#Apostolic theology

[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…

[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.

[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/

[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.”

[portraitsofsaints]

St. Irenaeus of Lyons

Doctor of the Church

130-202

Feast Day: June 28

Patronage: Apologist and Catechist

Saint Irenaeus, one of the Fathers of the Church, and a bishop of Lyons, France combated the Gnostic heresy (that the material world was evil and had access to secret knowledge) by exposing and refuting their teaching with the true teaching of Christian orthodox teaching and apostolic authority. His work laid the foundation of Christian theology and was translated into Latin so it would be available to all. He most likely was martyred because of the persecutions of the time.

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

[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.

[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.

[cupcakegalaxia]

There is alot of really bad theology right now. NAR, Word of Faith and old heresies ( Like reinventing Modalism) are running rampant online that are being perpetuated by so called big-A apostles, prophets and people who claim to perform miracles.

If anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who claims to be an Apostle (specifically of Jesus Christ -- There are only 12.) or a prophet and teaches things that not only are not in the Bible but ask for a 'seed offering' or any kind of monetary gain or deviate from what has been written, they are to be called out as wolves and false teachers. They commit spiritual abuse against people who want to be free from pain and sin by exploiting them, selling them a false bags of goods and keeps telling them to come back again and again to get their 'deliverance from the demon of anxiety.'

These are the 'demon slayer' group, the guys who think that born again Christians can be possessed by demons. Are you flipping kidding me?! Can a demon be in the same vessel of the Holy Spirit who is God? Any well read Christian would know that according to Scripture, its utterly bogus.

Then when they have been taken advantaged of for so long and get out, some remain Christian by the grace of God and fall into the footsteps of true Christianity but most will remain in the hands of wolves. Being fleeced, lulled by what they want to hear, thinking that perhaps being a spiritual person is better then being a biblical person.

The doctrine we have in Scripture rightly tells us about God's Character, Promises, and our salvation outside of our experiences and emotions. Emotions and experiences are different and change, they are secondary to the Scriptures.

But what these NAR--New Apostolic Reformation--folks do is they twist doctrine in that God is now calling new Apostles and prophets to rule the Church. They lull people into their prophetic words and sayings, telling people what they want to hear. Using experience and emotion to get people hooked into their teachings.

I've seen a couple of people on here who post such teachers and this I tell you; run. Run far away from those wolves, they will only bring you to spiritual death and destruction. You posting those teachers can actively stumble others who were brought out of this movements.

Its doctrine like this that strays people away from a full filled Christian life, binding them and presenting a false version of Christianity to the world. Its doctrine like this that will produce rotten fruit.

Now I am not saying that miracles are not for today but it solely depends on God's will, not ourselves. We don't get to decide what gift God gives us and certainly if God has given these gifts, He would give them to whoever He so well pleases.

Find yourself a biblical church, committed to expository preaching. Ask God to get you to a biblical church with a equally biblical pastor. Look at resources like Ligonier Ministry (R.C Sproul) , Crossway, Pirate Christian Radio, The Messed Up Church, White Horse Inn and Founders Ministry.

If you are coming out of the NAR, I highly recommend Pirate Christian Radio (Fighting for the Faith on Youtube) and The Messed Up Church. I would highly recommend Dawn Hill , she came out of the NAR and has since repented of the things she had done in that movement. Lovely lady.

I implore you, and anyone else who is finding themselves falling into these churches. I pray that those wolves repent and turn.

[racefortheironthrone]

Hi! Rookie X-Men question, given how every so often characters tend to die (and then come back), have any of the more specifically religious members of the group, like Nightcrawler, had to wrangle the theological implications of that, or having to deal with dying in-Marvel being very different to how they expect?

Theology is a tricky concept in the Marvel Universe more broadly. Start with the baseline weirdness of what it means to believe in a monotheistic deity when the gods of various pantheons walk the earth as heroes and villains, and where many beings of ultimate cosmic significance can be met in the vastness of space:

Reed Richards is actually lying here. He's gone to the actual Heaven (to retrieve the soul of Ben Grimm) and met the "One Above All" in Fantastic Four #511, and it turns out that in the Marvel Universe, God is literally Jack Kirby, drawing everything into existence:

How this fits in with the existence of multiple gods, multiple Heavens and multiple Hells, is left up to the reader to untangle - just another continuity wrangle to No Prize.

