“No Religion, Too” – John Lennon

 

First and foremost, one must remember that to achieve the revolutionary goals of Marx and Engels, there can be no alliance except to the state. Christianity, Islam, the Jewish faith, Buddhism, Hindi, all major religions, promote alliance to a philosophy or an entity that is not the state, and represent a potential threat to the state and are thus, contemptuous. The church was banned in the Soviet Empire; revolutionaries murdered clergy and forced Christianity underground. Churches were closed and priests were hunted down and executed during the Mexican socialist takeover. The church was exiled in Cuba and currently faces much difficulty and enmity in Venezuela. The Chinese have effectively banned not only religion, but anything that even remotely resembles religion like the infamous crackdown on the practice of Falun Gong. For the Left there can be no quarter, no safe spaces, no organizational philosophy and no church to rival the state.

Of course Leftism, as espoused in the US in its rarified progressive form among the academy, the media, the Democrat Left and certain elites, would never openly contend that religion is its adversary. (Obama’s depiction of heartland Americans “clutching their guns and their bibles” was an unusual slip of candor.) In fact, progressive liberals are at best only marginally aware that the statist nirvana they seek is really the same overarching state falsely conceived, prophesied and promised by radical atheists Marx and Engels. For the reflexive progressive Left in the US, religion is simply in need of sufficient reform to become sympatico with the correct progressive worldview, that is, it needs to move to the Left. Hard. Only the few true communists and socialist know that this must eventually lead to the effective dissolution of religious affiliation, but no one will ever admit this fact. It is the outcome that shall not be named. Rather, it is accepted that traditional religious dissolution is simply a part of the natural evolution, the progression, to a socialist or statist world where rational secularism naturally replaces irrational faith.

The Catholic Church, as powerful and enduring as it would seem to be, is hardly exempt from this cycle of dissolution. The erosion of the size and influence of the Catholic Church with the advance of democratic -socialist governance in Western Europe threatens the very viability of the faith. Despite theological opposition to abortion and contraception, reproductive rates in western countries are well below sustaining rates. Contraception and abortion are generally free in Europe (though they may be time restricted or require waiting periods.) The Church is losing its congregation and influence in what should be its stronghold, its own backyard. Its congregants are dying off and are not being replaced. In the meantime, post WW2 generations have embraced secularism, relegating the Church to a status of cultural anachronism and impotence.

European secularism is simply a part of socialism; that is it represents the acceptance that there is no power, law or authority other than the state. Secularism has virtually taken over in Western Europe. The secular state requires no weekly attendance, no tithes (just taxes and then disproportionately on the corporate and the rich), no moral indignation, no confession and no final judgement. The only sins are crimes and they are only punished if successfully prosecuted. All the old venal and carnal Christian sins are barely sins at all! This, the progressives tell us, is freedom! But it is not. First and foremost, it requires acknowledgment of the supremacy of the state; from it comes all authority, all ownership and all power.

Only the state can protect and free citizen from the preening moral judgements of religious moralists and zealots. The democratic socialists in Western Europe may have not banned religion, but that does not mean that they hold organized religion in less contempt than a fully communist China or Cuba. It has simply supplanted religious faith by demanding the supremacy of secular law, claiming this to be a kind of supra-moral redemption freeing Europeans from the religious idea of sin and obligation.

Though the US is far more religious than Europe, it is not exempt from a similar erosion. The Left has used the courts in a largely successful movement to strip all religious reference from public life. Left leaning courts have upheld the idea that any expression of religion in public buildings or institutions constitutes a “state sponsorship” of religion. This misguided reasoning has hijacked the US Constitution’s prohibition against the establishment of a state religion (ala Britain’s Anglican Church) even to the point of banning the Ten Commandments from displays in schools and courthouses.

