What happens when we die? Is there an intermediate state?

[Southerner]

Well written, though of course Anabaptists are not exempt from twisting themselves into pretzels either, for similar reasons.

And a lot of the pretzel-twisting has happened when they tried to adopt fundamentalist and otherwise alien doctrines.

What fundamentalist and "alien" doctrines do you have in mind? Particularly interested in the alien side.

And who is the "they"?

[JohnH]

Well written, though of course Anabaptists are not exempt from twisting themselves into pretzels either, for similar reasons.

And a lot of the pretzel-twisting has happened when they tried to adopt fundamentalist and otherwise alien doctrines.

What fundamentalist and "alien" doctrines do you have in mind? Particularly interested in the alien side.

And who is the "they"?

It is well-researched and described elsewhere the fundamentalism-modernist controversies that happened amongst Anabaptists, which resulted in the division between the Old Orders who rejected fundamentalism-modernism, and the rest who accepted it.

"They" would be Anabaptists. By "alien", I mean that fundamentalism-modernism was not part of Anabaptism, but rather something that came in from the outside.

There are more examples of alien doctrines that have infected Anabaptist circles, such as 7-age dispensationalism, Christian Zionism, or the concept of a "crisis conversion experience".

[Nomad]

But there is that bit about the church being able to bind and loose...

I would see Jesus reference to the "keys" that bind and loose (Mt 16:19, 18:18, Jn 20:22-23) as the Gospel message being accepted, as demonstrated by Peter just prior in Matthew 16:16, or rejected by the hearer of the Gospel.

(Mt 16:16)
"Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Rather than "the Church" having the authority of binding people and loosing (which it doesn't appear to have a great track record)...its the Gospel message that is delivered by Christ followers and heard by the sinner and then is either accepted or rejected...binding or loosing (in heaven)...

Constables commentary quotes Tenney:

"...all who proclaim the gospel are in effect forgiving or not forgiving sins, depending on whether the hearer accepts or rejects the Lord Jesus as the Sin-Bearer."

[Southerner]

And a lot of the pretzel-twisting has happened when they tried to adopt fundamentalist and otherwise alien doctrines.

What fundamentalist and "alien" doctrines do you have in mind? Particularly interested in the alien side.

And who is the "they"?

There are more examples of alien doctrines that have infected Anabaptist circles, such as 7-age dispensationalism, Christian Zionism, or the concept of a "crisis conversion experience".

I agree that the aforementioned doctrines are alien.

And fundamentalist views are in the Old Orders...e.g. "the plan of salvation", Biblical inerrancy for starters. Others are in pretzel shapes trying to take the Great Commission literally instead of realizing it was for the apostles.

[Neto]

....
There are more examples of alien doctrines that have infected Anabaptist circles, such as ... the concept of a "crisis conversion experience".

Please define what you mean by "crisis conversion".
Thank you.

A quick search brings up Bible Hub:
https://biblehub.com/topical/t/the_role ... %20Christ.

[joshuabgood]

There is no “authority” for those first Anabaptist leaders as compared to say the importance Catholics give to Doctors of the Church or the Orthodox. Give to the early Desert Fathers.

The point... is that the very nature of Anabaptism means you are on your own in figuring things out. You do not HAVE some sort of “founding authority” nor established authority. Catholics, Jews, Orthodox look at past institutions or teaching differently than you do, and each Protestant sect differs as well. Take the Anglicans. Officially they have past (early Catholic authority) and newer Established authority in their Archbishop. Anabaptist are left with each group, heck sometimes congregation, to figure out where they stand. This board exemplifies this variety.

The problem is that the Catholics and Orthodox simply cannot demonstrate that the doctrines they have adopted on the basis of tradition was actually delivered by the apostles to the first generation of Christians. And in fact the opposite case can often be demonstrated - they held views to the contrary of later so-called authoritative tradition. The thing is, when changes, additions, accretions start to come in over time, usually they come in by someone with good intentions, they want to do something good or they think they're just applying and expanding on current teaching. But they go off track a little and then the next person builds on that and the next one goes off of that. And pretty soon, you're way off in left field, as far as apostolic teaching is concerned. There has to be a method for correcting that. And once you make the Church the infallible interpreter of both Scripture and tradition, there's no way to correct the Church anymore. I understand that modern people want stability, want something historic and settled to hold on to, because of the instability, the rapid changes, the lack of a sure foundation and so on in postmodern culture. So there's this question of who decides, who is the human authority apart from Scripture who can infallibly decide what Scripture teaches? We need some other infallible authority beyond Scripture itself. But this is a misguided impulse. The Word of God is a sure foundation. Human authorities are real authorities but they are fallible, and looking for some established authority to tell you for sure what the Scripture teaches is a foundation built on sinking sand. You will end up twisted into pretzels to defend the assertion, which the Catholic Church makes, that the traditions you currently have are the constant, ancient faith of the church that we've held all along.

