Do we know who the descendants of Mary mother of Jesus were?

Answered by my elder Rick Calvert from Hope Christian Church:

Cody,

The only historical genealogical information of Mary’s family after the birth of Christ are the names of her four other sons.

Scripture states they were named: Joseph, James, Jude, and Simon. These were the half-brothers of Jesus. Half-brothers because Joseph was only the paternal father of Jesus, he was not the material father of Jesus, the Spirit of God was.

The last three of Mary’s son’s mentioned are not to be confused with those who were disciples of Jesus by the same name.

Here are some passages where the other sons of Mary by Joseph are mentioned (Mt. 12:46; 13:55; Mk. 6:3; John 2:12; 7:3, 5, 10; Acts 1:14; 1 Cor. 9:5; Gal. 1:19).

Also, keep in mind that all of the Jewish genealogies dating from Adam to Christ were burned and destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple. The purpose of the genealogical records preserved in Scripture was to identify the Messiah when He came, which they fulfilled (Mt. 1:1-17; Lk. 3:23-38), thus, there was no reason for their preservation any longer and God let them be destroyed by the Romans in the late first century. Therefore, no person today can actually prove they are Jewish, nor can they prove their Hebrew tribal genealogy. This also implies that no one can trace their ancestry back to Mary, Joseph, or Jesus, most likely by God’s design.

Warm Regards,
Rick


How do Christians make sense of exorcisms in other religions?

I think I would be very careful if trusting a non-christian supposedly casting out demons but Jesus himself says that any may cast them out in his name...
Mark 9: 38-40
38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.” 39 But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me. 40 For he that is not against us is for us.
However it's not something I'd like to mess around with.


How did Elizabeth know the name was "John"

Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like
  to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's
  astonishment he wrote, "His name is John."

He had all the time prior to this to write it out to her. That is most likely how he would have communicated it to her. Zechariah writing here is just to show everyone else.


What are the protestant arguments against a sacramental economy?

Abstract
Protestants do perform many of the rites that the Catholic church considers Sacraments, but only two, Baptism and Communion, are considered Sacraments by the majority of Protestants.  These two are the only two rites that are conducted using the formula given to us by Jesus.

Luther, as is usual, took the first step:

We have now finished the three chief parts of the common Christian doctrine. Besides these we have yet to speak of our two Sacraments instituted by Christ, of which also every Christian ought to have at least an ordinary, brief instruction, because without them there can be no Christian; although, alas! hitherto no instruction concerning them has been given.—The Large Catechism IV, 1

Luther suggests here that without Baptism and the Sacrament of the Altar (i.e.  Holy Eucharist), there can be no Christian.  This criteria leaves out Marriage, since many Christians have not and will not be married.
(I don't know were that particular criteria comes from however.  The Bible doesn't explicitly establish rules for what is considered a "Sacrament".)

He also rejects sacramental penance (i.e. Reconciliation) at the start of his 95 Theses:

Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.

This word cannot be understood to mean sacramental penance, i.e., confession and satisfaction, which is administered by the priests.

Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers mortifications of the flesh.

The argument here (which is fleshed out in later points) seems to be that confession is not limited to a rite performed by a priest and is therefore not a sacrament.  (There is some confusion here since Luther seems to label repentance as "the third Sacrament" in The Larger Catechism IV, 74, but in 75 he clarifies that "it is really nothing else than Baptism.")

Joseph Stump's An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism states there are three criteria for a rite to be labeled a Christian Sacrament:

The Command of Christ;

The Use of Earthly Elements;

The Communication of a Heavenly Gift.

Note that these are not explicitly stated by Luther himself, however.  If I recall correctly, this was the criteria I was taught in my Evangelical Covenant confirmation.

For many Protestants, however, the fundamental issue with Sacraments in general is that we reject a specialized priesthood.  In the Old Testament, priests were set aside from the Levites, who were themselves set aside from within Israel, which was itself a people set apart by God.  According to the New Testament, these distinctions have been removed:

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.—1st Peter 2:4-5 (ESV)

Exactly what this passage means practically is a matter of dispute, but many Protestants view the "priesthood of all believers" to mean that all believers have direct access to God via Christ, our High Priest.  (I know that the Catholic Church does affirm the "priesthood of all believers", but I don't understand the position myself.  Please correct and forgive me if I mischaracterize here.)  We submit to the authority of Christ Jesus and to each other, but not a church hierarchy.  While we often do have some form of church structure, it is usually seen as a practical, social construct and not as a result of Apostolic Succession.  Therefore, the distinction between Sacraments and ordinary Christian rites are less clear.  Some traditions eliminate the distinction altogether.

Finally there is an important distinction between Baptism and Communion compared to the other possible Sacraments: Jesus himself gave us the formula (or words) we use to practice them.  For Baptism:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”—Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV)

And for Communion:

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.—1st Corinthians 11:23-26 (ESV)

As far as I can tell, the other potential Sacraments were not commanded by Christ in the same way.  Therefore, while we do practice marriage, ordination, visitation of the sick and dying, repentance, and confirmation (along with many other rituals), we don't view these as equal in significance to the rites instituted by Christ Jesus.


According to Calvinists, why did God say what He did to Cain in Genesis 4:7?

I think the confusion here lies in the extent of the gospel call.  That is, do Calvinists believe that all people are called to repent, or only the elect?

A defining position of Calvinism is that all are called to repent.  As Charles Hodge writes:

  This call is universal in the sense that it is addressed to all men indiscriminately to whom the gospel is sent. [...] It is made to the Jew and Gentile; [...] to the righteous and to the wicked; to the elect and to the non-elect. (3.14.1.2)

Those who believe that only the elect are called to repent are actually called hyper-calvinists.  For a comparison of their views on a somewhat similar passage, see my answer to: What is the Calvinist and Hyper-Calvinist understanding of the “whosoever will” from Rev. 22:17?

Returning to this passage, Calvinists see God here as commanding Cain to repent, to do what is right, and to resist sin, just as he commands all sinners to repent.

Indeed, in his commentary on this passage Calvin explicitly argues that God does not always give the ability to obey when he gives a commandment:

  They, however, childishly trifle, who distort this passage to prove the freedom of the will; for if we grant that Cain was admonished of his duty in order that he might apply himself to the subjugation of sin, yet no inherent power of man is to be hence inferred; because it is certain that only by the grace of the Holy Spirit can the affections of the flesh be so mortified that they shall not prevail. Nor, truly, must we conclude, that as often as God commands anything we shall have strength to perform it, but rather we must hold fast the saying of Augustine, ‘Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.’ (Commentary on Genesis)

That is: God commands all to repent and turn from sin, but he does not intervene to change the natures of all who hear that command.  For some, the spiritual deadness of their nature remains, and thus they prefer to disobey the command and continue to live in sin.


I have found secular history's time lines to be problematic in several areas. But there is enough information to be able to rely upon the prophesy of the 40 year desolation of Egypt.
Adam Clarke's commentary on Ezekiel chap. 29 indicates a 40 year time span from the taking by Nebuchadnezzar to the release under Cyrus.
Introduction Chap. 29,

"and God is introduced denouncing, in plain terns, the most awful judgments against him and his nation, and declaring that the Egyptians should be subjected to the Babylonians till the fall of the Chaldean empire, Ezekiel 29:8-12. The prophet then foretells that Egypt, which was about to be devastated by the Babylonians, and many of the people carried into captivity, should again become a kingdom; but that it should never regain its ancient political importance; for, in the lapse of time, it should be even the Basest of the kingdoms, a circumstance in the prophecy most literally fulfilled, especially under the Christian dispensation, in its government by the Mameluke slaves, Ezekiel 29:13-16. The prophecy, beginning at the seventeenth verse, is connected with the foregoing, as it relates to the same subject, though delivered about seventeen years later. Nebuchadnezzar and his army, after the long siege of Tyre, which made every head bald by constantly wearing their helmets, and wore the skin of off every shoulder by carrying burdens to raise the fortifications, were disappointed of the spoil which they expected, by the retiring of the inhabitants to Carthage. God, therefore, promises him Egypt for his reward, Ezekiel 29:17-20. The chapter concludes with a prediction of the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, Ezekiel 29:21."

Clarke's Commentary on verse 13,

"Will I gather the Egyptians - It is probable that Cyrus gave permission to the Egyptians brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, to return to their own country. And if we reckon from the commencement of the war against Pharaoh-hophra by Nebuchadnezzar, to the third or fourth year of Cyrus, the term will be about forty years."  Source: here.

Gill's Exposition on verse 13,

"Yet thus saith the Lord God, at the end of forty years,.... Reckoning from its devastation by Nebuchadnezzar to the taking of Babylon by Cyrus:
will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered; from Babylon, and other places; Cyrus very probably being stirred up by the Lord to proclaim liberty to the Egyptians, as he did to the Jews, to return to their own land; and at the same time restored Amasis to the quiet possession of his kingdom, who must be still alive; since, according to Diodorus Siculus (w), he reigned fifty five years; though, according to Herodotus (x), he reigned but forty four years. "  Source: here.

