Podcasts about Protestantism

Even as politics began to shape the Protestant view of Scripture during and following the Second Great Awakening, a new method for approaching and interpreting Scripture arose, drawn from effects in every field of study of the scientific revolution introduced by Francis Bacon. Sadly, as this new approach took hold in Protestantism, that continues to this day, science was in the process of rejecting that approach. It changed Christianity and the nature of the gospel itself and fostered its current cultural irrelevance. Support the show: https://www.factennessee.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The worldview of many evangelicals who say the Bible is their basis for understanding the world, including law and government, don't realize that their view of Scripture, and thus, their worldview, began to be shaped more by politics during and following the Second Great Awakening than by Scripture. If you want to understand “our times,” why so many Christians don't heed the Bible in law and government, and why Protestantism is wandering aimlessly about, you need to listen. Support the show: https://www.factennessee.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Understanding the differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. 

Jesus, "you nailed that one, Peter! And on this rock I will build my Church." There is a long-standing Roman Catholic interpretation of that as well as an established Protestant interpretation of that seminal verse. In light of the Paleo-Hebrew worldview is it possible that Jesus' assertion meant something still different? Let's think through this together. I also reflect on the recent SCOTUS leak concerning Roe v. Wade.

When you hear the word "Orthodoxy" what do you think of? Maybe you think of some ancient Christian practices from the dark ages. Maybe you think of candles and big beautiful buildings. Or maybe you don't even know what to think. Today we're talking with Tikhon, an Orthodox Tiktoker who converted from Protestantism to Orthodoxy in 2019. He is a member of the Church of Antioch and is currently in Seminary growing his love for God and his tradition. This conversation is both insightful and enjoyable and Tikhon is a really easy guy to talk to and get along with! Check him out on Tiktok under the username "tiktoktikhon" Enjoy! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thingsyoudonthearinchurch/support

What common ground does Roman Catholicism share with Protestantism?

John Donne (1572-1631) lived myriad lives. Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing. He was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, an MP, a priest, the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral – and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language.Katherine Rundell, author and academic, joins Dan on the podcast. They discuss Donne's conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism, his imprisonment for marrying a high-born girl without her father's consent, and his often ill health and familial struggles.Produced by Hannah WardMixed and Mastered by Dougal PatmoreIf you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michael Lofton is interviewed by Dustin Quick from Holy Smokes about his journey. Visit Dustin’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ETruth1

Michael Lofton and William Albrecht sit down to discuss the papacy. Both critiques from Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism are engaged. 00:00 Introduction. 02:05 How the papacy led to William’s conversion. 03:31 Do some Catholics read too much into the evidence for the papacy? 04:48 How different are Catholics and Eastern Orthodox on the papacy? 05:58 […]

Welcome to the first part of our reading series on Roland Boer's Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. We are joined by our Comrades in Christ, Mir and Ben for the first two chapters, which mostly deal with Karl Kautsky's writings about early Christianity and how it informs the communist tradition.Boer, Roland. Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. Studies in Critical Research on Religion . Haymarket Books, 2020.Music: Ktož jsú boží bojovníci written by Jan Čapek z Klatov in 15th Century as a battle anthem for the Hussite rebels. Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)

Pope Pius V was beatified one hundred years to the day after his death, on May 1, 1672, and was subsequently canonized forty years later on May 22, 1712.  History has told the story of this strong man, totally committed to his God, his Church, his religious order and his children, the people of God.  He has been found to be a powerful soldier of the Counter-Reformation.  He did what he did to stem the tide of Protestantism in the only way he knew how.  And the Church has honored and rewarded him by raising him to the Communion of Saints.  No greater reward can be given to a man of God.  We thank You, Lord Jesus, for giving us this great Defender of the Faith at a time when we needed him desperately.  Lord, we think You've given us a Pope Saint Pius V today in Pope John Paul II.  Please give him strength and health.  We need him.  Support the show (https://bobandpennylord.store/pages/about-us)

In this episode, we talk about Mormon priestcraft and show just how much they fit into their own description, all while denying it, of course. (Mormons and their leaders are awfully good at that!) This will lead us directly into part 2 of Bruce R McConkie's book Millennial Messiah. We have an enjoyable time also discussing Martin Luther and the rise of Protestantism. We will also talk about why we think McCrankie hated Catholicism so much.  Then we'll close it out with some amazing news about a successful Malaria vaccine. Enjoy!  Show notes:    Main topic: Priestcraft Priestcraft:  https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/gs/priestcraft?lang=eng The Dangers of Priestcraft:    https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teaching-seminary-preservice-readings-religion-370-471-and-475/the-dangers-of-priestcraft?lang=eng  A Popular History of Priestcraft In All Ages and Nations:    https://archive.org/stream/popularhistoryof00howiuoft/popularhistoryof00howiuoft_djvu.txt   MOGP: Millennial Messiah by Bruce R McConkie  Martin Luther: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther  The Ninety-Five Theses by Martin Luther: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-five_Theses  Protest Reformation:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation  Catholic Counter-Reformation:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Reformation  Council of Trent:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent  These countries have the most religious freedom:   https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/religious-freedom  Tyndale Bible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyndale_Bible  Happy News:  More Than One Million African Children Protected by First Malaria Vaccine:   https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220421-more-than-one-million-african-children-protected-by-first-malaria-vaccine    Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GlassBoxPod  Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/glassboxpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlassBoxPod  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glassboxpodcast/  Merch store: https://exmomerch.creator-spring.com/ Be sure to use discount code GLASSBOX for a tithing off your order!!!   iTunes reviews: We need more!   

During the final years of King Henry VIII's reign, Catholics were in charge and Protestantism was illegal. Despite this danger, Anne Askew very proudly and publicly shared her Protestant beliefs around London. Up until her imprisonment at the Tower of London, torturing women on the rack was also illegal. Anne refused to reveal the names of her fellow Protestant friends (perhaps including Queen Catherine Parr herself) and her inquisitors felt the need to take extra measures. Shockingly, this could have been the only incident on record where King Henry VIII believed in equal rights for women. Unfortunately for Anne, that meant getting her limbs slowly and painfully pulled apart.  At only 25 years, Anne Askew was the first women to have been both tortured at the Tower of London and burnt at the stake. 

A chat about Catholicism, Protestantism, and conversion with Cameron Bertuzzi & Dr. Scott Hahn.

Questions Covered:  05:02 – Where is the earliest mention of the celebration of the Eucharist outside of the bible?  12:17 – I ran into a claim that Jesus was actually King Tut. I heard it said that the name Tut also means “I Am that I Am.” Can you help refute it?  14:38 – What would be the Catholic response to Dispensationalism?  21:55 – Could I be a moral car salesman?  24:13 – If God knew that I would be skeptical and that would lead to hell, does that mean that he created me just to suffer?  29:34 – Does the Church have a teaching on the fundamental option?  34:38 – I had a Protestant tell me that we don't have a choice on which graces we receive from God. How do I respond to this?  42:52 – During the Collect at Mass the priest no longer says, “One God forever and ever,” and now just says “God, Forever and Ever.” Why was there a change?  45:46 – Where can I find in the bible that we are supposed to honor Mary and the saints?  50:31 – If most of Protestant concerns for the Church have been answered, why is there still Protestantism?  …

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a great tragedy with many facets. One of the more significant elements is the role of Orthodoxy, Eastern Christianity often unknown by those in Western Christianity like Catholicism and Protestantism. In this episode we discuss Orthodoxy and how it is intertwined with the complexities of the invasion of Ukraine. Our guests are Paul L Gavrilyuk and Cyril Hovorun. Dr. Gavrilyuk holds the Aquinas Chair in Theology and Philosophy at the Theology Department of the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. Born in Kiev, Ukraine, he studied physics at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology i Russia. He was one of the first scholars from the former Soviet Union to come to the United States to pursue graduate work in theology. In 2001, he received his doctorate in patristics from the Graduate Program in Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. Dr. Hovorun is a Professor of Ecclessiology, International Relations and Ecumenism at Saint Ignatios and Professor at Stockholm School of Theology. He is originally from Ukraine, where he first began his studies in theoretical physics before moving to the study of theology at the theological seminary and academy in Kyiv. He continued theological education at the National and Kapodistiran University of Athens and Durham University in the United Kingdom. The topic of his thesis was related to the post-Chalcedonian Christology. Fr. Hovorun taught theology in a number of confessional and public institutions, including theological academies in Kyiv, Moscow, Minsk, and elsewhere. Please consider making a donation to Rebuild Ukraine: https://rebuild-ua.org/ Paul L. Gavrilyuk: https://paulgavrilyuk.wordpress.com/ Cyril Hovorun: https://www.sanktignatios.org/dr-cyril-hovorun/ Learn more about our work at https://www.multifaithmatters.org. Support this work: One-time donation: https://multifaithmatters.org/donate Become my patron: https://patron.podbean.com/johnwmorehead #Ukraine #RussiaUkraine #Orthodoxy #EasternOrthodoxy

In the 500+ years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, few aspects of his subsequent theological reformation remain as contentious and debated as the distinction between law and Gospel. Indeed, to this day the discussion divides not only Roman Catholics from Protestants, but is hotly debated within Protestantism itself; there is an agreement on the importance of the distinction, but a decided lack of consensus about how it should be understood and implemented. Far from a merely academic dispute, how one understands this important theological concept will largely determine his or her reading of scripture, the purpose and nature of the church, and—according to Luther—the Gospel itself. In this episode, Dr. Jady Koch discusses the distinctions being debated today, and the various arguments concerning how this distinction can help combat (or perpetuate!) the errors of legalism, antinomianism, and gnosticism.

Catholic theologian Matthew Tan joins Jonathan for a conversation about the contemporary face of Catholicism in Australia. They explore the breadth and depth of diversity in Australian Catholicism, its impact on Australian society, its relationship to Protestantism, popular perceptions and misperceptions about the denomination and new inter- and intra-ecclesial sectarian alignments in Australian Christianity generated by the influence of politics. Dr Matthew Tan is Dean of Studies at Vianney College, Wagga Wagga, a Campus of the Catholic Institute of Sydney. He is also a Senior Lecturer in Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, and blogs at Awkward Asian Theologian. The Political Animals is hosted by Jonathan Cole, an academic, writer, speaker and translator who specialises in political theology: the intersetion of religion and politics. He is Assistant Director of the Centre for Religion, Ethics and Society at Charles Sturt University, and author of Christian Political Theology in an Age of Discontent: Mediating Scripture, Doctrine, and Political Reality. You can follow Jonathan and the show on Twitter and Facebook.

