> Animism has been around for as long as
> humans have existed, THEREFORE it can be
> called a basic human tendency.
I don't believe any heresy or any evil is a "basic human" tendancy.
It's not a part of our genetic code.
And certainly God did not embed evil into our souls.
We do have some innate drives within us that cause us to sin; like selfishness, lust, and greed, the "sin which worketh in our members".
But animism is not just sin, it is a devil inspired religion. It is the root religion that led to all the other pagan idolatrous religions.
It's been around for a long long time, That's true. But it is not part of our humanity.
It is based on lies that infect man whenever he rejects the truth.
But such lies don't spring up from within us.
They come in and infect us like leaven.
The leaven of the Pharisees that infected the religion of the Jews is directly analagous to the leaven of animism within Christianity today.
> Don't try to tell me that it only became a
> problem with the pentecostal movement that
> started in the early 20th century.
Let's not confuse apple's and oranges here. Animism is ancient. Snake handling appeared in the early 20th century.
But neither animism nor snake handling were problems in American churches until pentacostalism appeared.
There were other problems, but not those.
And Pentacostalism was the wide-open door through which they came.
> One of your sources says this:
> "The earliest roots of the snake-handlers can
> be traced further back to strict Calvinists,
> who were among the early English and Scotch-
> Irish settlers colonizing the Appalachian
> area."
Yes, Go on.
> So I was correct in that it started in the
> Baptist church AND in the south.
Ahhhhh, I'm beginning to see the problem here.
You don't know your church history.
The Baptist church is not and has never been "Calvinist". The Calvinist churches are otherwise known as Reformed churches.
From Wikipedia
"The Reformed churches are a group of Christian Protestant denominations historically related by a similar Zwinglian or Calvinist system of doctrine but organisationally independent."
Here's a link to a list of the Calvinist churches in America.
Calvinist churches are NOT Evangelical.
and Evangelical churches are NOT Calvinist.
They came from different lines of Churchianity.
> Are you going to use this as a club to beat
> pentecostalism over its collective head?
No, I'll leave that to Jesus.
But that doesn't mean that I won't say that Pentacostalism is an open door to heresies.
> I can use Calvinist doctrine to do the same to > Baptists, but who would profit and who would
> be better for it?
Well, as I've been trying to say, Calvinist doctrine has nothing to do with Baptist or other evangelical denominations. So I think you'd have a little trouble selling that argument.
I do admit that in recent times there has been a lot of bleedover from one denomination to another so now, pretty much all churches are infected with one or more major heresies.
It's a sign of the times. The great falling away has already occurred.
> There are all kinds of critics of
> pentecostalism because it is such an obvious
> target.
That's a fact. Extremely obvious.
> Magical thinking and superstition have been a > problem in church doctrine ever since the
> church has existed, and will be till the end of > time.
Yes.
Mystic, esoteric, gnostic, doctrine is an obvious target for criticism.
> Whether you agree or not, it IS
a basic human tendency and you cannot prove that it ISN'T.
Prove???
How can we ever really "prove" anything when it comes to religion? We can just decide to disagree on this point. That's OK.
You think that animism is a basic God given human characteristic, and I think it's a false doctrine that people choose by rebellion and accept by faith.
> All I asked is that we be not so quick to
> lay it on others and that we try a little
> introspection before we decide to attack
> someone else.
Hey, I wasn't going to attack anybody.
If folks want to indulge in spiritual practices that open the door to demonic attacks and strong delusion that's their problem.
But I'm not going to deny that opening those doors is an invitation to disaster just because it might hurt the feelings of those who do it.
I saw the fruit of such foolishness in my own life in the family.