Egypt's desolation was also prophesied by Jeremiah in chap. 46.
The indication by many commentators is that when Babylon fell to Cyrus, then Cyrus gave the Egyptians their freedom. But, determining the years from secular historical records is problematic.
Historians place the fall of Babylon about 539 BC.  This would put the fall of Egypt 40 years earlier in 579 BC.  This does not comport with the secular records of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of Egypt in 568 BC.  The secular records are off.
Excerpt from Keil and Delitzsh OT Commentary on Verses 17-18,
The contents of the prophecy, namely, the assurance that God would give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as spoil in return for the hard labour which he and his army had performed at Tyre, point to the time immediately following the termination of the thirteen years' siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. If we compare with this the date given in Ezekiel 29:17, the siege was brought to a close in the twenty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, i.e., b.c. 572, and must therefore have commenced in the year b.c. 586, or about two years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and with this the extract given by Josephus (c. Ap. i. 21) from the Tyrian annals agrees."  Source: here.
As another source places the Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of Egypt in 588 BC, with the end of their desolation in 548 BC.  And, that would mean that the fall of Babylon to Cyrus was about 9 years earlier than secular history records it.  See the info at "Jerusalem 607 BCE" here.


Is 'sola gratia' as a soteriology traceable in the period leading to the Protestant Reformation?

Another theologian who anticipated some of the important thoughts of the Reformation, including sola gratia, was Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), who was frequently cited by both Luther and Calvin.


Does Jesus's soul exist before his incarnation?

This is one of the popular misconception of trinity and incarnation.

Jesus as Logos (The Word) is divine. He existed in that form for eternity in the Trinity. But the humanity of Christ did NOT exist before incarnation. Humanity of Christ consists of his human soul and body. Humans are made up of soul and body, so when Christ became human, ie., when he took human flesh (physical) and soul (spiritual) form, he raised it to the level of his divinity. This raising was completed to the fullest extent in his resurrection thru his glorified humanity (body and soul).

  "At the very instant (of incarnation) that there was flesh, it was the flesh of the Word of God, it was flesh animated with a rational and intellectual soul." - Damascene (De Fide Orth. iii)

Note that God the Father or God the Holy Spirit do NOT have a soul.


Are these verses from Proverbs contradictory?

They may be "contradictory" if taken in a literal sense, but proverbs are not really meant to be taken literally--whether those from the Bible, or from any other source.

Consider the definition of a proverb:

  a short popular saying, usually of unknown and ancient origin, that expresses effectively some commonplace truth or useful thought; adage; saw.

As such, each proverb (whether Biblical or otherwise) must be examined on its own, to see what it means.  Proverbs are very poetic, and full of imagery that should not be taken literally.  Take any analogy too far, and you have chaos.  Try to mix two analogies, and really weird things happen.

Consider a modern rendition of a popular chinese proverb:

  I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand.

Is this saying that literally I forget everything I hear, but I remember everything I see?  Of course not. It's speaking in hyperbole to make a point about what is often considered the most effective way of learning something.

Now lets look at your two Biblical proverbs:

  Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will become just like him.

What point is being made here?  If someone does something foolish, doing something foolish in return only makes you like him.  That seems like good advice, and this point stands on its own.

  Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.

What point is being made here?  When someone does something foolish, to make him aware of his folly, you must address his folly head-on, otherwise he will think his folly is wisdom.  This also seems like good advice, and stands on its own.

And in fact, both pieces of advice can be applied to the same situation, as long as they are each applied appropriately, and in context.

If someone does something foolish to you, you can address his folly head on, without doing something foolish in return.

So no, they do not contradict each other, unless they are taken out of context, and overly literally.


Do angels possess 1) a body, soul and spirit, 2) a soul and spirit or 3) just a spirit?

Within the writings of defenders of the trichotomic nature of man there is significant variation on the question of the nature of angels.  The trichotomy of man is a much more popular doctrine within Protestantism than in other branches of Christianity, so that's the background of the theologians quoted  here.
The simplest part of this question is, do angels have spirits?  It's not surprising that these theologians hold that angels are spirit or have spirits.  Evidence for this will be seen as I handle the remaining two questions: Do angels have bodies?  Do angels have souls?
Do angels have bodies?
Defenders of the trichotomic nature of man fall into three camps on this question: (a) angels do not have bodies, (b) they have a particularly pure body, unlike our own, and (c) we don't know.
(A) J. Rodman Williams belongs to the first camp:

Angels are pure spiritual beings.  [...] This is not an attribute or quality of their being; rather in essence angels are spirits.  Angels, accordingly, are incorporeal: they have no bodies. A spirit, a pneuma, does not have flesh and bones.1

Another proponent of this view is Franz Delitzsch.  He discusses the visible manifestations of angels as follows:

The angels have no bodies; but, by the miraculous power of their will, they might be able to make themselves visible, and to take what forms they pleased, according to the object of their mission, and the subjectivity of the beholder.2

This, he says, is the only sense in which it can be said that angels have bodies: that "like the divine nature, [their spiritual nature] is capable of manifestation."2
(B) The second camp holds that angels have bodies, but that these bodies are somehow more pure or more spiritual than those of man.  Clarence Larkin simply states, "angels have bodies."3  John Bickford Heard, while saying that angels have no "physical nature,"4 nonetheless suggests that angels, like resurrected men, have "pneumatical bod[ies]":

To man [belongs] the nutritive, sentient, and rational, with the germ of the spiritual, and to angels the sentient, rational, and spiritual, without the nutritive. [...] Since man hereafter is to be equal with the angels, the nutritive or plant life cannot form part of his resurrection body. [...] This transformation of man from a psychical to a pneumatical body is analogous to the transformation of insects.5

(C) Those more hesitant to take a position on this question include Lewis Sperry Chafer, who writes, "if the angels have bodies, their bodies are of a spiritual order."6  Similarly, Jan Jacob van Oosterzee calls the question "wholly uncertain" of whether angels were "created free from all corporeity, or simply from our more gross one."7
Do angels have souls?
Here we have more agreement, though some commentators do not directly address the question.  Not surprisingly, members of the first group above, Williams and Delitzsch, do not believe that angels have souls.  Delitzsch writes:

Not as though the angels also had souls: we could only speak of the souls of angels as of a [soul] of God. [...] Scripture only speaks of souls of men and of brutes.8

Heard does not discuss angels having souls, and Johann Tobias Beck writes that "we never hear of a soul in angels."9  Chafer approvingly quotes10 another trichotomic theologian, Hans Martensen, who says:

It is precisely because the angels are only spirits, but not souls, that they cannot possess the same rich existence as man, whose soul is the point of union in which spirit and nature meet.11

Conclusion
In conclusion, we can summarize the views of trichotomic theologians as follows:

Angels are, or have, spirits.
Angels do not have bodies like men; if they do have bodies, they are in some sense spiritual bodies.
Angels do not have souls.

References:

Williams, Renewal Theology, Volume 1, 173–74.
Delitzsch, A System of Biblical Psychology, 81.
Larkin, Rightly Dividing the Word, 93.
Heard, The Tripartite Nature of Man, 87.
Heard, The Tripartite Nature of Man, 354.
Chafer, Major Bible Themes, Chapter 20. (also archived on WebCite)
Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, 316.
Delitzsch, A System of Biblical Psychology, 231.
Beck, Outlines of Biblical Psychology, 9.
Chafer, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, Chapter 2.
Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 133.


Why does the angel of the Lord call out from heaven to Abraham at Genesis 22?

OK, a response for consideration. Not necessarily one you are looking for, but one for consideration.
Genesis is a book, written not just ‘in’ Hebrew, but ‘by’ a Hebrew. And, for an audience who were Hebrews. And it is important to understand this, so that when we read it, we don’t read it from a ‘western’ perspective. An example...
GENESIS 38: 7 But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord killed him.
‘We’ read this, and it ‘says’ that the Lord killed him. That’s what it says - in ‘our’ reading. But, to a Hebrew listener/reader, they would be interpreting this from their worldview. And they would instinctively/naturally ‘read/understand’ this passage in this way. .....
This firstborn child was killed, [by someone] because they were ‘wicked’. God is sovereign. Therefore if this person ‘killed’ the firstborn, God must of allowed it. Because this man was wicked. - Therefore The Lord killed him.
So, when God ‘speaks’, it is not necessarily God speaking directly. It will be a representative. BUT when this representative ‘speaks’, it will be as if God is speaking. And importantly - important for ‘westerners’ to ‘know’, itwillbe written as if God (The Lord) is speaking, even though it is a representative.
So we have ..
EXODUS 3: 7 And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows
Note - Who is speaking. Note how the ‘author of Genesis’ (Moses, a Hebrew, writing to Hebrews, not westerners!) says it is the Lord. Here, the Lord is speaking to Moses. And now note who Moses responds to .....
EXODUS 3: 11 But Moses said to God ...
But, here is the crucial aspect. The point. Exactly who was in the Burning Bush? ‘We’ would say it was God, or the Lord. But, we don’t need to answer this, the Bible tells us .... at the start of this story ..... clearly!
EXODUS 3: 2 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush.
Now, in ‘western thinking’, we have a crowd in that bush. More than one entity. But - in Hebrew thinking we have an angel. A messenger. A representative. An ‘entity’ representing God, but [importantly] it is as if it were God himself! And in any account of this incident, it would be ‘written/related’ as if it were God.
‘Westerners’ struggle with this concept of representation. A Hebrew  wouldn’t. So we ‘look’ for ways to resolve this, example by calling this a ‘Christophony’. Note- I am not saying this can’t be, or wasn’t a pre-incarnation. I am showing, outlining the ‘thinking’ behind how this was written..... because.....
.... This answers your query. That it wasn’t (just/only) an angel who called to Abraham, as far as Abraham would have ‘seen/heard’ this, to him - even though that’s the way it was written - it was God.  And in fact, all those ‘other’ incidents throughout the Old Testament that ‘say’ it was God, it would have been a representative (angle/the angel/a prophet/etc.).
God has only ever worked [on earth] through a ‘representative’, example Jesus, and these days, the Holy Spirit.


