...

I have many ancestors who fought in the war, and they all fought for the Union (the North).  We even have my Great Great Father's (on my mother's side) diary.  It was translated from the original German in which he wrote it, but it has been in one huge, almost unreadable block of text.  I have just begun the process of breaking it up into comprehensible parts and have plans to publish it as a short book.  

If you're interested, here's the link to a PDF of the English text that is still far from being ready for print, and, of course, a photo of ol' Great Great Grandaddy Adrian Schweizer.

2 hours ago, The real Bob Hutton said:

When I was a young boy I saw a film "The red badge of courage"...

You've just inspired me to re-watch Andersonville.  I'm watching it now.

That may be something they do in the southern states, but I have never heard of Confederate Memorial Day.  I do know that there are plenty of southern-specific terms and traditions of which northerners are un aware.

30 minutes ago, The real Bob Hutton said:

I do hope you don't mind a Brit asking questions about your history, but I have a deep fascination for the Civil War subject.

I, for one, don't mind at all.  Just out of curiosity, what is it about our Civil War that fascinates you?

Welcome, Ms. Darlene!  Glad you have joined us.

It sounds like the people who are giving you a hard time about calling it the Civil War, are southerners.  The way it written in textbooks (at least in the North; I have never seen a "Southern" textbook), the way it is referred to in documentaries and other films here, is "The Civil War."  I have heard people from outside of the U.S. refer to it as the American Civil War, since ours is not the only civil war that has been fought in the world.  However, I have never been corrected and told not to call it the Civil War.  As I said, the other names for it are probably something that is used exclusively by southerners.  This is coming from a born and raised Yankee and means no disrespect to my Rebel brothers, not am I making a statement for or against the war in this post.

Good article.  Well done.

5 hours ago, ialsop said:

About Bibles, does the translation matter? 

Welcome ialsop.  You will find that there are a number of members here that are ex Catholics.  I am one myself.   We believe that the King James Bible is the only version of the Bible, in the English language, that contains the perfectly preserved words of God.  If you can't afford a higher quality (and more durable) leather one, you can find a very inexpensive copy at most dollar stores.  You can download a free copy here: KJV Download, use a searchable online version here: KJV Online, or download a free program here: KJV Bible Program.

All of us here have a profound love for the KJV and will be more than happy to discuss things with you and answer any questions you have.

I think it is possible to create some kind of list, but not without at least discussions about entries with probable debate arising from such discussions.  As long as debates are civil and concise, I don't see anything wrong with that.  Perhaps that could be an intentional part of creating the list.  If you're serious about making a list, what if there was a systematic process that a book had to go through?  Someone suggests a title and then it is reviewed and vetted and voted upon before making the list?  Perhaps some of them would have caveats attached to them.  Perhaps there could be a pros and cons attached to them as well.

These are just a few thoughts off the top of my head.  I just don't think it's possible to compile a list of IFB books without discussion/debate.  There are certain issues upon which some members disagree.  For example, some members here believe that divorce and/or remarriage is never acceptable, while other members believe there are biblically supported allowances for them.  If a book author expressed support for one view, members who disagree would want a caveat attached to the book or may not want the book included at all.  Some members are fans of Ruckman and Riplinger and others are opposed to them.

I would like to see a list; especially one for new Christians, but it would be an interesting and worthy challenge to create one.

I, for one, am pleased to see the closing of those stores.  Before I became IB and KJV only, I used to shop there quite a bit.  I was approached by a manager and asked if I wanted a job in sales.  While sitting through an interview, I learned that they are extremely numbers oriented; to the extent that if a sales person does not meet a certain amount of sales, they are docked hours and face certain other disciplines.  I declined.

Not long after I became IB and KJV only, I stopped shopping there almost completely.  One day, I went in, to purchase a KJV, and was approached by the same manager and was offered a position as an assistant manager and was told that there were no sales expectations for management.  Out of curiosity, I sat through another interview and it went very well.  Then, toward the end, I told him that I was IB and his demeanor changed, slightly.  He asked me if I was KJV only and, when I said yes, his face completely changed and he rushed the end of the interview.  He thanked me and told me that he would call if anything opened up.  I chuckled a little and told him that it is probably not the right place for me.  I held out my hand, he looked at it and opened the door to his office.

