How did the early churches operate?

[nebula]

I dont think the begining of the catholic church was currupted like it became. An obelisk is not essentialy evil at all.

An idol is an idol is an idol. The obelisk came directly from a pagan temple.

If the church incorporated the Pentagram into it's symbols, would you accept it?

Yet in the early Roman Catholic Church they incorporated symbols of the Sun god and other pagan deities.

I think we owe alot to the early Catholic church. I believe that power and greed currupted and led to the reformation.

whether they saved or killed Christianity is a debate for a different thread.

[nebula]

I can't even respond to this anymore. This thread is proof that another holocaust is coming and christians will again be turning in their neighbors to a new Hitler. ...

Well, leoxiii is a Roman Catholic, and you know what Roman Catholicism teaches.

[Botz]

I think what is happening is that a winnowing is taking place in the body of Messiah, lines are being drawn, and the true Church is emerging...or being more clearly identified. From what I observe three things that help identify it are :-

1.They believe the Scriptures.

2.They are led by the Spirit.

3.They love Israel and understand the Fathers heart concerning the Jewish people.

In these times I have seen more and more how so much of the organised Church embraces replacement theology, and believes what they are doing is motivated by the leading of the Holy Spirit and found in Scripture...not only that, but there is an incomprehensible need for them to side with Palestinian rhetoric and actually promote it from the pulpit, and in lectures and discussions in church halls.

Jedi...I can't see Yod or anyone promoting a two tiered system, and that Gentiles are inferior to Jews.

We need to strive to keep the bond of unity, and a love of the brethren.

[Smalcald]

I have not seen the lectures, sermons and so forth supporting the PLO and so forth, where is that happening?

There is only one Church and I am not comfortable with chopping off whole chunks of it, I think we should resist the urge to form our own little clubs that just so happen to agree with our personal views on the details of doctrine; and feel that we are somehow above the pedestrian, boring old "organized" Church, which of course does not even exist and is currently so divided that you can't make any sort of broad statement about it anyway.

[leoxiii]

Not going to answer my question, leoxiii?

Was that before or after pagan influences infiltrated the church? What's St. Peter's Square doing with an Egyptian obelisk in it's square anyway?

The word "Obelisk" comes from the Greek obeliskos, meaning a prong for roasting. It is a stone that is frequently monolithic, of a quadrangular base, placed upright and ending with a pointed top. It was placed in the center of large open spaces in the temples of the solar god RA. They arose, by the time of the predynastic period cults, to a great sacred stone which was raised in the Temple of Heliopolis, the "City of the Sun." As with the pyramids, this monument had a primitive relation with the solar cult.

http://www.egipto.com/obeliscos/histo2.html

The same reason the Vatican does not destroy any art.

1 Corinthians 10:26 The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. 27 If any of them that believe not, invite you, and you will be willing to go; eat of any thing that is set before you, asking no question for conscience' sake. 28 But if any man say: This has been sacrificed to idols, do not eat of it for his sake that told it, and for conscience' sake. 29 Conscience, I say, not thy own, but the other's. For why is my liberty judged by another man's conscience? 30 If I partake with thanksgiving, why am I evil spoken of, for that for which I give thanks?

Want to know about the Star of David?

http://jesus-messiah.com/apologetics/jewis...r-of-david.html

[leoxiii]

I can't even respond to this anymore. This thread is proof that another holocaust is coming and christians will again be turning in their neighbors to a new Hitler. ...

Well, leoxiii is a Roman Catholic, and you know what Roman Catholicism teaches.

A Righteous Gentile: Pope Pius XII and the Jews

By Rabbi David Dalin, Ph.D.

About The Author

Rabbi David G. Dalin, a widely-published scholar of American Judaism and the history of Christian-Jewish Relations, is the author or co-author of five books, including Religion and State in the American Jewish Experience, published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 1997 and, most recently, The President of the United States and the Jews. His article, "Pius XII and the Jews," was published in the February 26, 2001 issue of the Weekly Standard, and was reprinted in the August-September issue of Inside the Vatican, published in Rome. Rabbi Dalin is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal First Things, and a member of the Board of Governors of Sacred Heart University's Center for Christian Jewish understanding.

At the end of the war, Pius XII was hailed as "the inspired moral prophet of victory," and "enjoyed near-universal acclaim for aiding European Jews." Numerous Jewish leaders, including Albert Einstein, Israeli Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett, and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, expressed their public gratitude to Pius XII, praising him as a "righteous gentile," who had saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. In his meticulously researched and comprehensive 1967 book, Three Popes and the Jews, the Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide, who had served as the Israeli Counsel General in Milan, and had spoken with many Italian Jewish Holocaust survivors who owed their life to Pius, provided the empirical basis for their gratitude, concluding that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." To this day, the Lapide volume remains the definitive work, by a Jewish scholar, on the subject.

Please note, that it was not I who brought up the Roman Catholic Church here.

[Guest shiloh357]

I think you are making a distinction that is not all that great, if indeed it exists at all.

