Christian - no denomination supplied

>>Christian - no denomination supplied
>-"One who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ."

What a bad definition.

Even in their time, there was an "exclusive Judaism" / "right religion" and God called these people to re-establish the religious foundation. Even Yeshua had to challenged the "right" religious authority of His day and was persecuted for His direct relationship with the Father.

Even "The God of Abraham" there are so many assumptions as to what that means according to what people have been taught and their perspective based on what they have been told and their own conclusions without jumping any further into Abraham having a direct relationship to God.

Just have to say, seeing the post you made helped

How come?

>Maybe instead of church, Christ found the person inside of each of us.
Matthew 16:18

>Denominations and their labels create many divisions
Yep, and the Orthodox Church did not create any of them, people looking to divide the Church did

>How come?

Because someone can believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ without being a Christian.

Remember that not everything Jesus says is of a metaphysical character, and he has a lot of secular content such as loving thy neighbor as yourself, or the golden rule for example.

I would personally say that a more precise definition would be that in order to be a Christian you have to believe that Jesus Christ is the son of god, and that god is the god of Abraham, and that the only way to get to heaven is to believe in him.

The Orthodox Church created one of the largest of them. Your Church started in the 11th century. Jesus founded a church 1000 years before that.

...

>◄Matthew 16:18►

And I say also to you, That you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

> “Thou art the Rock-Apostle; and yet nottheRock on which the Church is to be built.

>The Rock on which the Church was to be built was Himself, in the mystery of that union of the Divine and the Human which had been the subject of St. Peter’s confession.

biblehub.com/commentaries/matthew/16-18.htm

Christ is the rock of the church. He says Peter, "on" this rock not Peter "is" the rock. The relationship between Christ and Peter is the focus and the church is an assembly of people with no exact location as this time (c 30 AD)

No, my Church started when Christ founded it, and hasn't stopped existing since. Just because the Latinist heresy managed to engulf the West then doesn't mean the Orthodox Church started then.

The Church is the assembly of all Orthodox Christians.

That makes you Christian. If you apply any teaching of the Christ to your life and it is proven to you useful and true, you are a Christian.

To say "in order to be Christian, you must fit in this category" when another say "non you must fit into these categories"

God is the God of Abraham because God (being God) is God of all beings not just Abraham. God of Noah, God of Daniel, God of Moses, it is to describe the relationship between God and His prophets.

Part of Christ's teachings bring us to understand He is the Son of God, so when you see how the other teachings start proving themselves to us, to more we search out these teachings that impose more divinity than the "secular" ones, we see that they are all united

>No, my Church started when Christ founded it, and hasn't stopped existing since.
Yes, and Alexander was a descendant of Achillies. Claimed descent is the exact same as actual descent. We know, we've all heard the spiel.

The church is the assembly of all Christians, orthodox, gnostic, catholic, protestant, non-denominational.

They all believe everything Christ says, that is what makes them Christian.

Aside from what Christ does not say, that is what divided them.

>If you apply any teaching of the Christ to your life and it is proven to you useful and true, you are a Christian.

No, I'm sorry, it doesn't. I can believe in the Golden rule without believing that Jesus Christ is the son of god.

And if you don't believe Jesus is the son of god, you are not any kind of Christian.

No, it's the assembly Christ founded.

No, they don't all believe everything Christ said, and they cut themselves off from the assembly Christ founded by either abrogating or adding to the teachings Christ passed on.

When you apply the teachings of the Christ then you are Christian. One teaching proves itself to be true, so will the rest

>"God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living"

They all believe in the teachings and the way Christianity is, for when you apply the direct relationship between you and God, then you are a Christian.

One who says "this church is the only true church, we believe in Christ" and the other says "the mainstream churches misled the masses, this is the true church, we believe in Christ"

They both are Christian due to their devout natures, yet they both have different ideas to what the true church is.

>One teaching proves itself to be true, so will the rest
That makes zero sense. If someone says a bunch of things and one of them happens to be true, that doesn't mean every one of them is true.

>When you apply the teachings of the Christ then you are Christian.
All denominations distort those teachings though.

>for when you apply the direct relationship between you and God
Applying the direct relationship between you and God (which everyone has) means being a part of his Church and following his teachings, not retconing them.

