While driving outside the city limits of Mineral Wells I forgot some of my small town etiquette – when you pass someone you gently wave without taking your hand off the steering wheel.
For a country that was founded on freeing ourselves from the British monarchy, we sure give them a lot of star attention.
What was my first thought about the royal birth? If ‘Night Court’ was still on the air, would Markie Post’s character, Christine Sullivan, still have an obsession with the royal family?
I find the bit of rushing to Twitter to create a fake account, like for the royal baby, quite tiresome.
I wonder if I’ll live long enough to see the new prince become king.
I thought Six Flags had a death on the old Cliff Hanger ride. I asked that question about six years ago and Barry commented thinking it kind of rung a bell. Wow, that as six years ago?. Man, we’ve been doing this blog thing for a while.
Bob Sturm stated that when he was a student at Liberty, they had bed checks on Sunday morning to make sure you weren’t in your room because you needed to be at church.
Last night Stephen Colbert had an author who went an entire year without looking at her reflection. Here’s an article about her and the experience. I wonder if that’s harder for a girl or a guy. I know girls worry about makeup and complexion, but it would be hard for a guy to shave his face without looking at his reflection, at least it would for me.
I’d love to check out San Diego Comic Con for at least a day.
Four or five year ago I wrote about how I always thought the terms Evangelical Christian and protestant were interchangeable until I read an article that made me research the subject. It was actually an article stating that President George W. Bush was an Evangelical, when in fact, as a Methodist, he’s part of the Mainline church. That discovery lead me to do a lot of research into church history and denominational differences. Well, recently a similar discovery happened. I always thought there was only one Christian church for the longest time, the Catholic church. And it wasn’t until Martin Luther hung the ninety-five theses on a door that the Christian church split into two, the Catholic and protestant churches. I was wrong. This is what I found out over the weekend, and please excuse the over simplification summary as I’m trying to keep it this short and not boring with too many details.
The Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of all of Rome. He felt Christianity needed a consensus of belief, so he call together the Council of Nicaea in the year 325, and from it, we have the Nicene Creed, which basically defines what it takes to be a Christian.
At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Pope Leo was the bishop of Rome and was acclaimed as “speaking with the voice of St Peter” which gave Rome supreme authority. Pope Leo reexamined the nature of Christ, which lead to a revision of the Nicene Creed, and caused the church to have it’s first split, often referred to as the Great Schism, or East-West Schism. His revision stated the Father and the Son became the source from which the Holy Spirit proceeds, basically messing with the trinity. And this is what the Western church, the Catholic church followed. The Eastern Church, or the Greek church, stuck with the original creed, and that’s how we have the Eastern or Greek Orthodox Church. At this point, the Christian church was in two pieces.
In 1517 the Great Divide, the Reformation, happens to the Catholic church because of a monk named Martin Luther and Protestantism was born. Protestants believed everyone, not just the priest could read and interpret the Bible. Basically, they just focused on the Bible and the sacraments of communion and baptism with no formal church hierarchy. They even got so uptight about it they started to destroy stained glass and statues in churches. By some reports there are over 8,000 protestant denominations and perhaps that diversity is one reason Christianity is so widespread.
The Catholic church was once again divided in 1534 when Henry VII started the Church of England for two reasons. Most folks only know of the divorce, but it also because Hank wanted a separation of church and state.
I bet a lot of folks are going to beat me up over my arm chair church history lesson.
I freely admit I don’t know when to capitalize “evangelical”. I researched it and came back even more confused.
If your familiar with the Malcolm Gladwell book Outliers, I think you see how Martin Luther was born at the right time for his message to become widespread and for him to become legendary, as the printing press just came to be and put into use which made the Bible affordable and plentiful.
There was also an aspect of devotion for the Saints and iconography in the East/West split.
BTW, some people misunderstand the council of Nicea and claim that Constantine changed Christianity. The canon of scripture was mostly set before that time and that is what the Nicean creed flowed from. The 1st century Gospels and the writings of Paul and a few others were always considered more authoritative than stuff written hundreds of years later, just as we'd consider a biography of Washington or Lincoln written right after their deaths to have more accurate information than something written in the 20th century which claims "shocking new revelations," but no proof.
To me, the fact that the hundreds of millions of Christians around the world can't agree on even some basic tenets of the Christian faith makes it that much harder to believe in Christianity. If there are literally thousands of different denominations (I've actually read 25,000 or more), why should I believe any one of them is right?
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/0…
There was also an aspect of devotion for the Saints and iconography in the East/West split.
BTW, some people misunderstand the council of Nicea and claim that Constantine changed Christianity. The canon of scripture was mostly set before that time and that is what the Nicean creed flowed from. The 1st century Gospels and the writings of Paul and a few others were always considered more authoritative than stuff written hundreds of years later, just as we'd consider a biography of Washington or Lincoln written right after their deaths to have more accurate information than something written in the 20th century which claims "shocking new revelations," but no proof.
To me, the fact that the hundreds of millions of Christians around the world can't agree on even some basic tenets of the Christian faith makes it that much harder to believe in Christianity. If there are literally thousands of different denominations (I've actually read 25,000 or more), why should I believe any one of them is right?