Do Female Clergy Lead To Gay Marriage?

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Trajectory of the 21st Century: Essays on Theology and Technology

Lessons In Apologetics #6: Pantheism

As a worldview, Pantheism has plagued the religious thought of both the East and West from ancient times on up through our contemporary day.

If Deism is the belief that God is so transcendent from the cosmos He created that He no longer participates directly in it, Pantheism must be the worldview at the other end of the continuum believing that a higher power exists as Pantheism holds that God is so immanent with the universe that God and the universe are one. As a worldview, Pantheism has plagued the religious thought of both the East and West from ancient times on up through our contemporary day.

Though there are various forms of Pantheism, most share a set of common characteristics. Pantheists will agree that ultimately there is but one substance.

Parmenides hypothesized that there is either being or nonbeing and in order to exist there must be being. And if everything possesses this quality, everything is of the same substance as to differ by nothing would be not to exist at all.

Though everything is ultimately one under Pantheism, what we perceive as multiplicity or distinction are either manifestations or emanations of the absolute unity.

In the "Enneads", the Greek mystic Plotinus said that from this impersonal unity flowed the various levels of reality starting with unity, then inward into mind, then the world soul, then multiple souls, then to the lowest level of matter. It is man, Geisler writes in "Christian Apologetics" of this brand of Pantheism in as "the microcosm who possesses mind, soul, and matter" that the journey back to unity and oneness begins (175).

Though slightly different, other forms of Pantheism share considerable similarity. For example, in Spinoza's pantheism, God is a substance of infinite attributes and we exist as transient manifestations of the absolute that are eventually reabsorbed back into it. And in Hinduism, though that world religion is noted for its multiplicities of divinities, in its philosophically complex variants, the various gods all the way down to the material components of the physical world are the assorted levels of the comprehensive totality known as Brahman.

Though many Pantheists claim to embrace tolerance as they contend all religions are merely human efforts to understand the same all-encompassing God, one is really taking the serpent to one’s bosom when dealing with Pantheism. For example, in much of Pantheist thought, it is held that both good and evil flow from God much in the same way there is both a light and dark side of the Force in the Star Wars epic. Other Pantheists claim that God is beyond good and evil as understood by human beings.

Such positions could be used to not only justify any number of atrocities but also to view them in a disturbingly detached manner or even positively in an around about fashion. For example, if good and evil are simply just human conceptions useful for ordering social relations, what is so inherently immoral about the Holocaust?

After all, were not the Jews the ones anyway that set the ball rolling on the theism that ended up promoting the conceptual dualism that now hinders the expansion of consciousness? Besides, by liberating them of their physical materiality, aren’t we doing them a favor by reuniting them with universal oneness? Under Pantheism, the “is” becomes the “ought” and that is why one sees cows strutting freely down the streets of India with the baby girls tossed out with the trash.

by Frederick Meekins

Are Perverts Drawn To The Ministry?

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Harvard Tolerancemongers Celebrate Satanic Mass

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The Exclusive Claims Of Christianity

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Interesting. Licentious progressives demand such uniformity of mindset that those privileged to be spotlighted in the media targeting that particular demographic must not be allowed to formulate streams of cognition contradicting this ethical hegemony even when these reflections are not highlighted in the information such personalities are contracted to convey. For example, HGTV removed from its lineup a new program titled “Flip It Forward” because the Christianity espoused by the hosts of the program opposes gay marriage and abortion. Never mind the fact that it would be Christian beliefs that would motivate an individual to assist the destitute in acquiring shelter. That should teach the hosts a lesson. Perhaps they should just use their skills at carpentry and real estate to accumulate wealth for themselves with those unable to do so allowed to fritter into destitution and ruination in compliance with the Darwinian hypothesis. Yet when there is the possibility that a small segment of the media is at least open to the possibility of allowing for the expression of a broadly traditionalist or theistic perspective in a public format, these very same licentious progressives rampage how this one outlet is suppressing dissent. This is particularly evident in liberal opposition to Fox News. Derangement against that news organizations is so widespread and vehement that some time ago, liberals about pulled their hair out how the network was featured in episodes of 24 (a drama that tends to skewer conservative in terms of its viewership) even though Fox (the network upon which 24 aired) and Fox News are owned by the same company.

Baptist Pastor Insists Non-Calvinists Worship Image Of The Beast

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In justifying why a pastor must never be seen in a Hawaiin shirt, a fundamentalist Baptist insisted that the world needs to see that we are like God and not the world. So how is such a perspective markedly different than those that insist ministers should wear clerical collars and vestments rather than business suits? Isn’t it that the business suit is the clerical collar and vestment of most hyperlegaistic fundamentalists?

A pastor condemned a fellow minister for making an idol technology because he did not return a phone call after several attempts but replied to a text within 30 seconds of receiving one. What we have here is not so much a sin but rather a difference in personal technological preference. So would condemnation on part of an Amishman or a Luddite of the minister conducting his communications through telephone rather than through written correspondence or perhaps face to face also be valid or would that simply be viewed as fanatic overkill? And what of those that condemned the proliferation of the printing press during the days of the Reformation?

Life In The Medieval Cloister

Interesting. In terms of coercing compliance irrespective of whether or not that which being called for is a clearly delineated issue, pastors often emphasize the Hebrews 13:17 calling for obedience of those that rule over you so that their task might be joyful. What about the verse where those in authority (especially parents) are urged not to provoke those under them to wrath?

A number of questionable assumptions were expounded in an elocution on national repentance based upon the Book of Joel posted on SermonAudio.com. For example, for true repentance to come about the pastor insisted that first one was required to first conduct a “fast of the spirit”. Apparently, it is not enough to abstain from that which is merely sin. One must also abstain from those desires that find their origin in the flesh but are otherwise legitimate. So does that mean if your backside itches, you can’t scratch it? Giving up that which one is not required to does not earn brownie points with God. If anything, it merely takes one dangerously closer to works-based righteousness “at best” and at worst might push one over into a proto-gnosticism that denigrates materiality and embodiment. Secondly, this pastor went out of his way to spoof those that prefer to deal with there in the pew any conviction they might be under from the Holy Spirit rather than going forward to make a, shall we say, spectacle of themselves in the front of the church. Instead, in times of judgment, repentance must be made public. So apparently, not only can’t you scratch your own backside, you’ve got to cop before an audience to each time you’ve stolen a glance of someone else's backside Frankly, on what grounds do these variety of Baptists then complain about Roman Catholic ritualism such as confession, unnecessary penance, and bodily mortification?