and the extreme veneration of the saints is blatantly polytheism, just given a sort of “christian” flavor. i lose my keys? i’ll give some alms, light some candles, and pray to saint jehosophat, finder of stuff. i have a war to fight? i’ll light some candles, give some alms, shoot a prayer and maybe sacrifice a ram if its handy to ares, god of war. exact same principle. and protestants have kind of taken this saint veneration, watered it down, and applied it to their preachers/pastors. “he’s so touched by God!” which might be true, but he’s no more touched than i, and pastors build followings around themselves, intentional and otherwise.

and i agree that the NT emphasizes the universality of God himself, and i guess what i meant is that Jesus’ teachings were aimed at jews primarily, then after his death, a jewish paul reached out to gentile greece. but, it wasn’t so much that the old covenant disappeared and was being replaced by this dog gentile covenant, but rather, the dog gentile was being grafted into the old covenant, kind of. rather, God had struck the ultimate covenant with his people, and the gentiles were welcome to join. we were being grafted into the true vine.

and then i stopped to clip my fingernails and think, and then i lost what i was thinking.

oh, i remember. so, while the focus shifted to a more universal approach, i don’t think this negates their jewish roots. we aren’t now the center of his covenant, the jews are still his chosen people, we’re just given oppurtunity to participate it in with them, and they to participate more closely. paul admits this mystery. somehow we can all participate, yet somehow God still honors his old commitment.

so, that’s what i was meaning in a nutshell. i need shower. bad.

I know, from previous conversations, that you haven’t been “too keen” on any kind of authoritative church history or leadership, but I was wondering what are some of the pagan influences that you have seen developed through out the church? I guess I’m not quite sure what you mean when you say that. Is it the same line of arguments that argue against celebrating Christmas and Easter? I would be interested to hear more of you thoughts on that.

I agree that your first and second point are much the same, and I would offer that the shift from a Jewish centered to Greek centered gospel was inevitable. While the Old Testament shows us the history of the true God and his relationship with his people, there does become of shift in the New Testament. I think that much of this has to do with the revelation that God’s people are not limited to the nation of Israel anymore, but that through Jesus’ sacrifice we gentiles are adopted into God’s family. Paul sets out to preach the good news to the gentiles, using Greek language because that what was what they were speaking.

You said that, “but fact is, everything in the bible is aimed primarily at a jewish people.” and I think I will have to disagree with you here. I think that we could separate the Old Testament from the New and say that the Old speaks to the Jewish people and the New speaks to the gentiles (or perhaps, to a more universal audience.) but I think that everything in the Bible is aimed and God’s people. At times the words are guided towards the Jewish nation and other times it is spoken to a Greek audience, but is always being spoken to God’s people.

I realize that I often sound like I think I have everything figured out, I’m sorry if that has been the tone of my reply. It’s not what I intended. I am interested in your thoughts on the pagan influences.

second, at the fall of jerusalem, christianity changed hands from jews to gentiles. this mostly relates to the first one and might not even deserve a second divisor, but jewish knowledge was no longer being applied.

third, all these councils seem to generate are abstractions. it seems rare that they generate practicality. great, wonderful, we have a creed, but what about doing things Jesus said to do? those seem to be relatively creedless. moreover, didn’t Jesus already lay out the highest creed you could have? how are we going to top or make more clear that which was made crystal?

lastly is the fact that the church fathers were the people in position, which means what they show isn’t going to be accurate of the actual climate. much like today. are the majority of christians really as vapid and 2d as the books in christian family would have you believe? no. i think much the same holds for these different councils. while i couldn’t even begin to guess what the “laity” (laity in a great priesthood of believers? how could that be?) were actually thinking/struggling with, but my guess is that it was loosely related to various councils at best. unfortunately, we’ll probably never know since most couldn’t read/write, so there won’t be a wealth of blogs and journals for people to find like there will be with ours.

all this, but i don’t know any better than they did. i just know that i kind of don’t care what they said. i don’t say this lightly, i realize that saying this is about as big as saying “Jesus was a big fake” in a lot of circles. to say the church fathers were wrong is tantamount to outright heresy.

i’m currently seeking a rabbi of some sort so that i can gain the jewish eyes with which to see my world.

and i think in some areas we still are actively experimenting. the very idea of having a teaching week followed by discussion is something i’ve never encountered anywhere. perhaps discussing these 6 (7?) topics where it’s taking us a few months to get through creates the illusion of a lack of experimentation since this one experiment is taking quite a bit of time. though with prayer and worship i don’t think we’ve been anything that approximates experimental in some time. sometimes that doesn’t mean it’s bad. we’ve still had really good times of prayer and worship, but if we were created to experiment, we need to do that.

them’s my thoughts.

from more than just the satellite perspective, from a personal one too. i’m sure many could also say something similar. i went from thinking i had it figured out to pretty well knowing that i know nothing. at any moment, my reason can be robbed and my knowledge corrupted.

this also: God would send us the workers of His choice. i think that’s already happened and is continuing to happen.

there’s actually a little too much here to point it. basically, the whole thing is us. confirmation that we’re doing the right thing, right?