What should christians give to

Father Reis stated he had no knowledge of this. Surprising that I as an ordinary person should be aware of such a huge controversy before the shepherds of the church. The priest who runs this Catholic college, Rev. Boroughs Jesuit , actually supports Prof. Liew as having academic freedom, the choice to present these blasphemous thoughts, on our dime.

He also tells us the Prof. Liew is a deeply religious man active within the church community. I do not see this as being possible. Is Prof. If in fact Prof. Liew has penned such ideas, and I have not read his books nor will I buy them, and it is a fact determined by Bishop McManus then Prof. Liew should be publicly excommunicated and dismissed from his professorship at that Catholic College.

Liew should not just be asked to take it back and we be all friends again. The Rev. Boroughs should be removed from his presidency of that Catholic college and retrained as to his role as the good shepherd of the flock. Just read the comments on the social web sites dealing with this Holy Cross college controversy.

It bears out what I am writing here. It is absolutely appalling. No leadership. Where have all the shepherds gone? Long time passing. What is needed in such incidents as these is fact finding by the responsible authority, then if all is said done and the accused party is adjudged to be guilty the swift and public penalty iies by the head of the organization. What did we get from Bishop McManus?

Indecision, non specific language and non committal action. I guess Jesuits are in and apart from the regular corrupt clerical culture. They must have their own such club with no oversight. Go figure. This is but one of many such controversies and you wonder why folks are exiting the church! Confusing leadership, indecision of leadership or no effective decision of the church hierarchy at all.

No public exposure of those who violate the tenants of the church doctrine, no excommunications of those who flaunt blasphemy or their openness to support public officials who go against the church teachings. Public leaders, like Nancy Pelosi, who claim to be a Catholic in good standing yet Rep.

Pelosi tells the world from her bully pulpit that the Catholic church has been in turmoil over abortions for over years. Yet when Ms. Pelosi requests an audience with the Pope she gets one. Yet we as the ordinary pew sitter never get that opportunity to get a private audience with the Pope. Yet we, as none club insiders would be told, by our religious leaders, to go back, face the music, obey the law, take our medicine and seek repentance for our sins. Pretty much sums it up folks.

Just to repeat myself, the do as I say and not as I do method never works. Are we getting the picture here brothers and sisters? It shows that what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. The fallen away Catholics are rebelling not reforming. We see this in the continuing mass exodus of the believers. Is this not why we have the Protestant church of today? Martin Luther then exited the Catholic church along with a large number of fallen away followers.

Again a revolution by the laity is due to the lack of good, un-corrupted, firm leadership and abuses. I could go on with far too many such historical examples of just why people who see the church as weak on sin or weak on abortion, or weak on adultery, are exiting the Catholic church.

Why you ask? By preaching one thing and doing the opposite in reality. Actions speak louder than words. By no longer speaking of and the condemning of sin and its effects on us and on our world, by our good shepherds from the pulpit. At this meeting we were told that it was due to a lower birth rate that we see our dwindling children participation numbers in our baptisms and religious ed classes. Less children being brought up in the faith.

Does abortion play a key role in this? I would surmise that is a main reason for these dwindling numbers. Yet it is passed off as not a factor, as a part of the natural cycle of life, and no mention of the connection of abortion to the decline in the birth rate and our fewer numbers.

I no longer hear of the evils of abortion and how it has struck such evil upon our society and our church and our nation from the pulpit. That we must vigorously oppose this wholesale murder, of these defenseless God created lives, of these new believers with all our resources.

I do not see the church standing firm against attacks by our evil adversaries. Do not look at the parish level, look at the leadership people who are now the shepherds of the faith. You know God or Jesus never put up with evil. He destroyed it on the spot according to my Catholic teachings as a boy. Now I have been told, by priests no less, that if you leave this world, no matter how evil you had been while in it, when you get before God you get three chances to accept or deny Jesus before you get saved or condemned.

After you have departed this world? I am saved even if I was Hitler. And get not one chance but three chances. Tell me, as I stand before God, there to be judged and either saved or condemned on what my answer would be?

What choice do you think I would make? Getting sent to Hell or getting a spot in Heaven? No brain er right? Yeah I accept Jesus fingers crossed, wink wink nod nod. I was taught that our Catholic Church Catechism states clearly that once you have died in sin you can no longer seek your own forgiveness, that the living pray to God for souls who have died in sin and are in Purgatory, for their salvation.