Every once in a while, I would stop in just to see what new blasphemies and heresies were being peddled.  I have noticed that, over the years, the selection of KJV Bibles has decreased in the locations near me and the CCM racks in the music section have quadrupled since I first started shopping there.  One of the sales staff even said, "Namaste" to me when I left once.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I am pleased that they are closing.  I think stores like them are dangerous and can confuse and lead new converts astray.

(Proverbs 26:4-5) "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. {5} Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit."

I understand these verses to mean the following: v4 means that we are not supposed to spend our time attempting to reason with fools, in their own foolishness, indefinitely; thinking that if we just make a clear enough argument, that they will be able to see their foolishness for what it is.  v5 means that we are to spend a brief period of time indulging them and playing out their own logic with them; basically, holding their foolishness up in front of them, like a mirror, in the hope that they will wise up.  However, if they don't recognize their foolishness for what it is, then we are to move on and not waste out time arguing about foolish ways of thought.  Is this how others understand these verses or am I completely off the mark?

I used to spend countless hours debating people who hold foolish beliefs, but after years of doing so and believing that I finally understand the above verses, I just don't spend more than a short conversation doing so now.

I have just discovered a man named Tucker Carlson.  I do not know anything about him, but he appears to have the ability to expose foolishness fairly well.  The following video illustrates, very clearly, the foolishness of spending too much time in illogical discussions.  Most people, when confronted with proper logic and reasoning, will continue to cling to their worldview, rather than abandon it in favor of truth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbCCYMGit94

.

Never mind.

1 hour ago, DaveW said:

if it even looks like turning into a bunfight...

LOL!  Forgive me for laughing, but all I could picture is all of us, standing in a room, throwing tiny loaves of bread at each other.

28 minutes ago, Salyan said:

Pink hair, blue hair, or rainbow hair, she deserves to be treated with kindness and respect. I am asking that all members consider that in future when responding to new members.

Thank you.

So, you deliberately ignore the entire rest of my points and imply that the sole reason we suspected her was because she had colored hair.  What I was attempting to show is that there were several reasons that justified asking further questions.  We were neither unkind, nor disrespectful.  If you are asserting that we treated her unkind, disrespectfully or less than human, please provide quotes that show examples of this. 

I previously sent her the following message to which I received no reply:

"Hello, Ms. Charity.

If your request for someone to interview is genuine, please accept my apology for how we responded to your request.  We get a great deal of spam and new members with malicious intent, so we can be a bit suspicious at times.

If you are still interested in interviewing someone for your paper, I would be willing to do so, but I would prefer to do it via private messages here on OnlineBaptist.  let me know if I can help."

This is yet another reason that I suspected her further.  If someone comes into a forum and asks to be contacted for further contact through personal emails, then ignores people when they contact them, if they are legitimate, that makes no sense.  It is like waking into a restaurant, asking to be shown to a seat, asking for a menu, and then ignoring the wait staff when they attempt to take your order and then just sitting there silently.

We did not treat her unkindly or disrespectfully.  We were cautious and asked for more information before we gave out our personal information to a stranger. 

Welcome, brother Stanley.

The forum can get little glitches, from time to time, and not all areas are open for everyone.  As brother Alan suggested, contact BroMatt.  He can help sort things out for you.  Whatever the reason, I can assure you it has not been intentional.  We love getting to know members here.

4 hours ago, Salyan said:

As a moderator, I'm invested in making people feel welcome on this site. This thread just seemed worse than most for being suspicious and unwelcoming, so I said something.

Jim Alaska made a fair suggestion.  Why not move it to another thread

4 hours ago, Salyan said:

but why greet them with 'Hi! We're Baptists, and we don't trust you. Tell us your whole life story before we agree to treat you like a human being.'

A bit melodramatic, don't you think?  We neither asked for a life story nor did we treat her as something less than human.  You might have the opinion that we questioned her unfairly, but painting us like you just did is pretty unfair to us.