The X-Comics haven't always done much better. As you point out, Kurt Wagner is a faithful son of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church - although I'm sometimes annoyed by writers who can only remember this one detail about him and forget the dashing swashbuckler stuff that's actually way more fun - and his belief ought to be tempered that he's actually died, gone to the explicitly Christian Heaven, and been resurrected by bamfs (it was weird). On the other hand, in the infamous "Draco" storyline, Kurt has also found out that angels and demons are tribes of mutants and that he's the son of the demon Azazel. And in the equally infamous "Holy War" storyline, Kurt became a Catholic priest as part of a theologically-unsound plan to make him Pope so that he could be revealed as the Antichrist and convince people that the Rapture had begun - even though Catholics don't believe in the Rapture.

However, things got a lot better with Jonathan Hickman's House of X/Powers of X and the advent of Krakoa, because all of the sudden there were much more interesting questions to ask. Were mutants the new gods, as Magneto had proclaimed? What did the Church's promise of immortal life mean, now that mutants had defeated death and brought about immortality in this life? What would be the new commandments of the mutant Eden?

As a member of the Quiet Council and the X-Men's resident philosopher, Nightcrawler would be the one asking and answering these questions. In my absolute favorite issue of Hickman's run on the X-Men, Kurt is pushed to seek answers to these questions by the new mutant tradition of "Crucible" - by which depowered mutants must face [A] in the arena to win their right to be reborn into glory through enduring a slow and violent death - and his discovery that Krakoa had built for him a cathedral that only a mutant who can teleport could enter.

In Si Spurrier's run, Kurt investigates these questions by interrogating the laws of Krakoa and how they shape the nascent mutant culture being born on the island. The danger is, that in a world in which life extends forever and death has no meaning, that mutants will fall into sadism and apathy. Kurt's new religion, "the Spark," seeks to combat spiritual neurasthenia with a commitment to the relentless pursuit of the new.

But questions remain: why, in both Moira's Ninth Life and the Sins of Sinister timeline, does Kurt Wagner become the originator of a new sub-species of chimeras with his mutant powers and his appearance and a common commitment to the last religion in existence? What happened to the Golden Child miraculously born to his genetic descendent Wagnerine? Did she survive the destruction of the timeline?

[gaiuskamilah]

i'm so fascinated with rheya's story and the concept of her as their goddess, because it's such an obvious rejection of christianity. of course, this is no surprise considering that the book lead is a jewish man and the series has multiple times subverted the antisemitic tropes associated with vampires. religious themes are prominent in bloodbound, and the treatment of it and its distinct parallels to a certain point of view of christianity i think can't be denied.

rheya is referred to as a goddess throughout the series. she's a priestess and arguably the goddess phampira made flesh, which already draws parallels to jesus, who was a spiritual leader himself. gaius augustine is roman and her most devoted follower, converting (turning) people across the world in a similar way the roman st paul the apostle did. gaius also shares a name with st augustine of hippo, arguably the most important philosopher in christian history and theology.

to be a vampire in bb is to drink the blood of another vampire, and all are descended from the priestess-goddess rheya. this immediately evokes similar Eucharistic notions - as in john 6:53-54, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day."

rheya herself has inspired canon organized religion. the chapel built by dracula is highly reminiscent of catholic and orthodox churches:

in the bonus scene in the dark solstice, serafine is also shown to be praying to rheya. this in particular caught my attention because of how it was worded:

"when the First shall return to us... when the Order will burn... when we may once again be free" it's a very messianic prayer and in itself mirrors the christian belief that one day, jesus will return and enact his will and his kingdom onto the earth.

the whole passage can be compared to the lord's prayer. "when the first shall return to us... when the order will burn" - "hallowed be thy name / thy kingdom come / thy will be done / on earth as it is in heaven" which talks about second coming of jesus, and in this case, rheya. vampires are waiting for salvation, waiting for and asking for "deliverance from evil".

despite all this, bloodbound actively rejects rheya as god made flesh, rejects the notion of her as their savior, and arguably even the concept of a savior. mc denying that rheya is neither savior nor goddess is akin to denying that jesus is the savior and is god:

and this even extends to her name itself - rheya apostolous. "christ" is not jesus' actual name, it's a title that means savior. and while we can take "rheya apostolous" as a typical first name-last name thing, i choose to view "apostolous" as a title - and apostolous means "apostle", a follower, not a savior or a goddess.

and again, knowing that the book lead is a jewish man makes this approach make more sense. through christianity has undeniably jewish roots and jesus was jewish himself, judaism denies that jesus is the messiah. this approach to vampire lore as well as the care that was put into it in order to subvert antisemitic tropes rife the concept of vampires makes bloodbound such a refreshing take on the vampire genre as a whole.

