Question: 

I am a fairly new Christian and am just curious if being non demoniational is a sign of confusion. I was wondering of you could explain the difference between the Baptists, Pentecostals , Methodists, and Catholics.

Answer:

You are asking a lot here!!! The term non-deniminational is really not a very useful term because it is used in different ways by different people. What is a denomination? I suppose a simple answer is that it is an established Christian group which has a name.

Some like to distinguish themselves from "the denominations" by saying that they are better because they are non-denominational. There is some truth here, but we should learn to use words carefully and not use them as an excuse to bash whole groups of people who may not even ascribe to our definition of the word. The spirit behind those who claim to be non-denominational and who criticize "denominational Christians" is that it is better for us to simply follow the Bible rather than give authority to some sort of man-made and man-led religious group which probably follows some sort of man-made creed.

For myself, I can agree that taking a creed over and above the biblical statements is not a good idea. In fact, it can be dangerous. We should always stand on the authority of scripture alone for Christian theology and doctrine. Also, dividing Christians according to labels such as denominational names is unbiblical. So, I can agree in broad terms that not using human creeds as a rule of faith is probably a good idea.

However, simply saying non-denominational is good and denominational is bad is extremely simplistic. It is possible to be non-denominational and to be widely divergent from the most basic Christian teachings. It is possible to be part of a Christian group which accepts a creed and to be a Christian. So, we will probably be better off to not make all that big a deal about whether one is part of a denomination or not. My guess is that you are part of a denomination. In other words, I am guessing that you are part of a group which has a common name. If you are part of that group, some would say you are part of a denomination, by definition. Others would not call this a denomination. There you have the problem with using this word.

As for the groups you ask about, I believe you can do your own research of the teachings of the Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists and the Roman Catholics. They are widely variant, to say the least. Let me give an EXTREMELY brief synapsis.

The Baptists are part of the Reformed Christian movement. Their history and theology go back principally to Calvinism and the theology of John Calvin in the 1600s. They are noted for having independent congregations, for following Calvinist theology (most notably accepting his predestination) and for adult immersion, but rejection of baptismal regeneration (the idea that one is saved at baptism). They are generally a conservative group, which is strongly committed to the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible.

The Pentecostals actually have fairly similar theological background to Baptists, but their greatest emphasis is on the miraculous spiritual gifts. Most are Calvinistic in theology and conservative in doctrine–accepting biblical inspiration. What distinguishes them is that they focus a very great amount of attention on tongue-speaking, healings and other supposed miraculous gifts. It is difficult for those strongly committed to Pentacostalism to be united with Christian groups which do not accept the existence of apostolic miraculous gifts today.

The Methodists derived from the Anglican Church (Church of England) in the 1700s. They focus on adult conversion and reject Calvinism. Methodism was founded by John Wesley who was a revivalist preacher. They have a very highly organized and heirarchical structure. They stress holiness of members (although this has weakened somewhat more recently). They do not believe in adult baptism for forgiveness of sins.

The Roman Catholic Church is the only one on your list which can trace its history back to the original Christian Church. Generally, Catholic theology is biblical but Catholic practices vary widely from biblical practice. Catholics tend to give greater honor to tradition of the church than to biblical authority. They accept much more human tradition as part of their practice than most other Christian groups. Yet, they believe that baptism is for salvation. Like the Methodists, they practice infant baptism. They believe in sacraments–the idea that an ordained person can perform acts which lead, in part, to salvation of people. Arguably, sacramentalism and the acceptance of church tradition are the chief things which separate Catholics from other groups.

I hope this can get you started. You really should do your own research into these religious groups. When you do so, I suggest you not simply study these groups in order to find where they have gone wrong. You will be able to learn some things from these denominations, whether or not you accept their overall model for Christianity.

John Oakes

Question:

Is Paul responsible for Christianity? If so, what influence did he have? Did Jesus come to save Jews only?

Answer:

Obviously, the person who had the most influence on the direction of Christianity was Jesus Christ. One can argue for either Paul or Peter as the two humans who had the greatest influence on the direction Christianity took after the ministry of Jesus on earth was completed. I am convinced that God is in control and that the writings of Paul and Peter (and the other New Testament writers) are inspired by God.

