I looked at the posts, seeing which one was most deserving of some 'special attention' and firstly DI, yours rates at the top.

"The most sexist and racist book ever written"

myyyyyy goodness, Di, I would have to say that such a statement by you, would equally rank as probably one of the most uniformed, blinkered, narrow minded and historically and culturally ignornant ones also ever made in this forum.

Not to mention 'cultural centric, ethnoc centric, philo-centric'.

Di, you are just projecting from your very conditioned 'condition' back into a world which you appear to know next to nothing about, and you expect God to speak INTO 'that' world in terms that you, today, fully comprehend. Umm.. don't you see a few mild problems with that approach ? I sure do.

Now.. to JPW2040
J, you are almost doing the same thing as Di, you are imposing your very wayward understanding of what it means to be Christian, part of the Church onto what Sells said, and you are broadcasting it as if it actually existed.

Parents "Sucked in" wow, I can read a lot into that mainly about your own condition. It also tells me a lot about your misunderstanding of Christ and the gospel. "No one is going to tell me how to behave, I'm the boss of me" kind of thing. JP, you should analyze what you say more before it graces our eyes.

You can behave any way you like. Go for it. But the point of the gospel and Christ is that while you have the free will to do this, there are concequences ultimately. The Gospel is calling mankind back into loving fellowship with God, thru Christ. No one is going to drag you kicking and screaming to the foot of the Cross.
You can always follow the Biblical teaching

"If Christ is not raised, then lets eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die".

Does that sound like a wise and sustainable approach to life ? (and eternity)

"one of the most uniformed (sic.), blinkered, narrow minded and historically and culturally ignornant (sic.) ones also ever made in this forum"

Given the bigoted, homophobic and wilfully ignorant blather that "BOAZ-David" repeatedly posts to these forums, one wonders whether he is a little piqued at being apparently outdone - not that Di's very reasonable contributions come close in the ignorance stakes.

"BOAZ" shares with Sellick, not only a stupefying adherence to ancient Middle Eastern myths and rituals, but also a predilection for sloppy exemplification, as is the case with Sellick's erroneous reference to the infant Crowe and any number of BOAZ's fictitious or exaggerated references to the Greens, homosexuals, asylum seekers or anybody else of whom he disapproves.

Then again, these more extreme 'godbotherers' have never let reality get in the way of their stories.

Pricillian
what you trotted out, was so old that its almost boring, don't mean to sound 'mean' but it is. The world into which the gospel and Christ came, was very diverse and many practices were carried out. I don't recall EVER seeing anything in the gospels or the Old testament that suggests that the 'concepts' referred to are 'unique, new, without parallel'. In fact, this was the VERY thing that God was showing, by allowing people to compare and contrast HIS work in history with the myths and legends and stories of the pagan world.

Take the Plagues of Egypt for example. Most of those had actual historic precedents. So, it was not the 'fact' of the plaques which was miraculous so much as the TIMING.

It does not take a reasonably informed and basically educated person very long to see the extreme contrasts between the 'gods' of this world, their ceremonies and the pagan rites, with the purity and stark differences with the Christian/Judaistic ones. Look at the epic of Gilgamesh for one, compared to the Creation accounts.
The pagan rites you refer to involved ritual prostitution, of both genders, child sacrifice, and many other disgusting practices, where the self revelation of God was to draw people AWAY from the idea that there was some spiritual benefit derived from throwing your own baby into some fire to please a 'god'

TOPIC Most of what Sells says and presents is very good in my opinion. The charismatic movement HAS lost a lot of the richness of many traditions, but at the same time, the 'ritual's mob has often lost the freshness and spontaneity of the daily walk with the living God. Both have plenty to offer, but neither should ever re-fashion the gospel in terms of 'contemporary' thinking, the presentation may be contextualized but "I preached Christ, and Him crucified" was Pauls anthem and it must always be ours.

Good to see that godbotherer Boaz David back and on the job again.

Not so good however to see the godforsaken Garra returning with nothing but insults to trade and not an argument in sight with any substance.

I thank Priscillian for getting back and promise him or her a more detailed response later in the weekend.

However, Priscillian you still talk in generalities and your web link didn't really support your point at all, as the examples of "other" Baptisms were all Jewish and of course as you know Christianity grew out of Judaism and indeed cannot be understood apart from it Old Testament (Jewish) heritage.

As for your little history lesson on the collapse of paganism, perhaps we have been reading different history books, but I will come back to this point when I have a little more time.

I see Boaz David has jumped into Priscillian.

Whilst I agree with Boaz David as when he says, "The pagan rites you refer to involved ritual prostitution, of both genders, child sacrifice, and many other disgusting practices, where the self revelation of God was to draw people AWAY from the idea that there was some spiritual benefit derived from throwing your own baby into some fire to please a 'god'",

I would have preferred to have seen Priscillian leave (as I still hope) the comfort of his or her easy, wafty generalisations, to actually quote instances of these parallel pagan rites, so as to allow myself (or Boaz David or other students of history) to demonstrate the vast gulf between the darkness of these pagan rites and the light and glory of Christian baptism.

I also applaud Peter Sellick for his central thesis and I reckon therein lies every hope for the recovery of the Christian mission in the West, not through accommodation with a sick decaying civilisation but a return to truth and accompanying fervour of the Gospel which gives life, peace with God, purpose and meaning in life.

I always find it interesting to observe how Christians are busy with their relief agencies, homes for homeless youth, building hospitals, starting new schools, etc, etc at great personal expenses when modern day pagans can only look to Government for these things and won't lift a finger themselves.

Hang on boys......I was reminding you of the pre Christian existance of certain rites within the context of Sells article. Of course they were different in many ways. My point was that they were adapted and changed and that Christianity has changed and adapted through the ages. As for for readings of history I'm alsmost certain that our sources would be different.

BTW Priscillian is a male name the female would be Priscilla.