On 2011-03-24 15:35, Gospel Dan wrote:
One important lesson I have learned is to stay away from theology, and doctrine differences. Stay within the grounds of preaching the Good News and being a witness for Christ.

On 2011-03-25 10:45, ThePhilosopher wrote:

Quote:

On 2011-03-24 15:35, Gospel Dan wrote:
One important lesson I have learned is to stay away from theology, and doctrine differences. Stay within the grounds of preaching the Good News and being a witness for Christ.

Gospel Dan, just a curiosity: what do you consider to be the "Good News" and what do you consider to be "Theology?" There are many churches that disagree on what the contents of the "Good News" is. Yes, there are elements that almost all Christians share in common, but I don't believe we can reduce Christianity to just those elements.

This is a pretty interesting thread. While we lived in the States I worked as a pastor with the Evangelical Free Church. We brought in a magician to perform. He was funny, entertaining and baffling. He also told his story of how came to faith in Christ. It was really well received. I myself have done magic (like colour changing ball to jumbo square) in messages as illustrations of what I was talking about.

In regard to the Gospel, I would be curious to know what Scriptures have helped those who have contributed in this thread to help you frame your understanding of the Gospel? I personally find what the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 to be a very helpful succinct summary of the gospel.

Mary - what I would say to your orginal question - I would show and tell the churches you are contacting what YOU do and ask them if they think it would contribute to the ministry of their church. I don't think you need to bother with words like "sacred" or "secualr". All truth is God's truth anyway. So is the ability to amuse and entertain.

Tom Mason
Vienna Austria

On 2011-03-28 19:26, Tod Todson wrote:
So, it sounds like some churches what entertainment only, and others want gospel. And that others do not care about denominational lines, and others do care. In other words, it's a zoo, and we're just as often behind the cages as are the animals

On 2010-09-06 20:32, Cyberqat wrote:
"Usually the more "high church" you go, the more friendly these Churches will be toward magic. "

This is an odd thing to me I had to learn about Xtianity. In judaism generally the less traditional the 'liturgy', the more liberal the theology.

In xtians, its often the reverse. The most conservative and dogmatic congregations are the ones using video walls and power-point slide sets for their sermons. The ones that are "high church' and stick to very historic ways of doing things are often the most liberal about the *meaning* of what they do.

On 2011-03-26 16:03, MagicMason wrote:
(sorry double post... not sure how to work the quotes and my own post!)

This is a pretty interesting thread. While we lived in the States I worked as a pastor with the Evangelical Free Church. We brought in a magician to perform. He was funny, entertaining and baffling. He also told his story of how came to faith in Christ. It was really well received. I myself have done magic (like colour changing ball to jumbo square) in messages as illustrations of what I was talking about.

In regard to the Gospel, I would be curious to know what Scriptures have helped those who have contributed in this thread to help you frame your understanding of the Gospel? I personally find what the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 to be a very helpful succinct summary of the gospel.

Mary - what I would say to your orginal question - I would show and tell the churches you are contacting what YOU do and ask them if they think it would contribute to the ministry of their church. I don't think you need to bother with words like "sacred" or "secualr". All truth is God's truth anyway. So is the ability to amuse and entertain.

Tom Mason
Vienna Austria

On 2011-03-24 15:35, Gospel Dan wrote:
Too many so-called Christians like to point out what they believe to be heresies within the protestant churches while blindly ignoring the long history of their own Churches heresies.

One important lesson I have learned is to stay away from theology, and doctrine differences. Stay within the grounds of preaching the Good News and being a witness for Christ. If you have a sincere desire, or feel called by God to evangelize, preach, or teach, do so without the use of magic. If God has truly called you, He will gift you with the tools to follow out His calling.

If you want to entertain people, and at the same time present the message of Christ, use your talents to point people to our Lord and Saviour.

I always make it my business to meet with the Pastor or church representative before doing a show. Churches are usually first and foremost booking you for the entertainment value and not neccesarily for teaching and preaching God's Word. We present the message of Christ in our magic just like any other Christian entertainer does. We are being witnesses for Christ while perfoming something we like to perform.

NOTE: Also, from my understanding and research St. Don Bosco never performed Gospel magic. He performed secular magic for children to lure them into church.

On 2010-09-23 21:59, Vlad_77 wrote:
Robin,

You are asking two questions as opposed to trying to make a correlation between Christianity and non-Trinitarian Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam, Oneness Pentecostals).

