The singularity of Scripture

Faith & Science Conversation
242

Those are actually rather unfortunate examples if your thesis is that Rome simply invented new doctrines.

Let us begin with transubstantiation.

If your objection is merely that the technical vocabulary of transubstantiation developed later, then of course it did. But that is not the same thing as saying that the underlying doctrine (the real conversion of the Eucharistic elements into Christ’s Body and Blood) was invented by medieval Rome.

Ignatius of Antioch, at the beginning of the second century, condemns those who refuse the Eucharist because they do not confess it to be the flesh of Jesus Christ.

Justin Martyr, around the middle of the second century, says that Christians do not receive the Eucharist as ordinary bread and drink, but as the flesh and blood of the incarnate Christ.

Cyril of Jerusalem is more explicit still: the bread and wine are not to be regarded as “bare elements”; Christ declared them to be His Body and Blood, and after the invocation the bread “becomes the Body of Christ” and the wine His Blood.

Whatever one wishes to call that, “a philosophical musing invented by Rome” is not a serious historical description of it.

And the Eastern Orthodox evidence makes the objection even more difficult.

When Lutheran theologians submitted the Augsburg Confession to Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople in the sixteenth century, hoping to discover that the ancient Eastern Church was essentially Protestant, Jeremias rejected numerous Lutheran doctrines rather than embracing them.

The Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 later explicitly approved those responses. Its language about the Reformation was hardly ecumenically delicate: it referred to the “madness of Luther,” treated Lutheran and Calvinist innovations as heretical departures, and on the Eucharist specifically rejected what it attributed to Luther’s followers.

More importantly, Decree XVII of that Orthodox Synod states that after consecration the bread is “transmuted, transubstantiated, converted and transformed” into Christ’s true Body and the wine into His true Blood. It explicitly denies that Christ is present merely “typically” or “figuratively,” and even explains that by “transubstantiation” it does not claim to explain the mysterious manner of the change, but affirms that the change is real and substantial.

So this cannot plausibly be dismissed as some peculiarly Roman medieval philosophical speculation.

Indeed, if anything, the Orthodox position makes the problem even worse because they preserved an emphatically realist Eucharistic doctrine and later formally condemned Protestant attempts to reduce or reconceive it.

Now, the Immaculate Conception is historically a different case, and accuracy is very important.

I would not claim that Irenaeus, Ephrem, Augustine, or John Damascene could have recited the dogmatic definition of 1854. They could not. The precise question developed gradually and was genuinely disputed.

But once again, “therefore Rome invented it” does not follow.

The patristic trajectory is unmistakable.

Already in the second century Irenaeus constructs the great Eve–Mary parallel: Eve’s disobedience is undone by Mary’s obedience, and Mary becomes the counterpart through whom the knot tied by Eve is untied.

Ephrem the Syrian goes substantially further. Speaking of Christ and Mary, he says that in Christ there is no blemish and in His Mother “no stain.”

Augustine, when discussing the universality of personal sin among the saints, expressly refuses to include the Virgin Mary, saying that concerning her he wishes “to raise no question” where sin is concerned, precisely because of the extraordinary grace bestowed upon her in view of Christ.

And the Eastern tradition becomes still more striking. John Damascene, preaching on Mary’s nativity, speaks of Joachim producing a “wholly unblemished seed” and of Anne carrying an “all-holy infant”; he describes nature itself yielding to grace in preparation for Mary’s conception and birth.

Andrew of Crete likewise speaks of the “Immaculate Virgin” emerging from the womb and treats her origin as the extraordinary preparation for the Incarnation.

Do those passages amount, individually, to the precise scholastic proposition defined in 1854, that Mary, from the first instant of her conception, was preserved from original sin by a singular grace of God in view of Christ’s merits?

No.

But that is precisely what doctrinal development means.

There is an enormous difference between saying: “The final technical formulation was not present from the beginning” and saying: “The underlying belief has no roots in the earlier Christian tradition and was simply invented.”

The first is historically true of many Christian doctrines (including the Trinity)

The second requires proof.