Martin Luther's objections to the sale of Indulgences signaled the birth of Protestantism that changed the world and the relationship between religion, commerce, and conquest at the beginning of European exploration and colonization of the North American continent. Special guest Pastor Lance Ralston of the History of the Christian Church podcast has graciously agreed to share his unique views on this remarkable period in history. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/b-x3K-ILEr4 which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. Support our channel by watching and clicking on the ads in this video. It costs you nothing and by doing so gives us extra credit and encourages, supports & helps us to create more quality content. Thanks! Thank you for the many wonderful comments, messages, ratings and reviews. All of them are regularly posted for your reading pleasure on https://patreon.com/markvinet Get exclusive access to Bonus episodes, Ad-Free content, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on Patreon or Donate on PayPal at https://bit.ly/3cx9OOL and receive an eBook welcome GIFT of The Maesta Panels by Mark Vinet. Denary Novels by Mark Vinet are available at https://amzn.to/33evMUj Mark Vinet's TIMELINE video channel at https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Twitter: https://twitter.com/TIMELINEchannel Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 YouTube Podcast Playlist: https://www.bit.ly/34tBizu Podcast: https://anchor.fm/mark-vinet Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WadeOrganization

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2:10:30 Created vs uncreated energies 3:06:50 Rachel Wilson, occult femenism 3:10:50 Orthodox prayer for the departed 3:21:30 Election, Predestination. Sola fide 3:34:40 Orthodox sources of dogma 3:41:50 Pragmatism 3:54:00 Correct Canon 4:01:30 Superchats and promotions 4:25:30 Atheist Coomer

0:01 Best part 7:26 Introduction 22:00 Universalism, David Bentley hart 1:08:17 Analytic-synthetic distinction, empiricist dogmas 1:22:34 Monarchism vs Democracy 1:32:20 Schism, evangelism, apostolic succession. evidentialism. 1:57:00 Protestantism and the creation of the modern west 2:05:40 Roman Catholic inquirer

Bible Study with Jairus – Acts 19   Acts 19 begins with a story about how Paul supplied the needs of Apollos' ministry.  Those who were ministered to by Apollos only knew John's baptism and weren't aware of the Holy Spirit.  Is there a deeper spiritual meaning here?  If so, what spiritual insight can we glean for our walk with the Lord?   The spiritual insight is that John's ministry introduces Jesus Christ, and Jesus' ministry baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and fire.  In other words, John introduced Christ, and Christ introduced the Holy Spirit.  This is the full gospel.  If we only talk about one aspect and not the other, it will cause Christians to have a one-sided understanding of the truth, leading to division in the church.   Why did Apollos only know John's baptism? Acts 18:24 mentions that Apollos was a native of Alexandria.  Alexandria is a port city located on the Mediterranean Sea in northern Egypt.  If Apollos lived in Alexandria, then it would be very interesting.  Imagine how influential John's ministry was in Israel.  Many Jews had repented and been baptized.  Even the unbelieving Pharisees came to join in the fun, and John criticized them, telling them to produce fruit in keeping with repentance (NIV, Matthew 3:8).  Even Apollos, who was in Alexandria, Egypt, was influenced by John's ministry, so it is evident that John's ministry had significant influence.   John had two crucial messages.  The first was that you have to repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near (NIV, Matthew 3:2).  The second is that he was not Christ.  He just baptized people withwater for repentance.  But after him would come one who is more powerful than him – Jesus Christ.  He would baptize people with the Holy Spirit and fire. (NIV, Matthew 3: 11).   His two messages are very clear and definitive.  But it is like a stone thrown into the lake, creating a ripple.  This expanding ripple eventually becomes weaker and weaker.  By the time John's ministry reached Apollos, only one of his two messages seemed to be passed along.   When Paul arrived at Ephesus, he found that the disciples who were saved under Apollos' ministry weren't baptized in the Holy Spirit, nor had they even heard of the Holy Spirit.   Of course, Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied (NIV, Acts 19:6).   Please pay attention here.  The Bible did not record that Aquila and Priscilla helped Apollos to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.  Nor did it mention that Paul helped Apollos to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.  It only noted that Paul placed his hands on people who had been ministered to in Apollos' ministry, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.  Did all of Apollos' disciples receive the Holy Spirit?  Obviously not.  If yes, then Paul wouldn't talk about the church's divisions at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 1:12, saying that some people followed Paul, and others claim to follow Apollos.     I suspect that one reason for the divisions in the church at Corinth was because of the second aspect of the truth - the question of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Among which, speaking in tongues is definitely an important point of disagreement.  Paul is teaching and putting the fullness of the Holy Spirit into practice.  He said that he speaks in tongues more than everyone else (NIV, 1 Corinthians 14:18).  Although he repeatedly urged the church not to speak excessively in tongues, he was not totally opposed to speaking in tongues.  But amongst the people saved under Apollos' ministry, was there someone who didn't speak in tongues?  Did they have a different understanding of this truth?  I feel that in addition to those who experienced Paul laying his hands on them and accepted his teachings, there may have been some of Apollos' disciples who did not advocate speaking in tongues. Plus, those who supported speaking in tongues had various fleshly behaviors. They also had reasons to oppose them in the matter of speaking in tongues.   So we have a clue here that there is a very close relationship between what kind of spiritual life a Christian will live in the future as to when he/she is first saved and what kind of spiritual teaching he/she accepts in the beginning.  On the other hand, the ultimate cause of the division of the body of Christ lies in the difference in teaching or the understanding of God's truth.  If the body of Christ wants to be united but can't come to an agreement regarding truth, it would be tough to find unity.    I was saved in the Local Church movement associated with Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. When Witness Lee started his ministry in Los Angeles, he tried to meet with a Pentecostal group in hopes of unity.  But ultimately, there was a dispute over the issue of whether or not to speak in tongues. The two sides refused to give in to the other, and unity wasn't realized. Overall, as far as Protestantism is concerned, one of the most significant factors that led to their division is how to treat the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, etc. There are some estimates that Charismatic Christians probably equal the number of evangelical Christians, which is about 600 million people. There are about 1 billion Catholics, amongst which more than 100 million of them have accepted the charismatic experience.   In general, people classify the American Charismatic Movement into two categories. The first category is the traditional Pentecostal Movement, which advocates that speaking in tongues is the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  The traditional church doesn't accept this, thus producing Classical Pentecostal denominations like the Assembly of God and others.  The second category is often referred to as the Charismatic Renewal. This kind of renewal does not encourage people to be separated from their original denomination.  They believe that speaking in tongues is just one evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, this is widely accepted by the mainstream American churches, affecting many groups, including the Anglican Church, the Methodist Church, and even the Catholic Church. They accepted the baptism of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues and operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, without leaving their current denomination.   The United Theological Seminary in the United States, where I am studying now, belongs to the Methodist Church.  Because I am participating in the new semester's Intensive learning of the Ph.D. program in Dayton, Ohio, I have come into contact with some Methodist believers. Some accept the baptism of the Holy Spirit, though not the majority.  But they are meeting with other men and women who haven't experienced this in church.   Let's look at Apollos' experience. He accepted John's baptism but did not accept the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  The disciples in his ministry didn't accept the Holy Spirit either.  They had not even heard that there was a Holy Spirit.  Acts 18 did mention that Aquila and Priscilla helped Apollos to understand the way of God more accurately.  But it did not explicitly mention helping Apollos to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  And at the beginning of Acts 19, Paul returned to Ephesus to meet the disciples who had received help from Apollos' ministry, and they hadn't heard that there was a Holy Spirit.  There are good reasons for us to speculate that Apollos did not accept the baptism of the Holy Spirit.   An important part of John's ministry was to reveal that Christ wants to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire.  But why is it that this part is ignored and distorted?  This reminds me of Jackie Chan's movie "Around the World in 80 Days."  When British officials discussed that a Chinese man had robbed the bank, the message was passed on. In the end, the original message that was passed turned into a totally different message saying that someone else robbed the bank.  One of the reasons is that the character (Jackie Chan) deliberately passed the wrong message in the middle, causing the following information to be all wrong.  This was a movie, but it also happens in actual spiritual experience.   These are the enemy's tactics.  He would keep people from accepting John's baptism by thwarting the message of repentance.  Unfortunately for him, the people believed that John was sent by God and kept coming to him to be baptized.  Tactic number two was to bring the Pharisees and Sadducees who tried to pass themselves off as repentant people ready to be baptized, but John saw right through them and harshly criticized them.  The enemy's last tactic was to hold John's ministry in high regard while downplaying Jesus' ministry. John's disciples could establish a new religion and stir his disciples to challenge the Lord by asking Him: "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast? (Matt. 9:14).  In the end, John was martyred. The Israelites believed he was a prophet sent by God, and John's ministry of repentance was raised up, downplaying or ignoring the message that Jesus was greater and would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.  Why?  Because Satan wants the most important message to be obstructed.   Satan's tactics are the same in today's church as it was in ancient times.  He still strives to downplay the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the teaching that Jesus will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire.  It is often said that speaking in tongues is the least among the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  This seems to make sense, but when you analyze it carefully, it's not entirely true. For example, why is it that the "least important" gift causes the body of Christ to experience the "biggest" division?  Why is almost half of the body of Christ divided into two factions by this teaching?   I often say that no doubt, speaking in tongues is the least gift.  Speaking in tongues can be likened to two sides of a mountain ridge with a tiny spot at the top representing speaking in tongues.  You can only see the side of the mountain you are on if you haven't climbed to the top of the mountain.   Those who don't accept speaking in tongues are stuck on this side of the mountain with a limited view.  They accept the truth of God on this side of the mountain.  But since they haven't climbed to the top of the mountain, they can't see what's up there or what's on the other side, so they don't get the full view.   Those who accept speaking in tongues have climbed the mountain, seen the view from the top and gone over to the other side.  Though the top, which represents speaking in tongues, looks small from the bottom side of the mountain, those who have climbed to the top get the whole view, not just half.  It's a more well-rounded view.  Those who don't climb to the top have a limited perspective and don't see the whole picture. This analogy is not limited to speaking in tongues.  It includes all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.   Apollos only knew John's baptism, although Aquila and Priscilla helped him understand more about God's way.  Paul also helped some of Apollo's disciples accept the Holy Spirit's fullness, but it did not completely solve this problem.  Apollo's lack of understanding of the truth laid the seeds for the future division of the church at Corinth.  In addition to the flesh, the most significant cause of the church's division is the difference in teaching and understanding the truth.  Therefore, I have always believed that the body of Christ cannot be united in the understanding of the truth of God, making it difficult to have true unity.   This problem still exists in today's church.  There are still some members of the body of Christ who are like Apollos.  They only know John's baptism.  They may be full of eloquence, very knowledgeable in the Bible, had been instructed in the way of the Lord, spoke with great fervor, and refuted their opponents in public debate (these are all descriptions of Apollos in Acts 18-19).  Still, because of their lack of understanding of the truth, it foreshadowed the later Corinthian church's difficulties.   Of course, we can't attribute all of the responsibility to Apollos. The disciples at Corinth who sinned and the fleshy believers who pursued speaking in tongues and other gifts also caused the Corinthian church's difficulties.   John's ministry was not like this at first.  In addition to teaching the baptism of repentance, he said that Jesus would baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. Similarly, the Bible's teachings are not only about the baptism of repentance; they also include the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Although it's necessary to repent to receive the life of God, it is equally important to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, to get the power and the reinforcement of the Holy Spirit.   For quite some time, I've heard people talk about convergence, meaning that God not only wants us to be holy, but He also wants the church to be powerful.  If the church isn't holy, it cannot be the salt and light, therefore losing its testimony.  If the church is not powerful, the world will fall into the hands of the power of evil forces.  Holiness and power need to converge together. The church needs to be a witness of God in these two aspects.  One night, the Lord appeared to me in a prophetic dream. He said to me that the two rivers would converge together.  But He did not tell me what the two rivers were. I'm always trying to understand the meaning of the Lord's words. One thought I had is that holiness and power will converge together.  The teachings I received at the Local Church Movement were mainly about growing in holiness.  Later, the Lord led me to learn and pursue the gifts and power in the Pentecostal Movement.  My understanding is that the Lord will lead me to learn how to combine holiness and power.   Paul said, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. (NIV, 1 Corinthians 3:6).  Although Apollos has an insufficient understanding of the truth, he made significant contributions. Acts 19 has primarily recorded how God did extraordinary miracles through Paul.  When his handkerchiefs or aprons were laid on the sick, their illnesses were cured, and the evil spirits left them (NIV, Acts 19:11-12). There are a growing number of churches where people are weak, sick, and overcome by evil spirits.  We need to grow in the power of the Spirit like Paul so that sickness is healed and evil spirits are driven away.   Because of Paul's mighty power, many who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly.  The total came to fifty thousand drachmas. (NIV, Acts 19:19).  A drachma is worth a day's wage.  This is huge!  Later in Ephesus, Paul caused a riot by coming against the businesses that made statues and idols.  If we were to visit Taiwan or mainland China today, where idols are prevalent, there's a good chance we wouldn't cause a riot.  Why? We don't pose the same threat to the enemy as Paul did. The greater the threat, the greater the opposition from the enemy.   Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California, said that half of the people in the body of Christ do not believe in healing, and the other half believe in healing, but they can't demonstrate it.  This is the state of the church today. We must admit that God's power is real and that we have the same power as Paul did. Our unbelief, misunderstanding, or ignorance towards the baptism of the Holy Spirit will hinder us from knowing and gaining the power of God.  Why is it then that many charismatic people believe and boast that they have this power, but in reality, they don't?  The answer is self-evident. Because these people who are pursuing power lack holiness.  It's dangerous to give a gun to a child who is still not mature enough. The gun is powerful, but without proper handling, it can be very dangerous. It's not that God doesn't have power, but that those who pursue holiness don't pursue power, and those who pursue power are not pursuing holiness.  Therefore, God won't be able to trust and give His power to them.   However, times are changing. The prophetic words of God have said many times that the age of convergence will come.  God longs for our lives to develop in balance, for us not to just pursue holiness but also power.  When we grow into balanced truth and in the spiritual stature of Christ, God will release His power through us.     If we are arbitrarily trying to drive out evil spirits without God's authority and power, we may end up being subdued by the evil spirits like the seven sons of Sceva.   God's power and authority is real, but we must appropriate it by faith in Jesus.   The church that I was saved in paid more attention to growing spiritually and devalued pursuing the gifts of the Spirit.  Their reason was that pursuing gifts would lead people to neglect spiritual growth and holiness.  There are preachers who say that the pursuit of healing will hinder spiritual growth in a Christian's life.  I understand what they are saying and have observed people in the Charismatic movement paying more attention to the outward healing of the body while lacking inward spiritual growth.   In my experience, we need a balance of both so that our spiritual lives will be complete and fulfilling.   Here is a metaphor I often use to explain what we talked about above.   Our inner spiritual life in the Lord is like water.  Our gifting in the Lord is like a water pipe.  In our initial walk with the Lord pursuing gifts overemphasizes our water pipe, almost like putting the cart before the horse.  New believers need to focus more on the inner spiritual life and growth so that living water can flow through the pipe.   However, if the living water reaches a powerful level and the pipe has not been enlarged to handle it, the flow will be limited.  In China this was a problem.  They designed a drainage system that didn't take flooding into account.  As time passed, the pipes got clogged with leaves and debris, and when the flood came, the pipes couldn't manage it.  We also experience debris and blockage in our spiritual lives and must continuously expand the gifts to allow the living water to flow correctly.   This is a dialectical relationship.  The Bible specifically mentions the relationship between the measure of grace and the gift.  We can compare grace to the pursuit of life and the gift to the pursuit of power.  Romans 12:3 (NIV) says, "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you."  Here is a measure of faith.  We can see it as a measure of life.  We will do things according to how much faith God gives us and how deep our spiritual life will be. Don't stretch yourself too much.  For example, perhaps the measure of your faith can only accommodate inviting one person to live in your house as a guest.  But you invited ten people all at once.  You might get overwhelmed, and instead, not be willing to serve in the future. Ephesians 4:7 says, "But grace gives us personal measure according to the gift of Christ."  In other words, God gives you more grace when the measure of the gifts He gave you is large.  If God gives you a gift of lifting 200 pounds, He'll also give you a physical makeup that can withstand 200 pounds.   On the one hand, our measure of life and faith limits our gifts.  For example, take a child. His vital capacity is limited, his cardiopulmonary function is limited, and the distance he can swim is limited, just as his gift is limited.  To this extent, the measure of life limits the measure of gifts. But we have heard many testimonies from parents that when a child has asthma symptoms, his cardiopulmonary function is not strong enough, so they insisted on teaching him to swim.  This is like a constant practice of our gifts.  Slowly, the measure of his gift expanded; that is, his swimming ability increased.  And gradually, his cardiopulmonary function improved, and his asthma disappeared.  So at this level, the expansion of the measure of gifts gradually expands the measure of life.  This is a process of dialectical development.  Evangelical pastors who are opposed to learning about gifts are sometimes like the parent with the child who has asthma. They are always worried about what to do if the child has an asthma attack while he is swimming.  What if he drinks the water?  What should I do if he drowns?  It's like what many people, who oppose the pursuit of the filling of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, often say.  If we open ourselves to the spiritual world, what should we do if evil spirits come in?  Their confidence in Satan's destruction is far greater than their faith in God's protection.  These thoughts come from unbelief and not wisdom.  I want to call on evangelical pastors and teachers to re-examine their understanding of speaking in tongues and gifts of the Holy Spirit in prayer, to see if there is a lack of understanding in the truth as well as a lack of faith.  We should do this instead of blindly blaming the Charismatics for letting the evil spirits come in.   In other words, the pursuit of spiritual life is like pursuing a new wine, and the pursuit of spiritual gifts is like pursuing a new wineskin.  We are pursuing new wine and a new life, but our new wine can't be stored properly if we don't have a new wineskin.   Dear pastors and fellow believers, we have reached the moment where we need to grow further and pursue more gifts.  Let's expand the measure and measurement of our gifts.  Expand the measure of our water pipes.  When the measure of your gifts has expanded, and your gifts and power have grown, you will see exponential growth in your life, and the abundant life in you can be imparted to others.     If a child says to his father, "I will build a house for you.  I want to develop the gift of being a designer."  The father will say, "Son, you are still young.  You should give yourself time to grow up.  Do well in school first.  Then after you grow up, you can study architecture so that you can build a house for me."  But if the child grows up and is ready to build the house, if the father still opposes it, it is no longer normal.   In conclusion, those who don't know the baptism of the Holy Spirit and oppose speaking in tongues have not fully grown up in their spiritual lives.  Though they may seem more mature than some Charismatic Christians who blindly pursue gifts and lack depth in their spiritual lives, they are operating in fear.  They are afraid of hurting themselves or others in this pursuit.  Has God given us a spirit of fear?  No!  It is a strong, powerful, and sober-minded Spirit.  Anything that comes from fear is from Satan because fear incorporates unbelief and disobedience.  The key to receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues and other gifts is faith and obedience. There is no other method or secret.  I experienced breakthroughs within the framework of evangelical teaching.  It took a long pursuit for me to have breakthroughs in faith and obedience and be filled with the Holy Spirit.  I hope this information is a blessing to you.  

