Regulative Principle vs Normative Principle

[atpollard]

There's another regulative principle that has a better history and better results:

Follow the example and teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles and then you will not go astray in your manner of worship.​

it has a better history because it is apostolic rather than the idea of some people living in Switzerland or the Netherlands or Scotland in the sixteenth century and it gives better results because it does not lend itself to individualistic reinterpretation yielding numerous denominations.

I must have missed all those Apostolic prayers to Mary, Queen of the Universe and Co-redemptrix ... and the part where the Apostles sold forgiveness in the form of Indulgences ... and the part where the Apostles lit all those candles for Stephen to shorten his time in purgatory.

I’ll stick with the 16th century quest to read what God said through the Apostles for ourself since the Bishop of Rome really added a lot of wacky stuff to what Jesus taught. We may get a lot of the details wrong, but we know enough to pray to God the Father and worship Jesus without having to run everything through Jesus’ mother first.

 

[atpollard]

Obviously....

Some forget that one of the distinctive marks of Calvinism for the first 300 years or so was Calvinist held it was forbidden to celebrate Christmas. When they controlled secular governments, they actually outlawed it (to the dismay of Anglicans, Lutherans, Cahtolics, Orthodox, Methodist, etc.). Why was it forbidden to celebrate Christmas? Because there is no COMMAND to celebrate it and while clearly angels and shepherds did, there was no example of Christians doing this. Thus, it was forbidden. Some Calvinists had no musical instruments in churches for the same reason, some would not sing hymns but only chant Psalms. Here we find yet another - still another - pure invention of a few radical, extreme, later-day Calvinists that took over Calvinism - until wiser minds and more believing hearts realized the absurdity of it. Today, it would be hard to find a Reformed church that forbids celebrating Christmas....
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Do you just make this stuff up as you go, or do you have some large book of dubious unsupported opinions that you cut and paste from?

Take this statement for example “Some forget that one of the distinctive marks of Calvinism for the first 300 years or so was Calvinist held it was forbidden to celebrate Christmas.” The codification of Reformed Theology (“Calvinism” as you like to call it) begins with the Synod of Dort in 1619 where the basic concepts found in what would later become “T.U.L.I.P.” were first written down. So you claim that Particular Baptists and Presbyterians and any other reformed denominations held as a distinctive mark that they did not celebrate Christmas before 1919. I would be very interested in seeing your evidence for this remarkable claim. Absent any evidence, it is just another empty false claim born out of your rabid hatred of Reformed Theology.

 

[Josiah]

do you have some large book of dubious unsupported opinions that you cut and paste from?

You appear ignorant of Calvinism on this point.... You need to learn it.

For example, in 1647, Calvinists - then controlling England - officially and legally BANNED Christmas celebrations, declaring it was nowhere mandated in Scripture. Calvinists in Boston did the same in 1659. Yes, I realize this was long after Calvin's death but you are simply underlining a point I've made, these radical features are NOT the produce of Calvin but of a few later-day, radical Calvinists who took control of the denomination. MennoSota is simply parroting this.

So you claim that Particular Baptists and Presbyterians and any other reformed denominations held as a distinctive mark that they did not celebrate Christmas before 1919. I would be very interested in seeing your evidence for this remarkable claim.

 

[Josiah]

do you have some large book of dubious unsupported opinions that you cut and paste from?

You appear ignorant of Calvinism on this point.... You need to learn it.

For example, in 1647, Calvinists - then controlling England - officially and legally BANNED Christmas celebrations, declaring it was nowhere mandated in Scripture. Calvinists in Boston did the same in 1659. Especially in the British Empire, various Reformed churches were known for their lack of observance of Christmas (as well as several other holy days). Yes, I realize this was after Calvin's death but you are simply underlining a point I've made, these radical features are NOT the produce of Calvin but of a few later-day, radical Calvinists who took control of the denomination. MennoSota is simply parroting this.

