Who's Who

[Clivedurdle]

Is there a clade diagram or similar showing how American xianity works? I thought Liberty University was pentecostal but understand it is southern baptist!

What denominations are the megachurches?

What are the connections with the Koch Brothers, what missionary activity do they do?

What damage are they causing?

Who runs TBN or God Channel?

 

[Mindlab Expositor]

Have you tried Googling it yet?

 

[Mageth]

Follow the money!

 

[Clivedurdle]

Follow the money!

Like Pat Robertson and Genocide?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/09/17/rev-pat-robertson-and-gen-rios-montt/

While Pat Robertson’s recent remarks on the Christian Broadcast Network’s The 700 Club that the United States should "take out" Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez certainly caught the media spotlight, the statement by the evangelical minister was only the latest episode in a long and troubled story. Since the 1970s Robertson has loyally served hawkish U.S. foreign policy objectives in Latin America and played a particularly pernicious role in the region. Christian organizations nation wide would do well to heed the history and to rigorously challenge Robertson on his record.

As a young man, Robertson dreamed about profitable business deals in Latin America. After graduating from college, he briefly worked for the W.R. Grace & Co. in New York. Robertson was specifically assigned to Grace’s Foreign Service School to analyze South American economic conditions in South America. There, Robertson collaborated with the company’s chief executives of the company. According to one of Robertson’s biographers, "during the months he worked with the Grace company he viewed Latin America as the ‘land of opportunity’ where he would find some way to enrich himself. Though Robertson left the company after only about nine months, he later achieved his dream by extending Christian televangelism to Central America. By the 1980s, Pat Robertson’s program "The 700 Club," reached 3.1 million viewers in Guatemala. Robertson took a personal interest in the strife torn Central American nation, developing warm ties to General Efrain Rios Montt, a born again evangelical Christian. When Rios Montt took power in a military coup d’etat in March of 1982, Robertson immediately flew to Guatemala, meeting with the incoming president a scant five days after he came to power. Later, Robertson aired an interview with Rios Montt on "The 700 Club" and extolled the new military government....

http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/09/17/rev-pat-robertson-and-gen-rios-montt/

Huehuetenango-born Ríos Montt remains one of the most controversial figures in Guatemala. Two Truth Commissions, the REMHI report, sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church, and the CEH report, conducted by the United Nations as part of the 1996 Accords of Firm and Durable Peace, documented widespread human rights abuses committed by Ríos Montt's military regime, including widespread massacres, rape, torture, and acts of genocide against the indigenous population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efraín_Ríos_Montt

But this is where I am confused, Rios - Montt is Pentecostal and Robertson is Southern Baptist, and those sects used to hate each other.

 

[arkirk]

Like Pat Robertson and Genocide?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/09/17/rev-pat-robertson-and-gen-rios-montt/

While Pat Robertson’s recent remarks on the Christian Broadcast Network’s The 700 Club that the United States should "take out" Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez certainly caught the media spotlight, the statement by the evangelical minister was only the latest episode in a long and troubled story. Since the 1970s Robertson has loyally served hawkish U.S. foreign policy objectives in Latin America and played a particularly pernicious role in the region. Christian organizations nation wide would do well to heed the history and to rigorously challenge Robertson on his record.

As a young man, Robertson dreamed about profitable business deals in Latin America. After graduating from college, he briefly worked for the W.R. Grace & Co. in New York. Robertson was specifically assigned to Grace’s Foreign Service School to analyze South American economic conditions in South America. There, Robertson collaborated with the company’s chief executives of the company. According to one of Robertson’s biographers, "during the months he worked with the Grace company he viewed Latin America as the ‘land of opportunity’ where he would find some way to enrich himself. Though Robertson left the company after only about nine months, he later achieved his dream by extending Christian televangelism to Central America. By the 1980s, Pat Robertson’s program "The 700 Club," reached 3.1 million viewers in Guatemala. Robertson took a personal interest in the strife torn Central American nation, developing warm ties to General Efrain Rios Montt, a born again evangelical Christian. When Rios Montt took power in a military coup d’etat in March of 1982, Robertson immediately flew to Guatemala, meeting with the incoming president a scant five days after he came to power. Later, Robertson aired an interview with Rios Montt on "The 700 Club" and extolled the new military government....