There are a few difficulties:

1) Who decided what the "Word of God" is? It seems obvious to me that the answer is, in fact, the church, decided what makes up the *Bible.*

2) I don't think one needs to buy into "infallible" to acknowledge that the church is the best arbiter of how to faithfully interpret and apply the text.

3) The reasoning seems to inexorably result in the Protestant individualist "interpretation" and "personal convictions" which, in the end, some feel substantively undermines the authority of the text as it is merely "your interpretation" of the text. Ie - I just don't have a conviction about that...

[Neto]

There is no “authority” for those first Anabaptist leaders as compared to say the importance Catholics give to Doctors of the Church or the Orthodox. Give to the early Desert Fathers.

The problem is that the Catholics and Orthodox simply cannot demonstrate that the doctrines they have adopted on the basis of tradition was actually delivered by the apostles to the first generation of Christians. And in fact the opposite case can often be demonstrated - they held views to the contrary of later so-called authoritative tradition. The thing is, when changes, additions, accretions start to come in over time, usually they come in by someone with good intentions, they want to do something good or they think they're just applying and expanding on current teaching. But they go off track a little and then the next person builds on that and the next one goes off of that. And pretty soon, you're way off in left field, as far as apostolic teaching is concerned. There has to be a method for correcting that. And once you make the Church the infallible interpreter of both Scripture and tradition, there's no way to correct the Church anymore. I understand that modern people want stability, want something historic and settled to hold on to, because of the instability, the rapid changes, the lack of a sure foundation and so on in postmodern culture. So there's this question of who decides, who is the human authority apart from Scripture who can infallibly decide what Scripture teaches? We need some other infallible authority beyond Scripture itself. But this is a misguided impulse. The Word of God is a sure foundation. Human authorities are real authorities but they are fallible, and looking for some established authority to tell you for sure what the Scripture teaches is a foundation built on sinking sand. You will end up twisted into pretzels to defend the assertion, which the Catholic Church makes, that the traditions you currently have are the constant, ancient faith of the church that we've held all along.

There are a few difficulties:

1) Who decided what the "Word of God" is? It seems obvious to me that the answer is, in fact, the church, decided what makes up the *Bible.*

2) I don't think one needs to buy into "infallible" to acknowledge that the church is the best arbiter of how to faithfully interpret and apply the text.

3) The reasoning seems to inexorably result in the Protestant individualist "interpretation" and "personal convictions" which, in the end, some feel substantively undermines the authority of the text as it is merely "your interpretation" of the text. Ie - I just don't have a conviction about that...

There isn't anything (that I can think of) in the Scripture that supports the whole "Me & Jesus Got Our Own Thing Going, Me & Jesus Got it All Worked Out" logic.

[JohnH]

....
There are more examples of alien doctrines that have infected Anabaptist circles, such as ... the concept of a "crisis conversion experience".

Please define what you mean by "crisis conversion".
Thank you.

A quick search brings up Bible Hub:
https://biblehub.com/topical/t/the_role ... %20Christ.

The "crisis conversion experience" is the evangelical model for how someone becomes born again; basically, they have a highly emotional experience where they are aware their are a sinner and that they become "born again" and are suddenly now saved due to mental assent to the sinner's prayer. Usually this is at a specific date and time.

This is in contrast to the traditional Anabaptist view of salvation, where it is a gradual process, and culminates in baptism and church membership. Note that many evangelicals claim that Amish and other Old Orders are not saved because they don't have a crisis-conversion experience narrative.

[MattY]

There is no “authority” for those first Anabaptist leaders as compared to say the importance Catholics give to Doctors of the Church or the Orthodox. Give to the early Desert Fathers.