In both instances certain people were persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Wrong. Jewish believers were persecuted for political reasons by the Jewish leadershp in the 1st century. Appeasement of Rome was the motivation.

Secondly, The church persecuted the Jewish people from the motivation that the Jews were the emblem of God's contempt. The Church viewed the Jews in toto, as a cursed race and they made no secret of it.

I do not believe it is ever right ot persecute a person for their religious beliefs.

It is just that in this crazy modern world the meaning of persecution seems to have been obscured.

No, it's more like touching on an issue that many in the church refuse to face up to.

Would it be a form of persecution to stop an openly gay couple from coming into a Christian school and flaunting their lifestyle as something that is even benign?

No, it would not be persecution. Christian schools have the right to determine what is allowed on their property, as they are private institutions. Perscution would amount to denying American gays equal rights guaranteed to all Amercians under the Constitution, or threating/causing physical harm to them for being gay.

[Guest shiloh357]

See you dissect who was responsible and don't blame all Jews for Christian persecution.

Because historically, it was the Jewish leadership not the Jewish people en masse, that were opposed to Jesus or the apostles.

Yet when it comes to the other side you blame the enter body of Christ for Jewish persecution.

No, I do not. I have never made such a claim. However, It was not JUST the church leadership that committed pogroms, blood libels, agaisnt the Jews. It was not JUST the church leadership that blamed the Jews for black plague. It was not JUST the church leadership that refused to hire Jews. I am not saying that every Christian who ever lived is to blame, but the persecution that was heaped on the Jews could not be blamed on just a few people. It was far more widespead and engulfed all of Europe. That is historical fact, whether your pride makes room for it or not.

No one here is denying that some people and groups persecuted Jews in the name of Christianity, but it was select groups in select regions that did this, but you make it out that all Christians are Jew haters.

No, that is just your ignorant, reactionary, impulsive misperception. You are reacting to what YOU think I am saying, and to what I have written. Until you can muster up some semblance of intellectual honesty, you have nothing meaningful or important to offer.

Don't you think Jew's try to silence Christians as well? We have many biblical examples to prove it.

no, you don't. The biblical examples only apply to the Jewish authorities. The mainstream Jewish populace followed Christ. If "the Jews" hated Jesus, then why did they have to have his trial in secret? The Bible says the Jewish leadership feared the people, so they tried to keep his trial a secret.

Even today, most Jew's are anti-Christian yet most Christians are pro-Israel. What's wrong with this picture?

Well, you can attribute that to 1,700 years of persecution in the name of Christ leading right up to the Holocaust. You can attribute it to the millions of Chrisitans who sat in their churches in Germany, Europe and in the US, in relative moral indifference to the madness of Hitler, which the entire world knew was going on. 6 million Jews and 5 million other people died while "the Church" was mute and couldn't have cared less.

Most Chrisitans do NOT support Israel. Israel's support is found mostly among evangelicals and even then less than half of evangelicals support Israel. Much of Christianity is still caught up in Replacement Theology and believe that they are the true Israel and that God has discarded His chosen people.

[Guest shiloh357]

Not going to answer my question, leoxiii?

Was that before or after pagan influences infiltrated the church? What's St. Peter's Square doing with an Egyptian obelisk in it's square anyway?

The word "Obelisk" comes from the Greek obeliskos, meaning a prong for roasting. It is a stone that is frequently monolithic, of a quadrangular base, placed upright and ending with a pointed top. It was placed in the center of large open spaces in the temples of the solar god RA. They arose, by the time of the predynastic period cults, to a great sacred stone which was raised in the Temple of Heliopolis, the "City of the Sun." As with the pyramids, this monument had a primitive relation with the solar cult.

http://www.egipto.com/obeliscos/histo2.html

The same reason the Vatican does not destroy any art.

1 Corinthians 10:26 The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. 27 If any of them that believe not, invite you, and you will be willing to go; eat of any thing that is set before you, asking no question for conscience' sake. 28 But if any man say: This has been sacrificed to idols, do not eat of it for his sake that told it, and for conscience' sake. 29 Conscience, I say, not thy own, but the other's. For why is my liberty judged by another man's conscience? 30 If I partake with thanksgiving, why am I evil spoken of, for that for which I give thanks?

Want to know about the Star of David?

http://jesus-messiah.com/apologetics/jewis...r-of-david.html

Talk about gross misinfomation!!!

[mizzdy]

The word used for "church corresponds to "Kehilah" in Hebrew and refers not "the Church" as is known in today's vernacular. It refers to the Jewish followers of the Lord.

The "Church" as it is known today, is a post biblical concept. Neither Paul nor any Jew persecuted the church at larger. Rather, the Jewish believers were seen as an errant sect within Judaism, namely a sect known as the "the way."

It seems this is the crux of some many discussions, the idea of the church and who constituted the church. As you said it was Jewish followers with a few gentiles, at least from what I can tell. The church is a new concept to many starting at Pentecost but the assembly, congregation or called out ones started with Abraham and that is who the new covenant it made up with. Too often people do not want to accept the fact that Jews or the lost sheep of Israel, were the ones that made up the 'church' but only want to see they killed the Messiah.