>Matthew 16:18

>The word "Peter" in this verse is, in Greek, "petros", while this "rock" is "petra". It is a play on words, but if the original language was Aramaic the word in both cases is simply "kepha". A distinction that petros meant a stone and petra a solid piece of rocky ground is sometimes suggested, but Greek use in antiquity seems to have been less precise.[13]

>The word "church" (ekklesia in Greek), as used here, appears in the Gospels only once more, in Matthew 18:17, and refers to the community of believers at the time.[3] The "gates of hell" (of Hades) refers to the underworld, and the abode of the dead, and refers to the powers opposed to God not being able to triumph over the church.[14] The keys of the kingdom of heaven refer to the metaphor of the Kingdom of Heaven being a "place to be entered" as also used in Matthew 23:13, where the entrance to it can be shut.[14]

>Peter's authority is further confirmed by: "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven". As discussed below, various Christian denominations have assigned different interpretations to the authority granted in this passage.

>All three of the Synoptics end the account with Jesus telling the disciples not to reveal that he was the Messiah to anyone, a statement which in the 20th century gave rise to theory of the Messianic Secret in the Gospel of Mark.

It's mainly about application of the teachings and not the words of the teachings themself.

No denomination can distort the truth of the teachings contained in the Gospel. There is one Gospel and one undivided body of Christ.

The direct relationship to God means being part of His body and following His teachings. The churches are divided, all of them the teachings themself are the truth.

A church is an assembly of beings, not a specific denomination.

Gotta love some good exegesis..

This is what Early Christianity does

>No denomination can distort the truth of the teachings contained in the Gospel.
But they do, that's exactly what they do.

>There is one Gospel and one undivided body of Christ.

That's right, and it's the Orthodox Church. All the people who broke away to do their own things are not part of that body.

>The direct relationship to God means being part of His body and following His teachings
That's right, which only the Orthodox are.

>The churches are divided, all of them the teachings themself are the truth.
They're divided because they say Christ taught different things. You either teach what Christ meant, or you say his words mean something different than he intended them.

>A church is an assembly of beings, not a specific denomination.
Right, there are no denominations of the assembly, there is only one assembly. the Orthodox, it has no denominations. All "denominations" are in fact not part of the assembly, they are propagators of lies.

This is what the Early Christians who are an essmbly of beings believe in

The undivided body is the orthodox, the catholics, the gnostics, the non denominational, the baptists. Etc

Why exalt your own denomination as if it is the only "true" church?

Christ taught what He did. It is that simple and wherever two or three are gathered in Yeshua's names, He is right there. That is the true assembly of the Father is that He is alive right now in our heart without vain divisions amongst His people.

The Orthodox is a denominations for it is also divided against the other denominations as well, separating itself from the other denominations just like the other denominations do.

If you want to go as far as to say the Orthodox has no denominations, you can easily say there is no denominations within the Gnostic churchman and that there is no division between Orthodox and Gnosis.

that is all, no need to call another's church / idea of church a lie

This is what Early Christians believe in:

>Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some 100-fold, some 60, some 30"

As long as the seed is in the good soil, the crop will produce good fruit. As long as the Word of God lands within us, and we hold firm onto this seed, that is what we believe, that we will bear fruit.

Nope, the undivided body is the Orthodox. If you leave that body, as the others you mention did, you are no longer part of it. You create a division, you leave the body, because the body herself has no divisions.

My Church is the one founded by Christ, he only founded one kind of Christianity, not 10,000.

If you are gathered and teaching things he did not teach or outright against his teachings, you are not gathered in his name.

Gnostics don't even exist anymore, they taught that you need special words you get by several planes of the astral realm, and they would only teach the initiated these words; these words are now lost, and thus with them dies the legitimacy of any pretending Gnostics.

None of the Reformation denominations can remotely trace their denominations continuously existing back to Christ. The Orthodox have a continuous line not only of succession, but also of theology.

We both follow Christ, why say your idea of church is the exalted form of church?

If those 10,000 people are following the same person you are, why pretend like you are going somewhere they aren't?

Gnostics exist. Christ is a Gnostic teacher. We are all initiates of the Mystery of Christ. There is no division.

We all can trace our "denomination" back to Christ because the identity of Christianity is solely about Christ and not about other existing labels like orthodox or any other singular denomination of Christianity

They believe in free will and the need for you to struggle in faith as Paul makes clear in his demand that you walk in the Spirit and hold steadfast to your faith

Also such exegesis of the Parable of the Sower is never present in Early Christianity. Here's what Clement of Rome, an Early CHRISTIAN bishop says

>We both follow Christ
Really, now? So how you do follow John 20:23? Are you gaining the forgiveness of the office of the Apostles? Because Christ says right here it's required if you want God to forgive your sins.