http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/09/17/rev-pat-robertson-and-gen-rios-montt/

Huehuetenango-born Ríos Montt remains one of the most controversial figures in Guatemala. Two Truth Commissions, the REMHI report, sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church, and the CEH report, conducted by the United Nations as part of the 1996 Accords of Firm and Durable Peace, documented widespread human rights abuses committed by Ríos Montt's military regime, including widespread massacres, rape, torture, and acts of genocide against the indigenous population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efraín_Ríos_Montt

But this is where I am confused, Rios - Montt is Pentecostal and Robertson is Southern Baptist, and those sects used to hate each other.

They're still brothers in bullshit....murderous bullshit at that. Robertson also was interested in dealing in conflict diamonds in Africa. The guy is a true slime ball.
Both Robertson and Montt are plagues on their own houses...
Guatemalan courts have been after Montt for years for crimes against humanity. So far Robertson has flown under that radar. Both of them regard indigenous cultures and peoples as something to eliminate.

 

[Angry Floof]

Ecumenical activities in the US are a matter of convenience when religion in general is criticized. Yes, they each believe the other's is the wrong belief system.

 

[Mageth]

Both of them regard indigenous cultures and peoples as something to eliminate exploit.

FIFY

 

[ksen]

Ecumenical activities in the US are a matter of convenience when religion in general is criticized. Yes, they each believe the other's is the wrong belief system going to hell.

fixt!

 

[Mageth]

Ecumenical activities in the US are a matter of convenience when religion in general is criticized. Yes, they each believe the other's is the wrong belief system going to hell.

fixt!

These days, Baptists, Pentecostals, and the like tend to be lumped together/lump themselves together under "evangelicals" and/or "charismatics" or some broader classification, and condemning each other to Hell is not in vogue like it use to be.

 

[Clivedurdle]

Isn't it our duty to remind them though? "You said Lord Lord...."

The proposed who's who would state clearly each groups beliefs and how they disagree with others, their sources of money, their supporters.....

 

[Angry Floof]

Ecumenical activities in the US are a matter of convenience when religion in general is criticized. Yes, they each believe the other's is the wrong belief system going to hell.

fixt!

Thanks. I don't know what I was thinking.

 

[Clivedurdle]

Isn't WL Craig Pentecostal? Surely anyone arguing with him just needs to quote someone (a calvinist?) else stating he is going to burn in hell for eternity?

 

[Angry Floof]

I believe he's Catholic.

Edit: Nope, he says he's Protestant. When I was a Christian, I listened to his radio show and all that time I thought he was Catholic.

Dr. Craig: Well, Kevin, I am a Protestant. Therefore, I obviously have some disagreements with Catholic doctrine. But having said that, I am also not a Presbyterian. I am not an Episcopalian. I have disagreements with those denominations as well. So the fact that I have some disagreements with Catholics, and therefore could not, I think, in all good conscience be a Catholic myself, isn’t to say that I regard Catholics as somehow sub-Christian or un-Christian anymore than I think Presbyterian and Episcopalians are. So we could talk if you wanted to about some of the areas where I myself cannot in good conscience affirm Catholic doctrine. But on the other hand, I do want to affirm that my fundamental goal with Reasonable Faith is to defend what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity” which is the Christianity that is common to all of the great branches of Christendom whether they be Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, or Coptic. That is my burden, is what unites us rather than what divides us.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/what-about-catholicism#ixzz3W66GAsly

 

[Mageth]

Isn't WL Craig Pentecostal? Surely anyone arguing with him just needs to quote someone (a calvinist?) else stating he is going to burn in hell for eternity?

Craig is an "Evangelical", supposedly, FWIW.

"Pentecostal" is not really a single denomination, nor is Calvinism, nor is "Evangelical", nor is "Charismatic". Calvinists can be Pentecostal. Or Pentecostals can be Calvinists. Evangelicals can be charismatic. Baptists can be charismatic.