[uskomatontakinkohan]

Religion of Friends

Continuing my search for form of religion that resonates with me. I found out about quakerism or Religious Society of Friends and it really resonates with me. Church that emphasices personal relationship with God, peace, tolerance and sustainability?! Sign me in. It's very positive about LGBTQ rights (which cannot be said of many churches) and interested in saving our planet (which is likevise not a priority in many churches) and they even value animal lives and veganism is not something frowned upon (this I must admit is a big sales point for me!). This churches is like a dream. Unfortunately no single branch in my city and the nearest meeting place would be some 1000 km away froom where I live so joining this church would require a miracle. But God, you can do it, right? Another problem would be my husband who is very attached to the traditions of Apostolic Church of Ghana and wouldn't dream of leaving the church. I on the other hand have worhipped in 3 different churches in my life (Lutheran, Pentecostal and now Apostolic) and was not raised Christin so I don't have strong sence of belonging to any particular church tradition. I do like my friends in the current church I belong to but I am increasingly saddened by their theology of hate, love of money and showbiz kinda ritualism and noice making. I mostly stay with the children at the children's ministry. They hold far less stupid ideas and don't try to force others to believe certain outdated legalistic views.

But I guess I could always be a quaker in my heart.

[guiltywisdom]

I’ve been inquiring into Orthodoxy for a few months (coming from protestantism) and I don’t know for certain yet if I will choose to convert, I guess because I have a few hangups. I attended Divine Liturgy at my local parish for the first time last week and intend to continue worshipping with them and talking to the priests there, but I figured I would bring my questions to you as well.

I’ve been watching interviews and talks from Dr. Jeannie Constantinou, who seems absolutely brilliant and I love her. I’ve heard her explain at least 5 different times now this notion of “phronema,” basically the mind of the Church (the mind of the Apostles, as taught by Christ) and how the Eastern phronema is so different from the West because of the West’s emphasis on human reasoning. I appreciate mystery; mysticism and apophatic theology is what attracted me to Orthodoxy in the first place. But while denouncing Western appeals to reason and emphasizing appeals to Tradition and the mysteries therein, two examples she brought up were same-sex marriage and universalism, basically saying that no matter how reasonable an argument one might make, it’s not Tradition and therefore invalid.

While I’m honestly not sure what to believe about homosexuality (I have pro-LGBT leanings personally but am unconvinced either way I guess), I believe in a “Biblical Universalism,” the idea that Hell is temporary and ultimately corrective rather than punitive, like a furnace to purify gold of any dross. It makes the most philosophical sense to me, I see it in the Scriptures, and (most importantly in this context) I see it as historical.

I’ve read a summary of the points brought up in the book “Universalism, The Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years” by John Wesley Hanson and found them to be very compelling. It seems to show that universalism ought to have been preserved in Tradition, but for many reasons did not, and instead the idea of eternal torment in Hell has solidified.

Now we’re in a spot where the likes of the brilliant Dr. Constantinou is saying that, no matter how reasonable a stance like this might seem, we cannot rely on our own reasoning, as she appeals to the Apostolic Tradition. Truly, I don’t want to be prideful or arrogant, and I wish to conform my thinking in all ways to Christ. But it seems that such a stance should have been Tradition all along.

Please, how can I reconcile this? I think I want to participate in the Orthodox life. I like your worship, your prayers, your fasting, your asceticism, your mysticism, and (the bulk of) your theology. I think Orthodoxy is likely the closest to ancient Christianity. But must I take your tradition as wholly infallible? Is this an issue I need to humble myself on and conform to, or can I truly be welcomed if this is my view?

Tradition isn't "wholly infallible" because, for the most part, it was created by man. In general Orthodoxy teaches that, although we do have all we need for Salvation, some things we do not know for sure and that sometimes we must rexamine said tradition for new truths. Homosexuality wasn't really explored by the early fathers because homosexuality as we know it didn't exist. I think people see the Bible (and the words of the Church Fathers) as too black and white rather than something nebulous and deep. A common belief in the Orthodoxy of the people is something called "Hopeful Universalism" wherein those who believe it (myself included) argue that because God is infinitely loving and good then he would likely wish to reconcile all sinners to him but that we cannot know for sure and that free choice presupposes that there must be an option for those who might never choose to reconcile. You'll find that Orthodoxy has a lot of variation in belief, just ask about our infinite arguments over if Toll Houses are literal, a metaphor or heresy! I think you're a lot like me my sibling in Christ and I'm still here! Keep at it my friend.