>If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

Actually Christ says forgives others

> "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"

It is a simple law that needs to knowledge of denominational church sections or of any apostle.

What standard we use to judge others, there we are judge with that same measure. If we implant mercy for others, then we recieve mercy.

>Actually Christ says forgives others
Indeed, but they have to know what to forgive you for. Hence Holy Confession

>It is a simple law
Which states that if the Apostolic office doesn't forgive you, you will not be forgiven in heaven. You are either loosed or bound, and you must go to Holy Confession to be loosed of your sins, else you are bound by them.

You can confess your sins to God first without any intermediary like a priest.

In fact, some Christians see the appearant heresy in having a priest absolve you of your sins because they are not exalted to forgive you like Yeshua is in the Gospels.

Not everyone shares the same beliefs as you do.

Needs no knowledge of denominational church or apostolic succession*

Christ said that Apostles that what sins the Apostles forgave would be forgiven, and what they didn't, would not.

I gave you the verse.

Then you come in, and place yourself as an authority, disrerding what Christ said, making his teachings a buffet you pick and choose from. This is called "heresy" (from a Greek word meaning "to choose"). You completely disregard this teaching, because you don't like it. By doing this, you cut yourself off from the assembly he founded, and that is why you are not in it.

This verse

>If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

Is not for only the Apostles, not even close. This is a teaching that is constantly extending to each individual needs meaning exactly what it needs to for each person receiving the Holy Spirit when coming upon this phrase.

Even Christ was not considered to be in the "assembly" of the scribes and the Pharisees. There is no use associating with a group of Christians who think excluding the rest of humanity is okay, because they exalt themself and their teaching to be the only way when Christ says "I am the way"

>Is not for only the Apostles, not even close
So you're saying if I don't get every single person in the world to forgive my sins, they are not forgiven?

It isn't about what I said or what you implied I might have meant, it is this

> If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

The same way this does

>For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Matthew 7:2

Forgiving another enables them to make up for their trespasses, while holding it against them, they are now having something held against them.

When we are forgiven, we can make up for our wrong. If we are not forgiven, we are being held hostage by the grudges of another who is yet to have reason to forgive us

No, it's not the same thing at all. In verse I cited, Christ is conferring an authority upon the Apostles and says that if they do not forgive a sin, the will not be forgiven; this does not mean they have the option to not forgive a sin, but it does mean they have to be told of it, and if they are not, it will NOT be forgiven. He's not talking about sins *against the Apostles*, here he is referring to sins in general. He says overtly that unless they forgive a sin, it will not be forgiven; and you are simply denying Christ here; his other teaching doesn't say, "You can get around having to be forgiven by the Apostles" at all.

The same for the apostles, the same for the disciples. If you forgive another, they are forgiven. If you hold something against another, they are burdened by your grievance towards them.

His teachings doesn't say "if the apostle do not forgive you, you are not forgiven".. Christ is the Savior, not the apostles. God is the Father, not the priest.

God's Apostles are his representatives. He said that which they bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and that which they loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matthew 18:18). The word "loose" here, is another translation of the word for "forgive", by the way.

All Christians represent God not just the apostles. That which we bind and that which we loose, not just them but all of us.

So if I don't get the forgiveness of every Christian, I will not be loosed (forgiven, same word) in heaven?

God is more powerful than every Christian.

So you're going to ignore this teaching of Christ's and say, "God can just not apply it in my case"?

>forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

That is the teaching of the Christ. God can just apply it in everyone's case. Amen.

God told you how to have your trespasses forgiven. He said anything the Apostles forgive will be forgiven in heaven, and anything they don't, will not.

It applies to all beings, no where is any of this exclusive to only the apostles.

No, that doesn't make sense. If all beings don't forgive your sins, they won't be forgiven in heaven? That doesn't make sense.

God forgives us, not the apostles. It applies if we hold something against another, it applies if we let something against another go.

If God holds our sins against us, we feel it. When we are forgiven, we feel the relief and the path to the next actions to take following the forgiveness we recieve.