For this reason, I believe that the influence Paul had on the direction Christianity took was principally determined by God’s influence on Paul. Nevertheless, God uses real people, with real personalities, strengths and flaws. For this reason, the personality and personal character and even opinions of Paul had at least some effect on the future direction of Christianity. One can imagine that Paul’s zeal to plant churches affected the missionary zeal of the church. We can imagine Paul’s very strong Jewishness, combined with his strong conviction that we are saved by grace, not by works of the law had an effect on the direction of Christianity, although I am completely convinced that these were characteristics of Jesus as well. One can argue that to some extent the future organization the church–the role assigned to deacons, elders and evangelists, for example–was influenced by Paul’s work, in addition to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is difficult to separate the influence of God, of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit from the personal influence of Paul as an individual. This is very hard to measure, but we can say that, working through Paul, God did much to determine the course of Christianity, especially in Greece and the Northern Mediterranean area. Jesus did not come to save the Jews only.

There is an almost unlimited number of quotes from the ministry of Jesus to the effect that salvation was for the Gentiles as well. Acts 10 is the story of how God convinced the apostles of what Jesus had already taught them–that salvation is for the Gentiles too. Romans 8-10 record’s Paul teaching the Jews one more time that, whether they like it or not, God’s intention all along was to save the Gentiles. The entire book of Jonah is a historic parable about the fact that salvation is for the Gentiles too. Jonah was not too happy about this message. I will not bother to quote a lot of passages from Jesus telling the apostles that their ministry was to be to all people: not just for the Gentiles, but let Acts 1:8, Matthew 11:22 be a starter.

John Oakes

Question:

I just heard the Interview From NPR "Fresh Air from WHYY with Terri Gross" Thoughts? If you have a chance.  http://www.bartdehrman.com/multimedia.htm

Answer:

I have read a couple of books by Ehrman.  He is a very biased, angry person.  At the same time he is actually an excellent scholar–one of the best around.  You can assume that he checks his sources very carefully and nearly all the information he provides is in fact good info.  You will learn quite a bit, some of which is useful, from Ehrman.  However, he is radically committed to the idea that there is no such thing as the supernatural and that certainly the Bible is not inspired by God.  He is not unbiased in the way he presents his information to say the least!!!  (but then again, neither am I!).  I would suggest you carefully separate the information that Ehrman imparts from the spin he puts on that information.  He is not serving God.  In fact, his underlying motive is not to provide truth, but to undermine faith in the scriptures.  He is quite sneaky in the way he puts spin on the information, making it rather hard to separate his scholarly discoveries from his highly biased interpretation.  In this interview he always assumes that if there is a difference between the gospels, it is because the information is inaccurate or is created in order to express the bias of the author.  In fact, God did use the "bias" of the authors to tell different aspects of the gospel story, but Ehrman’s implication that the stories contradict or that they are fictionalized, or that God’s hand is not behind the finished product is simply not true.

 John Oakes

Question:

Why did Saint Cyril murder Hypatia and burn the library of Alexandria? Did he do this for God? Did he kill anyone who didn’t believe in God and burn everything that have nothing to do with the belief in God?

Answer:

Almost certainly Cyril did not murder Hypatia.  Carl Sagen wrote a speculative and not particularly scholarly account of Hypatia.  He was quite biased against Christianity, which might partially explain his unsubstantiated speculations.  More careful scholars have mentioned ancient accounts in which the female neo-Platonic philosopher and mathematician Hypatia was killed by a "Christian" mob in Alexandria.  Whether this is what happened is hard to say for sure, but given the antiquity of the claim, it is reasonable to give credence to this claim.  According to the account, Hypatia was killed by this mob because of her pagan beliefs and the fact she was a very influential philosopher.  Let us, for a moment, assume that this is a true story.  If so, then this would be a shameful and completely unacceptable act for Christians to commit.  Jesus said that we should love our enemies and pray for them.  There is no conceivable way to justify such a violent act by a Christian on anyone, whether their philosophy disagrees with Christianity or not.  It is a regrettable fact that people who take the name Christian have committed heinous acts, including the destruction of cultural treasures which were associated with pagan ideas and even taking the life of pagans simply for not believing in God.  In any case, there is no evidence that Cyril was responsible for Hypatia’s death.

