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    How do you feel about female pastors?

    I’m not so sure there is *a* Biblical view. The undisputed letters of Paul acknowledge female leaders, but it’s a bit unclear what office they, or anyone else mentioned, held. I agree that 1 Cor 14:34 is not about women’s leadership, but about disruptive behavior by members of the congregation...
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    Bernie Sanders position on health care

    His suggestions are reasonable, and are hardly unique to him. I think they're short-term workarounds though
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    Liberal Leanings Chipping Away At Church Membership

    I've read all kinds of studies and analysis about it. Most of those don't seem consistent with long-term trends. In my opinion the underlying problem is that the world simply doesn't look like a being such as God is in charge or even involved, when things are viewed from a modern perspective...
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    Liberal Leanings Chipping Away At Church Membership

    So far it doesn't look good. At least in the US, the only version of Christianity that's managing to survive is tied to traditional culture. It's largely disappearing in the more modernized parts of Europe.
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    Weddings in or out of church

    To me the Church is the people. Buildings are really useful; I don't want to devalue them. But the key item for both weddings and even normal worship is the congregation, not the building.
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    What happens to Satan at the end?

    The Rev is pretty clear that Satan is destroyed in the lake of fire. While Paul is universalist or close to universalist, his vision of the end (particularly 1 Cor 15) talks about hostile powers being destroyed. So assuming that Satan is a literal being and not a symbol for suprapersonal evil, I...
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    NIV and missing verses

    This could use clarification. No one looks at a verse in Luke, says "hey, that's in Matthew, too; we don't need it" and then removes it. Rather, when different manuscripts have different readings, there are a couple of things scholars look at. One is which is the oldest. But they also look at...
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    NIV and missing verses

    Or the King James version has added verses.
  9. H

    The gods behind abortion

    As far as I know, this is simply his assertion. I'm not aware of any reason to think it's true. Matthew: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded...
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    The gods behind abortion

    You're going in circles. That assumes that a zygote or fetus is from an ethical point of view a human. Modern Protestants are using biology to justify that, which is that point I was making.
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    The gods behind abortion

    The Bible doesn't say anything about abortion.
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    The gods behind abortion

    Then most of the arguments I've been reading from conservative Protestants don't make sense.
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    The gods behind abortion

    As I’m sure you know, the Catholic tradition opposed abortion from very early. I believe they did so for at least two reasons: (1) it was non-procreative sex, (2) there was a danger of killing someone. Historically it wasn’t always considered murder. To the extent that that was an issue, it was...
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    The gods behind abortion

    The reason for the apparent inconsistency is that a great majority of Christians actually don't oppose abortion. The only Christian groups where a plurality think it should be illegal are evangelicals, Mormons and JWs. These evangelicals are passionately convinced that the Bible prohibits it...
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    Are College Students Already Biased?

    I guess. However mistreating the stranger was an accusation that prophets made against the nation of Israel. I'm not saying we can directly apply that. We have problem that Israel didn't. But still, treating people from other countries right isn't just an individual obligation.
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    Are College Students Already Biased?

    Not only Biblical statements, but current political statements are subject to interpretation. Both Obama and Trump have said that undocumented immigrants have violated the law. But their overall attitudes were different (though not as different as some think). So it's not entirely unreasonable...
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    New Forgiveness

    The NT obviously makes provisions for sin in Christians. 1 John 1:8-10 is one of the many places. It does base forgiveness on Christ, as of course Paul does. What topic do you want to talk about? You seem to be asking about the atonement. Is that it? I think the question for Christians isn't...
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    Sexual Orientation: Nature or Nurture?

    Used in this context, this posting is an ad hominem attack. It's also reversible, since the amount of passion directed against homosexuality is out of all proportion to its importance in the Bible. There are three references in the NT, two of which refer to abusive forms of same-gender sex, and...
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    The distinct persons of the Trinity

    The best treatment I’ve been able to find about patristic patripassianism online is https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312115561_Patripassianism_and_the_impassibility_of_God.i Remember that we don't have writings of the advocates of patripassianism. We know them only from their opponents...
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    The distinct persons of the Trinity

    I've been reviewing the development of the Trinity. This is a summary of John Anthony McGuckin's section of "The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity." In the earliest fathers, the focus is on God’s actions. In Clement, “The Lord Jesus, who is the scepter of God’s own majesty …” (p 61) His...
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