Will family members get to visit each other if separated into different kingdoms in heaven?

The main verses of scripture that apply to this are D&C 76:86–88, which is in the section of D&C 76 that discusses those in the telestial kingdom:

86 These [those in the telestial kingdom] are they who receive not of his fulness in the eternal world, but of the Holy Spirit through the ministration of the terrestrial;
87 And the terrestrial through the ministration of the celestial.
88 And also the telestial receive it of the administering of angels who are appointed to minister for them, or who are appointed to be ministering spirits for them; for they shall be heirs of salvation.

In other words, there will be ministration by those in the celestial kingdom to those in the terrestrial kingdom, and also by those in the terrestrial kingdom to those in the telestial kingdom. You can go down to visit people, but not up.


How do Seventh Day Adventists interpret Romans 14:5?

Seventh Day Adventists do not view Romans 14:5 to be about the 4th commandment. We do not believe that the ten commandments (God's moral laws) were abolished at the cross. The law of love would cause Christians to want to keep God's moral laws through grace (i.e. not murder, not commit adultery), it does not free them to then freely murder. The same logic is applied to the 4th commandment, which is specified as the 7th day of the week in the commandment (Exodus 20:10).

Therefore, when Romans 14:5 is read in this context, we believe it is referring to religious holidays. The central issue during the apostolic times were circumcision, eating foods sacrificed to idols, keeping ceremonial feasts and holy days (including the rest days of those festivals). We are free to not keep ceremonial feasts and holy days because they were a "shadow of things to come" (Colossians 2:16-17) (i.e. they were ceremonies that pointed forward to the actual works of Jesus). However, the Sabbath is not a shadow, it represents a memorial of creation, sanctified at creation by God Himself.

Based on the comments on this page, here are a few other points of clarification:

The vegetarians in Roman 14:1 is about those early Christians who became vegetarians to avoid food sacrificed to idols, in accordance to Act 15:29. However, the vegan diet advocated by 7th Day Adventists relates to modern foods. Modern animals are raised entirely different from how they used to before. This is the same reason why the organic food movement is popular today, except 7th Day Adventists realized this in the 1850s. Vegetarianism is not a requirement but is greatly advised for heath reasons.
While Sabbath keeping Adventists do believe that breaking the Sabbath is a sin, they do believe all those who kept Sunday prior to God revealing this light to them are accepted. Those who are introduced to this topic, however, must search diligently and sincerely for the truth in the Bible until they are fully convicted (one way or the other). Sunday worship is not the mark of the beast today, but will be when it eventually becomes mandatory by law in the future, restricting religious liberty. Then it will become a great test on which men decide to serve God or the traditions of men.

For additional study of Roman 14:5, here is a short 2 min video from amazingfacts.org, scroll down to bottom for the transcript.

http://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/media/e/1294/t/does-romans-145-refer-to-the-weekly-sabbath.aspx


What is the theology of the Semi-Arians?

Fr. Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary gives this definition of Semi-Arianism:

The teaching of certain theologians who, after the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), sought a compromise between Arianism and the doctrine of Christ's consubstantiality with the Father. They were led by Basil, Bishop of Ancyra, and their sympathies were toward orthodoxy, although they substituted homoiousios (similar to) the Father. St. Athanasius treated them kindly and their influence was felt in the reaffirmation of the Nicene Creed at the ecumenical Council of Constantinople in the year 381.

From Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.'s, The Trinity & God the Creator, a commentary on St. Thomas Aquinas's articles on the Trinity in his Summa Theologica, the Treatise on the Trinity (qq. 27-43):

According to Arius, God the Father alone is eternal; the Father created the Son, not of His own substance but out of nothing, and then God made use of the Son as an instrument to create the universe and redeem men.
…
After Arianism was thus condemned by the Church as a heresy, the Arians tried to dissimulate their error and said that the Son was similar in nature to the Father, homoiousion or homoion, but they refused to say that He was consubstantial or homoousion. Such was the teaching of Basil of Ancyra and Auxentius of Milan, who are called Semi-Arians. Arianism lasted into the sixth century, when it completely disappeared.
…
Following the principles that misled Arius, Eunomius concluded that the Holy Ghost was not God but a creature made by the Son of God, inferior to Him and similar to the angels. At about the same time, the Macedonians like the Semi-Arians denied the divinity and consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost. Eunomius was refuted by St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Basil of Caesarea, and St. Ambrose. Macedonianism [and thus also Semi-Arianism] was condemned by [Pope] St. Damasus [I] in the fourth Council of Rome (380) and in the following year by the second ecumenical Council of Constantinople. The most important definition of the Council is: "If anyone shall say that the Holy Ghost is not truly and properly of the Father, like the Son, of the divine substance, and true God, let him be anathema." Thus in the fourth century, opposing these heresies, the Church explicitly taught a Trinity of distinct persons, upheld their divinity and consubstantiality, and so preserved the unity of essence together with the distinction of persons. In the earliest centuries, therefore, the Church explicitly condemned that Unitarianism which the liberal Protestants have recently revived.
…
In 325 the Council of Nicaea defended the true tradition against Arius, who taught that the Father alone was truly God, that the Word was the most excellent of creatures, created in time out of nothing, and that the Holy Ghost was also a creature, inferior to the Son. After long discussion it was defined that the Word was consubstantial with the Father, homousion: "We believe in one God the Father almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible. And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten Son of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, as the Greeks say, homousion, by whom all things were made. And in the Holy Ghost."
After this condemnation the heretics tried to cover up their error by teaching that the Son was not properly homousion or consubstantial with the Father, that is, of the same essence, but that He was similar in nature, or homoiousion. Such was the teaching of the Semi-Arians; the Acacians said the Son was homoion, that is, similar with regard to form and accidents. These teachings were refuted by St. Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, and by St. Athanasius.

So, to answer your questions:

Semi-Arians, like the Arians, do not believe in the co-equal dignity or co-eternal existence of the Father and Son (cf. beginning of 3rd ¶ of the "Doctrine" § of this).
Yes, since they teach He is not the same nature as God. (Since they professed to be monotheist, they only believed in the existence of one Godly nature. Thus, according to them, the Son can only be of a creaturely nature.)
They deny the Holy Ghost is divine.


He was offended by Zwingli's conception of the Lord's Supper and he did not approve of Zwingli's followers' propensity for violence in defense of the faith.

Zwingli believed that when the Lord said "This is my body," he meant "This represents my body." This incensed Luther, who regarded it impious. The two only met once, in 1529 at the Marburg Colloquy. They drew up 15 points of doctrine summing up the Reformation and were agreed on 14 of those -- only disagreeing on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. At the end, Luther said to Zwingli's ally Bucer, "We are not of the same spirit."

In Table Talk, a compilation of Luther's remarks by his companions, he says, "I've bitten into many a nut, believing it to be good, only to find it wormy. Zwingli and Erasmus are nothing but wormy nuts that taste like crap in one’s mouth!" At another point he said, "I wish from my heart Zwingli could be saved, but I fear the contrary; for Christ has said that those who deny him shall be damned." Shortly after Zwingli's death in battle he said, "Zwingli drew his sword. Therefore he has received the reward that Christ spoke of, 'All who take the sword will perish by the sword'. If God has saved him, he has done so above and beyond the rule."


How do Christian theologians view and/or use Jewish commentators?

Jewish commentators like Rashi, Ibn Ezra, etc. write comments on the Old Testament(Torah). Jews only have the Torah while Christians have one more set of books, the New Testament. Jewish commentators write explanations based on Jewish traditions and oral traditions, some of which are unknown to Christians.

There are also Christian Bible commentators. For instance, see this site, biblehub.com  for reading Christian Bible online, it has Commentaries. Sometimes they also take the help of Jewish commentators to better understand the background, culture, history and the context.

For Christians, the New Testament explains the Old Testament. For instance, Rashi wrote that Isaiah 53 is speaking about Israel nation while the New Testament says that it speaks about the suffering of Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah.

  Rashi's commentary on Isaiah 53:3

  Despised and rejected by men, a man of pains and accustomed to
  illness, and as one who hides his face from us, despised and we held
  him of no account. (Isaiah 53:3, Jewish Bible)

  [RASHI'S COMMENTARY] Despised and rejected by men: was he. So is the custom of this prophet: he mentions all Israel as one man, e.g., (44:2), “Fear not,
  My servant Jacob” ; (44:1) “And now, hearken, Jacob, My servant.” Here
  too (52:13), “Behold My servant shall prosper,” he said concerning the
  house of Jacob. יַשְׂכִּיל is an expression of prosperity. Comp. (I
  Sam. 18:14) “And David was successful (מַשְׂכִּיל) in all his ways.”

  Acts 8:30-34 (NIV)

  Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the
  prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. “How
  can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited
  Philip to come up and sit with him. This is the passage of Scripture
  the eunuch was reading:

  “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
      and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
      so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
      Who can speak of his descendants?
      For his life was taken from the earth.”[a]

  The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking
  about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very
  passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

  [a] Isaiah 53:7,8 (see Septuagint)


What is the scriptural basis for liberation theology?