It is almost certainly not true that Cyril killed Hypatia, and it is even more unlikely that he had anything to do with the destruction of the library in Alexandria.  I do not know where you got this idea, but perhaps this came from the unscholarly Sagan version of her life.  The question of the burning of the library in Alexandria is quite controversial.  It is not even certain that the library was burned in the fourth century at all.  The library was destroyed during the reign of Aurelian (AD 270-275) when he retook the city after a rebellion.  Also, the emperor Theodosian ordered the destruction of many pagan temples and other institutions in AD 395, which led to the destruction of a library which may have contained some of the books originally in the famous Alexandria Library.  The historian Socrates Scholasticus mentions what happened in Alexandria at this time, but he makes no mention of the destruction of the Alexandrine Library.  In any case, it is almost certainly a spurious claim that Cyral had anything to do with the burning of this human treasure, even if we grant that the library was burned during his life.  I was able to find no reputable evidence that he was connected to the destruction of the library.

John Oakes

Question: 

I was recently researching the historical reliability of the Bible and I got a tiny bit confused. The reason is that the Old Testament seems to be not very reliable (e.g. the Genesis account, many scholars thinking that the books are not written by original authors, ect.), but the New Testament seems to be very reliable and the accounts very historical (after I did some research on them). So I do not know what to think really because the Old Testament is mentioned quite regularly in the NT and by Jesus himself. But if it was an unreliable book then why would Jesus be quoting from it? (although I know he did disagree with some parts of the OT) And if the OT is wrong then so are the prophecies. And if this is the case then why did Jesus come along? Did there happen to be a God who thought that the Jews had the right idea of a God and so decided so send himself incarnate to them and fufill their legends? (because I do believe that we have a God instict because he allowed us to develop one and out of that we try and develop our own image of God). This would help explain why God is so vengeful in the OT despite teaching forgiveness in the NT. What do you think? I would be grateful for a quick reply.

Answer:

Question: 

Who was the ransom paid to in regards to Jesus’ death on the cross? Many people claim that the ransom was paid to Satan since mankind was enslaved to evil after the Fall. I have a difficult time making sense out of why it was necessary for Jesus to have to pay the ransom to Satan. It is almost like saying that Satan called the shots and there was no other way that God could have gotten mankind back. Do you hold to this perspective on the atonement or believe something differently about the ransom?

Answer:

Question:

Do you know where should I look for information on how old were the apostles when they joined Jesús?

Answer;

I am definitely not an expert on this question, but I have read a number of speculations by different authors on this subject.  Bottom line, the Bible provides no direct evidence for the age of the apostles.  Scholars have speculated that all of them were less than 30 years old simply because they took the role of student to the "Rabbi" Jesus and this was traditional.  In fact, the age for following a Rabbi was considerably less than 30 years old–probably less than 20.  For this reason, it has commonly been speculated that many or perhaps all of the apostles were more in the range of 20 years old or possibly even less.  Others have speculated that Matthew was a bit older than the others because he had a fairly important position as a tax collector.

In the end, this is speculation, and we simply cannot know how old the apostles were.  We know that John lived until about AD 96 or 97, which is about 66 years after Jesus died.  This does seem to imply that John was almost certainly less than thirty when he began to follow Jesus.

If I had to guess, I believe that most or all of the apostles were less than 25 years or so at the time they began to follow Jesus, but I cannot prove this, nor can anyone else as far as I know.

John Oakes

Question:

In the case of Acts 2:2-4, is there any evidence supporting the events of the day of Pentecost?

