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THE ANGEL POSSENTI:
Many of you may be wondering why I put the heretic group as two posts. I was at first going to put it as one post but as I was writing it, it occurred to me that many people hear these heresies but just didn't have a name to put to them, hence why I put more time in the name origin than the actual thought. These last few don't really have a name history but are all the more deadly to faith in Christ and His Holy Church.
So, on with the countdown...
#6: Gnosticism
Unlike the other heretical teachings, this one isn't so much one teaching but a series of bogus teachings. Gnostic promoters would have you believe Gnosticism predates Christianity yet the earliest known record of it dates only to the second century AD and every scholar now admits there is no pre-Christian gnostic text.
There are also various forms of Gnosticism but they all in a nutshell say the same thing: the material world is evil and the spiritual world is good.
Why is this so dangerous? Because it promotes the idea that people shouldn't bother doing any type of good on earth and instead focus only on the afterlife.
What does the modern Gnostic say? "I'm spiritual but not religious."
#5: Arianism
Created by an early bishop in the Catholic Church, Arianism is the belief Jesus is not divine. Promoters of this have different views of what Jesus is, but they agree He wasn't divine.
What does a modern Arianist say? "Jesus was just a good moral teacher but nothing more than that."
Why is this so dangerous? Because it ignores too much vital info from Jesus' teachings; the key among them being (as CS Lewis pointed out) good moral teachers don't call themselves God Incarnate. Either they're lying about it, in which case you can't call them good for telling that big a lie or they're telling the truth, in which case they're much more than a moral teacher.
#4: Universalism
There really isn't much on this one so I won't dwell on it very long. This one says that all religions in the world are equally valid paths to salvation. A modern universalist would say, "We all have different opinions and all of them are equally valid."
Why is this so dangerous? Because it doesn't bother to look at key differences in teachings that set each faith apart from the others; not only that, several religious teachings (Eastern ones, mostly) don't make sense even within their own faith system.
#3: Indifferentism
I need to clarify here what I mean by indifferentism, because there are two versions of it and only one is the real problem. What I am NOT talking about the spiritual indifferentism proposed by St Ignatius of Loyola. In that version, it doesn't matter whether one is poor or rich, or young or old or healthy or sick: what matters is you're living the same Christian life regardless of your circumstances. That's NOT what causes the problem. Here's what does cause the problem:
We've all heard the notion "all religions are the same." Well, that in essence is the bad kind of indifferentism. The modern indifference promotor says this, but what they really mean is they believe all religious are equally stupid. They may not flat out say that, but that's what their actions and attitudes come down to.
Why is this so dangerous? I know I mentioned this briefly in a previous post, but it bears repeating here:
what if this notion was applied to other things?
"My job is to promote Ford cars, but I don't care if you buy a Nissan. All cares are the same anyway."
"I would like to have a boy, but I don't care if I have a girl. All genders are the same anyway."
#2: Syncretism
This notion is like universalism and indifferentism, but takes things one step further….if all religious are the same and are equally valid, then we shouldn't have any problems mixing belief systems. I decided to put this one higher and separate from the other two because you don't have to openly promote either indifferentism or universalism to wind up promoting syncretism.
What does the modern syncretist say? They will either say something like "We should say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas" or if it isn't December, they will promote a holiday you've never heard of, they've never heard of until a few moments ago, and yet they want to celebrate it all in the name of "tolerance." Another annoying habit of the modern syncretist is to take an old symbol and twist it around to mean something else that has nothing to do with its original meaning…such as people using Guy Fawkes masks.
Why is this so dangerous? Much like not looking to a belief system to see whether or not it makes sense in and of itself, one further blurs fact by mixing different and often contrary beliefs together. It's as if they want to be theological, but dirt-poor Texas sharpshooters by hitting random shots on a barn door then painting the bull's eye after the fact.
And the number one heretical teaching infecting today's world is….
Modernism
Yeah, faithful people saw this one coming. Considered by many lay-people and at least one declared saint as the "mother of all heresies," modernism is both difficult to define yet easy to site examples of it.
For a link to modernism's definition, click here.
What about examples of it?
-whenever someone says miracles aren't possible because science can explain them, that's modernism.
-when people say the laws we have ONLY came about through mutual consensus, that's modernism.
-when someone says people's vision of marriage is too out-dated, that's modernism.
And the big one:
-whenever someone says "the Catholic Church needs to get with the times", that's REALLY modernism.
(Side note: you know who actually says "the Catholic Church needs to get with the times"? Every single FAILED civilization in the past 2000 years.)
Lest you think things couldn't get any worse for what or who offends the Sacred Heart, trust me: the last group does far, FAR worse damage than heretics and unfaithful Jews put together.
Who is this last group? Check back later this week to find out!!!
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