A few questions for Believers.   Please give your answer and the
reference in scripture that supports it.

1>  In a Christian Nation should Capital Punishment be the Law?

Capital Punishment is not "unjust" in itself.  If a man kills another
person cold bloodedly, without justification and in sound mind, then
why should he keep his own life?

However the penalty lends itself to misuse, and does not reduce crime.
 Too many people have been executed wrongly, either by mistake or
intentionally.  Christ's own execution was a travesty of justice.

In the modern state, it is very difficult to escape from a high
security prison, which was not the case in old days, or when a society
was nomadic or semi-nomadic.  "Never to be released" is a real life
sentence.

Secondly there is a great deal of psychiatric and psychological help
available for offenders.

I don't see the need for it in the modern west.

2>  What day of the week should the Sabbath be celebrated?

The OT view was Saturday or the seventh day of the week, although I
believe the Jewish day finished at sundown.  Therefore the Sabbath
would have been from Friday evening to Saturday afternoon (I think). 
Because of the way calendars are printed, it is easy to get the
impression the first day of the week is Monday.  Technically however
it is Sunday.

The early Church met on the first day of the week because that is the
day that Christ rose again.  If the earliest Christians saw fit to
celebrate that way, who are we to argue?  That has been the tradition
ever since, apart from churches which want to resurrect the OT all
over again.

The Catholic Church these days also has a mass on Saturday evenings,
mainly because of the busy lifestyle of many.  However the "legal"
justification for this is that if we take the Jewish tradition into
account, then the "First Day" starts on Saturday evening, and finishes
on Sunday afternoon at Sundown.

As a Catholic, I accept this practice.

3>  Must Christians follow the Ten Commandments as written in the
Jewish Bible (Exodus)?

They underpin the whole of Judeo-Christian teaching.  Most of the laws
of the society you live in are based on them, although Christ would be
probably look askance at how they are interpreted, and whose interests
they sometimes protect.

4>  Please state the Commandment word referring to the taking of human
life.

Is it "Do Not Murder" or is it "Do Not Kill"?

I don't know, since I have never studied Biblical Hebrew.  The
Catholic Church teaches that one can take life in certain
circumstances.  For example, it would agree the US was right in
seeking Bin Laden, dead or alive, and if his supporters were killed in
resisting this, then so be it (sadly).  But it would have argued that
the Iraq war was immoral, regardless of the fact Saddam Hussein was a
tyrant.  He had not after all, declared war on the US, or invaded
foreign territory.

Senator Kerry said the same thing in relation to Iraq, but the
Catholic Church would have condemned his views on abortion, since an
unborn child is no threat to the life of John Kerry, having pulled no
gun, or threatened violence.  It is a peculiarly one-sided war then,
the powerful justifying their destruction of the weak.

To kill an unborn child then, in the eyes of the Catholic Church (and
therefore God, whose morality it tries to interpret), is murder, as
much as killing Iraqi civilians in an unjustified war.

But as for the exact rendering of the word in the original
commandments, I don't know.


5> Although each of the following church groups consider themselves
'Christian', which of them would you consider 'Christian'?

I'd better state my position clearly.  I was a Protestant, and I am
now Catholic.  Oddly enough a few years before my conversion, a wise
old Protestant pastor I knew made two comments, which I consider
reporting.

The first was that he wondered if Protestants get into heaven, since
he believed God did not want His church divided.  The Reformation, he
said, was easily the most violent upheaval in Christian history.  I
don't know the exact figure for deaths, but ten million people is
probably reasonably accurate.  And the real reasons for the DIVISION
were more political than religious.

The second was that he considered Martin Luther the False Prophet,
stating that "some of the things Luther said and did were not very
Christian".  He added that the two men who sheltered Luther in the
Wartburg were real rogues, murderous and violent.

He made the additional comment "You might have noticed that I rarely
preach on Luther.  That is why."  Indeed when I cast my mind back on
his sermons, of which I heard hundreds, he hardly even mentioned
Luther's name, let alone preach on him.

I think I read in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" in which W.
Shirer blamed the German mindset of blind obedience to the state on
Luther, that the population of Germany declined from 16 million to
about 6 million, and that a horrible torpor lay upon the people for
decades, if not centuries.  It was also Lutheran Germany guided by the
Prussian Officer code, that set out on World War I and the term "Final
Solution" was coined by Luther and put into practice by Hitler, in
World War II.  Luther left a legacy, not all good, despite his
lionisation by Protestant interests.

The pastor said that a FRONTAL death mask of Luther appeared quite
demonic, but I have found a picture of it hard to find.  Another
author said that while the death masks of other famous men are often
rather beautiful, he commented that when we get to Luther we get a
shock.  The pastor's comment was that he thought it was not Luther's
natural appearance, but a punishment put upon him by God, due to the
violent polemic, hatred of peasants and Jews, and the wholesale
persecution of Catholic religious in territories under the control of
his protectors.

What I hold against the pastor himself is that he never said any of
this publicly.  If a Protestant pastor has quite a strong conviction
that Protestants don't get into heaven, and that Martin Luther was the
False Prophet, then he should have at least said so, at some time. 
Saying nothing is a cop-out.  Even if the Catholic Church had "done a
lot of damage at times" to quote the pastor, when I asked why he was
still a Protestant, truth is truth, and if one believes it, should be
stated.  Obviously such a statement would have been controversial, but
he obviously believed it.

Now the pastor's name is Rev. Robert Missenden.  He died in 1992, a
saintly man, but if his own belief proved to be correct, then even he
is not in heaven.  Not because he doesn't deserve to be, but perhaps
God is a lot less casual about the violent and continued of HIS Church
than we are.  He might not, after all, be as much of a democrat as we
would like him to be.

Now the pastor's name would mean nothing to you, but in Queensland,
Australia, Rev. Missenden had quite a strong, deserved reputation as a
good and wise man.  I emphasise the WISDOM bit, as though who knew him
would have concurred.  He advised public figures as well as laity.  So
it is a disappointment to me that he never saw fit to say anything
publicly about these things.  However I am quite sure that he would
have said something to members of his own family, since he would
hardly have kept them in the dark about such strong and unsettling
beliefs.

However I am not so stupid as to think the only Christians are
Catholic.  There are many, many very good Christians in Protestant and
Orthodox and Coptic and other communities.  Generally we would agree
on most things Christian, with of course the main bone of contention
being the position of the Pope.

Therefore on that basis I would have to say all the following
denominations are Christian, with the exceptions of the second group
only, which treat Christ as an also ran, or have some other belief
which puts them at odds with mainstream Christian practice.

Roman Catholic
Greek Orthodox
Seventh Day Adventist
Seventh Day Baptist
Pentecostal
Methodist
Shaker
Quaker
Amish
Menonite
Prebyterian
United Church of Christ
Episcopal
Baptist
Old Apostolic Lutherin
Lutherin

The following groups are not "Christian" although there would be many,
many good and sincere people amongst them.

Mormon
Unitarian
Christian Science
Jehovah's Witnesses


That's the way I see it.

Bob Crowley.
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