Pete Stewart speaks to Stephen Cassells about Protestantism in Glasgow and the west of Scotland. Why is Protestantism without faith such a big issue and how do we reach those who class themselves as 'protestant' but are still not truly saved by grace? Watch Stephen's testimony here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ7RajaGSCU Find out more about our work to plant three new churches in the west of Scotland at the link below: https://20schemes.com/the-schemes/glasgow/

Shortcomings are not so much exposed by failures as by successes. In many ways the liberal hegemony assumed by both American political parties is failing and people are dying because of it. Evangelical Christians are not well-served by their pundits and none of us are quite sure where we go beyond the liberalism that has build the modern Protestant, Western world.    @YaleUniversity  John J. Mearsheimer "The False Promise of Liberal Hegemony" https://youtu.be/ESwIVY2oimI  Why is Ukraine the West's Fault https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4  ​ @Ready To Harvest  Orthodox Church Cold War over Ukraine https://youtu.be/WxOgnERhs-c  Rod Dreher "It didn't have to happen" https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/kiev-falling-did-not-have-to-happen-war-russia-ukraine/   @Holy Post  podcast Christian Nationalism (again and again) https://youtu.be/jg7-eeff458 Discord link. Good for just a few days. Check with more recent videos for a fresh link. https://discord.gg/VZpsyC9h Paul Vander Klay clips channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX0jIcadtoxELSwehCh5QTg My Substack https://paulvanderklay.substack.com/ Estuary Hub Link https://www.estuaryhub.com/ If you want to schedule a one-on-one conversation check here. https://paulvanderklay.me/2019/08/06/converzations-with-pvk/ There is a video version of this podcast on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/paulvanderklay To listen to this on ITunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/paul-vanderklays-podcast/id1394314333  If you need the RSS feed for your podcast player https://paulvanderklay.podbean.com/feed/  All Amazon links here are part of the Amazon Affiliate Program. Amazon pays me a small commission at no additional cost to you if you buy through one of the product links here. This is is one (free to you) way to support my videos.  https://paypal.me/paulvanderklay To support this channel/podcast with Bitcoin (BTC): 37TSN79RXewX8Js7CDMDRzvgMrFftutbPo  To support this channel/podcast with Bitcoin Cash (BCH) qr3amdmj3n2u83eqefsdft9vatnj9na0dqlzhnx80h  To support this channel/podcast with Ethereum (ETH): 0xd3F649C3403a4789466c246F32430036DADf6c62 Blockchain backup on Lbry https://odysee.com/@paulvanderklay https://www.patreon.com/paulvanderklay Paul's Church Content at Living Stones Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh7bdktIALZ9Nq41oVCvW-A To support Paul's work by supporting his church give here. https://tithe.ly/give?c=2160640  

Michael Lofton of the Faith and Reason podcast shares his experience of leaving Catholicism for Orthodoxy and eventually returning. He explains why he concluded he needed to be in communion with the pope, and why every Christian should. Cy Kellett: Is the grass greener in the Orthodox Church? Michael Lofton next. Hello, and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding and defending your Catholic faith. I’m Cy Kellett, your host. This week, we welcome Michael Lofton who made his way from Protestantism into Catholic Church, made his way from the Catholic Church…

Billy Wendeln and Matthew Chisholm of the Bible Brodown podcast respond to "How to be a Christian" and the episode on Romans 1:1 - Romans 2:11, and if this scripture gives Protestants a hard time. Please don't forget to SUBSCRIBE! To listen to the audio only (podcast) be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or one of the other podcast players. The Bible Brodown is also part of the Trinity Commission consortium of Bible podcasts. Learn more here: https://biblebrodown.com/podcasts For articles and studies from the Bible Brodown, please visit our webpage here: https://biblebrodown.com/ Come talk and discuss theology with us on our Facebook Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BibleBrodown/ You can also follow us and receive updates at https://www.facebook.com/biblebrodown/ or on Twitter @BibleBrodown

In s2ep14, Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig look at Martin Luther and the effects of his 95 theses against the Catholic Church. Once the only patron of the arts, the Church faced a reckoning when Martin Luther brought about the Protestant Reformation in 1517. In addition to getting rid of the intercessor (the church and its priests), Protestantism calls for no images to distract. What's an artist to do in these newly Protestant countries (Germany and Flanders for this episode's purposes)? One could turn to landscape, portraiture, still lifes, myths, and fantastical subjects. Or one could turn to biting criticism of the politics of the church and the schism with the Protestants.