>God forgives us, not the apostles.
He says anything they don't forgive will not be forgiven in heaven.

>When we are forgiven, we feel the relief
Where are you getting this from?

Where does He say that directly anywhere in the four Gospels?

> If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

>"For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

They simply say exactly what they say. No where does it give the Apostles exclusivity anywhere.

When you are forgiven you feel the relief. You have faith as well? Exalt the Lord with me.

>Where does He say that directly anywhere in the four Gospels?
Matthew 18:18, John 20:23

Apostles don't have the authority to judge. They are required to forgive, and they are not allowed to judge. But you must confess your sins for them to forgive them, otherwise they can't. And if they don't forgive your sins, your sins will not be forgiven in heaven.

>When you are forgiven you feel the relief.
Where are you getting this from, that if you feel relief, it means you're forgiven? Where are you getting this from?

>“Truly I say to you, whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

This passage does not mention the word Apostle. Christians seek God's forgiveness not the Apostles. God forgives, not them. We forgive others, others forgive us.

When you feel the presence of the Lord God, there is relief for all beings.

God bless you.

>Christians seek God's forgiveness not the Apostles.
It says that if they do not forgive you, your sins will not be forgiven in heaven. You seek God's forgiveness, and he told you to do that through his Apostles.

Now, there is your exegesis, which is that this applies to everyone. First of all, this exegesis has no precedence until 1,500 years after Christ, and second off, it makes no sense that everyone would have to forgive you. My exegesis as a continuous precedence from the early Church, and it is actually workable.

>When you feel the presence of the Lord God, there is relief for all beings.
Obviously not, do you think demons feel relief from his presence?

And you still haven't told me where you got that idea that a feeling of relief means you're forgiven.

I just knew you would be the first post the second I recognized the thumbnail from the catalog.

The separations of early Christianity are really interesting indeed. While the Great Schism is mostly political in nature, the ones that preceded it are for such small (an frankly, petty) discrepancies about stuff that's completely made up (i.e., Jesus never said he was divine, one persona but two natures, two personas etc.) that you can't help but be in awe of Christianity surviving despite all of that.

I mean, they were literally deciding the nature of the god they supposedly believed to be all-powerful and mysterious through votes. Just think about that for a second.

No, votes don't have any power to determine anything beyond canons. When it comes to dogma, councils only have the capacity to uphold what was always taught, no more.

It does not say that anywhere. God is One, He is not far from any being. There is a reason we are not all going to the same church, because there is none that is stronger than God Himself, who is the supreme in dweller of the heart.

A demon can feel relief from God's presence. That is the nature of Mercy. A sinner is like a demon, and when God instructs the sinner, there is great relief.

The feeling of relief and the knowledge of forgiveness can only truly come from the Father.

God is permeating every being and sustaining his very existence, it's a just matter of whether or not you can perceive it. When you can, it is either bliss, that permeating is a light, or torment, that permeating is like a fire. That's what hell is.

If two people follow the same person at the same time they can't end up in different places.

Don't be obtuse. Everyone of those denominations (even the Protestant ones) believe their church to be the true one with clear line of continuation.

I'm an Atheist, and I was born to a Catholic family, but I believe Eastern Othodoxy to have the "cleaner" line of descent (what with being Greek and being maintained at the seat of the Roman Empire for a Millennium and all). But every (devout) Catholic I mention this to (because I'm annoying like that) tells me that there's a clear line of successors of St. Peter, and that the current head is siting at the Vatican.

Nobody believes they're wrong, and that includes you. I'm not asking you to consider Atheism or Catholicism, I'm just asking you not to be a complete retard and go "it's all heresy and we're the only true one" when you clearly should know better. There's a bazillion other reasons you could argue pro Orthodoxy anti Catholic for, and you go for the dumb and not even correct one (two branches still come from the same trunk).

You're quite right. But heresy is straying from that path, hence not really following Christ.

>Everyone of those denominations (even the Protestant ones) believe their church to be the true one with clear line of continuation.
Can they show their theology being continuous attested to and followed by any group of Christians for 2000 years?

> But every (devout) Catholic I mention this to (because I'm annoying like that) tells me that there's a clear line of successors of St. Peter, and that the current head is siting at the Vatican.
But so? Peter was the rock in his role in *founding* the Church (and Saint Jerome adds, all the Apostles were rocks, see Revelations 21:14). When Peter urges other bishops to do something, in 1 Peter 5, it's as a fellow bishop, not as any office distinct from them.

