[Ask Mr. Religion]

A little about me...

I am a Vietnam veteran, formerly a Catholic Jesuit (Tertian), and am an ordained minister (Southern Baptist 1984), who later joined the PCA. I pastored a new Reformed church in Clearwater, FL for a few years and then spent many years as a wireless communications technology expert at companies such as Alcatel, Motorola, Intel Corp., and General Dynamics. To this day I, along with my son, still maintain a wireless communications intellectual property consulting business that specializes in forensic patent analysis (related to puchases/licensing of intellectual or litigation).

I am a MDiv with an additional Licentiate in Sacred Theology certificate (2 yrs beyond a MDiv) graduate of the Jesuit School of Theology. After seven years of study, contemplation, and teaching, I left the Jesuits once I realized that as a "heretical" Jansenist, I could no longer keep my Jesuit vow to defend Catholicism.

I am also a MS (Adult Education) graduate of Nova Southeastern University.

I possess the BSEE and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Columbia Pacific University (now defunct - a very long story) and have been a MENSA member since I was eight years old. I have taught electrical engineering and computer science courses at So. Illinois University, DePaul University, and Augusta College.

In addition to being the founder and moderator of http://www.reformedtheologyinstitute.com/ I moderate the Yahoo! Groups TheologosAMR advanced theology discussion mailing list.

In theology, I’m a Calvinist, creationist, inerrantist, cessationist, classical Christian theist, and moderately preterist. On the sacraments, I take them to be symbolic. I regard other issues in sacramentology as secondary to this primary position. In philosophy, I’m an Augustinian exemplarist. I’m a Cartesian dualist. I’m an alethic realist, but scientific antirealist. I believe in innate ideas, sense knowledge (I'm an indirect realist), and the primacy of divine revelation in Scripture. In ethics, I subscribe to traditional Christian morality, rooted God’s revealed law as the source and standard of personal and social ethics. I also subscribe to a infralapsarian theodicy.

In July 2008 I founded The Reformed Theology Institute (RTI) for the express purpose of providing a place where like-minded persons can come together and dialog in a civilized manner about the many aspects of the Reformed faith. Nearly one year later, I transitioned the full time ownership of RTI to another member, an outstanding defender of the Reformed faith.

I have been married for 27 years to a woman who makes me want to be a better man every day. Valerie taught mathematics at a local community college here in Chandler, Arizona.

Lastly, I am the 1994 founder of the Ask Mr. Religion confidential theology Q&A service. The nine volunteer member AMR service has provided custom theology research for academic theologians, religious web sites, and private individuals (mostly seminarians) since 1994. The fruits of the AMR volunteer theologians have anonymously appeared in hundreds of academic papers, conferences, internet forums. etc.

Go easy on me. I am earnestly studying the whole KJV issue and genuinely seeking to be enlightened and am open to correction.

AMR

[geologist]

Originally Posted by Ask Mr. Religion

Go easy on me. I am earnestly studying the whole KJV issue and genuinely seeking to be enlightened and am open to correction.
AMR

Well, you have certainly stumbled into the right den of lions.

[PB1789]

Hello AMR. Welcome to the website. I clicked on the link to your homepage and I like what I see! Be warned though that the resident Landmarkers, Arminians and the slice-n-dice the scriptures folks (aka; Dispensationalists) will be very upset with you simply because you have admitted that you hold to the Reformed Faith. Post Tenebrux , Lux! Out of Darkness, Light!

I would urge you to look at the first (Home page) of this site and look up the works by Edward Hills (The King James Bible Defended) and also the writings of Dean Burgon. Also read a book by Fuller titled "Which Bible?". The site owner (Diligent) has posted a short list of verses that are different or mangled by the new translations, on the front page called "verse charts". Two that could be included in that chart are John1:1 and Romans 3:25. The NWT and the NIV are really bad translations.

BTW, the Hills book is now available free on the internet thanks to his widow.

Stay on the Path - just as "Christian" was heading for The Celestial City.

[Luke]

The only time I have ever seen you post is to "back up" one of your reformed brethren, and take stabs at the right dividers...

There are no arminians on this board. When they come, they get deleted real quick, because they can't stop blabbing about losing your salvation. I don't think there are any landmarkers either.

[Gord]

Welcome AMR, I look forward to meeting you here via the various discussions. I must also add that I am thrilled that the RTI site exists, so us poor folk can get an insight to seminary that otherwise would be impossible for the average lay person of age.

[Waiting for the Morning]

Hello, This is my first post, I praise my Saviour for some folks who will stand up for the KJB. I'm not sure if Mr. Religion will get this or not, but I wondered if you heard Ian Paisley's radio report on "The Black Pope and His Murder Men". Being a former Jesuit I thought you could verify the info given. If you have not heard it, it is on Sermon Audio . Just for your info, I am not an Armenian or Calvinist but a Bible Believer, I pray that the Lord shows you the peace and joy that can be found in resting in the pure Word's of the Authorized Version.