The problem is that the Catholics and Orthodox simply cannot demonstrate that the doctrines they have adopted on the basis of tradition was actually delivered by the apostles to the first generation of Christians. And in fact the opposite case can often be demonstrated - they held views to the contrary of later so-called authoritative tradition. The thing is, when changes, additions, accretions start to come in over time, usually they come in by someone with good intentions, they want to do something good or they think they're just applying and expanding on current teaching. But they go off track a little and then the next person builds on that and the next one goes off of that. And pretty soon, you're way off in left field, as far as apostolic teaching is concerned. There has to be a method for correcting that. And once you make the Church the infallible interpreter of both Scripture and tradition, there's no way to correct the Church anymore. I understand that modern people want stability, want something historic and settled to hold on to, because of the instability, the rapid changes, the lack of a sure foundation and so on in postmodern culture. So there's this question of who decides, who is the human authority apart from Scripture who can infallibly decide what Scripture teaches? We need some other infallible authority beyond Scripture itself. But this is a misguided impulse. The Word of God is a sure foundation. Human authorities are real authorities but they are fallible, and looking for some established authority to tell you for sure what the Scripture teaches is a foundation built on sinking sand. You will end up twisted into pretzels to defend the assertion, which the Catholic Church makes, that the traditions you currently have are the constant, ancient faith of the church that we've held all along.

There are a few difficulties:

1) Who decided what the "Word of God" is? It seems obvious to me that the answer is, in fact, the church, decided what makes up the *Bible.*

Just to clarify what is being said and where disagreements between Catholics and Protestants (and Orthodox) arise, all agree that the church did not "make" Scripture; we are not conferring some divine status upon them by our authority; God, the author, is the reason for their authority. They come from God, who committed them to the church, which has the responsibility of discerning it, keeping it, teaching and preaching it, etc. The disagreement is whether the church is infallible in that role. Is the church's authority equal to that of Scripture? The Orthodox, for example, say explicitly that the church's authority is equal to that of Scripture and they are both infallible. On the other hand, I would say that the church most certainly can error and fall away from the truth, as we see in history. The historical process that was undertaken by the church to determine the canon of Scripture was a fallible process. It was not determined by any single declaration by any one person or conference at any one time; it was a bottom-up and organic process, not a top-down determination. A church does not need to be infallible to recognize God's voice in Scripture. By implication, we have a fallible list of infallible books. If one has a problem with that, one might be Orthodox or Catholic.

2) I don't think one needs to buy into "infallible" to acknowledge that the church is the best arbiter of how to faithfully interpret and apply the text.

I agree. The problem is not whether the church is an authority. The problem is whether the church remains subordinate under Scripture's authority.

3) The reasoning seems to inexorably result in the Protestant American evangelical individualist "interpretation" and "personal convictions" which, in the end, some feel substantively undermines the authority of the text as it is merely "your interpretation" of the text. Ie - I just don't have a conviction about that...

I agree about modern expressive individualism. But that's modern and comes from more modern influences like the Enlightenment, secular modernism, postmodernism, maybe the Second Great Awakening, etc. I don't think any good historians will tell you that the magisterial Reformers were more individualist than the early Anabaptists, whom they faulted for stressing individual choice, individual conscience, and creating entirely new separate communities of faith outside the centralized church. Of course I agree with the Anabaptists that the Reformers had errors that required separation and the creation of faithful churches.

And one way to avoid subjective individualist interpretation and "that's just your interpretation, man" is to keep in mind the creeds and confessions of church history and generally hold to them, which is a way to read and interpret the Bible with Christians of the past, appreciate what they had to say, and avoid going off in my own individual direction. I hate to pick on Neto, but he said this earlier:

And, I would say that they fouled up some of the things they thought they were 'fixing'. (Such as the "Trinity'. I think they really muddied the water on that one.)

If we were to re-litigate all the early controversies and say the Nicene creed, Chalcedon, etc. got everything wrong (I don't know exactly what Neto meant, so apologies, I'm just using this as an example) and go whatever way we feel like as a few individuals on our own, that seems very much like an example of modern individualist convictions leading the way (not saying Neto wants to do this).

[JohnH]

If we were to re-litigate all the early controversies and say the Nicene creed, Chalcedon, etc. got everything wrong (I don't know exactly what Neto meant, so apologies, I'm just using this as an example) and go whatever way we feel like as a few individuals on our own, that seems very much like an example of modern individualist convictions leading the way (not saying Neto wants to do this).

An obvious question for you, then, would be if you hold to Eastern Orthodox christological views or to Roman Catholic ones.

Anabaptists who embrace fundamentalism generally teach that you have to hold to the Roman Catholic views, and seem to have very little insight about what, exactly, makes the western view some how more correct than the eastern view. I personally find the intrusion of Reformed systematic theology into Anabaptist circles troublesome. For example, non-Old Order Anabaptists generally throw out the apocryphal books, and have no explanation for why they do so that isn't identical to what a Reformed Baptist would say.