It's amazing how the world can get so f'ed up because of something that doesn't exist except in people's minds.
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Without getting into a huge debate over it, that is of your opinion and I'm not trying to change what you believe.
-Wesley (and moreso the Methodist church) have little if any focus on the rapture. Hardly mentioned in Wesley's sermons. Their focus is on the present.
-A Wesleyan's favorite thing to do is make fun of Baptists for Believer's Baptism. Methodists baptize infants.
-Prosperity Gospel is incongruous with Wesley's ramblings. Sure there's some ministers that say it ain't, but like you said a lot in this thread, a few guys saying it doesn't make it true. Glen Beck can tell you the Methodists are evil because they preach social justice.
The Methodist Social Creed is pretty much the Green Party platform with the word "God" scattered about.
It's possible that I'm weighing a little heavy on Wesley for his part in the "Modern American Church" (it has been a while since I've had to talk about Arminianism - so I am a bit rusty). To be fair, I have no idea where the doctrine of Rapture actually originates (I always assumed it was a cruel joke that people took seriously and things just went horribly wrong from there).
My memory is not as it should be - I'm used to debating Baptists, Pentecostals, and Non-denominationals based on their similarities and not their differences lately so this is actually refreshing.
The whole "Experience Jesus personally" and "intense personal responsibility" were as I understood it, the pre-cursers to "Accepting Christ as your personal Lord and Savior" and in-turn "Believer's Baptism".
The Prosperity theology movement finds its roots in the "personal responsibility" thing too (again, as I understand it). Sort of the Job example where God punishes and rewards here on earth, so if you're successful - you must be doing something right, and if not, you must be cursed or sinning.
Like I said, I'm probably being a little hard on Wesley (its not as if he faired poorly against some of the more radical early American Christians). I guess my view is that his movement (which I have subtle differences with) was later taken on by others and abused to the point of straying into ridiculous territory (sort of blaming Miles Bennett Dyson for the Terminator)
Not really a matter of belief. Unless you can show me any physical evidence it's all nothing more than a matter of faith, e.g in peoples' minds.
Then prove him wrong. It's a silly debate to argue over something that can be neither proven, nor disproven. All we can do is respect each others beliefs until they take it to the point of douche-baggery (and at that point, it's time to blame the individual and not their faith because they were probably pretty screwed up before they got into religion).
It's funny that when someone commits a crime with a gun, everyone on this board are quick to blame the person and not the gun, but when it comes to Islam (or religion), everyone wants to take the blame off of the individual.
I know atheist zealots that honestly sound just like the religious zealots. I'm with GTG 100% in this thread, people are screwed up and there's no reason to blame anything else when they do screwed-up stuff.
Oh lord, I knew exactly where this thread would go before I even opened it up.
I don't think expecting someone to prove a negative is going to work to anyone's favor.
Whent the first church split, both Orthodox and Roman Catholics, claimed to be the original church.
I don't think Wesley's call to experience Christ personally can be called a precursor to believer's baptism. Methodists baptize infants just like Catholics and Lutherans. They only have two sacraments - baptism and communion.
The whole "God punishing here on earth, if you're successful you must be doing something wrong, and if you're not, you must be cursed" is about 180 degrees opposite of any Methodist sermon you are will ever hear. Again, read the Methodists views on social justice and their Social Creed and tell me how any of that supports prosperity gospel. Or any of Wesley's sermons. I think you're way misconstruing the "personal responsibility" thing. We're talking about John Wesley, not Ayn Rand. Your attributing a bunch of SBC stuff to Wesleyans too.
For the record I'm not a believer but have to defend my Methodist family (some active ministers) because as far as church people go, and especially as far as church people go in the south, they're pretty sane.
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I'm actually quite surprised that it's been as civil (and allowed to go) for as long as it has.
What do you mean by "work to anyone's favor"? If nobody is trying to prove anything to you, then why try to disprove it?
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