I have been praying the stations of the cross at St. Our stations of the cross booklet opens with Christ telling us that we both walk these 14 steps, Stations of the Cross, together.

But we should note this difference. Our 14 steps will only be complete when we have crowned them by our life. Not our death. If this is not so, then the Catholic church should stop teaching it.

Once again we see the dichotomy of the teachings. I was openly criticized for saying I believe in what I was taught by the Catholic Church. That there is no cry from the departed allowed for forgiveness after death. I do not accept this new teaching that one gets 3 chances, after death, to accept Jesus and skip condemnation for our sins. It was not what I was taught. By this lack of consistency in the message we are creating the very division which is tearing the Catholic church apart at the seams.

Well planned attack by evil, which is working successfully, on the faithful. Create doubt, then division, and then conquer.

It is called doubt and it is what happened to Eve when the serpent devil caused doubt and confusion in her mind in the Garden of Eden parable. It used to be all one message for all Catholic believers. Very dangerous precedent by not keeping the message in true form for all believers. The shepherds are no longer in unison on the message. Bad leaders begat bad followers. Corrupt leaders get corrupt followers.

No leaders leading, causes the followers to become lost in the wilderness, wandering in the desert, with no direction. A ship without a rudder. Is this not listed as a Catholic University? Are the employees not aware they are working in a Catholic church run university? Are students duped into signing up and never told they were going to a Catholic college?

Do any of these aforementioned groups understand what that means? It always seem to be that controversies of this nature are associated with the Jesuit community. Maybe it is time for the Pope to make all these guys just priests under one control. Thave no control over those already under their supervision never mind having no control over these rebel Jesuit shepherds.

Is that professor still on the payroll of Boston College one should ask. I will bet you he is. Like Prof. Liew and his outrageous, blasphemous writings, like allowing adultery to be weaken for the sake of letting those who commit such a mortal sin to take the sacraments without true repentance and avoiding that sin in the future, and continuing to live in that sin daily.

Sometimes it seems as if I am yelling in the wind. But I will state here and now it is not all the fault of the Catholic church and the leaders. We, the laity, have not been weeding our garden at all. We bear the blame equally for this corrupt clerical culture by not taking the bull by the horn and bringing it down. By turning our heads away to not see of it, blocking our hearts to it, putting on blinders or just ignoring the problem hoping it goes away.

Well the Catholic church has swept so much flith under the rug it now has become a mountain. Time to clean house. When we have a change from the bottom up to the top that is called a revolution Martin Luther and the schism of his time period was a religious revolution in the Catholic church and yet it survived.

People were tired of being abused in one way or another. Either physically, mentally, financially, or all three. The revolution in our modern times is the departure of the Catholic base for the reasons as given above. Seems although we have the history of these failures, and read it, we then put it out of our minds and repeat these causes of failure all over again.

When the change comes from the top down, as is needed in this case, it is called a reform. This is when the leadership finally figures out that it is not the followers, the people but the leadership that needs to be taken account of. That the problem is a broken leadership. Our Lady told Father Gobbi that she predicted at Fatima that Satan would enter the papacy through a Masonic Pope a human person created by God will invite satan in.

That the Eucharist will be compromised and Ecclesiastical Masonry will create a false worship of Jesus in new false Catholic church. That the real Catholic church of Christ would be reduced to a shell but it would be filled by only true Christ believers.

Maybe it is time to get back to the basics. I really do believe that people forget that they chose to join the Catholic church, that the Catholic church did not join them. They made their own free will choice. No more wishy washy gray maybe areas or touchy feely good philosophy.

Back to the Christian basics. Do I expect flack over this? You bet ya. Pray for me a sinner as I pray you my brothers and sisters.

Do not take anything I say here as truth or gospel. I encourage you, no I say to you to all, seek to corroborate my information. I tell you to do your own homework and seek out for your soul if I am in the right or I am in the wrong. Now is the time to Be Not Afraid and speak up one way or the other for our church , the church of Christ, is at stake and the battle lines have been drawn. I hate to sound like a nut case but I feel in my heart that the Holy Spirit has inspired me to bring this forward.

By assimilating to the Babylonian life and abandoning their God. Are we not as Christians, not just Catholics, doing the same now by accepting what God has openly condemned? By allowing practicing, openly homosexual, men and women to leadership positions in the Christian churches while openly living their immoral lifestyle with their same sex partners? Being accepted as true believers in the word of God and His commandments yet living an immoral, sinful lifestyle?

