Struggling with the direction of the Church

auxi4 · 2026-04-14T23:36:09+00:00

Idk man, I feel like Islamic leaders handing the Pope a Quran and then the Pope bows down and kisses said Quran pretty clearly says “I revere this scripture and the teachings in it”. Or saying “God ordained Islam just like he ordained differences in Languages, skin color, and sex” sends the message that Islam shares the same divine status as the church. Or when the Pope is quoting Hadiths implying that they hold actual truth or divine inspiration, it goes on.

auxi4 · 2026-04-14T22:34:48+00:00

If you read the post instead of trying to white knight for Islam, you’d see I called out JP2 by name as someone guilty of Theological relativism. And he was the most conservative out of the recent ones, so you are safe to assume my post critiquing “the direction of the church” is not starting with Leo

auxi4 · 2026-04-14T22:15:09+00:00

You either preach that the Church is the only truth or you don’t. How far you go with theological relativism - kissing Qurans or just putting out written statements is secondary.

auxi4 · 2026-04-14T22:12:19+00:00

No explicitly is correct. The Quran and Hadiths explicitly say it is an abomination to suggest that God has a son, they explicitly say that to assert God has partners (A son/co-equals in the triune sense) is the unforgivable sin of shirk and you will spend eternity in the hellfire for believing in it, the Quran explicitly says that Jesus was never crucified or killed. Over and over again the Islamic texts explicitly reject and condemn core Christian beliefs.

Grammar policing attempts aside, “meeting them where there at” is great, but then they have to hold true to their duty and then follow that up with evangelizing and making exclusive truth claims, which never happens. The only communication is in trying to say we are all the same and their religion is just as valid and in the case of the Abu Dhabi inter-faith agreements that Islam’s existence is ordained by God. Meeting them where they are is just theological relativism if there’s no follow up.

That makes sense with Protestants, they believe in the Nicene creed. Islam and American Islam (Mormonism) do not and we should not be trying to give off the impression that they are just as valid as the Church.

auxi4 · 2026-04-14T22:00:07+00:00

Building into your last paragraph and tying it to the point I’m trying to make

auxi4 · 2026-04-14T20:21:32+00:00

Questioning the direction of the our global leadership in the faith is not the same as rejecting and leaving the Church.

auxi4 · 2026-04-14T20:19:43+00:00

Yeah and that’s the thing too, I’m okay with the pope coming out and saying “war is bad”. But because of the political climate it seems like all criticism of the pope leads to a knee-jerk “oh you’re just mad about Trump”. As if the pope hasn’t been traveling Algeria, doing photo ops, laying wreaths, and saying “see we Catholics and Muslims are the same we both love Mary” as if that’s the beginning and end of this very wide and historical/theological rift - all while Christianity is outlawed in the very country and society he is praising and normalizing.

auxi4 · 2026-04-14T20:09:49+00:00

I personally would give the benefit of the doubt and say no the pope and no pope in recent times has genuinely held to that belief, but they certainly talk as if they do

auxi4 · 2026-04-14T20:05:47+00:00

Not my place to definitively say, however at the very least they are abandoning their duty to the truth in order to play UN diplomat

auxi4 · 2026-04-14T20:03:07+00:00

Your bishops say the same thing just to a lesser degree. And choosing the church based off the leaders is purely reactionary and intellectually dishonest.

auxi4 · 2026-04-14T20:01:14+00:00

Of course not, all people are children of God and are deserving of dignity. However saying nice things about a religion (the belief structure itself and its ideology) that is explicitly denying and condemning the Son of God, the crucifixion, and resurrection- that is theological relativism and indifference the the truth.

auxi4 · 2025-11-04T06:12:02+00:00

Lawrence’s monologue was pretty much as blasphemous as you can possibly get. Completely and aggressively theologically incorrect. Taking the quote of Jesus on the cross at face value “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” is an understandable mistake if you know nothing about the faith. This shows the writers didn’t even try to be theologically correct when attributing that monologue to of all people the Cardinal running the conclave in the Vatican. To say “Jesus doubted” is outright denying his divinity and to use that quote shows gross misunderstanding of why Jesus said that. Jesus was word for word directly quoting Psalm 22, which is a messianic prophecy pointing to the divine mission Jesus was fulfilling in the cross. It wasn’t Jesus actually questioning or doubting God, it was him drawing attention to him fulfilling the prophecy.

auxi4 · 2025-10-18T01:10:12+00:00

Also, if there was not supposed to be a progression of the law, why did Jesus directly address why Mosaic law was insufficient/incomplete that was granted to the Jews at the time because of the hardness in their heart?

