and it might be impossible for the Antichrist to fabricate that sort of magnificently unambiguous arrival on earth.
`St. Paul tells us even an angel from heaven is damned if he alters St. Paul's doctrines, which are doctrines he learned directly from Christ - Galatians 1. 8-12. St. Paul told us that a Bishop must be a man with one wife, 1 Timothy 3. 2. The Roman Catholic Church says a Bishop must have no wife. The founders of Mormonism taught the doctrine that a Bishop may have more than one wife. St. Paul told us quite clearly that homosexuals, fornicators, adulterers, drunkards, the covetous etc will not enter the kingdom of heaven - 1 Corinthians 6. 9. St. Paul's command that wives must obey their husbands should not disturb feminists because he also said husbands must love their wives, and if a man loves his wife then he'll do what she asks provided she's being reasonable. St. Paul said many things: men must pray with their heads uncovered, women must pray with their heads covered: don't keep company with Christians if they do not comport themselves the way Christians are supposed to comport themselves.
`Christians, as you might imagine, are supposed to understand Christianity. We are supposed to have the Divine Law / New Covenant written on our hearts - recall Jeremiah 31. 31-34, recall Matthew 26. 28 etc. We're not supposed to be ignorant, lost, confused and deluded. If one is a True Christian, if one has not fallen away from the True Faith, if one has God's New Law written on ones heart, then one ought to be able, more or less, to teach the True Faith with the authority of God. One doesn't sound very humble if one claims to teach religion with the authority of the Creator of the Universe. But, still, we're supposed to have the Divine Law written on our hearts.
To know if a church has fallen away from the True Faith you would first have to know what the True Faith is. Recall St. Paul's words in Galatians 1. 8-12 - even an angel from heaven is damned if he alters St. Paul's doctrine, doctrine which he learned directly from Christ. St. Paul is quite clear in telling us that good Christians are not to keep company with heretical Christians who corrupt the Faith. But, for the most part, the sects under the sign of the cross are very liberal: they don't excommunicate anyone! They don't excommunicate Sabbath violators, they don't excommunicate pro-choice Christians, they don't excommunicate pro-gay marriage Christians. They basically give the Eucharist to anyone who asks to receive it, and 1 Corinthians 11. 27, and 2 Thess 1. 8, and John 15. 6, and Luke 13. 3, Galatians 1. 8 etc., etc., say what they say.
`Suppose a bishop decrees that two Christian men playing grab-ass not only don't have to spend a night in the box, but they are not to be excommunicated, then you have to determine if this bishop upholds the True Faith or if he has fallen away from the True Faith. One falls away from the True Faith whenever one tries to make $$$ off of Christianity. It's sinful to put price tags on Bibles and on books which teach Christianity. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John didn't sell their Gospels to make $$$. Centuries of tradition under the sign of the cross say it's OK for authors to make a profit by writing books which teach Christianity, but a common sense interpretation of the scriptures, such as Acts 8. 20 etc., says it's not OK to make money off of Christianity.
`Excommunication means being given the silent treatment by the saints, and exclusion from the Eucharist, until the sinner repents. In theory if not always in practice, excommunication is an act of love not an act of spite or hypocrisy. If the sinner is never disciplined he might never repent. And everyone who refuses to repent will perish - go to perdition. If a mom sees her kid playing near a red-hot stove, but if mom doesn't care enough to warn the kid about red-hot stoves, then you tend to doubt mom's sincerity when she claims to love her kid. If Christians ignore 1 Corinthians 5. 11 - if they refuse to discipline people who need discipline in order to escape perdition, then you tend to doubt the sincerity of their faith. Excommunicating sinners who refuse to repent, disciplining them, helping them to repent, helping them to escape perdition, is an essential part of the True Faith. Luke 13. 3, 2 Thess 1. 8, John 15. 6, Revelation 20. 15 etc., say what they say. You wouldn't think that excommunicating sinful Christians would be impossibly difficult, but no end of strife results if people and politicians from faction A are excommunicated more often than people and politicians from faction B. How do you judge those who are right on the line between heterodoxy and orthodoxy? Excommunicating sinners who refuse to repent is probably the toughest job that the saints in the True Church have on their plate. It has to be done or else the True Church falls away from the True Faith, and then it ceases to be the True Church, and then it delivers souls to perdition not to heaven.’