And if your criterion is that a doctrine is illegitimate unless its final technical formulation appears verbatim in Scripture or in the earliest Fathers, you have created a standard that would cause considerable trouble for Nicene and Chalcedonian Christianity as well. The Apostles don’t speak in the later technical vocabulary of homoousios, one person in two natures, or the developed terminology of Trinitarian theology. The Church later formulated more precisely what it believed was already contained in the apostolic faith.

That is exactly the distinction Catholic theology makes here: development is not new revelation.

So the two examples unfortunately don’t establish your accusation.

243

There is no need of it. Even if you accept Original Sin, there is no way Christ could be classed as having it or God’s power not overcoming it. The veneration of Mary is not even Scriptural.

And as none of the Disciples, or even Paul believed in Original Sin there is no Apostolic lineage.

Richard

1 Like
244

There are many problems here.

First, the Immaculate Conception does not rest on the claim that God somehow had to preserve Mary from Original Sin because otherwise Christ would have “contracted” it from her.

That is not Catholic doctrine.

Christ is sinless in His own right, Catholic theology does not treat Original Sin as though it were a biological infection that would automatically contaminate Christ through His mother.

The Immaculate Conception concerns Mary, not some limitation upon God’s ability to produce a sinless Christ. The doctrine says that Mary herself was redeemed by Christ in an exceptional manner: she was preserved from Original Sin by a singular grace of God in view of the merits of Jesus Christ. In other words, Christ’s redemption is precisely what preserves her.

So saying “God could have overcome Original Sin anyway” simply misses the point. Catholicism already says that He did.

Nor is the Catholic claim that the Immaculate Conception was the only logically possible way God could have accomplished the Incarnation, because an omnipotent God obviously did not lack alternatives. The question is whether He did grant Mary that particular grace, not whether metaphysical necessity forced Him to do so.

Your second assertion (that the veneration of Mary is “not even Scriptural”) is also much too sweeping.

Luke tells us that Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, calls Mary “blessed among women” and asks in astonishment why “the mother of my Lord” should come to her. Mary then prophesies:“From now on all generations will call me blessed.”

The claim that Scripture provides no basis whatsoever for giving Mary exceptional honour is impossible to reconcile with Luke 1 itself.

And this attitude toward Mary appears extremely early.

Irenaeus, writing in the second century, contrasts Eve’s disobedience with Mary’s obedience. Eve becomes a cause of death to herself and the human race; Mary, through obedient faith, becomes what Irenaeus strikingly calls a cause of salvation. Elsewhere he presents Mary as the obedient Virgin through whom Eve’s disobedience is reversed.

Then we have:

  1. St. Ephrem the Syrian (4th c.): “Neither in Thee nor in Thy Mother is there any stain.”
  2. St. Ambrose of Milan (4th c.): “A Virgin whom grace has made inviolate, free of every stain.”
  3. Theodotus of Ancyra (5th c.): “A Virgin innocent; immaculate; free from all guilt; spotless; undefiled; holy in spirit and body.”
  4. St. Proclus of Constantinople (5th c.):“She was formed without any stain.”
  5. St. Sophronius of Jerusalem (7th c.):“The Holy Spirit descends upon you, who are the Immaculate, to make you purer.”
  6. St. Andrew of Crete (7th–8th c.), preaching specifically on Mary’s Nativity, calls her: “a pure, truly spotless pearl”
    and later:
    “this Pure and Immaculate Virgin.”

So whatever one thinks of later Marian doctrine, the idea that Christians suddenly decided in the Middle Ages to give Mary theological significance simply doesn’t fit the historical evidence. The extraordinary importance of Mary was aknowledge very fast and very soon.

But the most problematic part of your comment is this: “None of the Disciples, or even Paul believed in Original Sin.”

Paul?

Romans 5 says that through one man sin entered the world and death through sin; that through one man’s transgression the many died; that through one transgression came condemnation; and that through one man’s disobedience “the many were made sinners.”

That is not Augustine speaking in the fifth century. That is Paul.

Now, we certainly can—and should—distinguish Paul’s teaching from every detail of Augustine’s later theological system. Eastern and Western Christians have historically emphasized different aspects of the Adamic inheritance. The East has generally stressed inherited mortality and corruption rather than treating Adam’s personal guilt as though it were personally committed by each descendant.

Fine.

But that is a debate over the nature and mechanism of the inherited fallen condition. It is not evidence that the doctrine suddenly appeared with Augustine.

