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Long or Short Statement of Faith

Wynona

Wynona

Member
@O'Darby III

Thanks, for being the catalyst for this thread idea. I'll go first.

I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob imaged in His Son Jesus Christ.

Male and female are both made in God's image but the woman was made for the man to be his companion and helper in the calling God gave him. Because of this, I believe most women today are called to be marriage companions and helpmeets in man's divine calling to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth.

I am not against women making money, but believe careers force married women to have conflicting interests with the calling God gave them.

Because Adam was created first and because Eve was deceived in the garden, I believe men are to be the gatekeepers of doctrine and women are not to usurp authority as teachers over them. We are to follow Titus 2:3-5 and mentor other women on how to love their families, do good, and keep the home.

I believe many are called to be Christians and that Jesus' sacrifice saved every last person on earth in some way. However, there is a weeding out process that will get rid of anyone who sinned or practiced lawlessness even though they made it to the Kingdom. The road is narrow because it's a call to suffer in this current life to share in the glory of Christ in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

God's commands are not grievous and every Christian's goal should be to become a slave of righteousness, stop sinning, and express actual love through good works of service and charity. We feed the hungry and help those we come across as God enables us. We love one another. That's how we know we have the love of God in us.

We stop sinning by abiding or continuing to hear the Word out loud in our ears until it transforms our thinking and sets us free.

I don't believe the faith is just a set of intellectual beliefs. Too much intellectual wrangling can be detrimental. The end of faith is charity and keeping a good conscience, as it says in 1 Timothy.

We do good works of faith. We should be affirming this constantly, Scripture says. Works of faith shouldn't be confused with works under the 613 laws of Moses or works of the flesh like fornication.

I feel that many Protestant churches are just allergic to works today and fixate on hyper-grace theology traditions. I wanted truth and challenge and churches just coddled me and babysat me for the most part. I became a believer at 14 and searched high and low for a church in different denominations. None get it right but if I were anything, I'd be Pentecostal.
 
@O'Darby III

I just wanted to say thank you again for your honesty. I feel like you and a lot of others are hungry for something real... I believe Christianity does have the answer but we believers have to be sincere---real examples of genuine righteousness and love. We can't just wear cross necklaces and blend in with everyone else. People are hungry for something authentic.
 
Wynona said:
None get it right but if I were anything, I'd be Pentecostal.
Click to expand...
Lots of people don't even know it exists, but if I were anything I'd be Eastern Orthodox. It has the strongest claim to being the One True Apostolic Church and measures all theology by what the Apostles, Apostolic Fathers and Early Church Fathers believed and taught, yet is remarkably open to alternative possibilities (David Bentley Hart, one of the most aggressive Universalist intellectuals, is an Orthodox in good standing). The Orthodox and Catholics split with the Great Schism in 1054, and then of course came the Protestant Reformation 500 years later (which I, and the Orthodox, regard as a great tragedy that irretrievably fractured and fragmented Christianity).
Wynona said:
@O'Darby III

I just wanted to say thank you again for your honesty. I feel like you and a lot of others are hungry for something real... I believe Christianity does have the answer but we believers have to be sincere---real examples of genuine righteousness and love. We can't just wear cross necklaces and blend in with everyone else. People are hungry for something authentic.
Click to expand...
Thanks much. I do try to be honest with myself above all and then am mostly "thinking out loud" on forums such as this. My quest has always been to get as close to Ultimate Truth as I can get in this lifetime, wherever that quest may lead me.
 
O'Darby III said:
Lots of people don't even know it exists, but if I were anything I'd be Eastern Orthodox. It has the strongest claim to being the One True Apostolic Church and measures all theology by what the Apostles, Apostolic Fathers and Early Church Fathers believed and taught, yet is remarkably open to alternative possibilities (David Bentley Hart, one of the most aggressive Universalist intellectuals, is an Orthodox in good standing). The Orthodox and Catholics split with the Great Schism in 1054, and then of course came the Protestant Reformation 500 years later (which I, and the Orthodox, regard as a great tragedy that irretrievably fractured and fragmented Christianity).
Click to expand...
I am very curious about the Eastern Orthodox. I have a crude branch history of denominations in my head with Orthodox being the oldest, then split to Catholicism with an Anglicanism split, then Catholicism split to Protestantism .

Itd be worth looking into.
 
Wynona said:
I am very curious about the Eastern Orthodox. I have a crude branch history of denominations in my head with Orthodox being the oldest, then split to Catholicism with an Anglicanism split, then Catholicism split to Protestantism .

Itd be worth looking into.
Click to expand...
It really would be. My wife grew up in the Soviet Union as a Baptist, which was (and is) a dangerous thing to be. When she joined me in 2008, she DETESTED the Russian Orthodox Church as little more than an arm of the Russian government. I'd pretty much never heard of the Orthodox and began studying. I was astonished. I told her "Look, you really can't judge the Eastern Orthodox Church by the Russian version. It's extremely profound." She started studying, probably to prove me wrong, and became almost a fanatical follower of some of the principal Orthodox theologians. However, many Orthodox theologians teach that there is a unique non-Western "Orthodox mindset" ("phronema") and that a Westerner will never fully "get it."
 