In other words, the rock is a title for Peter's person, not for his chair. The Pope of today had no role in founding the Church, so how could be considered the rock? The rock is not an office.

Except that's complete bullshit, and the whole debacle about physis and prosopos and even about the trinity was decided by vote. Sure, they debated before voting, but in the end there wasn't a consensus (demonstrated by the fact that Churches splintered off) which means the dogma literally was decided by vote.

Even assuming Christianity is true, and taking the Gospels at face value (which would any historian weep), nothing in them suggests Nestorianism, Arianism or Miaphysitism are absolutely incorrect and heretical. They're now stopping to call each other heretics because it's >THE CURRENT CENTURY and they finally realized they had no ground to stand on when deciding such dogma as "two distinct natures, human and divine, one person" over such heresy as "one distinct nature composed of both human and divine, one person".

Each Christians sees heresy towards Christians that are different than them, so when your direct relationship to God is your foundation, that is all you truly need. Calling someone a heretic doesn't actually mean anything, they are empty words

Protestant, Catholics, Orthodox, Gnostics, they all follow the same Christ

But that's ONE interpretation of ancient writings. By the time of the Great Schism, about a Millennium had passed since the first council and there was little reason to think one interpretation was truer than all others.

This goes for BOTH sides: The Catholics didn't have any reason to assume St. Peter's succession being so relevant, but Orthodoxs didn't have any reason to assume it wasn't, either. I personally blame Catholics for the attempted power grab, but that doesn't mean their argument is completely invalid. You can never be sure which interpretation is the one that's supposed to be true.

I understand your position, and like I said, I support Orthodoxy over Catholicism, but from a true neutral stand point (i.e. I don't believe in any of this) both sides seem to be fighting over which version of Expanded Universe is accepted into the canon of Star Wars in year 3054.

Voting something doesn't give it truth. There were a ton of councils that were heretical.

As for the "two vs. one nature", that wasn't settled in the current year, it was settled at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, which approved the one nature (miaphysitism, not to be confused with "monophysitism" which means "solitary nature") expression as valid. Both formulas were thus considered valid and whole thing was rendered purely semantics. Christ is both man and God, this was always taught by the Church, whether you choose to render that as two natures, or one nature both human and divine, is just semantics, it's the same teaching.

>Each Christians sees heresy towards Christians that are different than them,
Christ's teachings are not relative. You are either right or wrong, saying, "Well, to them, YOU are wrong," is meaningless, you might as well say, "well, to MUSLIMS, YOU are not following Christ." It's about what's true, not about opinion.

Many interpretations can be valid *so long as they don't conflict*. If you introduce one that conflicts, it's not valid.

God is the ultimate truth. Following Him is more important than labeling "who is a heretic" and "who is saved because they agree with 'my' beliefs too"

That is a heresy within itself. To say "You cannot be a Christian because I believe so and so"

If no one does it better so they may boast, if none are righteous, if none ever do it perfectly, then both all and none are heretics and we should probably even lose the term "heretic", because it nets "hypocrite" for the speaker.

If you're heretical, you are not following God. God gave you teachings, if you turn them into a buffet, you are not actually following God.

I know, but the ones that aren't suffer from the exact same problems, except that the detractors are too few and/or too powerless to call them heretical, because they are the heretics.

Accept it, all of this is majority rule. What's to say that Aranism wasn't the true Christianity all along?

14th century is still extremely recent, fucking closer to the current day than it is to the Council of Chalcedon, and as far as I know, Orientals aren't yet in Communion with the Easterns, are they?

"Heretic" means someone who chooses which doctrines they subscribe to, it doesn't mean someone who wavers. There is a big difference between someone who does something wrong and says it is wrong and asks for forgiveness, and someone who says what is wrong is what is right.

What if the conflicting viewpoint is the correct one? What if the conflict only came to light in lieu of recent developments, but the viewpoints were always there?

What I said was each Christian group will criticize heavily on other Christians groups and label them as "heretical" because they have a different idea about minor disputes.

One passage means one thing to one person and means something else to another.

Yet each passage is a truth in itself void of all subjective interpretations for one objective meaning

So two people who follow God at the same time, they do not end up in different places.

so sin /= sin^2 to you, and it probably should not, because we are not God. I let my emotional position of things involve my view of grace, too, sometimes. Then I wake up and realize God is above my thinking and feeling.