Quite the contrary: the pre-Augustinian evidence is abundant.

Irenaeus, in the second century, teaches that Adam’s transgression placed humanity under death and that Christ reverses what mankind lost in Adam. He explicitly speaks of the human race falling into bondage to death and of Adam having been conquered, with Christ restoring what had been lost.

Then comes Tertullian, around the beginning of the third century, roughly two centuries before Augustine’s controversy with Pelagius. He writes that “every soul” has its nature in Adam until it is reborn in Christ and speaks explicitly of an antecedent corruption arising from humanity’s “corrupt origin.” One need not accept every detail of Tertullian’s anthropology to recognize what this proves historically: Christians were discussing an inherited Adamic corruption long before Augustine.

Then we have Cyprian of Carthage, in the middle of the third century, and here the evidence becomes particularly awkward for the “Augustine invented it” thesis.

Discussing infant baptism with a council of sixty-six bishops, Cyprian says that the newborn infant has committed no personal sin, yet, by being born according to Adam, has “contracted the contagion of the ancient death.” He then says that what is remitted to the infant is not personal sins of his own.

Whatever precise theological vocabulary one prefers, that is unmistakably the idea that an infant enters existence already affected by Adam’s fall.

And Cyprian died more than a century before Augustine became bishop.

Then ae have Athanasius, one of the great Eastern Fathers of the fourth century and hardly someone whose theology can be dismissed as Augustinian Latin innovation.

His entire argument in On the Incarnation begins from the fact that humanity was created for incorruption, that transgression brought mankind under death and corruption, and that corruption thereafter gained mastery over the human race. Christ assumes human nature precisely in order to destroy this inherited dominion of death and corruption.

So the historical sequence is definitely not: Paul → nothing → Augustine invents Original Sin.

It is: Paul → Irenaeus → Tertullian → Cyprian → Athanasius → Augustine.

They don’t all formulate the doctrine identically, because doctrinal vocabulary and theological precision develop (the same thing happened with the Trinity, especially because the Arians couldn’t be refuted using only Scripture because they were very good at twisting it).

But the underlying structure is already unmistakably present: humanity is not born into Adam’s original condition; Adam’s fall has consequences extending to his descendants; those consequences involve sin, mortality, corruption and alienation; and Christ restores what was lost in Adam.

Augustine systematizes and develops this tradition, he didn’t conjure it into existence.

245

That doesn’t work unless Mary was a sinner – if she was sinless, there was no know present to untie, just an avoidance of the knot.

246

That is a non sequitur, and it also confuses two very different kinds of “undoing.”

Your argument seems to be:

  1. Eve tied the “knot” through disobedience.
  2. Mary unties that knot through obedience.
  3. Therefore Mary herself must first have been a sinner.

But 3 simply doesn’t follow from 1 and 2.

The knot in Irenaeus is not a personal sin previously committed by Mary. It is Eve’s disobedience and its place in the history of humanity. Mary answers that disobedience with the opposite response: obedience.

Eve’s disobedience → the knot
Mary’s obedience → the untying of that knot

not:

Mary sins → Mary later undoes her own sin.

Your objection assumes an additional premise: “In order to reverse the consequences of someone else’s disobedience, one must first personally share in that disobedience.”

But that premise is neither stated nor justified, and it is false.

The Adam–Christ parallel makes the logical point obvious: Christ is sinless, yet His obedience reverses what Adam’s disobedience brought about. Christ does not first have to become a sinner in order to undo Adam’s work.

Now, that does not mean that Mary and Christ operate on the same level.

Christ alone is the Savior, Christ conquers sin and death, reconciles humanity to God, and gives life. Mary is not a goddess, not a parallel savior, and not someone who destroys sin by her own divine power.

Her role in the Eve–Mary parallel is typological and cooperative.

Eve responds to God with disobedience, Mary responds to God with obedience, and through that obedience consents to the Incarnation of the Savior.

And that is also why Mary does not need to have been a sinner for the parallel to work.

The whole logic of the typology is that the second figure reverses the first by acting differently, not by first reproducing the same fault.

So “Mary must have been a sinner, otherwise there was no knot for her to untie” simply confuses undoing another person’s disobedience typologically with repenting of one’s own personal sin.