 Answer: As far as I know, there is no independent extra-biblical source for the events on the Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem as recorded in Acts 2.  Bear in mind that this lack of specific extra-biblical support is the case with virtually all the historical material in the Bible.  Obviously, there is no archaeological or other non-biblical support for the fact that Paul said some particular thing to some particular person on some particular day.  For example, we will not have archaeological or historical evidence that Paul and Barnabus visited Iconium during his first missionary journey.  Such insignificant details from the fairly distant past are virtually never recorded.  Historical events which are found in the New Testament which have either specific or general historical support include where Jesus lived (Galilee), the fact that he was killed in Jerusalem by crucifixion.  The fact that he worked miracles (or at least that many believed he worked miracles) is also a historical "fact" based on extra-biblical sources.   However, we cannot confirm the Pentecost story, except in the broadest sense, from extra-biblical sources.  Indeed, one would not rationally expect to have such confirmation.  Who would have reported this?  It is interesting to note that we have nine non-Christian sources on Jesus in the first 100 years after his life, while we also have nine sources (Christian or otherwise) for the emperor Tiberius, who ruled at the time of Jesus.  Our sources from ancient times are relatively scanty. But this brings me back to your question.  We do have one extremely reliable source for the account in Acts 2.  That is the book of Acts itself.  The evidence is that Luke was an extremely careful and therefore reliable historian.  Luke records 95 cities, provinces and other places.  In every case, his description is accurate.  He reports dozens of rulers and in every case we can test Luke, he gets their title right, a feat which is extremely difficult in the confusing plethora of Roman names for rulers (tetrarchs, autarchs, procurators and many other titles).  To quote from an eminent historian who began his study of Luke assuming the Bible was not accurate history:  "I found myself brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth. In fact, beginning with a fixed idea that the work was essentially a second century composition, and never relying on its evidence as trustworthy for first century conditions, I gradually came to find it a useful ally in some obscure and difficult investigations. Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy; he is possessed of the true historic sense; he fixes his mind on the idea and plan that rules in the evolution of history, and proportions the scale of his treatment to the importance of each incident. He seizes the important and critical events and shows their true nature at greater length, while he touches lightly or omits entirely much that was valueless for his purpose. In short, this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians."
Sir William Ramsay, St. Paul, the Traveler and the Roman Citizen, (Hodder and Stoughton, 1920).  Bottom line, it seems unavoidable to conclude that the apostles and thousands of eye-witnesses were quite unanimous, at least in the general facts that the events in Acts 2 did indeed happen.  There was a sermon preached that day, amazing things happened and many were baptized.  Luke, being the meticulous and careful historian that he was, probably interviewed a few people before giving the best faithful account of the actual events of the day.  I believe that it is reasonable to conclude that the account we have in Acts 2 is an essentially accurate historical rendering of the events on the day when the gospel was first publicly proclaimed in Jerusalem. Is the case iron-clad?   Absolutely not.  That is where our faith in the inspiration of the Bible steps in.  Of course, at this point we have left the realm of evidence and moved into belief based on faith that the Bible is in fact inspired by the Holy Spirit, but that is not what you asked about!  I believe from the evidence that an event described in Acts 2 happened, but I accept that the list of languages spoken is accurate partly because I trust Luke but also partly because I believe the Bible is inspired by God.  In asking such questions, faith and evidence must be balanced. John Oakes, PhD

Question:

I enjoyed reading the PowerPoint "Who Is My Brother?" that is found on this website.  I imagine it is sometimes difficult to determine if a particular denomination or other Christian group belongs to the third or fourth layer of fellowship (the third layer being those who are saved Christians and the fourth layer being those who accept Jesus’ deity and salvation for our sins but are not saved).  I can see why Catholics would be included in the fourth layer (I am not an expert by any means on the Catholic Church, but I do know many of the things they teach).  Here are my questions: 1.  However, I do not know why Presbyterians and Assemblies of God are listed in the fourth layer since I don’t know much about these denominations.   2.  Assemblies of God form a branch of Pentecostal Churches, so would Pentecostal Churches be included in the fourth layer as well?   3.  One of my friends told me Pentecostal Churches scare her because of snakes in worship, but I haven’t found anything else about that.  I had visited a congregation a few times while I was in college that called themselves a Pentecostal Church, and they didn’t have any snakes there (if they did, I didn’t see them).  Do you know anything about this? 

