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Personal profile for user screen name: congregationalist I was asked to provide some info about myself and I find it a fair request since this is a public forum.I will start with my beliefs, not the usual where I’m from and how many kids I’ve got because as Proverbs 23:7 says For as he [the man that is] thinketh in his heart, so is he, in other words if one wants to know what I am, one needs to know what I believe (not where I live however helpful this information might appear). I don’t know the exact day of my conversion to Christianity, only that in the early 1997 I for no apparent reason started to attend a local Baptist church on a regular basis and several months later through reading and studying the Bible, hearing the gospel preached I came to the saving faith in Christ. Bizarre as it might seem, what attracted me to Christianity was the doctrine of predestination mentioned by a friend one day after which I went on a quest to find all the details about the doctrine ending up in the Calvinist camp before I knew who Calvin was. Needless to say from day one the only Christianity I knew and believed was Reformed Christianity. Being converted among the Baptists it was only a matter of time my Calvinistic views would clash with those of the General Baptists (i.e. Baptists of the Arminian persuasion) and eventually I went on to find a denomination rooted in Reformation, holding to Puritan values and preaching the doctrines of grace as set down in Scriptures. At the moment I’m associated with Congregationalists and attend a local Congregational church where Savoy Declaration of Faith is the official confession of faith and this fact alone is why my family and I are in the Congregational church at the moment. Therefore it is proper to say that my beliefs are summed up best in the Savoy Declaration except for chapter 29 (Of Baptism). I still hold, or rather I’m still unconvinced that infants of the believing parents should be baptised. I base my epistemology on Scripture alone starting with the axiom that the Bible alone is the word of God written and therefore inerrant. This system of thought, known as ‘scripturalism’, is, in my opinion, the only system that is able to account for any knowledge at all, although admittedly a very limited knowledge as opposed to all other epistemological systems which cannot, in my opinion, account for any knowledge whatever. Therefore you will never find me engaged in an argument “proving” the existence of God or arguing my point as a ‘classic’ apologete, quite the opposite, you might often see me debating a Christian who believes that because everything has a cause therefore God exists or because archaeologists found Jericho therefore Bible is correct and seemingly giving a hand to an atheist when what I’m really trying to do is to show how similarly false both positions are, one (a ‘classic’ apologete’s position) in accepting a fallacious argument (developed by Thomas Aquinas and popularised by Roman Catholicism) and the other in denying rationality altogether (an atheist’s position). Some personal info: I live in Sydney, Australia, married, the Lord has blessed us with 3 kids so far, all under 6 years of age. Reading systematic theology and riding a motorbike is what I would describe as my idea of free time. I don’t play rugby and I don’t watch cricket, I prefer soccer or cycling for that matter, I don’t say “mate” after every second word when I speak but I do like an egg and beetroot on my hamburger. Cheers, Congregationalist (The above information has been submitted by the author for use solely by the StudyBibleForum.com) |