Division from Historic Christianity is the Mark of a Cult

[DeDona1]

A cult is any group that uses coercion or mind control. They do this with threats of bodily harm(eternal hell), verbal assaults(call people heretics), bullying, defamation(tell other church members). They do this to anyone who may think a little differently than them. I have just described modern day christianity. If we do not adhere to an exact set of values then we will be shut out, labeled a heretic, told we are going to burn in hell. That is the markings of a cult.

[unclewalt56]

Because I do believe in the Messiah Y'hshua (Jesus) and his apostles, but I do not believe in Saul of Tarsus or his writings. Jesus was a Jew and lived his life as one, keeping the Commandments and the Sabbath. Paul taught the opposite. Jesus did not come to start a new religion called "christianity". That was the product of the Roman church hundreds of years later based on Paul's writings. It is a total deception.

[unclewalt56]

Christianity itself is a cult and has no relationship to what the Messiah (Y'hshua) taught; false apostle Saul of Tarsus said he saw a "light" from the sky but had no witnesses and preached another gospel of lawlessness, eating unclean foods, etc. The light he saw blinded him physically and to the truth. Y'hshua did not start a new religion. Paul started what became the Catholic church and its daughter, the Protestants (protest movements). The mother of harlots Rev. 17 Mystery Babylon the Great.

[MarkGJudy1]

@unclewalt56 JESUS appeared to Paul.......HE Himself was the "witness".......what a moronic statement.......



[unclewalt56]

@MarkGJudy1 - sorry, Jesus could not have been a witness; he said himself: "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is NOT TRUE." John 5:31

2 Corinthians 13:1 "Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses."

Revelations only mentions 12 apostles (Judas was replaced by Mattias). There is no mention of a 13th apostle, only that anti-christ would soon appear. And nowhere in Paul's writings does he ever quote Jesus. I wonder why.

[MarkGJudy1]

@unclewalt56 Well, since you believe Christianity is a cult, why are you quoting Scripture?????????????????

[subspecieDei]

Mormonism is not Christianity by any means.

[holinesspentecostal]

If you read the book "The Oneness of God" by David K. Bernard who is a UPCI minister, you will find an entire chapter called "Keys to Understanding Difficult Passages". They are the only group that have the revelation or "keys" to understand what the Bible is actually saying when it refers to the plurality of persons within the Godhead. This guy is right on! When you hear "We have the Keys" RUN RUN RUN!!!!

[korbotch]

Hi, Could your help me answer the argument that there is a contradiction in the bible as they pointedly claimed in Numbers 23:19.. Pls help..GOD BLESS

[XSC3]

justification by grace through faith, not "by faith alone" especially if you're equating "justification" with "salvation," LaneCh.

Calvinism is a distortion of Augustine's interpretation of Paul.

[randy109]

Question: "My 14 year old neighbor took a walk in the woods and claims he talked to an Angel." Should I write a HUGE book and create a new Religion?

It doesn't seem like a good idea, but Joey Smith is such a nice kid...

[Nocturnalux]

Yes. Yes, you should. I happen to be an Angel and I am commanding you to. Really. No, I can't prove it! Don't be silly! I just *said* I'm an Angel that's all you need to know.

[themistoklisp]

"saying that a certain group and the Apostles are the only ones who understand or have ever understood the Scriptures is the mark of a cult"

Sorry but don't 98% of Christian denominations teach that? Eastern Orthodox claim to be the only true Church, Catholics the same, "Born again Christians" deny that Orthodox and Catholics are Christians, etc... Actually I find that statement hypocritical UNLESS one believes that 98% of Christian Denominations are cults (!)

[LaneCh]

What do you define as a Christian denomination, though? Do you consider Roman Catholicism to be Christian?

[themistoklisp]

Any church or group which claims to follow Jesus Christ and upholds the essential doctrines of the Christian Faith. Roman Catholics claim to follow Jesus and uphold the doctrines of the Divinity of Jesus, the Father - Son- Holy Spirit, and other essential Christian doctrines. Why don't you consider them to be a Christian denomination(i.e. I believe they have false doctrines but most denominations have).

[LaneCh]

They don't have the Gospel. If one doesn't have the Gospel, they're not Christian. When you say "most denominations have", you might mean Christian denominations, but if a "church" doesn't have Christian doctrine, it's not a Christian church. It would be like saying that Advanced Auto Parts is a flower shop.

[themistoklisp]

So which denomination or denominations would you call Christian?

[LaneCh]

Those of the Reformed tradition and Arminian churches like Methodists even though I believe Arminians are in error according to what the Bible teaches in terms of soteriology and that a man's will is free.

[themistoklisp]

Well I suspect you have visited my channel so you know that I am a Christian Quaker and so I disagree with Calvinism. You might consider me a "cultist", I don't know. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to reply. God Bless!

[planset333]

you believe methodists are true christians?? i believe the apostles are true Christians.. when you take scripture for what it says and read it in context with careful studying, thats whose right, as long as your truley saved..

[LDSFalseChurch]

The so-called Reformed churches are in serious error.

[enslaved2God]

The "so-called Reformed Churches" are practically the only churches that hold to the biblical theology which divided us from the Catholic church in the first place. If you have a problem with Reformation, you can always go back to the Romans.

[boganlewis]

I'm catholic and you're talking rubbish! we do have the gospel, the gospel is read in our church at every mass, if you had bothered to investigate you would know that but i guess you're just repeating what you've been told

[LaneCh]

So you all do teach justification by faith alone? You better visit Trent if so. They'd be highly upset with you, and you'd be anathema according to your own church councils.