Irenaeus is describing the former, not the latter.

Also, the idea of Mary as uniquely holy, spotless, and immaculate is certainly not a late Latin “invention”. Eastern Fathers use remarkably strong language about her centuries before the schism.

St Ephrem the Syrian (4th century) places Mary in a unique category of purity alongside Christ: “You and Your Mother are the only ones who are completely beautiful in every respect; for in You, O Lord, there is no stain, and in Your Mother no blemish.”

Whatever later technical distinctions one may make about original sin, this is already an extraordinarily strong affirmation of Mary’s complete purity.

St Proclus of Constantinople (5th century) repeatedly describes Mary in terms such as “spotless,” “undefiled,” and an “untarnished vessel of virginity.” His Marian theology presents her as uniquely pure and sanctified for the mystery of the Incarnation.

St Sophronius of Jerusalem (7th century) says that many saints had appeared before Mary, but none had been “purified beforehand” as she had, nor had anyone received such an extraordinary fullness of grace.

Again, he does not formulate the later 1854 definition, but the idea of an exceptional and prevenient sanctification of Mary is plainly present.

St Andrew of Crete (7th–8th century) calls Mary the “all-pure Virgin” and speaks of her birth from Anna in explicitly spotless and holy terms. In his homilies on her Nativity, Mary’s coming into the world is presented as the beginning of the restoration of human nature.

St John of Damascus (8th century) uses similarly exalted language in his homilies on the Nativity of the Theotokos, presenting Mary as uniquely holy from her very origins and as the pure offspring prepared by God to become the Mother of the Incarnate Word.

The underlying belief in Mary as uniquely all-holy, spotless, undefiled, and specially sanctified by God is deeply rooted in the Greek and Syriac Fathers and cannot plausibly be dismissed as a late Western invention.

The later Catholic definition specifies how this unique holiness is to be understood: that Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin from the first instant of her conception, by the grace of God and in view of the merits of Christ.

But the patristic foundations ( especially the language of Mary as Panagia, all-holy, spotless, and undefiled ) are thoroughly Eastern as well as Western.

It is also historically inaccurate to claim that the Immaculate Conception is intrinsically incompatible with Orthodox theology. Mind you, this does not mean that the Orthodox Church officially accepts the Roman Catholic definition of 1854, It means that Orthodox history contains bishops, saints and theologians who either explicitly affirmed the doctrine or adopted formulations strikingly close to it.

1. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

Kallistos Ware discusses the question directly in:

Kallistos Ware, “The Sanctity and Glory of the Mother of God: Orthodox Approaches,” The Way, Supplement 51 (1984), pp. 79–96.

On p. 87, Ware states: “other Orthodox in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries explicitly uphold the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.” https://www.theway.org.uk/back/s051Ware.pdf

He then gives concrete examples: Cyril Lucaris, Patriarch of Alexandria and later Constantinople; Elias Miniatis, Bishop of Kernitsa and Kalavryta; St Dimitri of Rostov; and Symeon of Polotsk. Ware adds that seventeenth-century Polotsk even possessed an Orthodox confraternity specifically dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.

Ware says of Elias Miniatis that he asserted the doctrine with “great clarity and emphasis,” and explicitly includes the canonized Orthodox saint Dimitri of Rostov among Russian theologians who held it.

Ware then makes an even more interesting statement on p. 89. After acknowledging the later Orthodox rejection of the Roman definition, he asks how great the underlying theological disagreement really is and writes that both sides regard Mary as “most pure” and as receiving “sanctification from the first moment of her existence.”

Sergius Bulgakov

The Russian Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov’s positive statement about Mary’s sanctification comes extremely close to one central element of the Immaculate Conception.

In Sophia: The Wisdom of God, pp. 114–115, he writes that Mary knew no personal sin and “was manifestly sanctified by the Holy Ghost from the very moment of her conception.” https://www.unifr.ch/sergij-bulgakov/de/assets/public/files/Forschung/2020%20Tagung%20FR/Bulgakov_WisdomOfGod_corr2.pdf

Bulgakov therefore explicitly locates Mary’s sanctification at the very moment of conception, not merely at the Annunciation or at some later stage of her life.

Ware quotes this exact passage and immediately observes:“A Roman Catholic may here interject that this is very close to what he means by the Immaculate Conception.”