You asked about megachurches....many are "independent", FWIW; some nominally claim to be "Baptist", but their actual doctrine tends to be pseudo-Calvinistic, charismatic, evangelical mish-mash.

These days, Christian religion tends to be mix-n-match in the US, with the old sectarian/denominational lines quite blurred.

- - - Updated - - -

I believe he's Catholic.

Edit: Nope, he says he's Protestant. When I was a Christian, I listened to his radio show and all that time I thought he was Catholic.

Dr. Craig: Well, Kevin, I am a Protestant. Therefore, I obviously have some disagreements with Catholic doctrine. But having said that, I am also not a Presbyterian. I am not an Episcopalian. I have disagreements with those denominations as well. So the fact that I have some disagreements with Catholics, and therefore could not, I think, in all good conscience be a Catholic myself, isn’t to say that I regard Catholics as somehow sub-Christian or un-Christian anymore than I think Presbyterian and Episcopalians are. So we could talk if you wanted to about some of the areas where I myself cannot in good conscience affirm Catholic doctrine. But on the other hand, I do want to affirm that my fundamental goal with Reasonable Faith is to defend what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity” which is the Christianity that is common to all of the great branches of Christendom whether they be Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, or Coptic. That is my burden, is what unites us rather than what divides us.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/what-about-catholicism#ixzz3W66GAsly

Yeah. Here, Craig epitomized what I was saying..."the Christianity that is common to all of the great branches of Christendom whether they be Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, or Coptic"...blurred lines

 

[Clivedurdle]

I am slowly beginning to work out what is going on - some very interesting diplomatic moves have happened allowing one to be both evangelical and pentecostal!

So it is by being baptized in the Holy Spirit that one is incorporated into the body of Christ. Therefore, although I think there is such a thing as the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it is not a second work of grace as our Pentecostal brethren would have us believe. It is not something that happens later in the life of a regenerate Christian. Rather this is an initiatory act by which one is placed into the body of Christ. As you look at these examples in Acts 2, Acts 8, Acts 10-11, and Acts 19, every single one is an initial experience with the Holy Spirit, not a second experience.[3] So anyone who is a regenerate Christian has been baptized in the Holy Spirit. If you haven’t been baptized in the Holy Spirit, you haven’t been regenerated; you haven’t received the Holy Spirit and are not born again. So every Christian is baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Fullness of the Holy Spirit

But that brings us then to what I want to talk about today – the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Where our Pentecostal and Charismatic brethren are right, I think, is that not every Christian enjoys the fullness of the Holy Spirit in his life. Although every Christian is baptized in the Holy Spirit and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, not every Christian experiences the fullness of the Holy Spirit in his life. There are several points to make here.



Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders-2-podcast/transcript/s7-5#ixzz3W68ERqYW

 

[Angry Floof]

Yep, lots of doctrinal smoke and mirrors, which is necessary to believe any of that shit makes sense.

 

[Clivedurdle]

But the package seems to have a new doctrinal line about being teapartyist, agin abortion, pro dictators, agin the state, gays, and definitely not a liberation theologian.

 

[Mageth]

Hard-line "Pentecostalism" that teaches that you're not saved unless you're "filled with the spirit" as evidenced by "speaking in tongues" has for the most part been absorbed into or merged with other protestants faiths/movements, or otherwise watered down, although I'm sure it's still out there in the hills somewhere. These days, in a lot of the independent/evangelical/charismatic movements and in at least some of the megachurches, you get "the spirit" up front. You may "speak in tongues", as that's one "gift of the spirit", but it's certainly not necessary.

 

[Mageth]

But the package seems to have a new doctrinal line about being teapartyist, agin abortion, pro dictators, agin the state, gays, and definitely not a liberation theologian.

For some, but not for all. And that all seems to be independent of the particular beliefs on e.g. the "holy spirit", Calvinism, Pentecostalism, and so on.

Again, poke a stick at any two different Christians in the US, and you'll discover two different sets of religious beliefs.

 

[Clivedurdle]

They are all post modern, picking and mixing their beliefs?

Revelation 3:14-22New International Version (NIV)

To the Church in Laodicea
14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

21 To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation 3:14-22

Maybe it is us atheists who are up in the hills!