Secularism is on full display among US progressives and with this movement comes all of the vulgarity and Orwellian language expected when secularists are freed of any notion of religious moral certitude. Although no pregnant woman ever referred to an unborn baby as a fetus, in secular America, an unborn child in the language of the Left is nothing more than a parasite or a byproduct to be sold. Marriage, once a religious sacrament between a man and woman, is now just a celebrated party and a flimsy contract among two adults of any sex. Euthanasia is just another choice, not self-murder. In the US, the progressive Left is using the secular state to erode traditional religious moral belief, and hence to place itself above and in opposition to religious moral teaching.

The question then arises, why would mainstream Christian faiths embrace a political movement that opposes their teaching? The answer to that is simple; they are deluded and deceived. Facing loss of congregants in a progressive world where religion has been rendered, if not a moral anachronism, then at best irrelevant, they are tricked into joining with the Left in their various progressive causes in hopes of gaining reciprocal support. Yet, despite this their numbers wane and their churches close.

There is nothing wrong with a Church’s identification of injustice, with the establishment of a religious movement against injustice or with a Church’s leadership on moral and ethical questions, on sin; these endeavors are what freedom of religion and expression are all about. Progressives embrace an anti-war state, not because of a sudden pacifist conversion, but because they see the military as both a political opponent and as a diversion of public resources they would rather spend elsewhere. Unwitting clergy from nearly all religions and denominations, reflexively pacifist, join in the anti-war movement unaware of the underlying progressive (and dangerously naïve) motive.

On the other hand, the civil rights cause, which was initially a religious-led movement, was later conveniently hijacked, corrupted and taken over by progressives. Social Justice, the current progressive iteration of the civil rights movement, is a misnomer; it is now simply the age old idea of generational guilt; that is reparation paid to those who blame hereditary mistreatment for their inability to thrive. The objective here is to force the state to enhance the current system of reparation beyond minority preference, affirmative action, progressive taxation and a guilt-free, gratitude-exempt, welfare state. “Social Justice” is not really a progressive cause per se, however it is embraced generally by the Left as it supports their notion of state control of wealth and economic outcome in a general sense. In it they find compliant political allies.

In fact, all “victimhood” movements – feminist, gay rights, transgender rights, have evolved as politically correct offshoots of the progressive hijacking of the black civil rights movement in America. One can only wonder how Martin Luther King, Jr. or Roy Wilkins would react to “Black Lives Matter” or the current media cacophony over transgender rights. Left turning clergy in the US willingly join these new crusades hoping to catch some of the excitement and moral certitude of the original civil rights leaders. In doing this, they only alienate themselves and their denominations from the many who see these spin-off movements as political, irrational and self-serving.

Open borders represents yet another tenet of the progressive left. However, progressives see open borders as the means to ballot dominance. Progressives believe that these new immigrant voters will be easy to convert to secularist Americans. They come from socialist states. They are natural Democrats and ready for the better, less corrupt form of US socialism. Progressives find close allies in their open border recruitment effort in religious leaders ready to embrace any idea to help the poor. Lost in this discussion is the abject failure of the migrants’ native countries with their socialist, Left leaning and corrupt governments.

Then there is “climate change.” Climate change is not really a Left-Right issue; it is a progressive rallying cry of wolf magnified and adopted by the modern progressive left. It presents a political short-cut, a quick chance for the state to consolidate its authority over money and commerce, the prime directive of statism and socialism generally. Money is the true source of power through which all progressive goals are accomplished. When Left leaning religious denominations and clergy join progressives in the call for state action on climate change, they have truly embraced the whole progressive agenda. The science of this debate is highly questionable and the proposed solutions, spurious. And as for its theological implications, they are are nothing if not all progressive politics.

Recent progressive tolerance, even support, for Islam is an interesting dynamic. There is no religion more in opposition to the progressive movement, more adversarial, and yet progressives are reluctant to pose any kind of resistance to what would be staunch opposition if the same accommodations were requested of Christians or Jews. Prayer rooms and special accommodations are offered to Muslim students in public schools. Public washing stations are provided for Muslims in government facilities. No complaints arise when the tenets of Islam are taught in public schools. Progressives seem frozen by a misguided sense of political correctness when it comes to Islam, an inability to assume that Muslims actually embrace Islamic theology, or that making this assumption somehow makes them prejudiced. This is an absurd blind spot among progressives.