As clergy, bishops, and higher. Evil has entered there and is gaining control in these churches. This a direct result of allowing evil to get a foot in the door. Once they do that they just attack, attack, and attack until they achieve their goal. And that goal is the take down of the final bastion of resistance to immorality and evil, the church of Christ.

They will not stop until they have their victory or are destroyed. Which by the way has been foretold to us by God. They lose in the end. We win. Just look at the Boy Scouts of America B. They changed their decades long standing ban on homosexuals from joining with the B. Now the B. A programs. Transgender denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.

A now also. The B. It is clear, from a reading of the B. However, the B. You know this does not sit well with these gay activists. There are now demanding that the religious carve out be revoked and that all local councils, religious or not, must accept these applicants or have their B. If they refuse to follow B. Foot in the door policy. How long before the B. I remember an old saying, in Latin is goes; qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent.

In this case it would mean that our Christian values organizations being associated with a non Christian values organization will cause us to take on their undesirable traits. Clearly this organization has abandoned their original Christian values beginnings to accept the new non Christian values world view. By this continuing relationship it shows us, the laity, that our church thinks that good and evil can coexist does it not.

Some southern Chrsitian churches have broken with the B. I applaud these good shepherd for standing firm on their religious beliefs. I guess their Christian faith is more important to them than being with a nationally known and beloved B. But what would be the point. Everyday in the news we hear of church controversies but, due to their constant appearance, we fail to pay them heed any longer.

We have become so used to them that we no longer concerned by there threat. They are now commonplace. No vacuum ever exists in nature and neither does it exist in our churches.

It is always filled. In our case only one of two can fill any religious vacuum. In our faith, either good or evil will fill that void but not together at the same time. We get to choose because God gave us all free will. Right now I think evil is getting the upper hand by human choice. Evil can only be accepted if we say yes and invite it in.

My final analogy of this crisis, in our man run Catholic church, is that priests, bishops and cardinals, but not all priests, not all bishops and not all cardinals, are part of that corrupt clerical clergy.

These corrupt polluters of the faith are by choice or by ignorance or evil influence trying to alter the church of Christ. To bring it down. There are far too many Catholic bishops and cardinals that can not see the cause and effect of this bad clerical culture and start the reform process to end it and I do not understand why. I have heard many claim that this corrupt culture even exists in the Vatican and if so then the reform has to begin there and then go downward to the local priests.

I have always wondered why Cardinal Law was protected at the Vatican from his role in promulgating that great child abuse crisis in Massachusetts. As I had written earlier, actions speak louder then words. Just a parting warning that came from Jesus in the sixteenth verse of the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.

It was a part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus spoke to the crowd. The text reads: Ye shall know them by their fruits. This verse continues the section warning against false prophets and advises us to be always on our guard and not be deceived by anyone. Thank you for reading this long 1st View From The Pew.

I am not a writer by trade so please forgive my grammatical errors and my spelling erors. My goal is never to offend but to enlighten all who who read it. May God have mercy on us. And may God protect His flock from bad shepherds and false prophets. God bless you all. If you mean the church should not engage in advocating for changing policies, then I disagree.

The church was a leader in fighting for civil rights, as it should be then, and today. Thank you for the article. I also thought that the comments were all insightful.

They all had good points. I suppose that one reader had it right when he stated that there is no magic bullet to make a church thrive. I suppose, too, that just reading the article and the comments thereafter, one can see that the Body of Christ is very diverse. That is a nice start in the whole process I think. I am still looking for a church to hang my hat and call home.

What you are talking about is what the church does not need. Where does the work of the Holy Spirit fit into this way the church is going or in some of the changes the church is being conducted. In my observation it is a compromise.

The end result will be that those you are attempting to reach will eventually find out your motives and will see how they have been deceived. I just wrote a post about that compelling them to come in. I was going to post this very thing until I read your response. Unfortunately, The American church has sacrificed that on the alter of strategic methodologies. Wow you are so wrong on so many levels.

The Church is NOT for lost people. He will not have any part of His body that has not accepted Him. The Church is to edify and lift up each other as Christians. Yes, we should have evangelistic outreaches which go out and try to convert sinners, but to change everything you do to try and attract sinners is so wrong. The writer makes some good points, but he exhibits the same bias as those he criticizes. As example I saw a little country church with a traditional service go full-blown contemporary and their growth exploded.