We've done several episodes “arguing” the differences between our expressions of Christianity, but what about what we appreciate about the other? What does Jacque (a Catholic) like about Protestants and what does Megan (a Protestant) like about Catholics? In this episode, Jacque shares five things she appreciates about Protestantism and Megan shares five things she … Read More Read More

Michael P. Federici is professor of political science and international relations at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author and editor of multiple books on political philosophy. In this episode we discuss the work of Orestes Brownson, alongside discussions Joseph De Maistre, Protestantism, the Constitution, conservatism and more. --- Become part of the Hermitix community: Hermitix Twitter - https://twitter.com/Hermitixpodcast Support Hermitix: Hermitix Subscription - https://hermitix.net/subscribe/ Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/hermitix Donations: - https://www.paypal.me/hermitixpod Hermitix Merchandise - http://teespring.com/stores/hermitix-2 Bitcoin Donation Address: 3LAGEKBXEuE2pgc4oubExGTWtrKPuXDDLK Ethereum Donation Address: 0x31e2a4a31B8563B8d238eC086daE9B75a00D9E74

The Catholic View of Protestantism Round Table (Fr. Dcn. Anthony Dragani, Dr. Matthew J. Thomas and Joe Heschmeyer)

Questions Covered:  02:36 – Is there different terminology for a priest, bishop or pope acting in persona Christi?  04:30 – I come from a Pentecostal background and am converting. My family is fully preparing for the second coming. The event with Russia reinforced their belief. How could I respond to my family, and how should we Catholics respond to the end time?  12:00 – I’m on the verge of converting to Catholicism from Protestantism, why do we pray to the saints?  14:13 – A 7th Day Adventist left a tract on cars after Mass. Is there a resource to answer those questions?  18:16 – Are you familiar with the company Senomyx. I heard they were using aborted fetal tissue in flavoring.  20:44 – Follow Up to the annulment questions, how does your earlier comment reconcile with the pro-forma annulment?  22:59 – There were readings in Mass on Ep.4-5, but they skipped a portion about speaking foul language. Why would this section be left out?  28:37 – I don't go to church because of guilt. I don't go to confession because of mortal sin. How do I handle this? 34:42 – Is it ok for a practicing Catholic to attend an atheist wedding?  39:07 – My husband and I were raised Catholic. My husband is active-duty military and we decided to get married outside of the church due to him being deployed. Will the Church honor it at a later point in time?    44:03 – I'm a recent convert, how do I become better at evangelizing?  46:41 – Are you familiar with the idea of Mother God, I couldn’t find anything on the CA website?  49:23 – At the end of this world, will writers be able to write about problems?  52:30 – Why aren't there any miracles regarding amputations?  …

Clay and John are in again for another conversation. Here's the link to our first conversation. https://youtu.be/wJZjAcACsks The CRCNA is in an existential crisis at the moment. There may not be a way out. Much of this surrounds the question of what it means to be a Protestant, what is the Bible and how do we relate to it. I think you'll find this to be a meaningful conversation. Discord link. Good for just a few days. Check with more recent videos for a fresh link. https://discord.gg/Yre7QxQR Paul Vander Klay clips channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX0jIcadtoxELSwehCh5QTg My Substack https://paulvanderklay.substack.com/ Estuary Hub Link https://www.estuaryhub.com/ If you want to schedule a one-on-one conversation check here. https://paulvanderklay.me/2019/08/06/converzations-with-pvk/ There is a video version of this podcast on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/paulvanderklay To listen to this on ITunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/paul-vanderklays-podcast/id1394314333  If you need the RSS feed for your podcast player https://paulvanderklay.podbean.com/feed/  All Amazon links here are part of the Amazon Affiliate Program. Amazon pays me a small commission at no additional cost to you if you buy through one of the product links here. This is is one (free to you) way to support my videos.  https://paypal.me/paulvanderklay To support this channel/podcast with Bitcoin (BTC): 37TSN79RXewX8Js7CDMDRzvgMrFftutbPo  To support this channel/podcast with Bitcoin Cash (BCH) qr3amdmj3n2u83eqefsdft9vatnj9na0dqlzhnx80h  To support this channel/podcast with Ethereum (ETH): 0xd3F649C3403a4789466c246F32430036DADf6c62 Blockchain backup on Lbry https://odysee.com/@paulvanderklay https://www.patreon.com/paulvanderklay Paul's Church Content at Living Stones Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh7bdktIALZ9Nq41oVCvW-A To support Paul's work by supporting his church give here. https://tithe.ly/give?c=2160640

World events has once again conspired to interrupt the flow of events in southern Africa by the early 1800s. The British were going to withdraw from the Cape of Good Hope and their move began far away in Ireland. As part of the price for Irish agreement to parliamentary union with Britain in 1800, Prime Minister William Pitt had promised to liberate Roman Catholics from the restrictions of their civil liberties imposed since the 16th Century . Three hundred years of English yoke through Protestantism was seen through a very religious and nationalist lens in Ireland. The future of the Cape was in great doubt. Lord Nelson was one of those voicing his opinion that the Peninsular was of no real use. Back in sunny Southern Africa circa 1800, great powers were beginning to emerge across the landscape. And extremely sunny it was in 1800 because parts of southern Africa were gripped by a terrible drought. Across the northern regions of the Cape, the Namaqualand and along the Orange River, the Afrikaander gang led by Khoesan leader Jonker Afrikaander was going village to village, homestead to homestead, and plundering as they went. The severe dought meant that the Boer commando's couldn't operate effectively so it increased banditry across the frontiers. But it also meant that the groups of Khoe and Khoesan who'd been trying to disentangle themselves from both the trekboers and the British, and even the local Tswana people, were forced to operate along the great river. The expedition also found it very difficult to locate water. What they did find record was signs of anarchy caused by both the drought and the Afrikaander groups who'd descended on the Griqua and Tswana – wiping out villages as they went. I have the diary of William Somerville who jointly led the expedition with chief commissioner PJ Truter – and an interesting 200 or so pages it is.

Website: http://jonahsaller.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jonahsaller Email: jonah@jonahsaller.com Jonah Saller PO Box 363 Ingleside, IL 60041-0363 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jonahsaller/support

