That's What I Said!

Do you always feel that way?  Someone says something and gets credit for the very thought YOU thought of FIRST?  It's my own fault...I don't go immediately write it down and publish it somewhere.  So how can I complain..."whiner!", I say to myself.  Pshh!  Well...my first installment of "That's What I Said!" is here:

I read this article by Dr. Albert Mohler, the President of the Southern Baptist Convention (of which I grew up being a member) and I said, "wow!  They are finally coming around!  And this just may be the thing that leads to uniting us Christians."  Any time Dr. Mohler is speaking on moral issues, my "ears" perk up...ok, my eyes do, when I see him on Facebook. LOL  I can tell he is a deep (Baptist) thinker.  I appreciate it.  I do think, though, where he errs is when he says this:

 At the same time, even as evangelical Christians are helpfully informed by the natural law, our mode of moral reasoning must be deeply biblical, and the Bible must be the ruling authority. For most evangelicals, the major break with Catholic teaching comes at the insistence that "it is necessary that each conjugal act remain ordained in itself to the procreating of human life." That is, that every act of marital intercourse must be fully and equally open to the gift of children. This claims too much, and places inordinate importance on individual acts of sexual intercourse, rather than the larger integrity of the conjugal bond.

Ugh.  Give an inch, they'll take a mile Dr. Mohler.  But that's not the point of my "ugh."  No...really it is a slippish on morality...that leads to the infamous slippery slope.  How is that biblical, kind sir?  Be fruitful and multiply.  Sin of Onan. Yadda Yadda.  If you don't want or need babies at a certain time, do as Paul recommends and "take a break" to greatly paraphrase. LOL  Which is exactly what NFP can do for couples, by the by.  Oh yes, it can, yes it can.  Ask me. ( and too, you err where you say:

 Looking at the Catholic position helps, but evangelicals must also think for themselves, reasoning from the Scriptures in a careful consideration.

This, I know well, is the evangelical/protestant mindset.  As he said very early in his article, paraphrasing, they don't even have a specific "theology" on all of this stuff.  Why?  Because of what he says here...everyone is expected to "think for themselves."  Okay, yes... know that sounds good and all....but....private interpretation of all things theological is what got us in the mess that Christianity is today, with over 80, 000 different denominations all claiming various different beliefs, or some very very similar and they don't even know it.  And, as in my own conversion, what it all comes down to is "by WHO's Authority shall we KNOW the Truth?"  Yes, the Holy Spirit....but working through HIS CHURCH.  Why?  Because the "gates of hell shall not prevail against" Her.  Because Jesus LITERALLY (and figuratively) handed Peter the "keys" to the Kingdom. Because EVERY one needs a leader....a physical human leader, just like our own nation, and every nation on earth, good or bad.....but the Church, we needed one too, in God's  own design, and in his own words, we needed someONE here on earth to be Christ's representative and "right-hand man" so-to-speak.  Okay, you can read more on this elsewhere and all about the Magisterium and why. (Also try here )  My point is...Christ gave us a protector, to keep us all from splitting in a million.  Well, was supposed to...and is still there...the gates have not prevailed...some are just outside the Church, and split...into a million.  Do we have a conscience to follow? yes!  Does the Holy Spirit guide each individual Christian in a personal way?  Yes!  But when that "guidance" begins to stray far from the entire fold...and the historical, biblical Traditions of the Church...it leads...well, astray.  That's not to say the Church doesn't need reform and discipline itself from time to time (from Luther to recent scandals.)  But...core teachings have remained for 2000 years.  And that is my mini-synopsis of the Faith and the Split and our Division and History and all that good stuff. LOL

But getting back to "just" Biblical standards... when Mohler says:

Fourth, Christian couples are not ordered by Scripture to maximize the largest number of children that could be conceived. Given our general state of health in advanced societies, a couple who marries in their early twenties and has a healthy and regular sex life could well produce over fifteen offspring before the wife passes her early forties. Such families should be rightly honored, but this level of reproduction is certainly not mandated by the Bible.

He makes quite the stretch.  No, certainly "be fruitful and multiply" and the blessings of the "arrows" did not "mandate" or "force" a certain high number of children per couple.  Neither did the Church or Pope say that either.  And NFP does not result in that either.  But all of our "advances" in health and society have gotten us to where?  A dying (human) race in many areas. And so, he ends rather quickly by adding what amounts to an "okay" to contracepting.  What little he mentions on the controversy of contracepting vs. abortificients leaves SO much room for error, and
But I digress.   Just how did someone jump the gun on me?  Well, someone far smarter and ....well, yeh, just leave it at smarter LOL....wrote an article about it here 

And now I have had this in draft for so long that its pointless lol so I am just going to messily (that's a word right? Meaning unedited lol) post it anyway. In fact, in the amount of time it took me to work on it the Southern Baptist Convention elected its first ever black president, making big news since it is mostly Southern white men who rule the roost there lol. I will save this topic for another post ...but someone will probably say what I want to say better than I would have before I get to it lol