Answer: I do not like to put myself in the place of being the judge of entire groups of people who consider themselves to be Christian.  Such potentially divisive talk seems to violate the spirit of the presentation I have given and the Power Point you saw.  Let me do my best, nevertheless, to answer your question. The third level of fellowship is based on the essential doctrines.  These are people with whom me most likely would not have intimate fellowship, but who are saved and should be treated as such.  What are the essential doctrines?  They are those which one can reasonably infer may determine of one is saved by the blood of Jesus.  In other words, doctrinal issues which are salvation issues define the third level of fellowship.  You will have to decide, based on your convictions about what the Bible teaches, what are the salvation issues.  To me, a correct understanding of who Jesus is, who the Father is and who the Holy Spirit is are essential.  Belief in the inspiration of the Bible and in the bodily resurrection of Jesus are essential.  Belief in (and practice of, by the way) discipleship, repentance and baptism for forgiveness of sins is essential.  The list would not be much longer than that for me personally.  Based on this list, some of the groups you list above are not in the third level of fellowship in my opinion. Let me be specific about our Pentecostal friends.  I do not agree with those who practice speaking in tongues, gifts of healing and the like as part of Christian worship today.  Because it is not part of this question, I will not go into why I believe this now, but let us just use this as a working assumption.   Having said that, I cannot see why this can be a salvation issue.  A person can believe in miraculous tongues today who has met every requirement above to be a saved person.  My opinion is that some "Pentecostals" are saved and some are not, but it is not based on this particular false teaching.  I am unwilling to categorize all Pentecostals as belonging to either the third or fourth circle of fellowship.  Your friend is right that most Pentecostals do not include the more radical kinds of miraculous practices such as falling into trances and holding poisonous snakes.  We should not impose such stereotypes on all Pentecostals.  Instead, we should apply to Golden Rule to all.   We should assume the best of everyone until we learn a specific reason to think differently.  That is how, I assume, you would want to be treated and that is how you ought to treat others. As for Presbyterians and Assemblies of God, I will let you do your own research into whether or not their teaching on how one is saved is biblical or not. John Oakes

Question:

Does God have the power to choose evil?  Two conflicting theories are:  God DOES have the power to choose evil, but it is so contrary to His nature that He is incapable of actualizing that potential.  Other theory is God does not have the power to choose evil yet still has free will because He is perfect and can freely choose anything good.  However, humans, being finite and imperfect, CAN choose evil:  human free will REQUIRES power to choose evil while God’s free will doesn’t.  What are your thoughts on whether God has the power to freely choose evil and whether Jesus in His incarnate state COULD have chosen to sin? Answer: This is an interesting question.  I think part of the philosophical quandry you are in is based on what, for some is an incorrect line of reasoning.  You are asking a question about God which only would make sense if he were human, which he obviously is not.  It is kind of like asking of God can do anything, and then responding that he cannot make a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it. Here is what I mean by that rather dubious analogy.  Whether or not God is "able" to do something evil is not a relevant question.  The qualities God has he has completely and fully.  God is love.   It is not that God is loving or that God loves–God is love.  God does nothing which conflicts with his love.  Therefore God is not "able" to do an unloving thing, but I would not put it that way.  It is not a question of ability, but rather a question of his nature.  It is completely outside God’s nature to do evil.  Therefore, I suppose one could say that God is "unable" to do evil," but this is putting it more in human terms.  I would prefer to say that God will not do evil.   So the question of whether God "has the power to choose evil" is simply the wrong question.   This is assuming a human-type nature of God by the very way the question is asked.  A better question is whether it is in God’s nature to do evil.  I think you know the answer to that question.  The answer is no.  Therefore he does not do evil.  He does not create evil things.  Ability is irrelevant.  Nature is the key. God has free will, but what he does is decided by his nature.  We are quite different.  We have conflicting qualities.  We are unpredictable.  We want to do good, but we have an evil tendency.  Which will we do?  It depends on our free will.  God is not like this.  He does not have conflicting qualities, with one winning out one time and the other conflicting quality winning another time. About Jesus this is a harder question.  When Jesus allowed himself to be limited to a human body and to having a human nature, I believe this changed the equation.   Here the answer is not so simple.  God as Father in heaven and even his Son at his right hand in heaven is a different situation than Jesus living on the earth in a human body with human limitations.  Jesus was able to be tempted, to experience pain and to be physically ill.   Was he, then, in his humanness able to rebel against God and to not do what is right?  I say yes.  The New Testament does not clearly delineate all this.  There is some room for reasonable speculation.  The early church fathers saw Jesus as fully human and fully God.  This is a mystery.  However, the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane (Not my will but yours) strongly implies that in his flesh Jesus could have chosen to reject the plan of God.  He could have sinned.  He could have done evil,  yet he did not. That is how I see it. John Oakes, PhD

Question:

Who was the 1st person to say that Jesus was God?  I’ve heard a lot of people say that early Christians believed that Jesus was nothing more than a great prophet. Which leads to the question, how do we know that Jesus really is God, and not just a prophet?