First of all, Liberation Theology != Catholic Social Doctrine.

(source: wdtprs.com)
But, it is extruded by some process out of the latter of the two halves of "Catholic Economic Virtues" subsidiarity and solidarity.  Whereas subsidiarity is clearly in the Bible from Jethro's advice to Moses to divide up his duties down to one person judging for just a handful of families.  Solidarity is not so much in the bible, but certainly borne of it.
In the Catholic Catechism, which was compiled and published after most of this mess in the interval between Vatican II and the present, the whole of the expectations for economic activity is under the Seventh Commandment, "thou shalt not steal".

2434 A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice. 220 In determining fair pay both the needs and the contributions of each person must be taken into account. "Remuneration for work should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural and spiritual level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each, the state of the business, and the common good." Agreement between the parties is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages.
2435 Recourse to a strike is morally legitimate when it cannot be avoided, or at least when it is necessary to obtain a proportionate benefit. It becomes morally unacceptable when accompanied by violence, or when objectives are included that are not directly linked to working conditions or are contrary to the common good.  CCC 2434-2435

And specifically, with regard to the injustice between "capital" and "labor" the grave injustice mentioned above is referenced in:

"You shall not defraud or rob your neighbor. You shall not withhold overnight the wages of your day laborer. Lev 19:13
"You shall not defraud a poor and needy hired servant, whether he be one of your own countrymen or one of the aliens who live in your communities. Deut 24:14-15

and

Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. James 5:4

But, also the 10th commandment (and 1st beatitude) addresses and balances the disordered desire to envy the rich and gives consolation to the poor.

2547 The Lord grieves over the rich, because they find their consolation in the abundance of goods. "Let the proud seek and love earthly kingdoms, but blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven." Abandonment to the providence of the Father in heaven frees us from anxiety about tomorrow. Trust in God is a preparation for the blessedness of the poor. They shall see God. CCC 2547


Are all Methodists "Evangelical Methodists"?

No, not at all. Methodism, as with most Protestant denominations, went through a time of theological division in the 19th century as Liberal Christianity grew.

If you're not familiar, Liberal Christianity largely stems from challenges to the doctrine of sola scriptura in the post-enlightment period. There was and is a range of positions, but most Liberal Christians challenge the spiritual authority of the scriptures in some way: by ranking human reason above scripture, but challenging the traditional received authors of the Bible's texts, or by rejecting the infallibility/inerrancy of scripture. Liberal Christianity has also often rejected the traditional Protestant doctrines of original sin, penal substitutionary atonement, or the wrath of God and the propitiatory work of Christ.

The division between Liberal and Evangelical Protestantism has cut through most Protestant denominations, including the Methodist denominations. (Pentecostalism/Charismaticism is usually considered part of Evangelicalism, but could be argued to be a third major division when modern prophecy is allowed to supersede scripture's authority in the church.) In the USA Liberal Protestant denominations are often called Mainline Protestants; in other parts of the world they may be called Liberal or Progressive. Some denominations are essentially entirely Liberal, others may be mixed between Liberal and Evangelical.

Note that the presence of the word "Evangelical" in a denomination or church's name no more ensures that its theology is actually Evangelical in nature than a country's name containing "Democratic" ensures that it is actually a democracy. So the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is considered a Mainline denomination with generally liberal/progressive theology. Similarly there is a denomination called the Evangelical Methodist Church which split in the 1940s from a different Methodist denomination, and so has nothing to do with the recent conflict in the UMC. It is generally on the side of evangelicalism, but we should expect pockets of more liberal churches within it as in all denominations. It's not clear from your question if the sign you saw referred to this denomination or to some other Methodist church which called itself Evangelical; either way the name is not guaranteed to reflect what the church teaches and if you want to know more you'll need to ask them yourself.


Why is it usually easier to do things the wrong or unethical way than to do things the right way?

It's only easier at first to do the wrong thing; but consequences follow and make the way more difficult afterwards.

Proverbs has a lot to say about wisdom and not going the easy, enticing way.

There is a way that seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death. (Prov. 14:12).

and

In the paths of the wicked lie thorns and snares,
but he who guards his soul stays far from them." (Prov. 22:5)

By contrast,

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn,
shining ever brighter till the full light of day. (Prov. 4:18).

As to why it is easier for us to do the wrong thing, Paul speaks of the death that reigns over all mankind because of the sinful nature we inherited from Adam:

...sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin,
and so death spread to all men because all sinned (Romans 5:12)

Our inherited propensity to sin makes it harder to do the right thing.


Does Christianity allow eating pork and horse meat, which even though it is prohibited by the Jewish Law?

Dietary rules among Christians vary from sect to sect. The starting point for understanding the Christian views on food regulation is in the book of Acts, chapter 10, when Peter has a vision and is told that he may eat any kind of food, even unclean food that does not meet Jewish regulations, such as pork. This is symbolic: Peter was told that Gentiles who are "unclean" by Jewish custom may join the Church and become Christians. However, it is also understood in a literal sense: Christians may in fact eat any food in normal circumstances.

However, there are circumstances in which a Christian should abstain from eating certain foods. This rule is binding on all small "o" orthodox Christians:

  1 Corinthians 8:

  8 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess
  knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who
  think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 3 But
  whoever loves God is known by God.[a]

  4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An
  idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but
  one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on
  earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), 6 yet for us
  there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for
  whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom
  all things came and through whom we live.

  7 But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so
  accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of
  it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is
  weak, it is defiled. 8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are
  no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

  9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not
  become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone with a weak
  conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s
  temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to
  idols? 11 So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is
  destroyed by your knowledge. 12 When you sin against them in this way
  and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore,
  if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will
  never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.

Thus, if a Christian has a friend who is offended by something he eats, he should avoid eating it in their presence so as not to harm their friendship or confuse the person about what is right or wrong. The above prohibition is meant to keep Christians from openly participating in the rituals of other faiths and prevent syncretism. Also, since many people keep pets, it is frowned upon to eat animals kept as pets by people we know.

Many religions ban the consumption of alcohol. Some Christian denominations do, but most teach that so long as one does not become intoxicated, they are free to drink alcohol. My personal practice is to never drink in the presence of people I know are struggling with current or past alcoholism, so as not to cause them to stumble.

Some Christian denominations ban the use of tobacco, or the consumption of caffeine, but most permit it.

I was directed by one of the commenters to this passage from Matthew 15, which gives Jesus' opinion on the matter. He said that our speech and conduct is more important than our diet when it comes to pleasing God:

  1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from
  Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of
  the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

  3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake
  of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’a and
  ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’b
  5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to
  help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to
  ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of
  God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right
  when he prophesied about you:

  “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far
  from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human
  rules.’ ” 10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and
  understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but
  what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”


Yes
Catholicism states quite clearly that atheism is a sin.  Disbelieving God means that you are rebelling against God's commands and therefore sinning.
Bible
Atheism, throughout the Bible, is considered "disbelief".  The idea is either that you believe in God, or you don't.  If you don't believe in the one true God (such as atheism), it's categorized as "disbelief".
Here, we can see the results of not believing in God:

Revelations 21:8 (NIV)Emphasis added
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

Disbelief being a sin can also be seen in the Old Testament:

Numbers 14:11
The LORD said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them?"

More: Mark 16:16, John 3:18, John 3:36, Romans 14:23b
Catholicism
Catholicism also shows that atheism is a sin:

2125 Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the virtue of religion. The imputability of this offense can be significantly diminished in virtue of the intentions and the circumstances. "Believers can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism. To the extent that they are careless about their instruction in the faith, or present its teaching falsely, or even fail in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion."
CCC 2125

It uses this bible passage for support of this doctrine:

Romans 1:18 (NIV)
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

Summary
Atheism is one of the gravest sins.  It is all throughout the Bible and Catholic church dedicated a section entirely to dealing with the subject (CCC 2123-2126).  It is undeniably a sin.


According to Catholicism, who is the Wisdom being described in Proverbs 8:22–36?