On the other hand, the progressives Left, especially in Europe but also in the US (especially in the Academy) shows nothing but antipathy toward Israel and Jews generally. This anti-Semitic streak exists even though Jews, especially in the US, are generally strong supporters of progressive politics and generally identify as liberal progressives. Much of this antipathy may just be old-fashioned Jew hating, but Israel’s pugnacious insistence on its existence as a singular Jewish state is a direct affront to the Left’s idea of multiculturalism, open borders and world governance.

When mainstream religious leaders and denominations join with and support progressives, they are embracing an enemy committed to their destruction. Like many fellow travelers before them, many unwitting religious leaders and their affiliations have joined with progressives and become them, fully embracing the idea that men, in the form of the state, can enforce a poverty, sin and conflict free world without tyranny. They see this egalitarian world, the world of John Lennon’s “Imagine” as a religious ideal, except they seem to have ignored the telling verse “and no religion too.” The fact that they cannot see that they are facilitating their own demise is maddening. Utopia, that is heaven on earth, is the stuff of fools. As many times as men attempt such an enterprise, it fails, people suffer and in the process, human progress ends. We will never get it right. You would think that any believer in original sin would get that. They don’t.

Published in Religion & Philosophy
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 43 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Nanda Panjandrum Member
    Nanda Panjandrum
    @

    DK, it’s John and Yoko’s vision – she needs to take some weight, too.  He was 29, she was 36. Neither were grownups at the time…Secularist/progressivist/positivist-materialism *is* a value system; it just doesn’t value people as individuals/subjects, so much as consider them objects to be acted on/inputs in a process.  One day at a time, one person at a time, we’ve still got work to do.

    • #1
  2. Doug Kimball Thatcher
    Doug Kimball
    @DougKimball

    Nanda Panjandrum (View Comment):
    DK, it’s John and Yoko’s vision – she needs to take some weight, too…Secularist/progressivist/positivist-materialism *is* a value system; it just doesn’t value people as individuals/subjects, so much as consider them objects to be acted on/inputs in a process. One day at a time, one person at a time, we’ve still got work to do.

    Yoko is not listed as the co-writer of the song, so I didn’t list her.  And Lennon was just another dreamer lured by Rousseau, Tristan, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Tse Dong, Guevara, Castro…  In other words, an idiot.

    • #2
  3. Arizona Patriot Member
    Arizona Patriot
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Good post, Doug.  Have you ever read The Rage Against God, by Peter Hitchins?  He is Christopher’s younger brother.  Unlike his brother (alas), Peter eventually returned to Christianity, and I found his book to be a devastating critique of the Leftism that he once embraced.

    • #3
  4. Nanda Panjandrum Member
    Nanda Panjandrum
    @

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):

    Nanda Panjandrum (View Comment):
    DK, it’s John and Yoko’s vision – she needs to take some weight, too…Secularist/progressivist/positivist-materialism *is* a value system; it just doesn’t value people as individuals/subjects, so much as consider them objects to be acted on/inputs in a process. One day at a time, one person at a time, we’ve still got work to do.

    Yoko is not listed as the co-writer of the song, so I didn’t list her. And Lennon was just another dreamer lured by Rousseau, Tristan, Marx, Engel, Lenin, Stalin, Tse Dong, Guevara, Castro… In other words, an idiot.

    Did I say he wasn’t?  :-)  The lyrics came from a volume of her poems; he credited her in interviews…All that said, you *know* I agree with you, right?

     

    • #4
  5. Doug Kimball Thatcher
    Doug Kimball
    @DougKimball

    Nanda Panjandrum (View Comment):

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):

    Nanda Panjandrum (View Comment):
    DK, it’s John and Yoko’s vision – she needs to take some weight, too…Secularist/progressivist/positivist-materialism *is* a value system; it just doesn’t value people as individuals/subjects, so much as consider them objects to be acted on/inputs in a process. One day at a time, one person at a time, we’ve still got work to do.