Charles takes the lead again, recounting the adventures of an unfortunate uncle.   Cast List Herbert - Carl Cubbedge Warren - Glen Hallstrom Charles - Michael Coleman (Tales of the Extraordinary) Richard - Philemon Vanderbeck Edward - Mathias Rebne-Morgan Randolph - Sebastian Orr Elihu, uncle - Charles Austin Miller Ann, servant - Julie Hoverson Music by incompetech.com and a-mclassical.com Editing and Sound:   Julie Hoverson Cover Design:  Julie Hoverson / Brett Coulstock   "What kind of a place is it? Why it's Charles' study again, can't you tell?" ********************************************************************** THE SHUNNED HOUSE (Lovecraft 5, #6) Cast: Edward, a writer Charles, a dilettante Herbert, a scientist Richard, a painter Warren, a professor Randolph, cousin Elihu, uncle Ann, servant   OLIVIA     [opening credits] Did you have any trouble finding it?  What do you mean, what kind of a place is it?  Why, we've returned to Charles' comfortable brownstone, can't you tell?  Scene 1.    MUSIC SOUND     MUSIC PLAYS CHARLES    I should warn you all from the outset that this is a rather more mundane story than most of those brought to this gathering. EDWARD    As long as you feed me this well, Charles, I'd listen to a story about a dog. RICHARD    Oh?  I know this fellow in Andalusia...  A friend of a friend. CHARLES    [cutting in] My story involves... a vampire. EDWARD    And you tell us?  Right up front?  That's poor narrative framing. CHARLES    No, no, there's a perfectly good reason to get it out in the open right away. HERBERT    Vampires?  Haven't they been adequately explained by contemporary science? CHARLES    See?  WARREN    The existence of vampires has been .. debatable... for several centuries. EDWARD    Ah. HERBERT    The vampire myth is almost certainly explainable.  Most simply by common or garden anemia-- WARREN    Or any number of similarly communicable diseases, for example, consumption-- HERBERT    Tuberculosis. WARREN    --which, until very recently, were often attributed to supernatural origin. HERBERT    But now, with our understanding of germs and the vectors of infection, vampires must be relegated to the vast list of creatures that have been debunked. CHARLES    [aside] I'll give Warren and Herbert one more minute. RICHARD    I'm just stunned that they seem to be on the same side.  Science and History are usually at odds. EDWARD    Fiction can go either way.  WARREN    It's fascinating to consider the mindset that created a myth such as that of the vampire.  RICHARD    Created?  You think someone sat down and designed them, like a new model of automobile? WARREN    Created it to account for otherwise inexplicable events.  EDWARD    More like a detective, trying to piece together a crime from the clues. WARREN    Do you know that in historical folklore, vampires were said to always return and prey on members of their own family before passing to others? HERBERT    Again, a simple disease contagion statistic.  With the substandard hygiene of past eras, it was almost inevitable that those in close proximity to a dying person were the most likely-- CHARLES    Enough!  [moment of silence] Scene 2.    CHARLES    Thank you for the erudite exposition.  I'm quite sure we'll come back to this throughout the lecture. EDWARD    [laughing] Please raise your hand if you have any questions. RICHARD    Over here? CHARLES    [chuckling]  The chair recognizes the commissioner for art.  Richard? RICHARD    Thank you.  My question - does the name Stoker come into this story anywhere? CHARLES    No.  Despite the nature of the central creature involved, or supposedly involved, the story has a long and verifiable history, which began well before any of such contemporary novels appeared on bookstands.  EDWARD    I dunno - there have been similar creatures haunting Gothic novels for nearly two centuries. WARREN    Aren't they all explained away by the end of the book?  EDWARD    Only in Radcliffe. RICHARD    You need a gavel, Charles, so you can call us to order. Scene 3.    CHARLES    My story is about a house. EDWARD    A vampire house? [laughs] CHARLES    Well....  A cursed house. WARREN    A curse?  AND a vampire? EDWARD    Do you mean a house in the sense of a family line or a physical house? CHARLES    The latter.  This house happens to be in Providence.  And while I could lie and tell you this was another personal experience, in truth, it happened to a cousin of mine. EDWARD    Your cousin is a vampire house? HERBERT    You forgot to raise your hand, Edward. CHARLES    This particular area of Providence was haunted by Poe in his day.  Sometime in the 1840s, he was wont to pass by this very house on visits to the poetess Mrs. Whitman.  RICHARD    Whitman?  Should we know her? EDWARD    We certainly know Poe. CHARLES    She was an ardent spiritist and something of an early suffragette.  I haven't come across any of her writings myself.  Almost as much a draw as the lady, though, St. John's churchyard was also along Poe's route. EDWARD    Is Poe in this story? CHARLES    He's merely making an appearance for historical perspective.  Setting the time and place. WARREN    Understood. CHARLES    The point - the irony is this - the world's greatest master of the terrible and the bizarre regularly passed a particular house on the eastern side of the street; a dingy, antiquated structure perched on the abruptly rising side hill.  There is no evidence that he even noticed it.  And yet that house, to certain persons, equals or outranks in horror Poe's wildest phantasy. EDWARD    [avid] Now we get into it! CHARLES    The house was - and for that matter still is - of a kind to attract the attention of the curious.  It followed the colonial lines of the middle eighteenth century - the prosperous peaked-roof sort of farm house; two stories; dormerless attic; Georgian doorway and interior paneling. RICHARD    All the best accoutrements of the mid 1700s? CHARLES    Ayup.  Facing south, it's buried to the lower windows in the hillside, and exposed to the foundations on the street. RICHARD    [knowing] I've seen a few of those. CHARLES    Its construction, over a century and a half ago, followed hard upon the rerouting of the nearby road.  Benefit Street - at the time called Back Street - wound through the graveyards of the first settlers.  It was straightened only when the removal of the bodies to the North Burial Ground made it decently possible to cut across the old family plots. EDWARD    Aha! HERBERT    A house built over the miasmatic remains of a graveyard?  Simply begging for some festering disease to seep in through the foundation. Scene 4.    WARREN    Uh... May I? CHARLES    Recognized. WARREN    When you speak of this being a "vampire", do you specifically speak of a walking corpse that drinks blood, or the more classic creature of folklore which is something like a stealer of soul or essence? HERBERT    Warren!  You sounded almost impartial before, and now this? WARREN    Whether or not I believe in such a creature, it's important to uncover what the people involved believe, regardless of the underlying source. HERBERT    Hmph. CHARLES    I may have to leave the ultimate decision up to you as to what particular phylum this entity falls into. HERBERT    Don't try to make taxonomical jokes.  It doesn't suit you. CHARLES    Moving on.  I should point out that while I was not a witness to all the events of my story, I have been to - and in fact, been in - the house in question. EDWARD    Do tell? CHARLES    Boys will be boys, and visits in my youth to my cousin-- EDWARD    The one who witnessed these events? CHARLES    Ayup.  Visits with his family every summer.  And many boyish dares ended with someone venturing into the empty, foreboding edifice. WARREN    Empty?  Providence isn't a place where houses generally stand empty for long. CHARLES    Precisely.  And this one should have been occupied, except for-- EDWARD    The vampire?  Or the Curse?  The Curse of the Vampire? CHARLES    Not precisely.  You see the house wasn't associated with anything like that at the time, it was simply thought... unlucky. HERBERT    [very snide] Oh, yes.  That's much more classifiable. CHARLES    People just kept dying in the house.  Individually, they were generally attributed to something more along the lines you've suggested, Herbert - bad air, foul fungus in the basement, something material and accountable, and yet... EDWARD    Yet? Scene 5.    CHARLES    That's for later.  There's quite a tragic history to the house, which I will touch upon, but let me finish with my own impressions first - the facts, anyway.  HERBERT    Well, I can agree with that. CHARLES    It was the dank, humid cellar which exerted the strongest repulsion on us - even though it was wholly aboveground on the street side, with only a thin door and window-pierced brick wall to separate it from the busy sidewalk.  We scarcely knew whether to haunt it in spectral fascination, or to shun it for the sake of our souls and our sanity. HERBERT    Facts, he says.  Hmph. CHARLES    For one thing, the bad odour of the house was strongest there; and there were white fungous growths which occasionally sprang up in rainy summer weather from the hard earthen floor. HERBERT    What kind of fungi? CHARLES    I'm no expert.  Something between toadstools and Indian pipes?  They rotted and became slightly phosphorescent; so that nocturnal passers-by sometimes spoke of witch-fires glowing behind the broken panes of the foetor-spreading windows. RICHARD    [shudder]  Interesting.  [musing] True phosphorescence is a colour that's so hard to capture...  CHARLES    We never - even in our wildest Hallowe'en moods - visited this cellar by night, but in some of our daytime visits could detect the glowing of the fungi, especially when the day was dark and wet.  And something else... [trails off] WARREN    [sincere] It really bothered you, didn't it? CHARLES    Distressing events have so much more influence when one is impressionable ...and young.  [shaking it off]  Lets have a bit more of vampires while I regain my composure - meaning while I fetch myself something to drink.  Warren, if you would?  Scene 6.    WARREN    Oh, well...  Some basic facts, then.  Vampires were originally believed to be a form of revenant - the returning spirit of a recently deceased person, not a physical manifestation at all.  EDWARD    Really?  Not bloated corpses returning to gorge on the gore of gorgeous...um, gamines? RICHARD    [laughs]  Gratuitous.  I believe it was Stoker who started a lot of what most people think of as "vampire traditions?" WARREN    I confess I am not particularly conversant with the novel.  I'm not much for such sensational fiction. EDWARD    I am. RICHARD    I am. HERBERT    Don't look at me. EDWARD    Go on. RICHARD    [prompting] They drink blood? WARREN    Probably attributable to either anemia, as Herbert suggested, or to any number of wasting diseases that plagued people.  EDWARD    But what about the bite marks? HERBERT    Disease sores.  Or the predation of rats.  Which, in turn, spread disease.  WARREN    Very likely.  Rats have lived cheek and jowl with humans since the dawn of civilization. RICHARD    Stoker did make the connection between his vampire and rats - he was supposed to be able to summon and control them. HERBERT    If you consider the "vampire" as symbolic of disease, then its presumed connection to rats is fairly logical. RICHARD    But Dracula also couldn't enter a home without being invited? CHARLES    [drink - ahh] On the other hand, we boys could, and did.  Why don't I take my narrative back up? Scene 7.    WARREN    Go ahead.  CHARLES    I won't be able to adequately describe the place to convey the depth of the horror we felt in its presence.  EDWARD    We promise to laugh quietly. CHARLES    No need.  [deep breath, bracing himself]  There was this sort of cloudy whitish pattern on the dirt floor - a vague, shifting deposit of mould or nitre which we usually seemed to be able to trace out amidst the sparse fungous growths near the huge fireplace of the basement kitchen. EDWARD    Something carved into the floor? CHARLES    Floor was dirt.  No.  This patch... it bore an uncanny resemblance to a doubled-up human figure.  RICHARD    Like some sort of primitive grave-marking? CHARLES    [growing haunted] On one certain rainy afternoon I fancied I glimpsed a thin, yellowish, shimmering exhalation rising from the nitrous pattern toward the yawning fireplace.  [brisk]  Shortly after, my cousin and I broached this to our uncle. WARREN    Perhaps you could put names to these people?  CHARLES    Of course.  My cousin - well, I'll just call him Randolph, and our uncle's name is Elihu Whipple.  Doctor Elihu Whipple. WARREN    Whipple?  I know him - or have met him, but didn't he recently--? CHARLES    [cutting him off]  Yes, yes.  I'll get there. EDWARD    Ooh!  A mystery. CHARLES    Uncle Elihu never pooh-poohed our concerns about the house.  As it turned out he'd done a good deal of research on it, himself. RICHARD    The house is still standing, is it?  Might be worth making a day trip to Providence - or rather a night trip. CHARLES    Probably futile - the house has been cleaned and is once more gainfully employed. EDWARD    A happy ending?  To a vampire story?  Say it isn't so! WARREN    [grim] Not as happy as all that, I warrant. EDWARD    Not fair!  You know something! RICHARD    How do you mean the house has been cleaned? CHARLES    Everything natural around the house used to be ... wrong.  From the aforementioned fungus to the tree roots that grew into the cellar, and the weeds that flourished in the back yard - everything was twisted and flabby and somehow unnatural.  And now-- EDWARD    All better? CHARLES    Yes.  But at a cost. WARREN    [serious] Yes. CHARLES    The history of the house is long-winded, statistical, and drearily genealogical, but there runs through it a continuous thread of brooding, tenacious horror and preternatural malevolence.  My cousin and uncle apparently became obsessed with charting every death possibly attributable to the house. WARREN    [carefully choosing his words to not give anything away] I never fancied Whipple as an historian? CHARLES    A physician and amateur antiquarian.  And yet, he approached the problem much as Herbert might - as a technical one.  Hygiene and germs. HERBERT    Oh.  A realist.  In your family?  CHARLES    Yes.  Well, every herd has its black sheep.  Now, the origin of the house, amidst a maze of dates, revealed no trace of the sinister.  It was built by a merchant, William Harris. Scene 8.    EDWARD    Built on a recently moved graveyard? CHARLES    A recently-straightened part of the street, anyway.  EDWARD    But there must be something? CHARLES    Actually, from what I understand, the land the house stands upon was never marked for graves.  EDWARD    Why bring up the graves, then, if they're not relevant? RICHARD    Setting tone.   