from the welcome party. I have now recovered and hope to give other talks on our teaching. One thing is evident—the condition for salvation is receiving Christ through faith in Him. Satan is a real foe who has to be fought and overcome. They do not baptize in water or break bread on the Lord’s Day as we do. I solicit prayers of all your readers and the Apostolic friends in Great Britain that the Lord’s purpose may be wrought out between our groups in Australia, Great Britain and Korea. The people here are very kind and gracious and the personal stories of how they were led to come to the church are wonderful. Like the Apostolic Church in Great Britain they are sacrificing to make the building of a meeting place possible. There are difficulties, but God specializes in the impossible, so remember to pray.

https://familyfedihq.org/2017/06/a-man-with-a-mission-part-3/

[portraitsofsaints]

Happy Feast Day

Saint Ignatius of Antioch

35-107

Feast Day: October 17 (New), February 1 (Trad)

Patronage: Against throat diseases, the Church in the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa

St. Ignatius of Antioch is one of the five "Apostolic Fathers," and was the third Bishop of Antioch. He was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist and is known for explaining Church theology. Ignatius was arrested by Roman soldiers and taken to Rome where he was sentenced to death at the Coliseum for his Christian teachings, practices, and faith. On his way to being martyred in Rome, he wrote letters to the early Christians, which we still have today, that connect the Catholic Church to the early, unbroken, clear teaching of the Apostles given directly by Jesus Christ. He urged the Christians to remain faithful to God, warned them against heretical doctrine, and provided them with the solid truths of the faith.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase. (website)

[tamamita]

Is it heresy if there are christian denominations that don't believe in the Trinity such as Unitarianism?

I mean the very first Christians were Unitarians who believed in the theological concept of adoptionism. Adoptionism involved the idea that because Jesus (a) was such an upstanding moral figure among the Israelites, God declared him to be the son of God in the metaphorical sense. Adoptonists never accepted Christ as a divine figure, seeing him as fully human. The idea of Christ's divinity was mostly an issue that came to appear later in Christian history. Docalism, Marcionism, Modalism, Monarchianism, Montanism, Arianism and various other doctrines introduced between the 1st-4th century became the foundation of Jesus as a divine being, albeit with various definitions and interpretations. The Church adopted the Trinitiarian (albeit still in development) view as its mainstream theology in the Council of Nicaea, Council of Constantinople, introducing the Nicene-Constantinpolitan creed and apostole's creed respectively. The creed also deemed every other Christian doctrine to be heretical, surpressing any other heterodoxy, especially Arianism. It wasn't until Augustine that the concept of the Trinity was fully introduced in the 5th century, finalized by the Athanasian Creed. However, it wasn't until we the court of Charlemagne that we were introduced to the Johannine Comma that included the Trinity in brackets of the first epistle of John to substantiate its inclusion, so this was effectively the first alteration of the Greek Bible in the West. Enter Augustine, the man who described the Trinity in relation to each other. We can go further, but the doctrine of the Trinity has never been established with one single definite meaning, since the personal relationship and the meaning between each essence keeps being debated and discussed among Christians, even till this day.

Christadelphians are one of the few Unitarian Christians today, but they don't adhere to adoptionism, they simply hold that Jesus (a) was the son of God, but not in the literal sense. However, they reject Jesus' divinity, seeing him as fully human, subordinate to the Father. The adoptionists were very much the first true Christians, but not in the eyes of the Church. As you can see, the Trinity was a later invention that took several centuries to form and was not ultimately defined by the Church Fathers. Indeed, this is evident by the fact that several Christian scholars had to redefine the Trinity throughout history.

[mariacallous]

A growing Christian supremacist movement that labels its perceived enemies as “demonic” and enjoys close ties to major Republican figures is “the greatest threat to American democracy you’ve never heard of,” according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The SPLC, a civil rights organization that monitors extremist groups, released its “Year In Hate And Extremism 2023” report on Tuesday. A significant portion of the report, which tracked burgeoning anti-democratic and neo-fascist movements and actors across America, is devoted to the New Apostolic Reformation, “a new and powerful Christian supremacy movement that is attempting to transform culture and politics in the U.S. and countries across the world into a grim authoritarianism.”

Emerging out of the charismatic evangelical tradition, the NAR adheres to a form of Christian dominionism, meaning its parishioners believe it’s their divine duty to seize control of every political and cultural institution in America, transforming them according to a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture.

NAR adherents also believe in the existence of modern-day “apostles” and “prophets” — church leaders endowed by God with supernatural abilities, including the power to heal. In 2022, a handful of these “apostles,” the report notes, issued what they called the Watchman Decree, an anti-democratic document envisioning the end of a pluralistic society in America.