I was a member of an urban church with a traditional worship service that averaged almost 2, on Sunday mornings. When our pastor left we hired a young pastor who blew up the service style going full-blown contemporary. When the dust settled they now average 1, on Sunday morning and were forced to let half their staff go. My point is there is no magic bullet. Meanwhile we may be asked to leave because of me and my zeal to bring the truth of the full gospel to the fledgling seekers.

Their small groups are prolific with lots of fellowship. We are in two of them. A meal is planned each week for one of them and the food is heart attack style…while many even younger adults have so many health issuesThey have an awesome kids program but wondering about the adult programs of discipleship.

The church reminds me of the unschooling movement. Afraid to really teach the Word and apply it. Yet there are many previously churched people who apply what they have learned privately who like this church.

My husband can adapt to anything. The music is good, people are cool and hip for our fly over part of the country. I can truly say that this Earth and even the church is not my home.

But Jesus is. I spend more time with Him than ever. Sounds great. The only problem is, the church is the Church. Everybody wants to sit comfortably in their pew and make the church into some form of Coffee House rock concert hoping that this alone will appeal to unbelievers. The Bible says we are to go, that means get out of the pew and go, every single one of us and bring people to the Lord and then as the scripture says they were added daily to the church.

At that point they came into the church, they were assimilated into the body of Christ. Go ahead, everybody have at it. Let me have it. So tired of these 7 ways or 9 things to do or not do so a pastor can be the hero. Jesus mainly walked and lived outside he did have transport sometimes but if you look at his life he witnessed about his father and himself being the word the truth and the life and that salvation is through him.

When he went out he went abroad up mountains out at sea nothink stopped him. These are helpful observations. I serve a church that has been declining for more than three decades and now has very few young adults.

When we have tried to make a few minor improvements to help the church become vital again: moving toward more blended worship, creating more of an outward focus, establishing some basic expectations for church leaders, focusing on the mission of the church, teaching about the sacred duty of hospitality, etc. The Pharisees are apparently the role model for many members.

Our actions will either validate or disprove our feelings, not the other way around. We prove our love for one another through our actions and giving is one of those loving actions. Paul gave us a good example of this love in action through giving. Christians have long been recognized by the world for the aid they provide to those in need. This is only a partial list, but it should already be obvious that giving is so much more than simply grabbing for your wallet as the offering tray comes by to see if you have a few dollars to drop in.

Giving is a demonstration of our faith through action. He invests his time mentoring and educating individuals on ways to be better stewards of the resources God has entrusted to them. Most of those […]. So much JOY! Sometimes, God is giving to use so that we can in turn give to others, ultimately bringing thanks and praise to Him, the Provider of all things.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. We Are Commanded Scripture commands us to give, therefore not giving would be an act of disobedience.

God Is Greater In addition to being an act of obedience, giving is essentially our faith put into action. God Owns It All Anyway Some people look at Christian giving as returning to God His portion and then go on to spend the remaining amount as if He has no interest in it. Sarah on June 7, at am. But this last apple seemed so much bigger and juicer than the others, and the man reasoned that God already had all the apples in the world anyway.

Why would God need his apple? So, the man ate the 10th apple and gave the core to God. We should not give because we think God needs our gifts in order to be God, or that the church needs our money to be the church. Our giving is a reminder of the blessings God gives us and gave to us through Jesus Christ. We find in John three thoughts that should be the foundation of all our giving. As we use this example for the basis of our giving, we realize that the only giving God recognizes is giving wrapped in love.

The widow gave two coins worth a penny, but her gift came from her heart. There was also generous giving at special occasions like the building of the tabernacle Ex. It was a necessary, but voluntary contribution. If the Levites ended up with a little more that was probably because they incurred some expenses in carrying out their work.

So what lessons should we learn from the Old Testament? Third, whilst tithes were necessary, they were not obligatory. They were gifts, not taxes. This is all very well, but we have no Levites or priests, and no tabernacle or temple.

We live in the New Covenant, and not the Old. How then should we view tithing today? There are several broad principles that will help us.

The first is that the New Covenant is better than the Old Heb. It is inconceivable that New Covenant believers will give less generously than Old Covenant believers. The second principle is that New Covenant believers are freer than those in the Old Covenant.

We have died to the law and are released from it Rom.