    Yoko is not listed as the co-writer of the song, so I didn’t list her. And Lennon was just another dreamer lured by Rousseau, Tristan, Marx, Engel, Lenin, Stalin, Tse Dong, Guevara, Castro… In other words, an idiot.

    Did I say he wasn’t? ? The lyrics came from a volume of her poems; he credited her in interviews…All that said, you *know* I agree with you, right?

    Of course I know!

    Such a lovely song with such a stupid message.  My youngest and her best friend are enamored of the Beatles and their music.  I used to sing to them: Imagine there’s no John Lennon.  It isn’t hard to do.  Just better lyrics, and better music too…

     

    • #5
  6. Doug Kimball Thatcher
    Doug Kimball
    @DougKimball

    Arizona Patriot (View Comment):
    Good post, Doug. Have you ever read The Rage Against God, by Peter Hitchins? He is Christopher’s younger brother. Unlike his brother (alas), Peter eventually returned to Christianity, and I found his book to be a devastating critique of the Leftism that he once embraced.

    I haven’t but I will look for it.  Thanks for getting through this one.  It’s pretty long and tough for a R post.

    • #6
  7. Nanda Panjandrum Member
    Nanda Panjandrum
    @

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):

    Nanda Panjandrum (View Comment):

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):

    Nanda Panjandrum (View Comment):
    DK, it’s John and Yoko’s vision – she needs to take some weight, too…Secularist/progressivist/positivist-materialism *is* a value system; it just doesn’t value people as individuals/subjects, so much as consider them objects to be acted on/inputs in a process. One day at a time, one person at a time, we’ve still got work to do.

    Yoko is not listed as the co-writer of the song, so I didn’t list her. And Lennon was just another dreamer lured by Rousseau, Tristan, Marx, Engel, Lenin, Stalin, Tse Dong, Guevara, Castro… In other words, an idiot.

    Did I say he wasn’t? ? The lyrics came from a volume of her poems; he credited her in interviews…All that said, you *know* I agree with you, right?

    Of course I know!

    Such a lovely song with such a stupid message. My youngest and her best friend are enamored of the Beatles and their music. I used to sing to them: Imagine there’s no John Lennon. It isn’t hard to do. Just better lyrics, and better music too…

    Love the revised lyrics!…

    • #7
  8. Underground Conservative Inactive
    Underground Conservative
    @UndergroundConservative

    Our parish priest is hook-line-and-sinker on immigration, especially Muslims in that last rush several months ago. I really had to bite my tongue.  The parish also holds letter writing campaigns to the Oregon legislature to insist on further social program funding. I just can’t bear the dissonance.  Today, I heard a term by Jordan Peterson called “undifferentiated empathy.”  Sounds about right.

    • #8
  9. Nanda Panjandrum Member
    Nanda Panjandrum
    @

    Underground Conservative (View Comment):
    Our parish priest is hook-line-and-sinker on immigration, especially Muslims in that last rush several months ago. I really had to bite my tongue. The parish also holds letter writing campaigns to the Oregon legislature to insist on further social program funding. I just can’t bear the dissonance. Today, I heard a term by Jordan Peterson called “undifferentiated empathy.” Sounds about right.

    Fortunately, my pastor is a retired mil priest-chaplain who’ll offer us food for thought, from time to time…Depending on how old yours is, UC, his viewpoint may just be aging out. Newer candidates are often in a rather different place.

    • #9
  10. Underground Conservative Inactive
    Underground Conservative
    @UndergroundConservative

    Nanda Panjandrum (View Comment):

    Underground Conservative (View Comment):
    Our parish priest is hook-line-and-sinker on immigration, especially Muslims in that last rush several months ago. I really had to bite my tongue. The parish also holds letter writing campaigns to the Oregon legislature to insist on further social program funding. I just can’t bear the dissonance. Today, I heard a term by Jordan Peterson called “undifferentiated empathy.” Sounds about right.