Wynona said:
@O'Darby III

Thanks, for being the catalyst for this thread idea. I'll go first.

I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob imaged in His Son Jesus Christ.

Male and female are both made in God's image but the woman was made for the man to be his companion and helper in the calling God gave him. Because of this, I believe most women today are called to be marriage companions and helpmeets in man's divine calling to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth.

I am not against women making money, but believe careers force married women to have conflicting interests with the calling God gave them.

Because Adam was created first and because Eve was deceived in the garden, I believe men are to be the gatekeepers of doctrine and women are not to usurp authority as teachers over them. We are to follow Titus 2:3-5 and mentor other women on how to love their families, do good, and keep the home.

I believe many are called to be Christians and that Jesus' sacrifice saved every last person on earth in some way. However, there is a weeding out process that will get rid of anyone who sinned or practiced lawlessness even though they made it to the Kingdom. The road is narrow because it's a call to suffer in this current life to share in the glory of Christ in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

God's commands are not grievous and every Christian's goal should be to become a slave of righteousness, stop sinning, and express actual love through good works of service and charity. We feed the hungry and help those we come across as God enables us. We love one another. That's how we know we have the love of God in us.

We stop sinning by abiding or continuing to hear the Word out loud in our ears until it transforms our thinking and sets us free.

I don't believe the faith is just a set of intellectual beliefs. Too much intellectual wrangling can be detrimental. The end of faith is charity and keeping a good conscience, as it says in 1 Timothy.

We do good works of faith. We should be affirming this constantly, Scripture says. Works of faith shouldn't be confused with works under the 613 laws of Moses or works of the flesh like fornication.

I feel that many Protestant churches are just allergic to works today and fixate on hyper-grace theology traditions. I wanted truth and challenge and churches just coddled me and babysat me for the most part. I became a believer at 14 and searched high and low for a church in different denominations. None get it right but if I were anything, I'd be Pentecostal.
Click to expand...
I wanted to add two final thoughts:

1. There is a branch of Protestantism called "paleo-orthodoxy" that is pretty much a Protestant version of Eastern Orthodoxy. It has no wild-and-crazy doctrines but, like the EO, emphasizes the Bible, Apostolic Fathers, Early Church Fathers and Ecumenical Councils. One of the driving forces was the late theologian Thomas C. Oden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_C._Oden). If you can wade through 1000 pages (very readable), his Classic Christianity: A Systematic Theology is excellent. Wikipedia also has a short entry on paleo-orthodoxy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo-orthodoxy.

2. My pet peeve is with those, including those on this forum and forums such as this, who feel at liberty to reinvent Christianity while retaining the label. Not only are core doctrines reinvented, but these folks also insist Christian practice and life must evolve with the times. As you well know, the reinvention and evolution are always - ALWAYS - in one direction: a more progressive, less demanding, more worldly, user-friendly religion.

I try to be honest enough to admit my "alternative theology" isn't Christianity. I hope it's close to the truth and that God isn't disgusted with me even if it isn't, but it simply isn't what Christianity always has been and has always been understood to be. Like the Eastern Orthodox and paleo-orthodox, I believe Christianity is defined by the Bible, the earliest teachings and the Ecumenical Councils. (Yes, of course, there was no perfect consensus and there is room for legitimate discussion of some issues, but much of modern "Christianity" is beyond the outer limits of what Christianity always has been and been understood to be.)

Christianity as defined by the Bible, earliest teachings and Ecumenical Councils is either true or it isn't. If someone doesn't think it is, acknowledge this and move on. Reinventing it while retaining the label is almost demonic. I've often said, in reference to certain pseudo-Christian churches I could name, that if there is a Satan he's far too wily to use a cartoonish Church of Satan to accomplish his purposes; he would instead use a clever counterfeit that was just "Christian enough" to be appealing but grossly misleading on core doctrines. This is why, even though my "alternative theology" simply won't qualify for the label Christian, my "fallback theology" is very strict ultra-conservative Christianity - not one of the reinventions that might seem on the surface more akin to my "alternative theology."

And that's all I've got to say about that.
 
O'Darby III said:
My pet peeve is with those, including those on this forum and forums such as this, who feel at liberty to reinvent Christianity while retaining the label.
Click to expand...
This bothers me a great deal. But I am trying to remind myself that while that type of ideology annoys me the most, those who adhere should have my patience and not my contempt.

I lost my temper and had to eat my words one time.
 
Wynona said:
This bothers me a great deal. But I am trying to remind myself that while that type of ideology annoys me the most, those who adhere should have my patience and not my contempt.

I lost my temper and had to eat my words one time.
Click to expand...

An argument can be made, that 'orthodox' Christianity is the "remade" version. We've inherited something other than what the original Christians (Christ followers) understood faith and action to be, trading it for Constantine's "council-approved" religion. It's Christianity by consensus, that replaced personal experience.
 
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