Answer:

That is an easy question.  The first person to claim that Jesus was God was Jesus himself.  He made this claim, either directly or indirectly, many times.  Examples of this include John 8:57-59.  When Jesus said "I AM" he was directly taking the name of God.  He did not say "I was", but rather "I AM."  This is a clear claim of deity.  Yaweh, the name God used in Exodus 4, is the Hebrew for I AM.  His audience knew exactly what Jesus was claiming here.  That is why they picked up stones to stone him.

Jesus claimed to be God again in John 10:25-33.  His hearers knew exactly what he was claiming and accused that he had claimed to be God.  Jesus did not correct their interpretation, as he surely would have if they were mistaken.  Not only did Jesus claim to be God, his twelve apostles made the same claim repeatedly.  John 1:1-14, Colossians 1:15-16, Titus 2:13 and dozens of more can be used to show that the apostles claimed deity for Jesus Christ.

Of course, I have heard the spurious claims that the early Christians believed Jesus was just a prophet.  There is no basis for this claim.  Now, it is true that there were some splinter groups, such as the Ebionites who questioned the deity of Christ, perhaps as early as the late first century.  Later groups such as the Arians in the late third century also questioned that Jesus was God, but there is not the slightest evidence that the main thrust of Christianity accepted as the most basic truth that Jesus is God.

As to how we know Jesus was God, I believe his claims and his miracles speak for themselves.  Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), after which he raised Lazarus back to life after his body had already begun major decomposition.  He said "I am the bread of life," right after he created bread and fish out of thin air.  Jesus was raised from the dead.  He provided all the evidence one could possibly need to support his claim to be God.   Those who choose to ignore this evidence do so for reasons which they will have to explain.  Perhaps they believe John, Paul, Peter and all the apostles, and, indeed all 500 eye witnesses to the resurrection were liars.  This is an irrational point of view.  Jesus was and is God.

John Oakes

Question:

Did God know Adam and Eve were going to eat the apple and bring sin into the world?  It seems to me we are all suffering for what they did.

Answer:

God is all knowing.  If I understand the biblical view of God correctly, he is not affected by time and therefore he knows past present and future.  Given the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible, I have to believe God knows what will happen before it happens.  For this reason, I have to assume that God knew Adam and Eve would give in to temptation and eat the fruit.  (By the way, it was not an apple.  That is just a tradition)

There is a sense in which we are "suffering" because of the sin of Adam and Eve.  However, the common teaching that we are guilty of the sin of Adam, known as Original Sin, is definitely not biblical.  Ezekiel 18 and Ezekiel 31 makes it quite clear that we will only be held accountable for our own sins, not for the sins of another person.  So, we are not found guilty by God  for what Adam and Eve did. 

Nevertheless, according to Genesis chapter three there were consequences which fell on everyone because of the sin of Adam and Eve.  We lost a more intimate relationship with God in the garden.  Women have much pain in birth and men must toil with their hands.  We are not as close to our Creator as we were designed.  Sin has its consequences.  We all have a sinful nature which rebels against God.  Romans 5:12 says that sin entered the world through Adam (and presumably through Eve as well), with the resultant consequence of death.  This passage is talking about spiritual death.

Yes, you are right that the world is still paying a price for the fall of Adam and Eve.  Having said that, we are still held responsible by God for our own actions.  Our own sin is the only thing which separates us from God, and we are responsible to respond to the gospel.  If we do, that relationship with God is restored.  So, let us not be victims of what happened in the garden, but let us come to God in full assurance of faith and the damage can be undone, to the glory of God.

John Oakes, PhD