    Fortunately, my pastor is a retired mil priest-chaplain who’ll offer us food for thought, from time to time…Depending on how old yours is, UC, his viewpoint may just be aging out. Newer candidates are often in a rather different place.

    He’s about 61 or 62. Could be the case, though I haven’t seen too many new candidates these days.

    • #10
  11. Nanda Panjandrum Member
    Nanda Panjandrum
    @

    Underground Conservative (View Comment):

    Nanda Panjandrum (View Comment):

    Underground Conservative (View Comment):
    Our parish priest is hook-line-and-sinker on immigration, especially Muslims in that last rush several months ago. I really had to bite my tongue. The parish also holds letter writing campaigns to the Oregon legislature to insist on further social program funding. I just can’t bear the dissonance. Today, I heard a term by Jordan Peterson called “undifferentiated empathy.” Sounds about right.

    Fortunately, my pastor is a retired mil priest-chaplain who’ll offer us food for thought, from time to time…Depending on how old yours is, UC, his viewpoint may just be aging out. Newer candidates are often in a rather different place.

    He’s about 61 or 62. Could be the case, though I haven’t seen too many new candidates these days.

    We just gained 3 newly-ordained in my home diocese; also, mil families are becoming sources of vocations – including, but not limited to, military chaplaincy.

    • #11
  12. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Good article.  Ferdinand Marcos promoted and tried to use an indigenous christian sect, the Iglesia ni Kristo, for support and it was quite powerful, but it was the Catholic church that  brought him down.  John Paul helped that along as well.  The left appropriates Christian language and notions but applies them to the group, the state.  Indeed I’ve come to believe that evil comes as the mirror image using the language of  our religious heritage but as a collective.  Social justice as popularly used is a collectivist notion and many religious leaders get sucked in, including, sadly, Pope Francis.   The Anglican and Episcopal churches and other protestant denominations that adopted modern secular thought and morality are disintegrating and  Liberal Parishes are  shrinking;   orthodox parishes and denominations are growing.   Neither side of that equation is an accident.

    • #12
  13. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Thank you @dougkimball .

    I keep noting to my lefty fellow Christians how much the modern government has the characteristics the Old Testament prophets warned of (particularly Samuel) when the people demanded a king rather than having God as their only king.

    But, most of my lefty fellow Christians seem to think they can use government to carry out their vision of what God requires of them, and that they can control the forces that drive government. I think this is delusional, but it is not a new delusion. Even some of the people who followed Jesus as He walked this earth thought they could co-opt government, and failed to recognize that it was far more likely that government would co-opt them.

    • #13
  14. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    Doug Kimball: …

    You would think that any believer in original sin would get that. They don’t.

    They do not believe in Original Sin.  Like parts of the Creed, they lie about this when they pledge their ordination vows.

    Traditionalist Christians are too nice.  We should object to these Leftists when they claim to be “Christian.”

    Leftists love to use the words of Jesus about helping neighbors and helping poor people, but instead of applying these injunctions to the believers, they apply them to government.  They brush aside all the other words of Jesus, deny the authority of the Bible except for the little parts that suit them, and then claim the authority of the church.  This is shameful business.

    Because they do not believe in Original Sin, they are unconcerned about lost souls.  They have become “Universalist Christians,” an oxymoron.  All their concern is for outcomes in this mortal life.

    Good essay, Doug K.

    • #14
  15. J. D. Fitzpatrick Member
    J. D. Fitzpatrick
    @JDFitzpatrick

    Powerfully written. Thanks.

    • #15
  16. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):
    Such a lovely song with such a stupid message.

    I heard a young seminarian playing it on a piano once. It has a pleasant melody, but his superior was not pleased when I mentioned it. The young can be educated. When teachers are deluded, the young are in trouble.

    Sadly, secularism has been adopted by many on the Right who mistake it for religious tolerance. They don’t realize that it is simply atheism. If reference to our Creator, human souls, and other spirits is discouraged from public and political discourse, that is not an agnostic position. It is an active position against such “superstitious” premises.