So, to answer your point about Trinitarianism: You cannot be a Christian - Eastern or Western unless you ARE Trinitarian. If one states for example that the believes in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that ALONE does not make the person a Trinitarian and therefore not a Christian. A perfect example is the Jehovah's Witnesses. The JWs deny the Divinity of Christ; they reject the Christian beliefge that Christ is God Incarnate and that the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Consubtantial Trinity. JWs believe that Jesus is a CREATED being. This is an ancient heresy called Arianism, and thus is not Christian. Arianism exists in other faiths as well but JWs are the strongest example for illustrative purposes.

As to Universal Salvation: since you are Unitarian Universalist, I would need first to have a clear understanding of the universalist part. I think then we could engage in more meaningful discourse.

That being said, it has always, ALWAYS been the belief of ancient Christianity that while we know where the Church IS, we do not know where it is NOT.

Now, adding in the ancient Christian concept of "theosis" that to this day is central to Orthodox Christian belief, and the discussion become even more complex. I should hasten to add that among WELL READ Roman Catholics, the concept of theosis is understood, but, for the most part, the Christology of Eastern Christianity more informs theosis. In the West one finds a much stronger focus on salvation. Yes, we Eastern Orthodox believe in salvation, an we believe we work out our salvation and that it is ours to lose or gain because we are given the gift of free will. But, theosis goes beyond even salvation.

I should also hasten to add if I may that among certain Protestant denominations, there are two aspects of belief that are firmly rooted NOT in the Ante-Nicean Fathers - the men who received their faith DIRECTLY from the Apostles, but rather, from the "authority" of the Reformers such as Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. The first aspect is the notion of "once saved, always saved." Ironically, there is no Scriptural evidence of this and it was NEVER believed until after the teachings of later radical reformers. So, the "altar calls" that one observes among fundamentalists and evangelicals are emblematic of that MUCH later belief that is the product of the Reformation, which, again ironically, eschewed the writings of the Ante-Nicean Fathers, while at the same time claiming to be "Scriptural." Sts. Ignatius, Polycarp, and Clement of Rome would decry such a notion. And their authority rests in the Apostles, DIRECTLY. (Ultimately, GOD is the authority, but what I speak of here is Tradition (that which is transmitted) from the words of God Incarnate, to His Apostles, to their disciples and on through the ages. The Reformers didn't "get" the lesson of the Ethiopian eunuch and St. Philip when St. Philip asks the Ethiopian who is reading Scripture (Old Testament obviously) if he understood what he was reading. The Ethiopian replied, "only if I am guided." And St. Philip guided him.

The second is the notion of Christ as "personal savior." This too is a product of Reformation thought as opposed to ancient Christian doxology. The misunderstanding ultimately led to the placing of the personal savior ABOVE the community of believers. Scripture tells us QUITE clearly that the pillar of truth is the CHURCH.
So, salvation that is gotten by means of a personal savior in addition to the notion of once saved always saved presents serious problems both in terms of how "salvation" is ultimately defined, and from what authority that the definition derives. It is not so much that the Reformers were consciously in error. Rather, they had no exposure to the writing of th Fathers that CLARIFIED, but did not ADD to the teachings transmitted. So, the Orthodox would say we derive our understanding straight from God through His apostles and in succession UNBROKEN. THAT is central to the faith. This is not so with Protestantism, especially as evidenced by the fact that there are 23,000 distinct Protestant denonimations globally. Doug mentioned the Baptists. There are 79 DISTINCT Baptist sub-denominations within the rubric of "Baptist" that run the gamut from conservative to liberal.

Ultimately, ONLY GOD knows who shall be saved. It is not for the Church to judge. The Church, founded by God Incarnate, teaches and guides. She does not judge except in terms of whether the believer adheres to the non-negotiable Truths contained in the Nicene Creed. Any denial of ANY point of the Creed places one outside the body of Christianity. Yet, we do NOT say that these people are going to suffer eternal ***ation. How arrogant and immoral to think that six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust were consigned to ***ation because they were not Christian.

Vlad

Let's watch our terminology here, Dan. St. John (Don) Bosco did not do "secular magic for children to LURE them into church".

He did secular magic to teach the children the catechism (teachings) of the Church. Isn't this the VERY definition of "gospel magic"?

Let's not let our denominational prejudices creep in here. Let's not forget that Christ's last pastoral prayer before He died was that we would ALL be as ONE.