Calvinists in the English Parliament eliminated Christmas as a national holiday in 1645. Settlers in New England went even further, outlawing Christmas celebrations entirely in 1659. Anyone caught shirking their work duties or feasting was forced to pay a significant penalty of five shillings. Christmas returned to England in 1660, but in New England it remained banned until the 1680s, when the Crown managed to exert greater control over its subjects in Massachusetts. In 1686, the royal governor of the colony, Sir Edmund Andros, an Anglican, sponsored a Christmas Day service at the Boston Town House. Fearing a violent backlash from Calvinists, Andros was flanked by redcoats as he prayed and sang Christmas hymns.

So you claim that Particular Baptists and Presbyterians and any other reformed denominations held as a distinctive mark that they did not celebrate Christmas before 1919. I would be very interested in seeing your evidence for this remarkable claim.

You need to learn about your denomination...

When the Puritans assembled at Westminster in the 1640s to draw up the Standards that would define Presbyterian belief for centuries to follow, they did not mince words regarding holy days such as Christmas. The Directory for the Publick Worship of God, which was a part of the original Westminster Standards adopted by parliament, was intended to guide and inform (but not liturgically constrain like the Anglican Book of Common Prayer) the worship of the Church. Included in the Directory was the bold theological declaration:

THERE is no day commanded in scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord’s day, which is the Christian Sabbath.

Festival days, vulgarly called Holy-days, having no warrant in the word of God, are not to be continued.

The Calvinists had declared Holy Days theologically unwarranted, and as they began to gain the upper hand in the English Parliament, they moved decisively against both the public and ecclesiastical celebration of Holy Days. In 1642 Parliament outlawed the seasonal plays and pageants that proliferated around holy days and purposely met on every Christmas from 1644 to 1652 to show their disdain for what they felt was an unwarranted innovation that produced nothing but moral abuses. Finally in 1652 after the Triumph of the Puritan Statesman Oliver Cromwell and the beheading of Charles I, the observance of Holy days was “strongly prohibited” and ministers who preached on the birth of Christ on Christmas risked imprisonment. Shops were required to keep open and Churches were heavily fined for attempting to put up decorations.

As was to be expected, many of the common English people and Anglican clergy, were not at all happy with this Puritan suppression of “their holiday.” Consequently, after the death of Cromwell and the restoration of both the King and the primacy of the Anglican Church, the celebration of holy days was once again declared legal. Their celebration returned as a permanent part of both the English secular and ecclesiastical landscape.

In Scotland however, the Reformation was more thoroughgoing and the Presbyterian Church successfully purged holy days almost entirely from their landscape. All English attempts to reintroduce them failed miserably, and indeed Scotland was not to officially recognize Christmas as a holiday until the 1950s – by which time the influence of the Presbyterian church on Scotland had long since been waning.

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[atpollard]

You appear ignorant of Calvinism on this point.... You need to learn it.

For example, in 1647, Calvinists - then controlling England - officially and legally BANNED Christmas celebrations, declaring it was nowhere mandated in Scripture. Calvinists in Boston did the same in 1659. Especially in the British Empire, various Reformed churches were known for their lack of observance of Christmas (as well as several other holy days). Yes, I realize this was after Calvin's death but you are simply underlining a point I've made, these radical features are NOT the produce of Calvin but of a few later-day, radical Calvinists who took control of the denomination. MennoSota is simply parroting this.

That proves that Christmas was banned at one point in the mid 1600’s, but not that Presbyterians generally did not celebrate Christmas until the mid 20th Century (300 years) as you claim. Remember, you said this is a “defining trait” of the denomination.

You need to learn about your denomination...

“Calvinist” is a Sotierology, not a denomination. There is a Lutheran Church, but there is no Calvinist Church.
I am a Pentecostal by fellowship and a Particular Baptist by theological beliefs, so the Presbyterians are not my denomination any more than the Catholics or Lutherans would be my denomination. So I am content to remain ignorant of the subtleties of the position of the Church of Scotland on Holidays prior to 1950.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I must have missed all those Apostolic prayers to Mary, Queen of the Universe and Co-redemptrix ... and the part where the Apostles sold forgiveness in the form of Indulgences ... and the part where the Apostles lit all those candles for Stephen to shorten his time in purgatory.