    That’s what they are — premises; a foundation of thought and action. Morals are formed in response to perceived reality. If one makes different assumptions (proved or unproved) about the nature of humanity, the world, society, and our relationships to them, then that inescapably affects one’s conclusions about appropriate behavior — both private and public. Though some functions of government are merely practical, most are driven or shaped by ethical judgments. Religious beliefs necessarily affect political beliefs. The notion that the two subjects can be separated beyond the aspect of institutional leadership is simply a fantasy born of disinterest or ungoverned fear.

    How would you respond if someone told you one political affiliation is basically like another; that it doesn’t matter to which political beliefs you subscribe? Clearly, that person is either disinterested in deep consideration of politics or over-values the comfort of avoiding serious debates. Likewise, when a person speaks as if religion is mere fashion and heated interactions between factions are not justifiable, that person identifies himself or herself as an agnostic or atheist.

    Truth is a shared resource. When we realize that people we care about lack that precious gift, we try to provide. And if the people we love possess some error which seems like truth, we encourage them to abandon it. To leave a person in intellectual and spiritual poverty or with only broken and haphazard gifts is demonstration of apathy. Love does not leave beloved alone. It honors freedom, but never ceases in attention and invitation.

    • #16
  17. Matt White Member
    Matt White
    @

    Doug Kimball: The question then arises, why would mainstream Christian faiths embrace a political movement that opposes their teaching? The answer to that is simple; they are deluded and deceived. Facing loss of congregants in a progressive world where religion has been rendered, if not a moral anachronism, then at best irrelevant, they are tricked into joining with the Left in their various progressive causes in hopes of gaining reciprocal support. Yet, despite this their numbers wane and their churches close.

    Church leaders develop their progressive ideas at the same place as everywhere else.  Liberalism in the mainstream denominations didn’t rise up from congregations. They got the pastors in seminary. They knew how to talk the talk to appear to be following the traditions of those who came before them and slowly influenced their congregations to follow. They aren’t just going along with the progressive movement. They were the early leaders.  J Gresham Machen was dealing with this problem in the mainstream Presbyterian church. His book “Christianity and Liberalism” could just as easily describe current events. It was written in 1923.

    • #17
  18. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    I was raised a Southern Baptist.  I don’t remember any original sin being taught.

    • #18
  19. Eustace C. Scrubb Member
    Eustace C. Scrubb
    @EustaceCScrubb

    Roland Joffé used “Imagine” at the end of his powerful film The Killing Fields which baffled me. The song shares so many values with the Khmer Rouge.

    • #19
  20. Eustace C. Scrubb Member
    Eustace C. Scrubb
    @EustaceCScrubb

    Mistaken post.

    • #20
  21. Podkayne of Israel Inactive
    Podkayne of Israel
    @PodkayneofIsrael

    Lennon evolved a lot in his short life, and had he not been murdered, I suspect he would have continued to evolve and to mature in his opinions. Like many of us, he held some exquisitely stupid ideas in his youth. Unlike most of us, he was given the curse of being taken too seriously by too many.

    • #21
  22. Israel P. Inactive
    Israel P.
    @IsraelP

    Engels.

    Friedrich Engel was a mathematician.

    • #22
  23. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    Randy Webster (View Comment):
    I was raised a Southern Baptist. I don’t remember any original sin being taught.

    Were you not taught that you are a sinner in need of a Savior ?

    But I am sure that the term was not used in your Baptist church.  This is a doctrinal problem.  Baptists and other Arminians have a defective theory of Original Sin and are out of step with the rest of orthodox Christians.

    The doctrinal difference is complex, and goes back to the way Baptists have their own definition of “Baptism” which is different from other Christians’ definition of Baptism.

    • #23
  24. Israel P. Inactive
    Israel P.
    @IsraelP

    MJBubba (View Comment):
    They have become “Universalist Christians,” an oxymoron

    Doesn’t the word “catholic” mean “universal?”