The apostles claimed they had been given “legal power and authority from Heaven” and are “God’s ambassadors and spokespeople over the earth,” who “are equipped and delegated by Him to destroy every attempted advance of the enemy.”

And who’s the enemy? Basically anyone who does not adhere to NAR beliefs. NAR adherents see their critics as being literally controlled by the devil.

“There are claims that whole neighborhoods, cities, even nations are under the sway of the demonic,” the report states. “Other religions, such as Islam, are also said to be demonically influenced. One cannot compromise with evil, and so if Democrats, liberals, LGBTQ+ people, and others are seen as demonic, political compromise — the heart of democratic life — becomes difficult if not impossible.”

This rhetoric has become increasingly widespread among Republican lawmakers, including former President Donald Trump, who last year referred to Marxists and atheists as “evil demonic forces that want to destroy our country.”

That Trump would use NAR-inspired rhetoric is unsurprising considering his relationship with Paula White-Cain, an NAR figure who delivered the invocation at Trump’s inauguration in 2017 and at the kickoff of his 2020 reelection campaign, as noted by Paul Rosenberg in Salon. White-Cain also delivered the invocation at Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C. — the event that eventually became the insurrection at the Capitol.

The attack on the Capitol was largely inspired, the report suggests, by NAR’s theology of dominionism. “NAR prayer groups were mobilized at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as well as supporting prayer teams all over the country, to exorcise the demonic influence over the Capitol that adherents said was keeping Trump from his rightful, prophesized second term,” the report states.

Major Republican figures took part in such events on or around the day of the attack. Mike Johnson, who is now the speaker of the House, joined the NAR’s “Global Prayer for Election Integrity,” which called for Trump’s reinstatement as president, in the weeks leading up to the attack on the Capitol. Johnson has also stated that Jim Garlow, an NAR leader, has had a “profound influence” on his life.

Ultimately, the SPLC report is an attempt to ring the alarm bells about the NAR, ”the greatest threat to U.S. democracy that you have never heard of.

“It is already a powerful, wealthy and influential movement and composes a highly influential block of one of the two main political parties in the country,” the report continues. “So few people have heard of NAR that it is possible that, without resistance in our local communities, dominionism might win without ever having been truly opposed.”

The SPLC’s report, according to a press release, also documents 595 hate groups and 835 antigovernment extremist groups in America, “including a growing wave of white nationalism increasingly motivated by theocratic beliefs and conspiracy theories.”

“With a historic election just months away, this year, more than any other, we must act to preserve our democracy,” Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center and SPLC Action Fund, said in a statement. “That will require us to directly address the danger of hate and extremism from our schools to our statehouses. Our report exposes these far-right extremists and serves as a tool for advocates and communities working to counter disinformation, false conspiracies and threats to voters and election workers.”

[poetryqueer]

you know the one thing i keep on coming across in studying early christianity is the crisis of jesus' absence, like nowadays its pretty clear how jesus plays into christian theology so on so forth, but directly following the apostolic era there's this crisis of trying to adapt christian theology to this increasing distance from jesus with the people who knew him dying and the people who knew them dying, and anyways there's this continued need to fill this gap left by jesus being not physically present and i think it could be really useful to have a term for this crisis in the christian faith. personally, i think calling this the jesus hole could be- [gets dragged out from the patristics conference]

[apenitentialprayer]

i've read that mormons and JWs are considered heretics because they don't affirm the trinity, so i was wondering what the sort-of 'cut off' point is. like would the ACOE be considered heretics because they say mary isn't the mother of God, only the mother of christ, for example

Alrighty, this is a big one. So, as far as the Jehovah's Witnesses and the (mainstream) Latter Day Saints movement go, things are.... a little more complicated in terms of whether their doctrine is "heresy" or if they are just plain non-Christian (and thus wouldn't count as heretical).

The crux of the argument that they are not Christian is that they do not affirm the Nicene Creed, which was articulated during the Councils of Nicaea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD). While Mormons and JWs can affirm the most primitive of Christian creeds ("Christ is Lord"), the Nicene Creed very quickly took on the status of the σύμβολον, or symbolum in Latin; the "symbol of faith," the creed whose affirmation is itself a verification of one's Christian identity. That's why during the Council of Trent, for example, the Tridentine Fathers invited Protestants to participate in the Council on the condition that they could still affirm the Creed.

Of course, Mormons and JWs do not see it that way. They self-identify as Christians; and each group doesn't see themselves just as Christians, but as restorers of a purer, more original Christianity that had existed before the creation of that Creed.