WARREN    Of course, vampires were supposed to be buried in unhallowed ground, like suicides, so the LACK of a consecrated churchyard is possibly just as significant. CHARLES    The following spring, sickness occurred among the Harris children, and two of the four died within a month.   HERBERT    Children are particularly susceptible to many kinds of disease. CHARLES    And one of the two servants died of it in the following June.  The remaining servant, Eli, constantly complained of weakness.  WARREN    Servants have traditionally been drawn from the lower classes, who in turn tend to be more superstitious, and therefore more inclined to give credence to, and in turn be affected by, such things. CHARLES    Eli died the next year, as did the master of the house and a third of the four children.  WARREN    Goodness! CHARLES    The widow fell victim to insanity, after such a series of tragedies, and was thereafter confined to the upper part of the house.  This was in 1768. EDWARD    This story is starting to sound oddly familiar.  Was there a meteorite involved? HERBERT    [scoffing] In Providence? CHARLES    The widow's sister, Mercy Dexter, moved in to take charge of the family. Mercy was a plain, raw-boned woman of great strength, but her health visibly declined from the time of her arrival. EDWARD    Now it sounds like Luella Miller. HERBERT    You would think that by this time they would have the sense to move out.  EDWARD    Or get in an exorcist. HERBERT    Nonsense.  It's more likely something toxic in the groundwater - arsenic, perhaps.  Slight traces can cause anemia and wasting as it builds up in the body's vital organs. CHARLES    So many deaths and a case of madness, all within five years, started strange rumours. RICHARD    Rumors?  Nonsense.  This is a definite pattern.  Herbert?  You agree? HERBERT    [definite] Arsenic.  Or one of the other heavy metals.  Perhaps Thallium?  Did anyone suffer from hair loss? CHARLES    There were other symptoms.  The poor widow, in her madness, gave voice to dreams and imaginings of the most hideous sort. HERBERT    Fever rantings. CHARLES    Her terrors periodically necessitated her remaining son's residence with a cousin.  He improved during these visits, and, had Mercy been as wise as she was well-meaning, she would have let him live away permanently. WARREN    What sort of direction did this madness take?  Paranoia? Scene 9.    CHARLES    Now, William, the one remaining child of this unfortunate house, broke away from the place in his teens by enlisting - what with the [ahem] trouble with Great Britain. EDWARD    What trouble? WARREN    [hinting]  Consider the year? EDWARD    I don't know what year we're at.  I haven't been taking notes.  CHARLES    1775. EDWARD    Oh, of course. CHARLES    William was away for the duration, married, and returned to his family home to find tragedy.  RICHARD    No "Mercy"? CHARLES    Mercy was still there, but her once robust frame had undergone curious decay, so that she was now a stooped and pathetic figure with hollow voice and disconcerting pallor.  HERBERT    Did feeblemindedness run in the family as well?  Wasn't this a clear enough hint? CHARLES    William, now an adult witnessing these events, quickly arranged for the building of a new and finer house... across town. HERBERT    Finally! CHARLES    And closed the house on Benefit Street.  WARREN    Probably for the best. EDWARD    Are we nearing 1800 yet? CHARLES    Almost.  William and his wife passed away in the yellow fever epidemic of 1797, leaving their child in the care of a cousin, Rathbone Harris. RICHARD    Now there's a name! CHARLES    Rathbone was a practical man, and rented the Benefit Street house despite dead William's wish that it remain vacant. He did not concern himself with the deaths and illnesses which caused so many changes of tenants, or the steadily growing aversion with which the house was generally regarded. EDWARD    He's lucky no one held him responsible. HERBERT    As if one could sue over poor living conditions! CHARLES    In 1804, the town council ordered the place fumigated with sulphur, tar and gum camphor due to several more deaths - presumably caused by the passing fever epidemic. HERBERT    [dismissive]  Might as well wear pointed masks and wave nosegays. WARREN    I'm sure they did the best they could with the science they had.  CHARLES    Several generations passed, with the house standing empty. HERBERT    And yet, whether operating under rank superstition or sound scientific principals, it never occurred to them to simply tear it down, clear the ground, and begin anew with clean pipes from a municipal water source? CHARLES    No, indeed, but it never rented again after the series of deaths culminating in 1861. EDWARD    So when you braved its depths, it had lain fallow for some ... 50 years? CHARLES    I'm a bit older than that, but that's a good round number to work with.  Fifty years empty - and fifty years hungry. RICHARD    So we are now at the present, and your cousin Randolph enters the stage? CHARLES    Carrington Harris, last of the male line, had meant to tear the place down and build an apartment house on the site-- HERBERT    Finally, another sane one. CHARLES    But Randolph convinced him to allow them to look into it first.  EDWARD    With the history you've given - I'll agree it shows a pattern of misfortune, but what, precisely, made you think of vampires, and not ghosts or curses, or poison, or any of the other various explanations we've found? CHARLES    Well, it was one of the original servants who started talking vampires.  She was a superstitious Exeter woman, and you know how they can be. Scene 10.    ANN    Some remnant must lie nearby, mayhap under this very house!  Doomed to sup off the blood or breath of god-fearing folk!  My own grand-dam told me time and again, Ann, she said, to destroy such a hellion, ye must find its earthly shell, and burn its black and festering heart!  EDWARD    Not a stake through the heart and cutting off its head? RICHARD    Perhaps that was "plan B". CHARLES    As she was sacked and left the house relatively unscathed, this servant Ann's stories spread far and wide. WARREN    So that is one. CHARLES    One what? WARREN    Reason to bring up vampires. HERBERT    Hardly a credible witness. CHARLES    Ah yes.  There was also the raving. EDWARD    The widow? CHARLES    Rhoby Harris.  Hers, and others.  Among the people who died in that house, a large percentage were subject to such ranting. HERBERT    Again, not unnatural in certain kind of fevers. [CHARLES BEGINS TO BUILD FROM HERE] CHARLES    In their more lucid moments, several of the afflicted went on about sharp teethed, glassy-eyes creatures that crouched on their chests and scratched at their necks? RICHARD    Fuseli's "Nightmare" comes to mind.  An imp sitting on the chest of a sleeping woman?  Though it always looked a bit more bemused than threatening to me. EDWARD    And then there's cats who steal the breath from babies. WARREN    Some demonic images are universal - at least among the various Christian branches. CHARLES    In the last throes of their disease, many of these afflicted even began to foam and bite and scratch at their caretakers! HERBERT    Hydrophobia?  Perhaps rabid rats lurking in the walls? [CLIMAX OF CHARLES' POINTS] CHARLES    And all of them ranting in guttural French?  A language not ONE of the afflicted was familiar with? [moment of silence] Scene 11.    RICHARD    [hesitant] oh.  Um...  are they quite sure it was French? WARREN    How could they mistake French?  Unless it was, say, Belgian. RICHARD    I've traveled in Europe.  If you speak NO languages but English, all languages are equally incomprehensible - at least, at first. HERBERT    What makes you think that no one around the afflicted spoke French? RICHARD    Charles specified that none of the victims spoke any French.  How many people can live with, or even around, a speaker of another language and not pick up a few words? CHARLES    Bravo, Richard!  RICHARD    And, unlike, say, New Orleans, in New England, French speakers have traditionally been a bit light on the ground.  CHARLES    Oddly, that leads me to the next part of the story. WARREN    The French? CHARLES    Following up on the French connection, Randolph and Elihu uncovered historical references to a French family who settled in the area long before this house was built. EDWARD    And were buried there, right? RICHARD    Shh. CHARLES    A lease from 1697, showed a small tract of ground being let to an Etienne Roulet. WARREN    Roulet?  Why does that sound familiar? CHARLES    And yes, the Roulets had laid out their graveyard behind their cottage, and no record of any transfer of graves existed. EDWARD    Hah!  And why were they in the area?  On the run from witch trials? Scene 12.    CHARLES    The Edict of Nantes, actually. EDWARD    The what? WARREN    Huguenots? CHARLES    Precisely. EDWARD    [louder] What? WARREN    French protestants, driven out of France after the country declared itself definitely Catholic.  And it wouldn't be the Edict that drove them out - that was earlier. EDWARD    Wasn't there something about Huguenots in a moving picture?  RICHARD    Intolerance.  Right next to the Babylonian orgy scenes. CHARLES    Ahem.  The Roulets were unpopular, and had already been not-so-politely asked to leave East Greenwich.  Apparently their sort of Protestantism didn't quite fit with the standards of New England society. EDWARD    I thought all protestants were pretty much the same?  WARREN    [guffaws] RICHARD    To misquote Wilde, they're one church separated by a common religion. HERBERT    Religion is such a futile waste of time. CHARLES    Etienne Roulet wasn't much of a farmer, but he could read and write and figure - the words "drawing queer diagrams" appear in one of the accounts, but without details.  So Roulet was employed in a clerical post at Pardon Tillinghast's wharf. HERBERT    Tillinghast?  Huh. [recalling "from beyond"] RICHARD    Small world. CHARLES    New England, especially.  Everyone's always related to everyone, and knows everyone else.  Everyone important, anyway.  So the Roulets, being so entirely ...other... were never accepted. RICHARD    Roulet!  I have it! CHARLES    Oh? RICHARD    I don't know any of the dates, but I think it was in the reign of Henri the fourth of France.  I don't know why, but I associate it with "Boy bitten by lizard" and a couple of particularly gruesome beheadings of John the Baptist.  [explaining]  Paintings.  There was a Roulet accused of being a ... [falters, not sure]  a werewolf?  WARREN    I knew there was something!  Yes of course -a Jacques Roulet.  An indigent accused of the horrid murder of a young man.  From what little I can recall, he claimed he had changed into a wolf and was therefore condemned to death, but ultimately commuted to life imprisonment in a madhouse. EDWARD    And you just know this, Warren, off the top of your head? WARREN    Well, I was going through a couple of books recently, looking for tales... well... that I might bring HERE. EDWARD    [laughs] RICHARD    Any more salacious details?  I seem to remember hints of cannibalism? WARREN    Without any notes, I cannot be precise, but I think he was found in a wood, covered in blood and flesh, shortly after the killing of a boy by a pair of wolves.   EDWARD    But what would a werewolf in France have to do with a vampire or ghost in Providence? HERBERT    Or disease. WARREN    Actually, werewolves and vampires have often gone hand in hand - the werewolf being generally considered one who has sold his soul in a pact with the devil, and the vampire being the soulless revenant of someone who died either while under such a pact or as the victim of such a fiend. EDWARD    So being a werewolf in life makes one inevitably a vampire after death? CHARLES    Much like going to Boston Latin leads inevitably to Harvard. [general laughter] CHARLES    So. On to my relations and the house on Benefit street. EDWARD    That would make a good title for a story.  [ominous] The House on Benefit Street. CHARLES    They went about the whole thing with an eye to scientific method.  Truly.  Even brought along various mechanical devices. HERBERT    Such as? CHARLES    [sigh] I was really hoping to pass over this.  I don't know.  Just say mechanical devices and leave it at that. HERBERT    Imprecision.  Always imprecision. CHARLES    They brought the devices in during the day - and recall, they can walk directly in from the street into the dreaded basement.  EDWARD    Or directly out, as the case may be. CHARLES    Randolph spent the day poking around, but found only the same depressing mustiness and faint suggestions of noxious odours. RICHARD    Well, if it was daylight, anything phosphorescent would lie unseen. CHARLES    Precisely.  So he tried again, this time by night.  And with somewhat more trepidation. Scene 13.    RANDOLPH    One stormy midnight, I ran the beams of an electric torch over the mouldy floor. The place had dispirited me curiously that evening, and I was almost prepared when I saw a particularly sharp definition of the "huddled form" we recalled from boyhood. CHARLES    Even while he watched, he seemed to see the thin, yellowish, shimmering exhalation which had startled us years before. RANDOLPH    A subtle, sickish, almost luminous vapour rose, which seemed to develop vague and shocking suggestions of form, before passing into the blackness of the great chimney, leaving foetor in its wake.  Refusing to flee, I watched it fade - and as I watched I felt it was in turn watching me greedily with eyes more imagined than visible. CHARLES    The upshot of this palpable manifestation was that they determined to both spend the night in the house.  After papering the windows, to avoid the eyes of possible onlookers, they added camp chairs and cots to their accoutrements and settled in. RANDOLPH    We were not, as I have said, in any sense childishly superstitious, but scientific study and reflection had taught us that the known universe of three dimensions embraces the merest fraction of the whole cosmos of substance and energy. HERBERT    [interested]  Scientific approach, indeed.  I assumed you were exaggerating. CHARLES    I accept your apology. HERBERT    I didn't apologize. RANDOLPH    To say that we actually believed in the supernatural would be carelessly inclusive.  Rather say that we were not prepared to deny the possibility of certain modifications of vital force and matter, of something that might exist only infrequently in three-dimensional space because of a more intimate connection with other spatial units. EDWARD    I'm not even going to ask. HERBERT    They were approaching the matter as if the potential creature was something that exists in an ...adjacent dimension.  Interesting. RANDOLPH    The family of Roulet had likely possessed an abnormal affinity for outer circles of entity.  