Re: unchurching to Mike
[email protected]
In a message dated 1/24/2003 1:51:58 AM Central Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:
understanding of history than this kind of statement represents.
So, for example, if they read that Emperor Constantine was not baptized until
his death bed, is the point brought out that he was a Christian catechumen?
As a "student" Christian he was not a pagan.
Why did Constantine convene a council of the whole church throughout the
Roman Empire? (The word "catholic," by the way, means "according to the
whole.") He banked on using Christianity to renovate the Roman Empire, and
therefore thought the bishops had to get their act together since there
seemed to be disagreements among and within the local churches in various
cities and provinces. So he convened the first ecumenical (empire-wide)
council of all the bishops of the church and asked them to set forth the
beliefs and practices of the church. In the process they produced a creed
that was constructed by comparing all the baptismal professions of faith used
in the local churches. They produced a canon of Scripture by comparing the
books read in the local Christian assemblies. In the battle against
gnosticism Christian assemblies had already agreed to four canonical gospels
and excluded gospels they regarded as gnostic. They accepted the canon of
Old Testament books that the Jewish rabbis had already established, although
they changed the order in the Old Testament so that the prophetic books came
last. They believed that all of these books in the Old and now in the
canonized New Testaments were inspired. The bishops affirmed the doctrine of
the Trinity (which necessarily includes the co-divinity of Christ with the
Father and the Holy Spirit) by appealing to the statements in the gospels and
epistles and the devotional practices of their people. Confessing one God in
three co-equal persons excluded the Arians who taught that the Son was
subordinate to the Father. They synchronized the Christian calender
throughout the Empire by agreeing that the Pascha (later called "Easter" by
the Anglo-Saxons) should be observed on the first Sunday after the first full
moon of spring and not on the 14th of Nisan, as the Christians of Asia Minor
had been doing. So Rome won on this one.
After the Council Constantine decreed that Sunday would be a day of rest
throughout the Empire. That meant that sabbath ideas were transferred to the
Lord's Day. But catholic Christianity has always understood that the Lord's
Day and the Sabbath are two different days. In the Latin church calendar
Saturday is still called "Sabbato" ("of rest") and Sunday is called "Dominca"
("of the Lord").
I would hope that homeschoolers would learn to understand the dynamics at
work in history, and not just facts which, in and of themselves, might not be
true. or conclusions which usually, in the study of history, are untrue. As
I've tried to indicate by the above discussion---as an illustration of this
principle---it simply would not be true that Constantine remained a pagan or
that he turned Sunday into the Sabbath. The reality was more complicated
than that.
Frank and Mary, lurkers until now, parents of 3, one still homeschooling,
learning tons on this list
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected] writes:
> Imagine what the Bible would look like today if voting had gone differently?I would hope that parents are helping their children to gain a more nuanced
>
> In the year 325 CE, Constantine (a non-baptized Pagan) convened the Council
>
> of Nicea to settle disputes in the Church. The council changed Jesus from
> man
> to God in the flesh, they changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and
> the Passover was changed to Easter. So what does this say about the Bible?
> It
> says that MEN, not god, composed the Bible.
understanding of history than this kind of statement represents.
So, for example, if they read that Emperor Constantine was not baptized until
his death bed, is the point brought out that he was a Christian catechumen?
As a "student" Christian he was not a pagan.
Why did Constantine convene a council of the whole church throughout the
Roman Empire? (The word "catholic," by the way, means "according to the
whole.") He banked on using Christianity to renovate the Roman Empire, and
therefore thought the bishops had to get their act together since there
seemed to be disagreements among and within the local churches in various
cities and provinces. So he convened the first ecumenical (empire-wide)
council of all the bishops of the church and asked them to set forth the
beliefs and practices of the church. In the process they produced a creed
that was constructed by comparing all the baptismal professions of faith used
in the local churches. They produced a canon of Scripture by comparing the
books read in the local Christian assemblies. In the battle against
gnosticism Christian assemblies had already agreed to four canonical gospels
and excluded gospels they regarded as gnostic. They accepted the canon of
Old Testament books that the Jewish rabbis had already established, although
they changed the order in the Old Testament so that the prophetic books came
last. They believed that all of these books in the Old and now in the
canonized New Testaments were inspired. The bishops affirmed the doctrine of
the Trinity (which necessarily includes the co-divinity of Christ with the
Father and the Holy Spirit) by appealing to the statements in the gospels and
epistles and the devotional practices of their people. Confessing one God in
three co-equal persons excluded the Arians who taught that the Son was
subordinate to the Father. They synchronized the Christian calender
throughout the Empire by agreeing that the Pascha (later called "Easter" by
the Anglo-Saxons) should be observed on the first Sunday after the first full
moon of spring and not on the 14th of Nisan, as the Christians of Asia Minor
had been doing. So Rome won on this one.
After the Council Constantine decreed that Sunday would be a day of rest
throughout the Empire. That meant that sabbath ideas were transferred to the
Lord's Day. But catholic Christianity has always understood that the Lord's
Day and the Sabbath are two different days. In the Latin church calendar
Saturday is still called "Sabbato" ("of rest") and Sunday is called "Dominca"
("of the Lord").
I would hope that homeschoolers would learn to understand the dynamics at
work in history, and not just facts which, in and of themselves, might not be
true. or conclusions which usually, in the study of history, are untrue. As
I've tried to indicate by the above discussion---as an illustration of this
principle---it simply would not be true that Constantine remained a pagan or
that he turned Sunday into the Sabbath. The reality was more complicated
than that.
Frank and Mary, lurkers until now, parents of 3, one still homeschooling,
learning tons on this list
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]