Catholic theologians have consistently identified "Wisdom" in Proverbs 8 as the Christ.  For example, we find a recent example in the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible:

The personification of Wisdom in the OT prepares for the revelation of the Trinity in the NT.  In particular, this theme reaches its full development when Jesus is revealed as the eternal Son of God.  Not only is Christ the incarnation of God's wisdom (1 Cor 1:24), but he was present with God before the foundation of the world. (commentary on 8:22–31)

And again:

The passage is a prophecy of the Incarnation, meaning the Lord Jesus was created of the Virgin for the purpose of redeeming the works of the Father.  Thus, the flesh of Christ is for the sake of created things, yet his divinity existed before them. (commentary on 8:22)

This understanding goes back to the early church.  Justin Martyr connects Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22–24 to Christ in his Dialogue with Trypho, 129, and the Apostolic Constitutions connects the creation of wisdom with the incarnation of Christ:

Thou hast also appointed festivals for the rejoicing of our souls, that we might come into the remembrance of that wisdom which was created by Thee; how He submitted to be made of a woman on our account (7.2.36)

Ambrose is pretty unequivocal:

Hereby we are brought to understand that the prophecy of the Incarnation, The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works, (Proverbs 8:22) means that the Lord Jesus was created of the Virgin for the redeeming of the Father's works. Truly, we cannot doubt that this is spoken of the mystery of the Incarnation. (Exposition of the Christian Faith, 3.7.46)

This text was a key battleground in the Arian controversy, so we find Athanasius repeatedly making the connection between Wisdom and Christ:

For nothing new was created in woman, save the Lord's body, born of the Virgin Mary without intercourse, as also it says in the Proverbs in the person of Jesus: 'The Lord created me, a beginning of His ways for His works' (Proverbs 8:22). (Statement of Faith 3.4)

Bede writes in his commentary on Proverbs:

In another translation, this passage begins, "The Lord created me at the beginning of his ways in his works." The fathers understand this saying to be about the Lord's incarnation. (1.8.22–30 (Latin only))

We can also point to the implicit connection made between Proverbs 8 and Christ in Aquinas, Summa, First Part, 46.1.
Returning to the 20th century, we find a helpful collection/summary of this tradition in Haydock's commentary:

Some explain this [Proverbs 8:1] of the light which is communicated to men; but the Fathers apply it to Jesus Christ, some of the expressions regarding his divinity, and others his human nature. [...]
As Christ was with God, equal to him in eternity.  Jo. i.  Sept. "created," which many of the Fathers explain of the word incarnate, (see Corn. a Lapide.  Bossuet) or he hath "placed me," (S. Athan. iii. con. Arian.  Euseb.) a pattern of all virtues. [...]
Wisdom, or Jesus Christ, is our salvation, happiness, and life. (Commentary on Proverbs 8)

Thus we see that, in addition to other ancient and modern thinkers, some of the most respected theologians in Catholicism (Ambrose, Athanasius, Bede, and Aquinas are all Doctors of the Church), considered "Wisdom" of Proverbs 8:22ff. as referring to Christ.


What place do ontological arguments for God have in Christianity?

Regarding your first question, there is a key difference between your two examples. They would be more parallel if you framed the first one like this:

  God is the most perfect possible being that can be thought of. Non-existence or a lack of regular competition in barbecuing championships would be an imperfection. Therefore, God exists and regularly competes in barbecuing championships.

Neither competing in barbecuing championships nor attacks on you are essential to being a perfect being or the most scary being, respectively. However, the most scary being could be argued to be one that exists, rather than one that doesn't, so:

  A monster is the most scary possible being. A being that exists is scarier than one that doesn't exist. Therefore monsters exist.

If we hold existing as absolutely essential to monsterhood over other possibly scary attributes, then this holds true. But, we may be able to think of things that seem scarier that don't exist (say a plague of Tribbles on Kronos) than those that do exist, so one might argue that existence isn't essential to monsterhood.

I think Anselm makes a stronger argument towards God, however. In his rejection of Gaunilo's critique, he notes that talking about God is different than talking about the most perfect island. At the very least, we know that the definition of perfection is tied intricately to God in the Christian understanding of God, so whatever God is must be more perfect than what God isn't.

As @justbelieve notes the real rub with the argument is that it cannot prove a particular deity, even if the argument works. We might find that the most perfect possible being -- with existence being the key attribute to that being's essence -- might be very much unlike what we want to label God in a hypothetical reality where God didn't exist.

Speaking of hypothetical realities, Alvin Plantinga has a revised Ontological Argument utilizing modal logic that deals with the idea of multiple realities. Perhaps someone who is a braver soul than I would like to explain it.

Regarding your second question, the Ontological Argument's major proponents have included St. Anselm, René Descartes, Karl Barth and Alvin Platinga, just to name a few. Contra the argument within Christian tradition would be a great many others, including St. Thomas Aquinas (cf. Summa Theological 1.2, especially questions 1 for the rebuttal and 3 for his alternative).


Is Baptism by Holy Sprit and Baptism by Fire the same thing?

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

  Those who have held that "water" in the Gospel text is to be taken
  metaphorically, appeal to the words of the Precursor (Matthew 3), "He
  shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire". As "fire" must
  certainly be only a figure of speech here, so must "water" in the
  other texts. To this objection, it may be replied that the Christian
  Church, or at least the Apostles themselves, must have understood what
  was prescribed to be taken literally and what figuratively. The New
  Testament and church history prove that they never looked on fire as a
  material for baptism, while they certainly did require water. Outside
  of the insignificant sects of Seleucians and Hermians, not even
  heretics took the word "fire" in this text in its literal meaning. We
  may remark, however, that some of the Fathers, as St. John Damascene
  (Of the Orthodox Faith IV.9), concede this statement of the Baptist to
  have a literal fulfillment in the Pentecostal fiery tongues. They do
  not refer it, however, literally to baptism. That water alone is the
  necessary matter of this sacrament depends of course on the will of
  Him Who instituted it, although theologians discover many reasons why
  it should have been chosen in preference to other liquids. The most
  obvious of these is that water cleanses and purifies more perfectly
  than the others, and hence the symbolism is more natural.

The Catholic Church considers the fire to be symbolic, just as it does with the water.

But some other denominations take it more literally (e.g. Should We Want to Be Baptized With Fire?), especially when considered in light of John's complete sentence rather than the truncated prooftext quoted in the question and used for eisegesis in the Catholic Encyclopedia excerpt.

  I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh
  after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he
  shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:  whose fan is in
  his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat
  into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

John is contrasting the two possible final fates that we face.  This literal baptism of fire will occur at the end of the world, when all that have rejected salvation and God's holy spirit will be reduced to ashes.


The principle of subsidiarity is restated from earlier documents in the Catechism:

1883. ... The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which "a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good."7
7 Centesimus annus 48 §4; cf. Pius X Quadragesimo anno I, 184–186

Reciprocal subsidiarity is — on the face of it — meaningless. While subsidiarity is asserting the independence of a lower order against the interference of a higher order, that higher order is immune to the lower order's interference simply by virtue of being the higher order.
But subsidiarity is not just protection from interference. It is the support and co-ordination of activities with the rest of society, always with a view to the common good. Subsidiarity commonly means that the government should guide lower communities to work together to the common good.
It is this which can be reciprocal. Governments should listen to their communities to understand what the common good actually is. Building a nation is not pure imposition (which directly goes against subsidiarity) or guiding/defining boundaries which allow local determination but which does not further the common good, pitting local governments against each other and the State*. The common good is the good of all. Everyone has to put themselves at the service of others, within their own sphere of responsibility.
The Pope was addressing both Houses of the Legislature in what is arguably the most powerful country in the world. He was saying that for a government to be a good government, it has to allow itself to be guided by its people in order that it can do as it must and serve the good of the people.

*State here means the top level of government: Federal in the US, Parliament in the UK, etc.


What is the historical and theological basis for Protestant anti-Catholicism?

The Thirty Years War was a really bad time, and in many ways may be responsible for the grief between Catholics and Protestants.  While I would argue this animosity is way, way less bad than it was in the past, in the past it could be very bad.

In Pilgrim's Progress, for example, the Protestant John Bunyan (who was in jail for preaching!), compared the Pope to a Pagan heretic, and calls him dying but not yet dead:

  In this light, therefore, he came to the end of the valley. Now I saw in my dream, that at the end of the valley lay blood, bones, ashes, and mangled bodies of men, even of pilgrims that had gone this way formerly; and while I was musing what should be the reason, I espied a little before me a cave, where two giants, Pope and Pagan, dwelt in old times; by whose power and tyranny the men whose bones, blood, ashes, etc., lay there, were cruelly put to death. But by this place Christian went without much danger, whereat I somewhat wondered; but I have learnt since, that Pagan has been dead many a day; and as for the other, though he be yet alive, he is, by reason of age, and also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints that he can now do little more than sit in his cave’s mouth, grinning at pilgrims as they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come at them

No less a luminary than Charles Spurgeon warned against letting down the guard against "Popishness", saying in his sermon The Attractions of Popistry:

  Now, all this has mainly passed away, and we are relaxing our resistance against the dreaded foe just in proportion as he grows more formidable. It has become the fashion to condemn controversy and to affect the widest charity for this and all other foes of Christ and of souls. High Presbyterian authority even is quoted as saying, that henceforth our concern with Romanism should be chiefly ironical!

And, this book On the Evils of Popery calls on protestants to "resist the evil aggressions of Rome" in its very first paragraph.

From a Protestant perspective, there is an historical case and a theological case.

In brief, historically, many good Christians died at the hands of the Roman church. Whether it be Hugenots, Waldensians, and many of the Reformers themselves, there is no doubt the church persecuted its theological enemies.  That said, there is no doubt the Protestant church in England did the same to its adversaries, and the pattern is not unique to either Catholicism in particular or Christianity in general.  (Indeed, one only need examine the Shia-Sunni wars in Islam to see this is a human tendency, not a Christian one.)

Theologically, there are differences between Catholics and Protestants - chiefly:

Governance.  In general, Protestants have a disdain not for any particular Pope, but for the idea of a Pope in general.
Marian Devotion. In general, Catholics have a regard for Mary that strikes many Protestants as worship
Latria. What Catholics view as honoring Saints and their icons, many Protestants view as idol worship
Purgatory, Indulgences, and other Accretions. Many Protestants view Catholics as having added a lot to Scripture - Purgatory being one example of a concept not really known to Scripture.

Issues like these contributed to a situation in which Protestants had legitimate grievances against a church. Indeed, in much the same was as Anti-Semitism was considered proper for a long time, so too Anti-Catholicism was as American as Apple Pie, leading to the formation of the Freemasons, the KKK, and the Know-Nothings, and derailing the Presidential ambitions of Al Smith in 1928 and nearly costing JFK the Presidency in 1960. (Only by declaring independence from the Pope could he diffuse the issue.)