I also was wandering if Luke is a PBI grad? What I've read of your post's you seem to believe the Book as I do. In Iowa I don't here Christians talk like you and it's a breathe of fresh air to see the Word's of God lifted up and honored.

In Christ's service,

Bro. Thane

[tonybones2112]

Originally Posted by Luke

The only time I have ever seen you post is to "back up" one of your reformed brethren, and take stabs at the right dividers...

There are no arminians on this board. When they come, they get deleted real quick, because they can't stop blabbing about losing your salvation. I don't think there are any landmarkers either.

PB forgot about the antinomian too, Brother Luke.

Grace and peace

Tony

[Hayseed]

Originally Posted by Luke

There are no arminians on this board. When they come, they get deleted real quick, because they can't stop blabbing about losing your salvation. I don't think there are any landmarkers either.

I personally like your passion for truth Luke,but as you say we must mix our words with grace...there is enough truth on this board for any new member to peruse and decide if this is the place for him/her.

Mrs Hayseed

[biblereader]

Originally Posted by Luke

The only time I have ever seen you post is to "back up" one of your reformed brethren, and take stabs at the right dividers...

There are no arminians on this board. When they come, they get deleted real quick, because they can't stop blabbing about losing your salvation. I don't think there are any landmarkers either.

I realize this is an older post, but, I was looking for discussions on Calvinism vs. other doctrines.

Please define, right dividers, and arminians. Please give contrasting definitions.

[Luke]

Originally Posted by biblereader

I realize this is an older post, but, I was looking for discussions on Calvinism vs. other doctrines.

Please define, right dividers, and arminians. Please give contrasting definitions.

Hi Brother...

We tend to consider Arminians as those who hold to a view of conditional security, although in other ways are much like the Calvinists.

Arminians tend to be Amillennial in doctrine, or post-millennial. They tend to deny the eternal security of the believer through Jesus Christ.

Some arminians are premillennial in doctrine, but rarely in practice. For example, the Charasmatic Assemblies of God are premillennial in end times doctrine, but in practice, they are jewish, with their signs and wonders, and do not rightly divide signs and wonders into the proper dispensations of God.

Most arminians believe in Conditional security because they fail to rightly divide the word of truth. They will look at Matthew 24 and see "Endure to the end to be saved", and ignore the context of the verse, and the context of the whole chapter which is the "end of the world". If anyone had to endure to "the end" as defined in Matt 24, noone would be saved yet, because "the end" has not yet come.

A Biblicist, right divider, bible believer, whatever you want to call me, or us, is not arminian. 99% of us will have never read anything by Jacob Arminius, or John Wesley. We don't believe a believer can be lost, even if they fall away for a time. We believe in the free will of man given to man by the Sovereign God, and that man's free will does not hinder the Sovereignty of God. Man's free will can be influenced by God, directed by God, drawn by God, but that man can also reject God's grace.

Most of us rightly divide the word of truth and recognise a distinction between God dealing with Israel and God dealing with the church. This distances us from Arminius and Wesley a great deal, as their views were still highly calvinist, in terms of Christian living.

According to Calvinists, the christian needs to live their life under the law, not as a way of salvation, but as a pattern of life. Failure to do this proves that one was never saved

According to Arminians, the christian needs to live their life under the law, not as a way of salvation, but as a pattern of life. Failure to do this results in a loss of salvation.

According to Dispensationalists/Right dividers, the Christians need not live their life under the law, but recognises that the law is good and holy, and shows us our state, but that we are not under law but under grace. The Christian's motto is "I am dead, nevertheless I live, yet Not I, but Christ, and the life I now live, I live by the FAITH OF THE SON OF GOD" He need not keep the law, because the law has been kept. His pattern of life is not law, but the Lord Jesus Christ. Death to self, life through Christ.

That line in bold always gets me accused of preaching "license". But consider this.

Not trying to keep the law is a whole lot different from trying to break it.

An illustration I used in a sermon recently was something like this

When you go to the supermarket to buy groceries, you aren't trying to break the law. But you aren't trying to keep it either. You aren't constantly warning yourself every step of the way not to put the groceries in your pocket, not to steal. You just don't. Because it is a way of life. You don't have to try and keep the law. You probably never even think of it the whole time you are grocery shopping. When you get to the checkout, you do what everyone else does, and you pay for your groceries. You don't get to the car and say "phew, that was tough, I am so glad I didn't steal anything, I was so tempted, but I overcame". You didn't even think of it. If you had been trying to keep the law the whole time you were in the grocery shop, it's because you aren't just resting, and doing what comes NATURALLY. You are still fighting.

It's the same with a Christian. A Christian who is struggling to keep the law is fighting with the old nature. He needs to just die, and let the new nature do what it does NATURALLY - live unto God. Jesus Christ is the new nature, and he never sins, so why would he start sinning in you?