That observation appears in Ware, The Sanctity and Glory of the Mother of God, p. 89. https://www.theway.org.uk/back/s051Ware.pdf

Elias Miniatis

Ware also identifies Elias Miniatis (1669–1714), Orthodox Bishop of Kernitsa and Kalavryta, as another explicit defender of the doctrine.

According to Ware, Miniatis asserted the Immaculate Conception “with great clarity and emphasis.”

Ware, The Sanctity and Glory of the Mother of God, p. 87. https://www.theway.org.uk/back/s051Ware.pdf

So this was not confined to Russian Orthodox theology. Ware also documents an explicitly Immaculist current in the Greek Orthodox world.

I could also quote other orthodox bishops and theologians but I’m going to stop here, I think I have already shown enough evidence for my point.

247

Acknowledging that you are absent and may not return in time to answer.

Whether Augustine or Irenaeus came up with the notion that there is both a fall and an automatic taint, Paul did not. Romans 5 does not say this. it is a mis reading of what he wrote.
Pure logic dictates that if Pau was going to emphasise or even introduce such a major concept he would not do it with a few passing lines inside a much longer and complex argument. Especially as original or continued sin is specifically refuted by Judaism and Paul was still, and always a Jew first.

After that your lengthy proof is meaningless.

It does not matter whether Sin is seen as an infection or a taint, or whatever. To suggest that an inocent, be they child or adult, is a sinner is plainly wrong
If they have not commited a sin then they are not acountable to anyone else’s
That is what God said through Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
Therefore
Any notion of Original Sin contradicts God’s specific words.

And that must be the end of the matter.

Richard

248

This is a holding pattern to allow @1Cor15.54 to respond

Richard

249

No, your definition of original sin “contradicts God’s specific words”.

Though that’s a surprising statement from you!

250

Any definition of Original Sin contradicts God’s specific words (Via Jeremiah and Ezekiel)

I fail to see how you can say that.

I have never disputed prophetic words in Scripture that begin with

“God says” or words to that effect.
(NB the words attributed to God in early Genesis do not qualify on that account)

Richard

251

In Christianity, we should be of “One Mind.” (Philippians 2:2) Someone reads the New Testament from an Old Testament Understanding. Prior to there being a New Testament, someone like Apostle Paul was teaching out of the Book of Isaiah, showing how Jesus came fulfilling scripture.

A lot of people are book smart. They have a lot of knowledge about the Bible. They don’t really know how to wield The Word. This done by “Being” and “Doing.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) God’s plan is God’s Kingdom. God’s Kingdom has particular values. It is a good day to be building The Kingdom of God. Who or what is in the way?

I also like a “Conceptual Bible Study.” Given someone grasps a concept, a lot of understanding falls into place.

God is love. (1 John 4:8) A lot of Christians will tell you this. Jesus chastises and rebukes those he loves. (Hebrews 12:6)(Revelations 3:19) Given someone didn’t understanding that Jesus chastises and rebukes, they were missing something. They may need to humble themselves, pray, and seek The Lord Jesus Christ with all their heart and soul and strength and mind.

God is love. The Lord is a Man of War. (Exodus 15:3)(Isaiah 42:13)(Matthew 10:34-37) Given someone recoiled away from, or had issues with “The Lord is Man of War,” that feeling, that recoil, that was “Some Spirit Not God.” Someone may need to correct themselves, and humble themselves, and stop selectively reading.

If you like a Conceptual Bible Study, I have lot more. The goal is alignment. (Philippians 2:2)

252

So, do you think that means there is only one valid set of beliefs?

Or does “One Mind” mean unified despite different sets of beliefs?

Richard

1 Like
253

Christianity is standards based. Someone was a fail or a pass. They were a no-go or a go. They were in darkness or the Light of The Lord. (Ephesians 5:8)

The Prophets of the Bible, men like Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Isaiah and so on, they were men God spoke THROUGH. God has a particular tone. God has a particular character. God uses particular allegories. A man growing in faith may have been working to be of One Mind with the prophets. (2 Corinthians 10:5) He may have been working to develop The Power of the Tongue. He was cleaning his speech. He worked to say no lies or half truths or exaggerations. He perceived what to say. If he wasn’t sure, he said nothing at all.