From a Roman Catholic perspective, Protestants were schismatics - Christians who were denying the authority of the church. This is treason at best and apostasy at worst - serious stuff.

Now, in fairness, I would argue most enlightened Christians on either side now view many of thee issues as secondary, and most of the fighting as historic hurt and not present issues - but to gloss over it is to forget a important divide.  These are rarely first order concerns however.  We both believe in Jesus as being divine, fully god-fully man, all of the creeds and all that stuff. Indeed, much like Common law, the Protestant position is to accept Catholic dogma, unless if there is a modern precedent to overturn it.

To say there are no grievances between the churches is thus wrong - but it is really easy to overemphasize them too.  Christians are still humans. Humans always have something to fight about.  So, the answer to your question, Why do Protestants not like Catholics is this:

We're still human.


What influence did Greek philosophy have on the formation of orthodox Christian doctrine?

There were a lot of things that Greeks taught and believed that resemble what mainstream Christianity has come to embrace. For example

  The concept of a soul within us that cannot die first became a ‘Christian’ doctrine at the end of the second century AD. Hell had been taught in Greek philosophy long before the time of Jesus, with Plato (427-347 BC) as the important leader in this thinking.
  The teaching of an everlasting place of punishment for the wicked is the natural consequence of a belief in an immortal soul. By the year AD 187, it was understood that life, once we have it, is compulsory; there is no end to it, either now or in a world to come. We have no choice as to its continuance, even if we were to commit suicide to end it.

More detail given at Truth According to Scripture


Do the reformed theology adherents believe that a believer should not "converse with" or "pray to" or worship the Holy Spirit?

Reformed theology maintains the full deity and personality of the Holy Spirit, so that there is no inferiority attached to the Holy Spirit that would result in the kind of subordination that the ‘Reformed House Church’ you mention makes in its statement of faith.  What they claim seems to be but one step removed from ancient movements such as the pneumatomachians, or Macedonians, who denied the deity and personhood of the Holy Spirit. They were refuted by the Cappadocian ‘Father’ Basil who I will quote later.

At the outset, I will quote from Reformed theologian Michael Horton in his 2011 seminal work, “Pilgrim Theology” (Zondervan, abridged from ‘The Christian Faith’). It is important to understand why, in this century, some Christian groups have moved so far away from the reverence for the blessed Holy Spirit that was held by the early Church, that we get statements such as the one you have stated in your question. Once we grasp what the current theological state is of apparently ‘Reformed’ groups who verbally claim the Holy Spirit to be divine and personal, yet say he is not worthy of worship, then we will see why they are but one step removed from ancient groups denounced by the ‘early Church Fathers’.

In his chapter on the Holy Trinity, subheading “III. Practical Benefits of the Doctrine of the Trinity” Michael Horton writes:

  “The Father, the Son, and the Spirit stride across the chapters of
  redemptive history toward the goal whose origin lies in an eternal
  pact between them. We worship, pray, confess, and sing our laments and
  praises to the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit.  We are baptized and
  blessed in the name [singular] of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
  Spirit… We are adopted as children, not of a unipersonal God, but of
  the Father, as coheirs with his Son as Mediator, united to the Son and
  his ecclesial body by the Spirit…  As we noted earlier, “to the Father
  is attributed the beginning of activity, and the fountain and
  wellspring of all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel, and the ordered
  disposition of all things; but to the Spirit is assigned the power and
  efficacy of that activity.” [Calvin ‘Institutes’ 1.13.18.]  No less
  than the Father are the Son and the Spirit our Creator and preserver.
  No less than the Son are the Father and the Spirit our Savior and
  Lord. No less than the Father and the Son is the Spirit ‘worshipped
  and glorified.’ “One of the reasons that many Christians have found
  little practical relevance of this doctrine for their lives is that
  our public worship – and therefore private piety – has become
  increasingly emptied of Trinitarian references. As we’ve seen, one of
  the reasons for the controversies and greater refinements in
  formulating this doctrine is that monotheistic Jews were now offering
  worship to Christ and the Holy Spirit as well as to the Father. In
  addition to the New Testament formulas for baptism and benedictions,
  ancient prayers and hymns planted the Trinitarian faith deep in the
  hearts of Christian people across many times and places. Christians
  throughout the ages didn’t just talk about the Trinity (which still,
  more often than not, happens today), but to the Father, in the Son, by
  the Spirit. “Many forms of worship today, however, have dispensed with
  these rich resources without replacing them with equally Trinitarian
  elements… To the extent that our experience is not Trinitarian, it is
  not properly Christian. One of my goals in t his book is to explore
  the relevance of the Trinity not only across the whole system of
  Christian doctrine, but in our lives as worshipers and disciples of
  Jesus Christ. “Many of the differences in faith and practice between
  Christian denominations and traditions can be attributed at least in
  part to a tendency to overlook this mutuality of the three persons in
  every work. It is not surprising that liberalism reduced the Trinity
  to the Father (as in Adolf von Harnack’s oft-repeated formula, ‘the
  universal fatherhood of God and universal brotherhood of man’) and
  therefore has had little interest in redemption by a divine Savior or
  its supernatural application by the Spirit. Deism needed only an
  Architect, not a Contractor and Builder. The tendency to focus on
  Christ apart from the Father and the Spirit has also led to a
  reductionistic view of redemption that is disconnected from creation
  and consummation. Placing the Spirit at the center – often in reaction
  against these other tendencies – one can easily treat the Spirit as a
  freelance operator rather than the one whose mission is to shine the
  spotlight on the Father’s word concerning his Son’s work. Throughout
  this volume we will be fleshing out what it means to say that in every
  external work of the Trinity all things are done by the Father, in the
  Son, through the Spirit.” (pages 103 to 104)

This lengthy quote shows why apparently ‘Reformed’ groups who verbally claim the Holy Spirit to be divine and personal, yet say he is not worthy of worship are but one step removed from ancient groups denounced by the ‘early Church Fathers’.

Here now is a little bit about the Cappadocian Father Basil the Great, in Roger E. Olson’s book, “The Story of Christian Theology” (InterVarsity Press 1999)

  “Finally, Basil turned to Christian experience of salvation and argued
  against the subordinationists of the Spirit that since the Holy Spirit
  effects our salvation, he cannot be anything but God. Only God can
  save… In all things, then, the Holy Spirit is incapable of being
  parted from the Father and the Son.  It is the Spirit who applies
  God’s salvation to our lives… Of course, Basil was more than willing
  to allow a certain kind of subordination of the Spirit to the Father
  as the Father is the eternal fount of all divinity from whom the Son
  is generated and the Spirit proceeds. The analogy is to the sun and
  its light and warmth. The latter originate in and from the former
  without being inferior or ‘after’ it. So the Son of God and the Spirit
  of God are God’s eternal counterparts sharing in his very being and
  glory while being subordinate in position but not in being to God the
  Father…  In ‘On The Holy Spirit’ [Basil] declared theological war on
  those who would in any way deny the Spirit: “But we will not slacken
  in our defence of the truth. We will not cowardly abandon the cause.
  The Lord has delivered to us as a necessary and saving doctrine that
  the Holy Spirit is to be ranked with the Father” (Basil ‘De Spiritu
  Sancto’, 10.25) “Why (Olson continues) “was the deity of the Holy
  Spirit so important to Basil? … Basil would cry that to deny the
  Spirit’s deity is to place a question mark beside the deity of the
  Father and the Son. In Scripture as in worship as in personal
  Christian experience, the Holy Spirit is always associated with them
  as sharing equal honor and dignity, and equal honor and dignity imply
  equal nature. One cannot be ontologically subordinated to the others
  without that impinging on the honor and dignity and glory of all the
  persons of the Godhead.”

To say that the Holy Spirit is God, yet to decline to worship the Holy Spirit, is to make a mockery of the full deity of the Holy Spirit. It amounts to mere verbal declarations of honour, that are without any substance. I would say that Reformed literature is replete with evidence that the Holy Spirit is to be worshipped, prayed to, and addressed with all due reverence as to the Father and as to the Son. I have given but two recent examples of such Reformed literature (one of which harks back to the view of the Cappadocian Father, Basil.)  I hope this indicates that the Reformed house church you allude to is on very shaky theological ground indeed, if it wishes to retain its ‘Reformed’ status.


Who is the Spirit hearing from in John 16:13?

Verses 12-15 make it pretty clear that the Spirit is functioning under the authority and direction of the Father and the Son. What the Spirit is speaking is coming from the Son and the Father. We can see this as Jesus is promising the Spirit will be his replacement, if you will, as God's primary representative on Earth. The Spirit is fully God. The Spirit is also subordinate to the Father and Son, not because of any distinction in power or value, but a clear distinction in roles.


What was the early Coptic doctrine for beliefs in the afterlife?

Regarding Coptic doctrines on afterlife or any other topic, it is important to note that Orthodox in general (be they Chalcedonian or Miaphysite) generally place great stock in "keeping the faith of the Apostles," even more than us Latins — who have a principle of doctrinal development. Thus, if you ask a Copt about their theology in Late Antiquity, they will tell you it is the exact same as their theology in the 21st Century.

