Prohibitions

[RabbiO]

@moralorel - I didn’t say ‘simple’. I said ‘simply’. There is a difference.

 

[Thomas]

Or is he?
He seems on-brand.

I think a little over-stated ... burning books always raises a warning flag for me.

The Catholic Church has a view of New Age thinking, which is not very complementary, and certainly accurate with regard to the movement generally, and again, generally New Age principles are contrary to Catholic understanding.

But looking a the stuff on offer here – mugs, colouring-books, etc., I think a sense of proportion is called for.

I am mindful of hysterical reactions to the 'Harry Potter' books, for example – one mention of magic and people are up in arms. What about the Christian values that underpin the Harry Potter books, as they do The Lord of the Rings, or, indeed, The Matrix?

Then we roll on to Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. It's just tosh, and should for the most part be regarded as commercialised consumer tosh.

 

[TheLightWithin]

Herbert Armstrong had to constantly kick ministers out of his church who wanted to change it either to a Pentecostal church, or an Evangelical church (Tkach succeeded in the latter). I never understood it. There are tons of Pentecostal and Evangelical churches out there. If someone didn't like Mr. Armstrong's church, surely they could just join one of the many other Pentecostal and Evangelical churches. I didn't realize that I had already knew who Garner Ted was. He was somewhat famous in Nashville. Merle Haggard considered him to be one of his biggest influences.

Yeah I wondered that too. Why not join another church if you don't like the one you are in? Reform is one thing, but reforming it to something that is already available elsewhere just doesn't make sense.
I don't think I knew about the Pentecostal movement within WWCG. What were people trying to do? Speaking in tongues, or having holy-roller actions in services?

 

[TheLightWithin]

If you're just tilting at Catholicism:

What I was replying to

(Pity he's not more informed about the historical Catholic stance towards 'witchcraft', for example.)

Then I said:
"Or is he?
He seems on-brand."
To me it seems he was continuing the ferocious Catholic stance against "witchcraft"

 

[moralorel]

@moralorel - I didn’t say ‘simple’. I said ‘simply’. There is a difference.

Ok, got it.

 

[moralorel]

Yeah I wondered that too. Why not join another church if you don't like the one you are in? Reform is one thing, but reforming it to something that is already available elsewhere just doesn't make sense.
I don't think I knew about the Pentecostal movement within WWCG. What were people trying to do? Speaking in tongues, or having holy-roller actions in services?

When he started his first few congregations some members were trying to convert the church to Pentecostal congregations. Yes, speaking in tongues and holy roller actions. Such a huge leap for that church to try to take. I don't get it. I read part of Armstrong's autobiography and he brought up this issue.

 

[Thomas]

To me it seems he was continuing the ferocious Catholic stance against "witchcraft"

Actually the ferocity meted out to supposed witches in the Middle Ages is from the reformation Churches – Protestants got caught up in the whole furore, the Catholic Church response was relatively enlightened.

I can go through the history of the various statements on the matter if you like, but it's one of those things that in time gets exaggerated out of proportion.

I'm generalising, of course, but really if you talk of witch-hunts then you have Salem, Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, in England (in terms of wealth accrued from the prosection of witches, Hopkin was equivalent to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk!) – Puritans or Reformers, not Catholic. The Catholics drew a distinction between 'witchcvraft' which they saw as a nonsense, and heresy, something more insidious.

There were abuses, of course, but the craze was really much more a Protestant thing.

 

[juantoo3]

I'd have to agree regarding Protestant witch hunts, Catholics were busy with exorcisms.

 

[Thomas]

Indeed so ... although I can't find any statistics on the question – not as easily as one can regarding witch trials.

Christ was an exorcist and so the concept was a part of early Christianity. From what I can gather, the exorcisms were undertaken with no particular forms or formalities until about the 17th century – the rite then being the one from which we derive the current form.

Curiously, The Exorcist seemed to have boosted interest in the topic, and the demand.

The topic was a source for artists in the Middle Ages, and no saint worthy of a biography would be without titanic struggles with demons.

 

[moralorel]

Actually the ferocity meted out to supposed witches in the Middle Ages is from the reformation Churches – Protestants got caught up in the whole furore, the Catholic Church response was relatively enlightened.

I can go through the history of the various statements on the matter if you like, but it's one of those things that in time gets exaggerated out of proportion.

I'm generalising, of course, but really if you talk of witch-hunts then you have Salem, Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, in England (in terms of wealth accrued from the prosection of witches, Hopkin was equivalent to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk!) – Puritans or Reformers, not Catholic. The Catholics drew a distinction between 'witchcvraft' which they saw as a nonsense, and heresy, something more insidious.

There were abuses, of course, but the craze was really much more a Protestant thing.

Witch hunts were actually quite popular in Rome before any Christian churches ever existed. I definitely agree that these witch hunts from the Catholic church are quite exaggerated.