Quote Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr View Post
What makes you say that I don't interpret any theology? Generally speaking I agree with certain strands of Christian belief, because that is what I have felt compelled to believe in.
You yourself have said you are not willing to make private interpretations, or to conduct your own exegesis.

On reflection that's maybe fair enough, although its also maybe something to do with constantly coming under siege.
You might want to consider why the other Christians here find your views objectionable, it has to do with the content of them.



I could be wrong, but I always thought that a "Puritan" referred specifically to dissenters within the Church of England following the Reformation. I remember reading something about the Pilgrims, and how that because of this they were not actually "Puritans", just a "puritanical" sect, since they never attended the Anglican services and had their own seperate church polity.
If it looks like a duck, smell like a duck, sounds like a duck and floats....

In any case dissenter is the wrong word, Puritans fell into two groups. Those willing to work within the Church and respect others, now the Low Church, and those not. The latter are largely extinct, though their ilk has recently resurfaced in the modern "Evangelical" Churches.

OK fair enough, sorry for being so harsh, I'm getting a bit frantic with this these days. Also calling certain branches of Christianity non-Christian is a pet peeve of mine. The Old Testament is also important to Catholicism, Jesus always referred to how he was fulfilling the scriptures after all. Of course, Jesus is the only example of how to act for any Christian, even the Puritans believed this. The way you talk about the OT almost makes you sound like a Cathar!
You called a Roman Catholic a Cathar, that frankly is absurdly foolish to say the least.

I'm with him, and so is the Pope, and Canterbury, and the Methodists, a lot the Baptists, the Pentacostals.... Jesus clearly rejected much (not all) of the OT.

As to Calvinsim not being a form of Christianity. Argueably the conception of God is completely different, and the "Reformers" believed that only the "Elect" that is, Calvinists, entered heaven.

So maybe Calvinism isn't a form of Christianity, personally, I have seen that theology do more harm than good on and individual and collective scale.