That said, if you still subscribe to the position that some development must have taken place, then your best bet is to read the works of the Alexandrian Fathers. The standard work collating the extant documents of the Greek-speaking Fathers, Patrologia Graeca, has  several writers who hail from Egypt; the most important ones are Clement of Alexandria (volumes 8 and 9), Origen (volumes 11–17), Athanasius (volumes 25–28), the Desert Fathers (volume 40) and Cyril of Alexandria (volumes 68–77).

Note that the Patrologia Graeca has all the writings then known from 1st to 15th Century theologians writing in Greek in any subject, so there is substantially more in there than simply views on afterlife; that the version composed by Migne has side-by-side versions in Latin and Greek (but not English), so we'd have to look elsewhere for translations of those in these languages; and that particularly in the case of Clement and Origen, part of their writings is considered heretical (generally having a Neo-Platonist slant).  So tread with care.


What is the Christian perspective on the description of God?

The following recent books are very popular and explore the topic. I have read the first two and heard some sermons from the third.

Books:
The Attributes of God by A. W. Tozer
Knowing God J.I Packer
The Attributes of God by A.W. Pink

Tozer's sermons are easily found, for example here.

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=8130752728

Common ideas or 'attributes of God, go as far back as bible commentary, and many different sorts of commentators surprisingly agree on most of them.

The first key concept of God  is that he is infinite and has no boundaries. The infinitude of God is central to the name God told Moses to use:

  Exodus 3:14
  God said to Moses, “ I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘ I am has sent me to you. ’"

'I AM' implies infinity. God always was. This means therefore, whatever God is He is so without any limit, having no beginning.  This leads to the second primary concept, he is ineffable and incomprehensible.  This means we can never fully explain Him as the finite can't comprehend the infinite.

Although there are few books fully dedicated to the subject, all Bible commentators recognize these attributes when encountering them in a particular bible verse. Attributes, based on what the Bible say’s about God are always explained from an ' I AM' perspective. For example, the Bible say’s God is wise, therefore, He is infinitely wise.

One attribute always leads to another. If He is infinitely wise then He must be infinite knowing. Otherwise his wisdom would have a limit or boundary. He could be fooled over things He did not anticipate.

Common attributes:

Powerful - this often implies all powerful, that is all power is derived from Him. He is therefore the sustainer, that is all things are held together by Him. This includes all molecules an even the Devil himself.

  Colossians 1:17
  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Omnipresent - that is He is everywhere but the universe cannot contain Him.

  Psalms 139:7-8
  Where can I go from your Spirit?
  Where can I flee from your presence?
  8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
  if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

Omniscient - that is all knowing, past and future.

  Hebrews 4:13
  Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

All wise - He knows the most perfect means for achieving the most perfect ends, using the most prefect ways. He knows the end from the beginning.

  Romans 11:33
  33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
  How unsearchable his judgments,
  and his paths beyond tracing out!

Self Sufficient - that he needs nothing or anyone in any sense. Kind of implied by the name 'I Am' or possibly Psalm 50:10-12 might be a good reference.

Transcendent - that is His excellence, value and glory rises infinitely beyond anything. This is self evident everywhere in the Bible.

Good - that is he desires the utmost good of all creatures (there is controversy among theologians on what this means because Calvin in one sense restricted goodness, love and grace to the elect). I think that was a critical error on his part, though on most subjects I usually agree with him.

Merciful and Full of Grace (this is the most controversial) I take mercy to be preventing judgment for the purposes of His grace. Also implies pity and understanding of our weakness without grace. Grace, that He is infinitely willing to provide His endless riches at Christ's expense.

  Deuteronomy 4:31
  For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath.

  Romans 3:23-24
  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Holy - that is perfectly without sin. I take this actually to men 100% loving, without any hate whatsoever. (Most theologians would prefer other wording, stinking to just pure whatever else they think pure might be) Example: Leviticus 19:2

Just - that is never showing any partiality or favoritism but able to perfectly discern what is fair. Example: Deuteronomy 32:4

Other attributes can be added to the list, almost whatever is good in a person, God is so perfectly. Virtually every page of the Bible assumes one or more of these attributes.

The Bible argues that all mankind can understand some of  God's attributes like His eternal power:

  Romans 1:20
  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Some attributes such as his love and grace seem only perceived by faith.

Other attributes may be manifest specifically by the incarnation, in the God-Man. For example God's empathy is difficult to perceive in the The bible, except when reading the gospels ad witnessing how much empathy Jesus had for those that were suffering.

Some like Tozer argue that no attribute can be greater than another as they are all infinite. Others disagree noting that love is greater than patience and kindness, since they are just subsets of love.  Therefore, 1 John 4:8,  'God is love.' really implies the 'essential attribute'. If it wasn't how do we explain that when we try to be like Him, we are to put love on top?


The book of revelation as comfort to persecuted early Christians

Sounds like you are talking about Preterism.

Essentially, this is that all the events described in Revelation have already happened, in the first century. Since Revelation was written towards the end of the first century, if this view is true then its readers would have been reading about events that had already happened.


What does "labor or cost of a godly life" mean?

"your sticking at the supposed labor or cost of a godly life"

I think sticking at here is meant in the sense "To scruple at; to hesitate to accept or believe, to demur to, take exception to, be deterred by" (OED, stick v.1, PV2.1 to stick at) or "To be impeded or brought to a stand at (a difficulty)" (ibid., PV2.2). This sermon was written by Richard Baxter, a non-conformist; one of the OED's citations is to his fellow non-conformist John Bunyan, who wrote in The heavenly foot-man (1688):

  They who will have heaven must not stick at any difficulties they meet with, but press, crowd, and thrust through all that may stand between heaven and their souls.

Likewise here, the people being addressed in the sermon are said to be deterred or hindered by the supposed labor or cost of a godly life. That is, they are reluctant to lead a godly life because they perceive it as being too difficult or costly. They have "cold and lazy prayers and performances" and continually give in to their temptations. Baxter calls on his audience:

  The next time you go prayerless to bed, or about your business, conscience might cry out, Dost thou set no more by Christ and thy salvation?

He believes the labor and cost to be worthwhile, in view of the reward.


Why are Lussekatter served on St. Lucy's day (i.e. why cats?)?

There are many traditions and legends many of the saints. This is especially true of many of the early Christian martyrs and St. Lucy is no exception.

First of all, Who is St. Lucy of Syracuse?

  St. Lucia of Syracuse (283–304), also known as Saint Lucy or Saint Lucia (Latin: Sancta Lucia), was a young Christian martyr who died during the Diocletianic Persecution. She is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Orthodox Churches.

  The oldest record of her story comes from the fifth-century Acts of the Martyrs.2 The single fact upon which various accounts agree is that a disappointed suitor accused Lucy of being a Christian, and she was executed in Syracuse, Sicily, in the year 304 during the Diocletian Persecution.3 Her veneration spread to Rome, and by the 6th century to the whole Church. The oldest archaeological evidence comes from the Greek inscriptions from the catacombs of St. John in Syracuse. Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea was the most widely read version of the Lucy legend in the Middle Ages. In medieval accounts, Saint Lucy's eyes are gouged out prior to her execution. - Saint Lucy (Wikipedia)

Some legends claim her that her eyessight was restored just before her death. This and the meaning of her name led to her connection with eyes, the blind, eye trouble, etc.

St. Lucy of Syracuse

How St. Lucy became associated with cats will remain a little of a mystery for us. Nevertheless there are some small glimmers of insight here and there.

  The first recorded appearance of a white-clad Lucia in Sweden was in a country house in 1764. The custom did not become universally popular in Swedish society until the 20th century, when schools and local associations in particular began promoting it. The old lussegubbar custom virtually disappeared with urban migration, and white-clad Lucias with their singing processions were considered a more acceptable, controlled form of celebration than the youthful carousals of the past. Stockholm proclaimed its first Lucia in 1927. The custom whereby Lucia serves coffee and buns “Lussekatter” dates back to the 1880s, although the buns were around long before that. - Lucia and Swedish Saffron Buns “Lussekatter"

How did devotion of St. Lucy arrive in the Scandinavian lands?

  She was also known to feed her people in times of famine. A story is told that St. Lucia arrived in the Syracuse harbor in 1582, bearing wheat on a ship for the townsfolk who had prayed to her for help while they were starving. A similar story takes place in medieval Sweden. St. Lucia, “with a face so radiant that there was a glow of light all about her head,” arrived in a ship on Lake Vannern bearing provisions during a winter famine. From both of these stories comes the custom of eating wheat porridge in honor of Lucia.

  Various explanations are given of how the Italian Catholic saint traveled to Lutheran Scandinavia and became firmly entrenched in Nordic culture. Did the Vikings bring the story of St. Lucia back with them on their travels? Perhaps the story was carried by German traders, or priests and monks from the British Isles may have introduced the story.

  However the story arrived in the northlands, it seems clear that the name “Lucia,” from lux (light), captured Nordic hearts as she merged with their ancestral traditions of Freya and Frigga.

  It was not unusual for the titles of ancient goddesses to be adopted as titles for both the Virgin Mary and for female saints. “Freya Vanadis,” meaning “shining bride of the gods,” reminds us of Lucy’s title “Lucia Bride.” Frigga was known as “Queen of the Aesir,” and St. Lucy was also called the “Lucia Queen.” Both were solar goddesses, associated with sun symbols such as sunwheels, cats, spinning, amber, and gold. Freya was called der vana solen, “the beautiful sun,” in a Swedish folksong.