A lot of Christianity became “Academic.” An Academic may have needed to produce something. He may have needed to create a new Doctrine. Was his doctrine really aligned with scripture, or was he just playing on the emotions and sympathies of the times?

I don’t know.
I don’t care.

Someone may need to humble themselves to God. God knows. It is not so much about someone saying that this doctrine was wrong, or “I don’t like John Calvin” or something. It is about being and doing, and saying “Follow me,” and bearing your cross. People follow those where the Holy Ghost is working.

254

Not sure this attitude aligns with the majority on this forum. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with it, but most of the discussions here center around the validity or not of specific views or doctrines.

On the other hand

That is a statement that might find a debate.

The pass or failure would be by God, not human behaviour or standard, if Paul’s views are anything to go by.

Richard

255

I don’t know, and I don’t care, it is a “State of the Soul.”

A man’s body is a temple. Jesus lives in a man through his Holy Spirit. Part of learning to talk to God is intuitive. The Holy Ghost is a teacher and a councilor. A man needs to be teachable. Given a man knows or was prideful, he won’t listen. Someone may need periods of fasting and other “Acts of Fortitude,” while seeking God, to break down want for worldly things.

The pass or failure would be by God,

Christians should be able to discern what is on God’s mind. They should be able to discern righteous from unrighteous and holy from unholy.

If a pass and fail is by God, was someone outside of God waiting for final judgement, or was he “Abiding in Christ?”

The Body of Christ is Society. The Body of Christ is a community of believers. The Pastor, along with some Church Elders, should be setting rules and standards to help guide men into faith. Given someone doesn’t care to live in the community, they don’t have to. They go live with the Secular Humanists and Muslims or something.

256

Jesus chastises and rebukes those he loves. To be chastised and rebuked, there was a standard. Was someone “Missing the mark?”

257

Yeah, good luck with that.

Scripture basically says it is none of our business. Try reading the end of John’s Gospel We are not party to God’s plans, or His mind, or His judgment.

I got AI to make this up for me: Based on Monopoly, of course

Go to Hell
Go to Hell548×365 43.2 KB

It is a “chance” card, of course.

Richard

1 Like
258

Someone like Prophet Ezekiel, God was speaking THROUGH. Prophet Ezekiel as he gave some hard prophecy about Jerusalem and Samaria as God’s wives who prostituted themselves in Ezekiel 16 and Ezekiel 23, he may have some insight into God’s Righteous Anger, and what God was planning. God took Ezekiel’s wife in Ezekiel 24. There is an allegory that runs through the Prophets, through The Bible, of Israel being God’s Wife. The Song of Songs is in the Bible as an Allegory for God’s for for Israel or The Church.

In Matthew 13:15-17, people received eyes to see. They became “Seers.”

For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’[a]

16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. (Matthew 13:15-17)

They may have had insight into God’s plans.

Given you don’t care to have that, you don’t to have to. People choose God. You should be more careful with your words. We were talking about the Power of the Tongue earlier. You are accountable.

259

:grimacing:

I do not know who you think you are, but it is you not me who needs to be more careful with their words.

You are not my priest, or master.

Richard

260

Were we unified with the Arians? If yes, how so? If not, why not?

Also, where do we draw the line? If it is impossible to disagree with Nicaea regarding Christ’s divinity, why should it be possible to disagree with other ecumenical councils? And if it is possible, in principle (which doesn’t mean that one has to disagree with Nicaea: it only means that disagreement is conceivable and the eventual agreement or disagreement is only regulated by one’s own perception of orthodoxy and by one’s own perception of Nicaea’s alignment to the Gospel ), to disagree even with Nicaea, then what actually unifies Christians at all?

Of believers in what? And why?

261

One Church, one faith, one Lord?

The catholic Church (small c)

The Passion of Christ and the resulting forgiveness.

Ultimately, tolerance and acceptance as opposed to dogmatism and judgement.

But maybe I am being too optomistic.

Forgive me, but i always thought the idea of Religion was to align ourselves with God and His values and in doing so live together in peace and harmony.

Instead, we have division and exclusiveness, intolerance and dogmatism.
(and a weeping God)

Richard

dit,

oh I forgot:

An obsession with Eternity