Personally, I don't believe we were unfair.  A young girl asks for people to participate in something that would entail giving her our email personal addresses (suspicious sign #1).  She has pink hair and is dressed like an elephant in one photo and in the other photo, she is posing affectionately with another girl with blue hair (suspicious sign #2).  She claims she is writing a college paper that involves Baptists and that there are none to ask anywhere near her (suspicious sign #3).  When politely asked for more information, she does not reply (suspicious sign #4).  

There are a few scenarios that I can think of.  One is that she was genuine, felt intimidated by our questioning and has decided not to return.   Another is that she wanted to interview Baptists in order to twist their words in a mocking way to get a good grade in a college English class.  Yet another is that she was attempting to acquire personal email addresses for the purpose of spam or something similar.  Seeing that the third scenario happens constantly on the internet; especially in forums like this, I don't think anything was handled inappropriately.

Just my opinion.

In my experience, when confronted with the fact that they worship Mary and consider her as an addition to the trinity, most Catholics deny it.  They honor, worship and deify her in their hearts, but they seem to know, intuitively, that it is foolish to openly admit it to non Catholics.

If the "co-redemptrix" thing actually officially goes through, it will be interesting to hear how Catholics will be able to justify it.  I'm guessing that they will be doing a lot of "If we go back to the Greek..." and will be attempting to re-define the words, savior, salvation, mediator etc.  

Perhaps they will say that another little girl came back from playing in the woods and said that she saw Mary and that Mary herself told her to tell the world about her co-redemptrix status. "It's been 2000 years, my child, and the heavenly patriarchy has finally wised up.  It's time the earthly patriarchy finally recognize my authority in the open.  No longer do the women of the world need to pretend to bow themselves down to male authority.  The glass ceiling of Heaven has finally been broken.  P.S. Hillary 2020."

I think enough harumph has been voiced and adequate umbrage has been taken and all appropriate feathers have been ruffled and displayed.  Can we agree to disagree on the subject, as brothers and move on before things heat up?  

10 minutes ago, DaveW said:

... "Most Independent baptists". It really does roll all of us into one barrel.

To be fair, it would roll "most" of us in to one barrel.  

15 minutes ago, DaveW said:

If an unsaved person comes onto this site searching for truth, and comes to this site expecting (rightly) to gain an understanding of what an independent baptist church is, and they find a statement made by IB that says "Most IB are involved somewhat with the RCC..." they will stop looking at independent baptist churches.

...Read this post not as an IB but as a searching unsaved person - would it encourage or discourage you from looking further into independent baptist churches?

I think that if an unsaved and searching person has found this site and has found their way to this post, that kind of person probably has enough sense to not abandon all inquiry based upon a lively discussion contained within one thread.

19 minutes ago, DaveW said:

And if it direct you away, then were will you go to find the truth?

The word of God, prayer, other sites, friends, family, books... I do not believe that this site is the last hope for anyone searching for truth and that if we happen to mis speak or debate about doctrine or opinion, that all is lost for the unsaved visitor.  If they are dissuaded or discouraged by one, or even a few, threads on a discussion board, I would think that they are not very serious about their inquiry.

1 minute ago, weary warrior said:

I've just been bucked off an ornery colt onto my head one too many times. :).

Please tell me there is video footage of that somewhere. :)

If I drive an automobile built by a German, it does not follow that I align myself with the National Socialist movement.  However, if I start listening to songs that include nazi doctrines, start adopting clothing that look more and more like SS uniforms and start heiling friends instead of waving hello, even if I still rebuke the Nazi movement, that should be a red flag that I am being influenced.  I may not even be aware of the influence it is having on me.

Using a calendar and utilizing the names of months and days of the week, which have pagan origins, is different from adopting aspects of pagan beliefs or even celebrating the origins of the pagan days. (by the way, I do not celebrate Christmas, Christ's mass, December 25th or anything else connected to that worldly day).