>Accept it, all of this is majority rule
Nope. In fact, the majority of Christians are heretics today.

>except that the detractors are too few and/or too powerless to call them heretical, because they are the heretics.

Except the detractors DID call them heretics and persisted in doing so, such as with the iconoclast crisis.

>What's to say that Aranism wasn't the true Christianity all along?
It's not Scriptural. How can the Word be in the beginning and the Word be God, if the Word was not in the beginning and was created?

>14th century is still extremely recent,
Saint Cyril of Alexandria is the one being used as an authority in it, who was a lot earlier than the 14th Century.

>Orientals aren't yet in Communion with the Easterns, are they?
No, because the anathemas are still in place, but we can take communion at each other's parishes wherever practicality demands it, including throughout Egypt. We also fully recognize each other's sacraments, something neither of us do for Catholics.

>God gave you teachings
Tell me the part of the Bible that says the Orthodox understanding of the Trinity is the only viable interpretation, or else accept that Arianism is a completely legitimate creed voted out of Christianity by majority rule.

Even orthodox chooses which doctrines they subscribe too. They are free to include and exclude Holy texts.

Also, calling someone a heretic just to point out the "right way" is exactly what you have been doing ITT. Just saying man

Was there always a community of people adhering to it and teaching it?

>One passage means one thing to one person and means something else to another.
Which is fine so long as there is no conflict. If there is a conflict, one person is wrong.

And heretics do not follow God.

Heresy is particular a kind of sin.

That's because Christ never passed on a canon of holy texts, so there is no dogma for it. Dogma is only what Christ directly taught.

Hebrews 1 says very explicitly that Christ is the creator of the world, God almighty.

>That's because Christ never passed on a canon of holy texts, so there is no dogma for it. Dogma is only what Christ directly taught.

>In fact, the majority of Christians are heretics today.
That means you're the heretic to the majority of Christians. Funny how that works.

>Except the detractors DID call them heretics and persisted in doing so, such as with the iconoclast crisis.
And these were only heard because they regained power and influence and didn't fade away. Other groups weren't as fortunate and died out as heretics (while saying, to deaf ears, that everyone else was the heretic).

>How can the Word be in the beginning and the Word be God, if the Word was not in the beginning and was created?
How can God the Father and God the Son both be God and yet God the Father not be God the Son?

It's a mystery.

>Saint Cyril of Alexandria
was the one whose teachings spurred the Miaphysites to disagree with Chalcedon to begin with.

>No
All I needed to hear.

I do know the Great Schism is bigger than the early Schisms, it says so on the name.

>Heresy is particular a kind of sin.

All sin is sin and the wages of sin is death. The works of Dante are not part of my bible. But really, shouldn't we have faith in God to sort this out? If Christ already saved people, perfectly, we don't do more to add to that, we don't "fix" people by correcting "heretical" views, as that is between them and God, who has already decided if those people are elect long ago.

An imperfect mind, saddled by sin, no sooner comes to a correct conclusion on the perfect and infinite than hundreds of thousands of imperfect minds, saddled by sin. Four billion is no closer to infinity than four, so it's not the culmination that reaches the divine, but the infinite reaches down to show the finite, the divine guides each of it. Now we're back to the problem no one knows exactly what to do with it, but accept it however it makes most sense to them.

So all Christian who follow Christ calling eachother heretics are acting as if they earned the right to persecute eachother.

If they all follow the same person they end up at the same place

If Christ never passed down a Canon of Holy Texts, how then can you exalt the foundation of the church which is compromised of a bunch of different people's ideas? Which then brutally denied itself and seperate itself into so many pieces

(72) [A man said] to him: Speak to me brothers, that they may divide my father's possessions with me. He said to him: O man, who made me a divider? He turned to his disciples. He said to them, I am not a divider, am I? -Thomas

(17) Jesus said, "I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind." - Thomas

I'd like to point out that western Christians do not follow the usury rules even though they are clearly a big no-no in the old and new testament.

Yet Orthodox still follow these rules in Russia.

I guess western Christians are too interested in making money in their bank accounts and 401Ks to follow the word of god.

That, if nothing else, is heresy.

>Was there always a community of people adhering to it and teaching it?
What if it actually did and you had two seemingly non-contradicting viewpoints coexisting until a conflict was found?