English Atheist Guy - ‘Let me jump in here. I’ve read Bill Etem’s books. They are amazing in their sustained idiocy. I don’t know how many times he repeats Jeremiah 31. 31-34, which says God will write His law on the hearts of His people. Etem claims that True Christians can teach religion with the authority of God, because True Christians have this Divine Law written on their hearts. But to think that Bill Etem, who more or less claims to be a True Christian, can teach religion with the authority of God, is idiocy on a scale which boggles my mind. The immensity his delusion is staggering. He’s just a common ordinary dumb-ass, and you would have to be a dumb-ass not to understand that he is a dumb-ass. Of course as an Atheist I insist all Christians are dumb asses. I say that anyone who claims to have some Divine Law written on his heart is a brainless bastard. To be perfectly sincere with you people, Bill Etem’s idiocy in thinking he teaches religion with the authority of the Creator of the Universe, when he pushes idiotic laws and the most brainless and stupid government policies – read ‘Constitutional History of the Western World’ – at one point he defends Joe McCarthy - when he barely know up from down, when he really is quite moronic, in so many ways, is the sort of idiocy which can only lead to destruction. His idiocy reminds me of the slum which is America. It reminds me of all the millions of smaller slums that make up America, you know, the slums of Chicago, the slums of Milwaukee, the slums of Fresno, the slums of Peoria, the slums of Spokane, the slums of Bakersfield, the slums of Newport News, the slums of West Palm Beach, the slums of San Antonio, the slums of Philadelphia, the slums of Portland, the slums of Providence, the slums of Atlanta, the slums of East St. Louis, of Boston, of Washington, of Dallas, of Minneapolis, of San Francisco, of Miami, of Pittsburgh, of Richmond, of Cleveland, of Detroit, of Houston, of Toledo, of Winston Salem, of Scranton Wilkes Barre…You American dumb-asses piss me off so much it blows my mind how much you dumb-asses piss me off. New London is not some new version of ‘Old London’! The immensity of your stupidity seems akin to a huge reeking stinking foul filthy American slum to my mind! It is hideous to look upon; it is vile and disgusting to behold; anyone with a brain in his head can see that America is a stinking hellhole. Now take the United Kingdom. Even with all of our problems, nevertheless, the Kingdom is heaven compared to the hellhole which is America. You Americans with your religious mania, with your devotion to musty old fables like Jeremiah 31. 31-34, with all of your rot about Divine Laws being written on human hearts, are lost in a delusion which must inevitably lead straight to your doom and destruction. Such a fate is inescapable! You have embarked on a course of folly which can only lead you to a nasty end, a very nasty end indeed.’
These sentiments from English Atheist Guy drew both applause and screams of anger from the audience in Rock Island. The audience liked it a lot when he was calling me a brainless idiot, but they didn’t like all the anti-American and anti-Christian stuff he was dishing out.
Me - ‘You make a feeble case even with all your polished rhetoric, English Atheist Guy, and you fail, and fail quite miserably, I might add, to prove that I do not teach religion with the authority of the Creator of the Universe. Whether I teach religion with the authority of God or not is somewhat irrelevant. The important idea is that a True Christian, as opposed to a Phony Christian, or an Almost-But-Not-Quite-Legitimate-And-Bona-Fide-Christian, a True Christian has the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on his heart. And if
one has the Divine Law written on his heart then he will be able to teach religion with the authority of God, or close enough! If a person is a heretical Liberal, or if he is a heretical Conservative, if he is someone who has fallen away from the True Faith, then he does not have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on his heart. If a person commits sacrilege then we know he doesn’t have the Divine Law written on his heart: we know he has fallen away from the True Faith. Sacrilege is committed when a person says that things which are evil in the sight of God are sacred. And sacrilege is committed when one says that things which are sacred things in the eyes of God are evil. What about the sign of the cross? Is it sacred or not sacred? What about the Roman Catholic crucifix? Is it sacred or not sacred? What about the Eastern Orthodox crucifix? The Anglican crucifix? We’ll review these topics again later….Now, proceeding with some really basic stuff, before we get to the more standard material,