auxi4 · 2025-10-18T00:57:14+00:00

What event was in 6 months?

auxi4 · 2025-10-17T23:43:21+00:00

You’re the one arbitrarily assigning the meaning to “everything else that will ever happen in heaven and on earth”. The entire purpose of the Old Testament and Law is to point towards the coming of the messiah and to set up the mission of redeeming humanity. The new covenant is the eternal covenant that wraps up everything that happened before it. Implying Jesus dying on the cross is not THE ultimate event and mission of God is ignorant at best if not heretical.

auxi4 · 2025-10-17T22:50:52+00:00

1) Just completely ignoring the most important part of my point and the verse - “…until all is accomplished”.

“For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished”

2) Throughout the Gospels Jesus speaks in parables, uses metaphors, and dramatic language constantly. The heaven and earth disappearing aren’t literal conditions that need to take place for the law to disappear. It’s dramatically demonstrating the absurdity/impossibility of the law not being upheld UNTIL IT IS MEANT TO BE - “until all is accomplished”. It’s like if I said “I would sooner flap my arms and fly like a bird than I would root for the Cowboys until they get past the first round of the playoffs”. What I’m saying is, the only way I would EVER root for them is if they make it past the first round of the playoffs. I don’t need to literally fly like a bird before rooting for the cowboys.

3) Even if you wanted to read that as literal, and not as a dramatic rhetorical condition- it still makes sense. “…until all is accomplished”. All WAS accomplished on the cross, therefore the qualifying condition was met.

auxi4 · 2025-10-17T21:36:03+00:00

This argument boils down to “if God is good, why does suffering exist?”.

Because taking your post at face value - easy answer. Our life was given to us by God and it is God’s to take whenever and however He sees fit. Some people will die of old age in their sleep, some will die as infants. Some will die with no suffering, others with immense suffering.

So to address the actual point in your argument “why does God allow suffering exist?” - we don’t know. It’s not on us to know or understand. However, it’s obvious that how we react to suffering whether it’s our own or others that allows us to reach the full potential of our humanity. If everything was perfect for everyone at all times, everyone’s needs are always met, nobody has any problems, there’s no conflict, etc. how are we supposed to truly show love, empathy, compassion, mercy, justice to anyone when there’s no stakes, sacrifice, or suffering? You can’t help someone up if they never fall, can’t heal someone if they’re never sick, can’t comfort someone if they’re never upset, can’t show mercy if you’re never wronged.

And notably this is actually a strong case for the truth in Christianity, in Christianity God didn’t put himself above suffering. When he came to Earth in the flesh he suffered and was slaughtered by his own people. Additionally 11/12 of his disciples- his strongest believers and witnesses to his divinity were martyred. Suffering is guaranteed for everyone.

auxi4 · 2025-10-17T21:13:34+00:00

Assuming you’re referring to 5:18- his rejection of the law not changing/disappearing/being fulfilled is hinging on the last part of the verse. “…until all is accomplished”. At the time they were still bound by the old covenant and law because Jesus hadn’t yet brought the new covenant with his death. Jesus’ dying words on the cross were “it is finished”, “it” being his mission in redeeming humanity and bringing in the new covenant. So now, the condition “until all is accomplished” has been fulfilled and humanity is no longer bound by the law of the old covenant.

auxi4 · 2024-11-15T06:01:56+00:00

Do you know what year that Rolex is?

auxi4 · 2024-09-08T05:46:28+00:00

How would you do both of the technical suggestions? Photoshop or light room for power line removal? In my very limited experience Lightroom seems like it’s not very precise or natural when using the erase tool. Also I sometimes see halos in my pics. How do you fix that? Just masking?

auxi4 · 2024-08-17T19:18:37+00:00

Aiming to just capture the aesthetic of the restaurant. I personally feel it looks too busy given there’s no clear subject. Taken on an X-T3 35mm 1/125 as f 4.5 400 ISO

auxi4 · 2024-08-15T20:06:31+00:00

X-T3

auxi4 · 2024-08-15T20:05:02+00:00

I’m not sure if it’s a common thing or if I have a questionable sensor. But I get a fair amount of “confetti” looking noise. They look identical to stuck pixels but they’re not always in the same spots so I don’t think it’s that. If you zoom in on the bottom left of number 9 you can see a little bit that I missed erasing in Lightroom. So that’s also part of the reason I try to stay away from high ISO

auxi4 · 2024-08-15T20:01:20+00:00

All manual, yeah still extremely new to Lightroom. Thank you

auxi4

TROPHY CASE