But, anyway, if the conclusion of this argument is accepted, and members of the (mainstream) Latter Day Saints movement and Jehovah's Witnesses are not considered Christian, they by definition cannot be considered heretics; per the Baltimore Catechism, heretics are "baptized Christians, but do not believe all the articles of faith" (Q 1170).

The Assyrian Church of the East affirms the Nicene Creed, have Apostolic Succession, and have limited intercommunion with the Catholic Church. And, Christologically, they have an interesting situation going on. The Assyrian Church has not formally accepted the dogmatic Christological definitions of the Council of Ephesus (431). And, on that alone, the ACoE would seem to fit into the Baltimore Catechism's definition of heretic.

But over 1550 years after that split, the leaders of both the Assyrian Church of the East and the Catholic Church signed a document that affirmed that both Churches saw the other's Christological doctrines as valid, and that both theologies were expressions of the same Apostolic faith. You can read the full document, which is not very long, here.

But to abstract the discussion of heresy for a moment (bold of me to do, admittedly, after saying the last ask was a little vague); we need to make a distinction between formal heresy and material heresy. As Pope Benedict noted in 1993, which itself was an echo of the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia's description of heresy, the defining characteristic of formal heresy is pertinacia, which can be translated as "stubbornness." What makes a person a "heretic" in a condemnable sense is this pertinacia, this holding fast to falsehoods in defiance of correction by proper authority.

So while the first generations of Protestants may be considered formal heretics, Pope Benedict noted that this does not reflect the actual social and religious conditions of Protestants living today, who are simply living out their Christian faith in the traditions that have arisen since the Reformation. They may be material heretics, and the doctrines of Protestantism may be considered heretical from the Catholic viewpoint, but being a Protestant does not automatically incur the guilt of heresy.

And, in all honesty, most Christians alive today (and most Christians in all ages) have in all probability been material heretics - i.e., they hold some wrong or incorrect opinions concerning the faith, but simply out of ignorance and not in defiance of proper authority. And that is not a sin.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kyle Mantyla at RWW:

In 2023, self-proclaimed Christian nationalist and unabashed Trump cultist Lance Wallnau announced his intention to travel the country ahead of the 2024 elections in order to break the “demonic strongholds” in swing states that are supposedly preventing Republicans from winning elections. That idea eventually merged with the revival Fire and Glory Tour that Wallnau was doing with fellow MAGA cultist Mario Murillo, resulting in plans to merge political rallies with Christian revival meetings in order to help former President Donald Trump return to the White House.

Dubbed “The Courage Tour,” Wallnau and Murillo have so far held events in Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan, consisting of Christian nationalist political organizing during the day and evening sessions focused on spiritual revival and miracle healing. The purpose of these events, as Wallnau explained earlier this year, is to prepare Christians to rule and reign when Jesus Christ returns by training them to “occupy territory now.” The plan for training Christians to rule in the End Times by getting them politically involved today was on full display when the Courage Tour stopped in Wisconsin this week, and longtime political activist Joshua Standifer urged attendees to sign up to serve as election workers this November so that they can function as a “Trojan horse” for the Christian nationalist political movement. Standifer leads an organization called The Lion Of Judah that believes “it’s time that Christians led by the Holy Spirit take back the mountain of Government and transform our nation.”

Talk of taking control of “the mountain of government” flows from Seven Mountains Dominionism, a radical theology associated with the New Apostolic Reformation that advocates having right-wing Christians control all aspects of society. Followers of Seven Mountains theology believe that they are to “do whatever is necessary” to take control of the seven main “mountains” that shape our culture—education, government, media, business, arts and entertainment, family, and religion—in order to implement the will of God throughout the nation and the world. Wallnau is a leading proponent of Seven Mountains Dominionism and the theology is at the center of his Courage Tour efforts. During his remarks on Monday, Standifer urged the conservative Christians in the audience to become election workers, not just volunteers, because “when the polls start to close or chaos unfolds, they’re gonna kick the volunteers out” while right-wing Christians will remain behind to be “the ones counting the votes.”

Christian Nationalism is a poisonous ideology, part 822.

[mindfulldsliving]

The Beatitudes and Apostolic Guidance in 3 Nephi 12

As we explore this rich scripture, we find Jesus instructing the Nephites to heed His apostles, underscoring the vital role of these chosen leaders in guiding believers towards spiritual fulfillment.

Apostolic Authority and Teachings: Insights from 3 Nephi 12 In 3 Nephi 12, the teachings of Jesus Christ echo the profound messages of the Sermon on the Mount, highlighting the essential theme of Apostolic Authority and Teaching. As we explore this rich scripture, we find Jesus instructing the Nephites to heed His apostles, underscoring the vital role of these chosen leaders in guiding believers…