Could not, then, some force drawn or created by this passion continue to function in the vicinity long after the original participants were dead and gone? HERBERT    Unfortunately, there is no way to prove or disprove such sloppy hypotheses.  [musing] And yet, one might easily imagine an alien nucleus of substance or energy, formless or otherwise, kept alive by imperceptible subtractions from the life-force or bodily tissue and fluids of more traditional "living things". EDWARD    Which, I believe, would make it something called ...a "vampire"? HERBERT    [ignoring him] Such a thing might be actively hostile, or simply motivated by self-preservation.   EDWARD    Back to Luella Miller. Scene 14.    RICHARD    Regardless, in any good social circles, eating people is considered... unacceptable. HERBERT    Well, of course such a creature would have to be eliminated, and yet the concept is fascinating. WARREN    Perhaps such creatures, throughout history, formed the basis for many such myths. CHARLES    But this myth is the only one we're dealing with tonight.  Randolph and Elihu were ready for anything they could be ready for. RANDOLPH    We had devised two weapons to fight it; a large Crookes tube operated by powerful storage batteries and provided with peculiar screens and reflectors, in case it proved intangible and opposable only by vigorously destructive ether radiations-- HERBERT    Is this item available for an examination? CHARLES    I might ask him.  But not for a couple of months.  He's rather busy at the moment. EDWARD    Oh, no - don't tell me he's in a madhouse? CHARLES    [considering, then definite] Mm.  No. RANDOLPH    We also had a pair of military flame-throwers of the sort used in the World War, in case the creature proved material and susceptible of standard destruction.  We were prepared to burn the thing's heart out - if heart existed to burn. HERBERT     This is the sort of preparation sorely lacking in most of these so-called ghost stories.  And nary a religious icon in sight? CHARLES    Um, no. HERBERT    I am impressed. EDWARD    You don't mind that they planned to "burn its heart out", so long as they didn't brandish a crucifix while they did it? HERBERT    Melodramatic, perhaps, but burning the heart out of any living creature is just as likely to be an effective way of destroying it. RANDOLPH    Our cellar vigil began at 10 P.M., daylight saving time.  A weak, filtered glow from the rain-harassed street lamps outside, and a feeble phosphorescence from the detestable fungi within, showed the dripping stone of the walls. CHARLES    They left the street door unlocked, in case of a sudden need to depart.  And they sat, playing stalking goat to a creature as potentially deadly as any man-eating tiger.  They talked far into the night until Uncle Elihu, being the older, grew drowsy. RANDOLPH    Something like fear chilled me as I sat there in the small hours alone - I say alone, for one who sits by a sleeper is indeed alone; perhaps more alone than he can realize.  Once, when the noisome atmosphere of the place seemed about to sicken me, I opened the door and looked up and down the street, feasting my eyes on familiar sights and my nostrils on wholesome air. CHARLES    He returned inside, ready to trade shifts with the elder man.  But all was not well. RANDOLPH    As I turned my electric flashlight on him, all at once he commenced to mutter.  The words were at first indistinguishable, and then, with a tremendous start, I recognized something about them which filled me with icy fear! RICHARD    Francais? CHARLES    Oui.  Now, Uncle Elihu could read and write in a passable Gallic hand, and presumably COULD speak the tongue as well.  So it might ... possibly be ... coincidence. RANDOLPH    Suddenly a perspiration broke out on the sleeper's forehead, and he leapt abruptly up, half awake.  The jumble of French changed to a cry in English! Scene 15.    ELIHU    My breath, my breath! EDWARD    Wait!  You just used the past tense!  [mimicking] "Uncle could read and write!"  Did the vampire get him? CHARLES    As a matter of fact, he woke at this point, and recounted a dreadful dream he had been having.  WARREN    A sort of race-memory?  CHARLES    All the while, he said he felt a sensation of choking, as if some pervasive presence had spread itself through his body. RANDOLPH    I reflected that dreams are only dreams, and that these visions could be, at most, no more than my uncle's reaction to the investigations which had lately filled our minds to the exclusion of all else. HERBERT    Plausible. EDWARD    Plausible denial. RANDOLPH    My uncle seemed now very wakeful, and welcomed his period of watching even though the nightmare had aroused him far ahead of his allotted two hours. EDWARD    He still went to sleep?  After all that? RANDOLPH    It was not a pleasant sleep, and for a second I was not sorry for the echoing shriek which clove through the barriers of dream and flung me to a sharp and startled awakeness. RICHARD    Who was shrieking?  EDWARD    His uncle?  Your uncle, I mean? CHARLES    [grim] Yes. RANDOLPH    As I turned, I dreaded what I was to see; for the scream had been in my uncle's voice, and I knew not against what menace I should have to defend him and myself. HERBERT    Did he at least have the sense to arm himself with the flamethrower? CHARLES    I believe so. EDWARD    Not the BEST idea, considering his uncle might be in the line of ... um... fire. RANDOLPH    Yet after all, the sight was worse than I had dreaded.  Out of the fungous-ridden earth steamed up a vaporous corpse-light, yellow and diseased, which bubbled and lapped to a gigantic height in vague outlines half human and half monstrous. RICHARD    A yellow blot upon the dark palette of the tenebrous cellar. RANDOLPH    I say that I saw this thing, but at the time it was to me only a seething dim cloud of fungous loathsomeness, enveloping the one object to which all my attention was focused.  That object was my uncle! EDWARD    Why did it wait so long? WARREN    Maybe the apparition only appears at certain times of night. HERBERT    Maybe the dimensions only overlap at certain times. CHARLES    Maybe you should let me finish the tale. RANDOLPH    And then, my uncle, features somehow blackening and decaying, leered and gibbered and reached out dripping claws to rend me! RICHARD    All the more terrible for being a relative. RANDOLPH    Only a sense of routine kept me from going mad.  Recognizing the bubbling evil as no substance reachable by matter or material chemistry, I threw on the current of the Crookes tube apparatus, and focused the strongest ether radiations. HERBERT    [eager] Yes?  RANDOLPH    There was a frenzied sputtering, and the yellowish phosphorescence grew dimmer to my eyes. But I saw that the waves from the machine had no effect whatsoever. CHARLES    Then, in the midst of that daemoniac spectacle, he saw a fresh horror which sent him fumbling and staggering towards that unlocked door to the quiet street, careless of what terrors he might loose upon the world. RANDOLPH    In that dim blend of blue and yellow light, the form of my uncle commenced a nauseous liquefaction whose essence eludes all description, and in which there played across his vanishing face such changes of identity as only madness can conceive. He was at once a devil and a multitude, a charnel-house and a pageant. CHARLES    He said that dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of faces played briefly across the countenance of our dear uncle - showing, perhaps, all those whose lives had been tainted by the shadowy intruder. RANDOLPH    Toward the last, it seemed as though the shifting features strove to form contours like those of my uncle's kindly face. I like to think that he existed at that moment, and that he tried to bid me farewell before the final dissolution. Scene 16.    HERBERT    [disbelieving] He... melted? EDWARD    Seems a bit extreme for an entity that took years and years to kill sister Mercy. WARREN    Consider that the thing had been starved for half a century.  Where it might have been satisfied with a slow drain in the past, now it was forced to gorge. RICHARD    And poor Randolph fled into the night? CHARLES    Yes.  He wandered aimlessly for a time, unsure of whom he might confide in. EDWARD    Naturally he thought of you. CHARLES    My taste in the ... unusual isn't much of a secret.  He woke me early that morning and together we approached that evil dwelling. RANDOLPH    All residue was gone, for the mouldy floor was porous. CHARLES    I saw the cot, the chairs, the instruments, and even the yellowed straw hat of my uncle. But no sign of the figure in the floor. RANDOLPH    I tried to conjecture as nearly as sanity would let me just what had happened, and how I might end the horror, if indeed it had been real.  It did not seem to be matter, nor ether, nor anything else conceivable. What, then, but some exotic emanation; some vampirish vapour such as those that rustics claim lurk over certain church yards? CHARLES    Randolph has always been a bit of a dreamer.  Between us we quickly concocted a plan, and went to fetch digging implements, military gas-masks, and six carboys of sulphuric acid. EDWARD    That you just happened to have lying around? HERBERT    That's what those were for. RICHARD    Herbert?  Why on earth do you have sulphuric acid handy? HERBERT    It serves many purposes.  But getting rid of organic ... remains... is a primary one. CHARLES    It took nearly an entire day to get everything organized.  Randolph spent most of that time trying to take his mind off the horrors he had witnessed.  RANDOLPH    I passed the hours in reading and in the composition of inane verses to counteract my mood. EDWARD    "inane verses"? RICHARD    [limerick] There once was an old man from Arkham... Scene 17.    CHARLES    Just before noon the next day, we commenced digging - right where that stain had always been seen, though there was no trace of it there in the strong morning sunshine. RANDOLPH    As I turned up the stinking black earth in front of the fireplace, a viscous yellow ichor oozed from the white fungi it severed. CHARLES    With the deepening of the hole, which was about six feet square, the evil smell increased.  We had arranged the great carboys of acid around and near two sides, so that when necessary they could be emptied down the aperture in quick succession. EDWARD    And the gas masks? CHARLES    originally to keep out the vapor itself, but we used them as much for the dreadful stench. RANDOLPH    Suddenly my spade struck something softer than earth. I shuddered and made a motion as if to climb out of the hole, which was now as deep as my neck. CHARLES    I was above at the time, taking some much-needed fresh air, but returned when he called out in horror. RANDOLPH    The thing I had uncovered was fishy and glassy - a kind of semi-putrid congealed jelly with suggestions of translucency. I scraped further, and saw that it had form -huge and roughly cylindrical; like a mammoth soft blue-white stovepipe doubled in two, its largest part some two feet in diameter. CHARLES    Abruptly, he leaped out of the hole, then began frantically unstopping and tilting the heavy carboys, and precipitating their corrosive contents one after another down that charnel gulf.    EDWARD    Before you could even see it? CHARLES    I saw enough. RICHARD    A cylinder?  So it was some sort of giant worm? EDWARD    A folded worm? CHARLES    Randolph had his own explanation for it, though I don't know how much credit to give him, there in his abject terror. HERBERT    What did he think it was? CHARLES    All I saw was a blinding maelstrom of greenish-yellow vapour which surged tempestuously up from that hole as the floods of acid descended.  People outside, seeing the hideous yellow fumes that soared up the chimney, attributed it to a dumping of waste in the river by some factory, but I know how mistaken they are as to the source. HERBERT    But you had apparently only uncovered part of the thing?  EDWARD    I guess the acid found its way back to the rest of it. Scene 18.    CHARLES    People also talk about the hideous noise which came at roughly the same time from some disordered water-pipe or gas main underground - but again I could correct them if I dared. RANDOLPH    It was unspeakably shocking, and I do not see how I lived through it. I did faint after emptying the fourth carboy; but when I recovered I saw that the hole was emitting no fresh vapours. CHARLES    I dragged him away and we waited until the fumes cleared.  We still emptied the rest of the acid down the hole, just to be on the safe side. RANDOLPH    The dampness was less foetid, and all the strange fungi had withered to a kind of harmless greyish powder which blew ashlike along the floor. HERBERT    Probably from the fumes. RANDOLPH    One of earth's nethermost terrors had perished forever; and if there be a hell, it had received at last the daemon soul of an unhallowed thing. And as I patted down the last spadeful of mould, I shed the first of many tears with which I have paid unaffected tribute to my beloved uncle's memory. EDWARD    But what was it?  What did he say he saw? CHARLES    Keep in mind that at two feet diameter, this cylinder would have made a very stocky man indeed. RICHARD    Portly, even. HERBERT    And difficult to double up that way, once obesity set in. EDWARD    What was it? CHARLES    Again, I never saw it, and only have Randolph's rather addled ideas to go by.  And he insisted that if it had lain there all those centuries, eating and growing, it could be any sort of size. EDWARD    And? CHARLES    He said this thing - this huge bent thing- was ... the creature's ...elbow. [moment of silence] EDWARD    [snickering] what? CHARLES    His words, not mine. EDWARD    But if it grew when fed, wouldn't it have shrunk when starved?  It should have been tiny. WARREN    Unless by devouring Charles's uncle - Oh, I say, I'm sorry - but perhaps that would have returned it to its... ahem ... former glory? HERBERT    It's ridiculous.  I was perfectly willing to consider the possible existence of some such thing, but quite apart form the inanity of a thing which grows so large that it COULD achieve such stature - there's a simple issue of displacement of earth! CHARLES    I expect it happened very very slowly. RICHARD    Not to mention that if something that size were its elbow, its entire body would have been underneath most of the neighborhood.  Why then, would it restrict itself to harming only those in that single house? WARREN    True. If it were going to have a single area to draw sustenance from, you might think it would be centered on, say, the mouth.  EDWARD    Yeah.  No one who's anyone eats with their elbow. CHARLES    [annoyed sigh] I'll make a point of telling Randolph the next time I see him. END