  The “eye” imagery of both Juno Lucina and the martyr Lucia is linked to Freya’s eyes which shed tears of amber in the ocean and gold on the earth. - Who Is Santa Lucia?

Somehow the legends of St. Lucy intermingled itself with the mythology of the Norse goddess Freya and her two cats.

  The celebration of St Lucy spread over all of Europe. But the place where she is most beloved is Scandinavia, where light is especially welcome in the long hours of winter darkness. On her day, the eldest (or youngest) daughter rises before dawn and fixes a breakfast of special pastries and coffee for her family. She appears in their bedrooms, dressed in a white dress belted with a red sash, and wearing a wreath of greens and four (or seven or nine) lighted candles. Sometimes the wreath is made of green rue and decorated with red ribbons. She serves traditional pastries called lussekatter (or Lucy cats), x-shaped pastries, sometimes flavored with saffron. Other traditional foods served in her honor include saffron buns, ginger biscuits and glogg, a hot spiced wine with aquavit.

  Just as the Italian Santa Lucia partakes of the qualities of Juno Lucina, the midwife aspect of Juno the Queen of Heaven, the Scandinavian St Lucia (partakes of the qualities of Freya, Queen of Heaven. Helen Farias speculates that the constellation we now know as Orion was once viewed by Celts as the great goddess Bride (the girl representing Lucy is called the Lucy Bride) and by the Northerners as the Goddess Freya. (Orion’s belt was sometimes called “Freya’s Distaff”). Many centuries ago, this constellation processed across the sky during the winter nights, setting in the west at dawn about the time the daughter dresses herself as Lucy. Freya travels across the sky in a chariot drawn by cats. (Now Orion reappears in the North American sky in December.) Perhaps Lucy’s celebration replaced earlier rites devoted to Freya, thus explaining the Lucy cats and the star-boys. - St. Lucy's Day

Norse goddess Freya and her cats

For the present, the actual connection of how St. Lucy became connected to Freya and her cats seems to be lost in the annuals of history.

In any case, Bon Appetite everyone!

As for the traditional lussekatt - Lucia cat/saffron bun it has a thousand year history behind it. According to many mythologists the bun is in the image of the goddess Freyas favorite cat, hence the Swedish name. - Lucia in Sweden


Are Christians required to believe the teachings of their own denomination?

Authentic faith should never demand a sacrifice of the intellect!

From Fr. Robert Barron, Catholic priest.

  One of the signs that you're not dealing with authentic faith is that
  you've had to sacrifice your mind.

However, it's important to acknowledge the bounds of one's own intellect, giving due respect to religious traditions that have been fed with thousands of years of intelligent thought and divine revelation. Christianity ultimately started in Judaism. Hence, our founding philosophy is well over 5000 years old. And the core Christian addendums, if I may call them that, have been scrupulously pored over and tested for nearly 2000 years.

Don't be afraid to bring your intellect fully into your faith. Also, bring your experience, spiritual and otherwise. But, acknowledge regularly your own intellectual limitations, your ability to be deceived, and your tendency towards self-serving reasoning. Remember again, that your spiritual advisor is likely trained to help you recognize your self-deception!

Remember that many major traditions only "insist" on adherence to some core set of beliefs. You are generally free and encouraged to roam a vast expanse of practice and thought.

Now, since it is likely that your priest or minister will make mistakes, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, etc., remember: If you're in one of the major traditions, your priests have been sacramentally consecrated. They perform a specific, sacramental role which is to be rightfully honored and respected, even when the priest-person is in error.

And if I may offer a personal plea: Avoid relativistic tendencies. Under the cry of being open-minded, folks sacrifice their intellect far more than most any religion ever asks of them! The human intellect is pretty insistent that the world is ordered, that reality is what it is, and that there are correct and incorrect statements -- that truth is absolute. Though you may often cede not to know the right answer, I would beg that you insist, in most cases, that there is a right answer! And that often means the other answers are wrong, regardless of how compassionately we can acknowledge it.


Is communion service at the rail vs. in the pews a function of denomination or church size?

In Catholic churches, Communion is required by the Holy See to be distributed by a minister (priest, bishop, deacon, etc) and may only be done so by a lay person if there are not enough ministers to do the job. This, and the requirements about how the congregants receive the Eucharist from the minister, suggests that in Catholic churches, altar distribution is the way it goes. This is one of the many Catholic practices that originated in the Catholic Churches need to control its congregants. The ministers have control over whether you receive the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Episcopal/Anglican churches also practice this distribution by ministers, although I'm not certain about requirements as I know less about the Anglican church hierarchy. Lutheran churches do too, sometimes referring to it as The Sacrament of the Altar. Both of these come from their close ties to Catholicism back in the day.

In the various other Protestant persuasions, the desire to draw away from the rules and rituals of the more orthodox denominations and the belief that God connects directly with all people, not just through the ministers, lead to a significant de-formalization of the communion rite. Also, since most Protestants do not hold the that communion is a sacrament, but rather a remembrance of Christ's death for Christians on the cross, the formal ritual became unnecessary.

Also because of the lower importance that Protestants place on the Eucharist, it is not celebrated weekly at all churches, including Lutheran and Anglican churches. Catholics, however, are required to take communion weekly.

As to whether you can tell, at Protestant churches, there is not a sweeping generalization to be made based on denomination or size. That said, you could probably tell by when you walk in if you see a communion table set up with those communion cup-holders stacked on top of each other or if you see somewhere to kneel at the front of the church.


What does Mary look like in the Fatima Apparitions?

Your quotation from “We are not alone in the Universe” by Konrad Kulczyk, seems to be at odds with Catholic statements about Our Lady and her apparitions at Fátima in 1917.

Konrad Kulczyk seems to almost make the whole situation the imaginations of three little children. Nothing is further from the truth.

Yes, it may be possibly true that both Lucia and Blessed Jacinta never stated that the Lady never called herself the Mother of Jesus nor the Mother of God however she did describe herself as “the Lady of the Rosary” in her final apparition!

  It was Mary's final appearance, on Oct. 13, 1917, that became the most famous. In his book "Looking for a Miracle," Joe Nickell states that "an estimated 70,000 people were in attendance at the site, anticipating the Virgin's final visit and with many fully expecting that she would work a great miracle. As before, the figure appeared, and again only to the children. Identifying herself as 'the Lady of the Rosary,' she urged repentance and the building of a chapel at the site. After predicting an end to [World War I] and giving the children certain undisclosed visions, the lady lifted her hands to the sky. Thereupon Lucia exclaimed, 'The sun!' As everyone gazed upward, and saw that a silvery disc had emerged from behind clouds, they experienced what is known [as] a 'sun miracle'." - The Lady of Fátima & the Miracle of the Sun

Wikipedia’s quotation is very close to how Lucia described Our Lady of the Rosary, who is no other than Mary the Mother of Jesus! Nothing more is known.

  On May 13, 1917, ten-year old Lucia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto were herding sheep at a location known as the Cova da Iria near their home village of Fatima, Portugal. Lucia described seeing a woman “Brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal ball willed with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun”.

As for Kulczyk, never have I come across any statement comparing Our Lady to the imagery that Mary must have seemed like a 3’8” of 1.1 m tall to the imagination of some 12 or 15 year old child. What nonsense. I have read many, many books on Fátima and have never read about any such conclusions by a Catholic author on this subject. Kulczyk is definitely wet behind the ears.

Sorry Kulczyk: Mary wore a blue dress all the way down to feet and not simply a skirt just to her knees like you mention.

  The first Marian apparition occurred on 13 May 1917 as the children were tending to their sheep. They had had their lunch, and, as was their habit, had started to pray the rosary when they heard “lightning in a clear sky.” Fearing a storm was approaching, they decided to head home. As they prepared to leave, a strange light in the sky moved toward them. The children reported that, although astonished, they felt no fear. They claimed a beautiful lady appeared before them, “above the holm oak tree, wearing a pure white mantle, which was edged with gold, which went to her feet. In her hands the beads of a rosary shone like stars, with its crucifix the most radiant gem of all.” During this first visit the apparition told the children not to be afraid, that she came from Heaven. She asked them to pray the rosary and to return to the same spot on the thirteenth of every month. Then the apparition returned the same way it had come. - The Marian Apparitions in Fátima as Political Reality: Religion and Politics in Twentieth-Century Portugal


1 Thessalonians 1:4, how is the chronological order according to Calvinism?

Since both the love of God for his own, and the election of God, in Christ, are an eternal matter, rather than a matter of time, I think that the question, in its present form, cannot be answered.

What is made clear in scripture is the following :

  I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. [Galatians 2:20, KJV.]

Three things are made clear :

The reason that the Son of God redeemed Paul was because the Son of God loved Paul prior to that redemption.
The redemption of Paul was not a corporate matter, but an individual matter. Paul was  not redeemed as one of an indiscriminate crowd, but as one personally known and loved.
The redemption of Paul occurred before Paul did any good works. Paul only 'now' lived by faith. Only 'now' after redemption is Paul crucified with Christ and walking in the Spirit.

Since the love is called the love 'of the Son of God' (not the love 'of Jesus') what is being drawn to the attention is the Divine and eternal love of Christ, in Deity, towards the man Paul.

If an eternal love, then a love that is not a matter of time, a love that had no temporal beginning and a love that cannot be separated (in terms of time) from other aspects of the Divine knowledge (that is to say foreknowledge) of the man Paul.

  Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. [Jeremiah 31:3, KJV.]