    • #24
  25. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    Israel P. (View Comment):

    MJBubba (View Comment):
    They have become “Universalist Christians,” an oxymoron

    Doesn’t the word “catholic” mean “universal?”

    Indeed it does.

    When we describe the church as universal, we mean that all followers of the Way of Jesus have a kinship by reason of being adopted into the Family of G-d.  Our Lord is drawing to Himself followers from all nations.  We cannot judge the hearts of people the way He does, so we cannot see the exact extents of who will be recognized as having their names written in the Book of Life.  All who are saved will be in unity with Him in eternity.

    In this sinful mortal life, we see our divisions but cannot tell exactly where His line will be drawn.  We know he has a line, and we are called to proclaim that He will make distinctions.  There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Out of loving concern for those who do not worship our Lord Jesus, we proclaim the truth of His coming Judgement.

    So, whereas in eternity the church will be one, without division, there are many people who will not be part of that oneness.  The universal church will not be populated by sinners who rejected their Savior.

    Universalism teaches that “all beliefs are just different roads up the same mountain.”  Scripture tells us that this cannot be true.  So we find ourselves using “universal” to speak of the entire body of all believers, but we use “Universalism” to describe a particular heresy.

    (And I should note that there are nuances and differences among us.  The Roman Catholic Church uses a different definition of “universal,” which they do in order to exclude everyone who is not in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome, whether or not they are in fellowship with Christ.)

    • #25
  26. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    MJBubba (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):
    I was raised a Southern Baptist. I don’t remember any original sin being taught.

    Were you not taught that you are a sinner in need of a Savior ?

    But I am sure that the term was not used in your Baptist church. This is a doctrinal problem. Baptists and other Arminians have a defective theory of Original Sin and are out of step with the rest of orthodox Christians.

    The doctrinal difference is complex, and goes back to the way Baptists have their own definition of “Baptism” which is different from other Christians’ definition of Baptism.

    As I understand Catholic doctrine, you can’t go to heaven unless you’ve been baptized.  I was taught that children were incapable of sin until they became old enough to distinguish right from wrong.  In other words, they are sinless until then.  Hence, no original sin.

     

    • #26
  27. St. Salieri / Eric Cook Member
    St. Salieri / Eric Cook
    @

    I Walton (View Comment):
    The Anglican and Episcopal churches and other protestant denominations that adopted modern secular thought and morality are disintegrating and Liberal Parishes are shrinking; orthodox parishes and denominations are growing. Neither side of that equation is an accident.

    The growth of conservative denominations is no longer a reality, they too are beginning to bleed congregants, and are not replacing their youth, who are increasingly not returning to the fold after high-school or college.  There are other things afoot, other than, the correct (if partial) diagnosis of the original post.

    • #27
  28. Theodoric of Freiberg Inactive
    Theodoric of Freiberg
    @TheodoricofFreiberg

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):
    And Lennon was just another dreamer lured by Rousseau, Tristan, Marx, Engel, Lenin, Stalin, Tse Dong, Guevara, Castro… In other words, an idiot.

    Lennon was a political idiot and a musical genius. Just because you are great at one thing does not mean your views on anything else make any sense.

    • #28
  29. Charles Mark Member
    Charles Mark
    @CharlesMark

    The notion that social conservatism and religion-especially Catholicism-are completely intertwined is one of the great rhetorical tools of  progressives, who portray religion- again especially Catholicism-as irrational and evil and therefore easily dismissed. The proposition that there can be a rational basis for opposition to abortion or euthanasia independently of religious belief is ridiculed. This being the case, it is necessary to make the arguments on secular grounds to convince a majority on any issue. This does not require abandonment of religious faith. It’s just another example of Realpolitik.

    • #29
  30. Admiral janeway Inactive
    Admiral janeway
    @Admiral janeway

    Matthew 25:40New King James Version (NKJV)

    40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

    What would Jesus say about the wealth care bill?

    I am endlessly amazed at how thoroughly conservatism has co-opted their version of the creator of the universe.

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.