Terry Mattingly of GetReligion Pop Goes Religion: Faith in Popular Culture GetReligion.org

My guest today is known as "the Maximum Leader" at the Worthy House. He is Charles Haywood. The Worthy House is an excellent site full of both audio and written book reviews as well as very good original pieces by Charles. He has a piece he calls "The Foundationalist Manifesto", in which he charts out twelve pillars upon which to build our post-liberal society. We discuss some of those as well as what must be done with the Left once the regime collapses and why he's very optimistic about the future. Charles is also an Orthodox Christian, and we discuss why Orthodoxy was appealing to him rather than Protestantism. For more of Mr. Haywood's excellent insights, go here: Follow Charles on Twitter: Sponsors: Expat Money Show: Paloma Verde CBD ( ): Enter code BUCK at checkout for 25% off any purchase over $75! ...and join their mailing list for an additional 10% off! Visit my website: Donate to the show here: Audio Production by Podsworth Media: Leave us a review and rating on iTunes! Thanks!

We start with the interview with Matt Spaiser, author of "From Tailors with Love: An Evolution of Menswear Through the Bond Films". We look at the clothing influences of two Princes of Wales, Prince Charles and his grand-uncle, once known as Edward VIII then as the Duke of Winsor. After that, I take a look at: P is for the Plantagenates (minute 44)P is for Pound Stirling (minute 47)P is for Ian Paisley (minute 50)P is for Protestantism (minute 56) P is for Pimms (minute 58)P is for Prime Minister's Question Time (PMQ)P is for Paddington Bear (1 hour, minute 6)P is for Pub (1 hour, minute 10) P is for Posh and Poor (1 hour, minute 13)P is for Pie (1 hour, minute 17)P is for Prize-fighting or Pugilism (1 hour, minute 19)P is for Politeness (1 hour, minute 20)P is for Pips, as in 'time pips' (1 hour, minute 22) And at 1 hour, minute 23: P is for Pennies, Pillar Boxes, Pooh, Pontefract Cakes, Pencil Museum, Pop Music, Penny for the Guy, Park, Pride, Palace, Post Office, Pantomimes, Patience, Punk Rock, Pint, Patiotism, Peas, Pluck, Porridge, Poppy Day, Pomp and Circumstance and the Proms, Portsmouth, Parliament, Police Telephone Boxes, Peaky Blinders, Politics, Pax Britannica, St. Paul's Cathedral, Peter Sellers, Pudding. At 1 hour, minute 27, I look at the Wikipedia article on British stereotypes. My final word is on Pwyllheli, check out the great video by the local tourism office here.You can contact me on Instagram, by e-mail (AlbionNeverDies@Gmail.com), or by commenting on my posts in the Facebook group "

With the news of yet another Anglican bishop converting to Catholicism this week, Dr. Grazie Christie and Leigh Snead chat with former chaplain to the queen of England Dr. Gavin Ashenden about his own conversion and what this moment means for the fate of Protestantism. With the Beijing Olympics are underway, RFI's Tom Farr joins along with Maureen Ferguson shine a light on the grave religious freedom violations taking place across the country--and what we as Catholics can do to help those suffering including Jimmy Lai. Father Roger Landry also offers an inspiring homily to prepare us for this Sunday's Gospel. Catch the show every Saturday at 7amET/5pm ET on EWTN radio!

They said to him, “John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.”  Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.'” (Luke 5:33-39)   I have to think of this past Sunday's sermon when I read this text from Luke.  The coming of Jesus is another one of those watershed moments: another shifting of the ages in terms of how God deals with his people.  In 1 Samuel it's the shift from the tribal, nomadic time of the Judges to the more established nationalistic time of the Kings.  Here it is the shift from the Old Testament to the New, from Judaism to Christianity, from the Old Israel to the New Israel, from law to grace, from the time of prophets, priests, and kings to the time of Jesus who fulfilled them all. New wine requires new wine skins and new cloth cannot be sown on old, because both of these new things are still, as preacher Fred Craddock says: “alive, changing, not fixed in form or size, and therefore… not to be treated as thought they were dead” and rigid.  So it was with the new revelation of Jesus.  Jesus represented a significant shift of the ages that would burst the old forms if those old forms attempted to contain him.  Indeed, they could not.  The new revelation of Jesus required new forms.  No longer a Temple, but a living body of people called a church, for instance.  We often act as though this was the last shift point of the ages.  The revelation of Jesus was the final chapter in God's work in the world, we think.  But if God remains a living and active God, sovereign in all his ways: why should his work cease?  By thinking of ourselves as Reformed Christians, we implicitly confirm that God does do new things that require new forms: like the creation of an entirely new branch of Christianity that calls itself Protestantism nearly 500 years ago.  But having tasted the old and familiar: who wants to drink the new?  We resist new movements of the Holy Spirit.  We pray to Jesus for stability, comfort, and peace: not for change.  What God has given us has suited just fine up until now, why should it be different?  It is a hard thing to discern the times and to discern the sovereign movements of the Spirit of God.  When are we supposed to reach for the good old vintages of wine, and when ought we be readying new wine skins?  It seems Jesus addresses that conundrum here too.  John's disciples took the old forms: fasting and praying as was the tradition of many within the observant Jewish faith of that day.  But Jesus' disciples took the new—feasting and drinking freely.  Jesus doesn't answer the question between these two forms with any hard and fast rules, but rather suggests that there is a seasonality and a wise discernment needed here.  A time to feast and a time to fast.  A time for joy and a time for sorrow.  A time for tradition and a time for innovation.  The question Jesus leaves with us then, is what time is it now?  It's a question the church—Reformed-and-always-Reforming—must always wrestle with.  

Time in Unordinary Times – Guest, Father Brian Lynch of Transfiguration Catholic Church in Oakdale, Minnesota comes on to give his thoughts the year after his viral homily over the Catholic Bishop's betrayal that gave us Joe Biden. We are also talking about his faith journey from a scientist, how he thinks the SCOTUS will weigh in on the MS 15-week abortion ban, and on fruits of Protestantism 500+ years later. The post Voicing Truth and Reason – Episode 47 (Father Brian Lynch – A Year Later / The Meaning of Ordinary Time) first appeared on David L. Gray.

Fruit and Light   22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! (Galatians 5:22-23)   These are perhaps some of most popular words within the church today, particularly western reformed Protestantism…  Look at those words again – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control… Beautiful words which I am sure fill you with a sense of well-being and are pleasing to your mind and to your soul… They are indeed beautiful but they are to be maintained by the Christian, because they are evidence that you have the Holy Spirit within you. Come and listen to the Podcast to find out more about the fruit of the Spirit and being light! Right mouse click or tap here to save this sermon MP3 file to your computer You can now purchase our Partakers books! Please do click or tap here to visit our Amazon site!  

Caleb Elcock was raised a Baptist but his enquiries into the rationality and authenticity of religion led Caleb away from Protestantism to investigate the Church fathers and the Messianic narrative. Caleb and I had a thoroughly enjoyable conversation about whether it is reasonable to believe in God and why the answer to this question should have an impact on our lives. Big thanks to Caleb for taking the time to talk!

在喜马拉雅已支持实时字幕关注公众号“高效英语磨耳朵”获取文稿和音频词汇提示1.the Protestant Reformation 新教改革2.Catholic 天主教3.theologian 神学家4.committing 犯罪5.sins 罪恶6.freedom 特权7.acknowledge the authority 承认权威8.heretic 异教徒9.celibate 独身的 10.interpret 解释原文The Protestant ReformationUntil about 500 years ago，there was only one Christian church in western and central Europe.People from Portugal and Poland all belonged to the Roman Catholic Church.However，soon after the year 1500，people in many parts of Europe broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and began their own churches instead.This was known as the Protestant Reformation.The leader of the early Protestant movement was a German theologian named Martin Luther.Luther believed that many of the priests of the Roman Catholic Church had became too concerned about wealth and luxury.Also，he disapproved of some practices in the Church.One such practice was that priests allowed people to pay money to the Church in exchange for committing various sins.Luther believed that it was wrong to allow people to buy the freedom to commit acts that were against the teaching of the Church.Luther began to criticize the Roman Catholic Church in public，and he refused to acknowledge the authority of the Church.He said that instead he would follow the teachings of the Bible as he understood them.The officials of the Church declared that Luther was a heretic.However，the local German rulers did not punish Luther.Many of them resented the power of the Church and welcomed his ideas.Luther and other Protestant leaders disagreed with the Church on several important issues.The Protestants believed that priests should be allowed to marry，whereas the Roman Catholic Church believed priests should remain celibate.The Protestants believed that people should read the Bible for themselves，whereas the Roman Catholic Church believed that the priests should interpret the Bible for the people.During the decades that follow Luther，the Protestant movement spread throughout much of Europe.Over time，many Protestant churches were formed.During this period，many wars were fought between local rulers who were favored Protestantism，and other local rulers who supported the Roman Catholic Church.In the end，many parts of Europe became Protestant，such as Scandinavia，England，and parts of Germany，Holland and Switzerland.However，the people and rulers of many other areas of Europe preferred remain in the Roman Catholic Church.These areas included most of southern Europe，such as Poland and Ireland.The Roman Catholic Church changed a few of its practices in response to Protestant Criticism，but kept its most important beliefs.In recent times，relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the various Protestant churches have become much more friendly.Some discussions have been held between Catholic and Protestant officials，in order to resolve some of their disagreements.

The concept of “phronema” (a mindset, approach, stance, or way of thinking) is inescapable. Everyone has one. However, the phronema of the West is very different from that of the East. In this episode, Dn. Michael unpacks the two major expressions of the Western phronema: Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. While they seem very different, they are more similar than you might think.

Episode 32 of the David L. Gray Show - Voicing Truth and Reason - Monologue on the big lies that have tried to create a new moral order in the world through Protestantism in 1517, Freemasonry in 1717, Communism in 1917, and the Big Tech in 2017. Guest Timothy J. Gordon, author of 'The Case for Patriarchy' (to be released on October 1, 2021), on to talk about current events. The post Voicing Truth and Reason – Episode 32 (The Big Lies of 1517, 1717, 1917, and 2017 / Guest Timothy J. Gordon) first appeared on David L. Gray.

A lot of people know about "The Southern Strategy," the multi-year plan of 20th century Republicans like Richard Nixon to get white voters in the South to stop voting for Democrats, but what isn't widely known is that the GOP itself was changed by the electoral coalition that it attracted. Angie Maxwell, a professor at the University of Arkansas, takes a deep look at how Republicans incorporated many aspects of Southern white Protestantism in her book "The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics." In this episode of Theory of Change, Maxwell and Matthew Sheffield discuss how the loss of the Civil War and negative media coverage of the John Scopes evolution trial in Tennessee were some of the reasons that many white Southerners felt aggrieved from the rest of the country, and how this set the stage for a politics built on that resentment. They also talk about how it's overly simplistic to say that flipping the white South was only about race or segregation. Some party switchers went to the GOP because it stopped supporting the Equal Rights Amendment and other policies they believed to be violations of traditional roles for women. Others went to Republicans because the party decided to rebuild itself into a party for Christians. Full episode transcript: https://flux.community/matthew-sheffield/2021/08/southern-strategy-changed-how-white-southerners-voted-it-also-changed Angie Maxwell on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngieMaxwell1 Matthew Sheffield on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattsheffield Buy Angie's book here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-long-southern-strategy-9780190265960?cc=us&lang=en& Theory of Change is part of the Flux network, a new content community of podcasters and writers. Please visit us at https://flux.community to learn more and to tell us about what you're doing! We're constantly growing and learning from the great people we meet. Please support Theory of Change: PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/theorychange Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/discoverflux

Matthew Leonard and Dr. Carrie Gress discuss the power and evangelistic necessity of a proper theology of home. This is a huge topic for both Catholic men and women. After all, we all live in homes! The relationship between "home" and your spiritual life How modern culture asks men to become like women (and vice-versa) How a Catholic theology of home is different from Protestantism and other faiths The prime role of beauty in the home • Why Scripture emphasizes hospitality and the importance of its role How Our Lady teaches us a theology of home