I’ll stick with the 16th century quest to read what God said through the Apostles for ourself since the Bishop of Rome really added a lot of wacky stuff to what Jesus taught. We may get a lot of the details wrong, but we know enough to pray to God the Father and worship Jesus without having to run everything through Jesus’ mother first.

Yes, you very likely did miss many things in worship because you were so busy compiling spurious lists for your posts.

Nevertheless There's another regulative principle that has a better history and better results:

Follow the example and teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles and then you will not go astray in your manner of worship.​

it has a better history because it is apostolic rather than the idea of some people living in Switzerland or the Netherlands or Scotland in the sixteenth century and it gives better results because it does not lend itself to individualistic reinterpretation yielding numerous denominations.

 

[MennoSota]

Yes, you very likely did miss many things in worship because you were so busy compiling spurious lists for your posts.

Nevertheless There's another regulative principle that has a better history and better results:

Follow the example and teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles and then you will not go astray in your manner of worship.​

it has a better history because it is apostolic rather than the idea of some people living in Switzerland or the Netherlands or Scotland in the sixteenth century and it gives better results because it does not lend itself to individualistic reinterpretation yielding numerous denominations.

No one disagrees with following the word of God as scribed by the Apostles and Luke. But, you ascribe a false inspiration to the church of Rome and it's many demonic teachings that take away from the glory of God and place the glory on Rome.
It would be wise for all of Christendom to miss such demon inspired teaching by your church.

 

[MoreCoffee]

No one disagrees with following the word of God as scribed by the Apostles and Luke. But, you ascribe a false inspiration to the church of Rome and it's many demonic teachings that take away from the glory of God and place the glory on Rome.
It would be wise for all of Christendom to miss such demon inspired teaching by your church.

The example of the Christ and of the apostles is both recorded in holy scripture and remembered from the things that they did and the ways in which they did them. That is why we know to kneel when in prayer petitioning for God's mercy and for God's good gifts and why we know to stand when praising God in our prayer and in our songs and why we know to hear the gospels and the epistles read aloud in the places where we gather to worship and why we know that sins are to be confessed absolution given and communion received after the manner in which the Lord administered communion to the apostles at the last supper. Some of these things are written in the holy scriptures and some are not, yet they were performed in the worship of the early church and later written about in the writings of the early Church fathers as well as in the other writings of that time. So we are not dependent on the varying opinions that men developed from the sixteenth century onward but can rely on Christ's example and on the example of the apostles preserved both in writing and in deeds performed according to the remembered example of the Lord and his disciples.

 

[atpollard]

... and communion received after the manner in which the Lord administered communion to the apostles at the last supper.

Actually, you don't do it like Jesus did. No Church I have EVER been in does. Does any Church share the one matza hidden in the folded napkin among the assembly at a Passover meal?
We should at least admit that our traditions have changed over time ... including those of the Catholic Church. (Did the 4000 in Acts 2 have to wait for the Apostles to build a "confessional", or did they just form a really long line and use Jesus' old portable "confessional"?)

 

[MoreCoffee]

Actually, you don't do it like Jesus did. No Church I have EVER been in does. Does any Church share the one matza hidden in the folded napkin among the assembly at a Passover meal?

Saint John's gospel implies that the Lord was crucified as the Passover lamb was sacrificed and that inevitably means that the last supper - happening as it is claimed in the synoptic gospels the night before his crucifixion - could not possibly be a Passover meal.

We should at least admit that our traditions have changed over time ... including those of the Catholic Church. (Did the 4000 in Acts 2 have to wait for the Apostles to build a "confessional", or did they just form a really long line and use Jesus' old portable "confessional"?)

Passing over the disrespect in your question and the mockery of communion in Catholic masses my reply is that many things change over time and arrangements for the practicalities of a large or a small congregation necessitate changes in the way communion is given and received nevertheless the rite is not changed nor the form of the Eucharistic prayer and that prayer in substance is from 300 AD and before. Some elements are changed, for example in Australia it is spoken in English rather than in Aramaic or Greek as would have been the case at the first "last supper". So yes, of course things change, incidentals rather than substance.

 

[atpollard]

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