[boganlewis]

as opposed to the evangelical churches which i used to be part of who teach NOTHING! those churches are worthless all they do is sing happy clappy praise and worship songs! I left about a year ago and converted to catholicism, best decision i ever made

[DeDona1]

@LaneCh Jesus warned the disciples not to judge a man who was casting out demons and was not in their group. Jesus warned us not to beat our chests at heaven thinking that we know it all. What has "christianity" produced? Nothing but division(30,000 denominations). Every one thinks they are right. I dont think Jesus had this in mind. He said people will know you are disciples if you have love for one another. We are severly lacking.

[adamszman]

Yeah I know. But it is very hard to find any objective, scholarly account of the history of Christianity or of the Bible, other than those written by people who are trying to promote belief in it. Same with other religions. I have found Wikipedia to be more accurate than people give it credit for, most of the time.

[LaneCh]

Do you not take into account that some of those whom you may consider scholarly are trying to promote unbelief in it? I hope you're not trying to insinuate there isn't a bias on both sides. Whether that bias causes people to distort the facts is another issue entirely than the reason you imply, though.

[adamszman]

Christianity itself is a cult. Christianity is just older than most other cults.

Way before King James, in 325, a group of men edited out several books of the Bible and changed various doctrines of Christianity in arbitrary and capricious ways in order to suit their own interests. This is known as the First Council of Nicaea.

The Gnostic Gospels are a collection of some of the gospels that were arbitrarily edited out.

So Christianity is just a cult created by men to control people.

[LaneCh]

They had a radio talk show about your assertions this weekend. You can listen to the White Horse Inn to find out about The Gospel According to Barnes and Nobles:

whitehorseinn(.)org

[adamszman]

I'm not saying I believe in the gnostic gospels. I'm just saying they are no better or worse than any of the other gospels. The Christianity that come out of the Council of Nicaea isn't the Christianity that the first Christians believed in. It's all just one big fabrication perpetuated by men with worldly and political agendas to pursue. Christianity in all its forms is just one big cult. Christianity itself meets the definition of a cult.

[LaneCh]

"I'm just saying they are no better or worse than any of the other gospels."

I know, that's why I suggested the show. Did you listen to it?

[adamszman]

Yes, I'm still listening to it. They are basically saying the gnostic gospels are inferior but don't give any concrete reasons why, except that they aren't contained in the version of the bible that came out of the Council of Nicaea. That's circular logic.

[LaneCh]

Actually they aren't saying that. The Bible didn't "come out" at the Council of Nicaea. It was established before that as Peter wrote when he spoke of Paul's letters being "Scripture." There were heresies going around about the time the Council of Nicaea declared the canon of the Bible so others wouldn't lie about it, but it was established before then. It's the same reason why, if you lived around a bunch of theives, you'd put your money in a bank. It would establish it and keep it safe.

[adamszman]

Yes the Bible and various gospels were written before the Council of Nicaea, but the Council edited out many gospels accepted as true by many Christians of the time, and then proclaimed them to be "heresies."

[LaneCh]

It's true there was editing, but what were they editing from or out of? As I stated, there were heresies that were going around at the time so they were editing out of the garbage that was around them. They weren't editing from the Scriptures themselves. They were editing out the gnostic heresies and establishing what the true Scripture was. Not that it didn't exist before that, but it's the same as the bank analogy; it was so it would be declared and protected as such.

[adamszman]

In the show, Richard Bauckham said that the church at the time winnowed down or edited out several gospels by comparing them to the four oldest gospels most commonly accepted as true (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). So they took the four gospels that had the highest approval ratings, if you will, and then compared the other proposed gospels to them. Any gospels they found wanting or inconsistent were discarded.

[LaneCh]

It wasn't like you suggest. Read the above comment for clarification.

[adamszman]

Before the Council of Nicaea, there was no way to discriminate between "Scriptures" and "Gnostic heresies." They were all gospels that no one had any objective basis for including or excluding as "scripture."

[LaneCh]

Actually, there was, but people who didn't know better were being mislead by the Arianism heresy and others that were prevalent at the time. The canon was established for clarification and security as I already stated.

[adamszman]

I'm reading "Development of the New Testament canon" in Wikipedia. Very interesting.

The New Testament Cannon was developed over time, at least 300 years or so into the 300's. History is written by the winners. So whatever the losers believed becomes a "heresy." But that doesn't make it any more or less "truthful" than what the winners believed. If history had unfolded differently, what is considered "heresy" and "scripture" would be different.

[LaneCh]

You do realize that basically anyone can post on Wikipedia, right? That includes someone like James White who believes the Scripture is infallible and Bart Ehrman who believes it's full of contradictions. In other words, it's not a credible source although I have read substantial things on there before.

[Oct31st1517]

Awsome, Simply Awsome. i need to order this video. Keep 'em coming LaneCh

[LaneCh]

theapologeticsgroup dot com has the best price I've seen on it.

[cmammlj]

Oct31st, you might already have this DVD, but you can get it at a cheaper price for about $9.95 on Amazon dot com. Peace-John 14:6.

[ProclaimHisWord]

It is incredible to me what people will believe when they reject the TRUE GOSPEL! "But though we,or an angel from heaven,preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you,let him be accursed",Galatians 1:8.