I don't think anyone is making the argument that something becomes tainted simply because an heretic uses or creates it. If a Catholic writes hymns that are doctrinally sound, then they have written a godly hymn.  If a Catholic priest suddenly decides to start using the KJV, Baptists needn't forsake the KJV.  However, if a Catholic writes doctrinally sound hymns, but also writes heretical hymns and endorses sodomites (just for example), then we should, indeed, separate ourselves from such an author.  The reason for that is not that they can't write some good things, but that if people find value in the doctrinally sound writings, they may seek out more writings from that same author and discover the heretical writings and teachings can creep in.

(1 Thessalonians 5:21-22) "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. {22} Abstain from all appearance of evil."

I keep saying what I was taught when I was young, "When in doubt, do without."  

3 minutes ago, Jim_Alaska said:

My personal belief and sincere hope is that there is no "IB movement" to examine. We are Independent Baptists, churches that are Independent from any denominations, fellowships, councils and associations. In this there can  be no "IB movement".

I also hope that there is not an IB denomination in the future.  If there is some sort of "movement," I would hope that it is merely more Christians adopting adherence to Biblical standards and ways of managing independent individual churches.  If I ever hear of an IB convention (akin to the SB convention), I will be torn between running the other way and wanting to slap them all with a dead fish.  Perhaps the latter and then the former.

.

However, it could be argued that, if this is the case, does it not render the word, "most" completely meaningless in cases where one has not examined more than half of every instance of that which is in question?  One can never say, "most people want to live," or "most people enjoy the taste of food."  One would need to know how many people are living and have asked more than half of them if they want to live or if they enjoy the taste of food.  

It would be a safe wager, from our personal experiences and our knowledge of the nature of human beings, to assume that most people enjoy the taste of at least some foods and that most people have a desire to live, even though we have not personally interviewed tens of millions of people.

With this in mind, and knowing the nature of fallen, sinful human beings, I would agree that most IFB churches (and every other type of church as well) probably do, indeed, engage in soft separatism, because all IFB churches (and all others) are filled with stubborn, willful sinners.

2 minutes ago, Jim_Alaska said:

With all due respect I don't think you spoke to my concern. How is it that you can say that "most IB" churches do this? Have you been to "most IB" churches?

I have my own idea about why even well meaning Christians use terms such as "most" or even attempt to qualify their assertion by giving a certain percentage number. It seems to them to make their assertion more credible. I do understand that this may just be a "slip" of the tongue in an attempt to prove  point.

To my mind, when I hear this or see it written, it brings up a red flag and to me the author or speaker has lost credibility with me.

I don't mean this to be purposely offensive or to question your motives, it is just the way I feel about things of this nature. I have questioned others in this respect when they have posted this sort of text on other subjects also.

To be fair, we cannot say anything either way about "most" IFB churches.  If we take umbrage with someone claiming that most IFB churches are doing something, we must take the same umbrage when someone claims that most IFB churches do not.  If we are going to hold fast to semantics, we have no way of knowing, one way or the other, what "most" IFB churches  do or no not do, unless we visit or at least speak with all of those churches.  So we can no more defend "most" IFB churches than can we accuse "most" of them either.

5 minutes ago, Rebecca said:

"time" to meet and become close friends with everyone, a true close-knit community!

It's interesting that you pointed out the subject of time in Heaven.  I was just talking about that with a friend of mine.  The way that I have gotten my head around how God experiences "time," is that it may me a bit like a book.  I handed my friend a copy of Oliver Twist and asked her, "What time or day is it in this book right now?"  She just looked at me a bit puzzled.  I told her that, for the author, every part of the story is like the present moment.  There is no past, present or future.  He can know everything that happens and turn to any page in any part of the book and interact with it and change it how he pleases.  It is only when the story is read that the illusion of time is experienced.

I'm sure I am nowhere close to understanding how God experiences existence, but that's how I am able to at least get my head around the idea.  How can He know the outcome of every decision of every person, yet  still allow us to have free will?  He has written His book and completed it, yet He allows the characters within its pages to interact with the story to certain degrees and changes things here and there.  

In that way, I don't believe that God is "waiting" to bring about the end times.  I think it's already written to completion and we are still stuck in the space/time of the book where we experience the sensations and frustrations of the illusions of time.

I've never actually thought out the entire theory, but that's the just of how I think about it.