Posted on 10/31/2010 11:59:22 AM PDT by RnMomof7
In Christ Alone lyrics
Songwriters: Getty, Julian Keith; Townend, Stuart Richard;
In Christ alone my hope is found He is my light, my strength, my song This Cornerstone, this solid ground Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace When fears are stilled, when strivings cease My Comforter, my All in All Here in the love of Christ I stand
In Christ alone, who took on flesh Fullness of God in helpless Babe This gift of love and righteousness Scorned by the ones He came to save
?Til on that cross as Jesus died The wrath of God was satisfied For every sin on Him was laid Here in the death of Christ I live, I live
There in the ground His body lay Light of the world by darkness slain Then bursting forth in glorious Day Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory Sin?s curse has lost its grip on me For I am His and He is mine Bought with the precious blood of Christ
That the Church is the rule of faith above all others is indeed taught in the Scripture. See Mt 18:17-18.
Nothing comparable is said of the scripture (Yes, I am familiar where it teaches that the man of God completes his priestly formation by studying the scripture, which is divinely inspired and useful for reproof...). The holy Scripture is useful. But the Church, not only the scripture written by the Church, binds with a heavenly bond.
They were no different than those slaughtered in the Holocaust, tragic victims of ignorance and hatred.
In reality Muslims were the main target of the Spanish Inquisition because they represented a disruptive enemy presence. The Spaniards had spent 700 years reclaiming the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors and needed to reestablish Christian culture and jurisprudence. Muslims did not accept the European concept of Divine Right or the God that authored it. As such they represented a treasonous presence. Remember, simultaneous to the Inquisition Islam was in a continuous and aggressive war with the Christian world. Fall of Constantinople was in 1453, the Battle of Lepanto took place in 1571 and Vienna was under siege in 1683, Greece and the Balkans were under Muslim control. Islam was a very real threat to all of Europe. One has to wonder why Protestantism remained neutral in the clash of civilizations.
The slaughter of the Huguenots was a mob action that sprang from the arrest of the Protestant leaders who were conspiring with the English and Dutch to stage a coup. It marked but a single event among hundreds in a series of populist sectarian violence incidents between Protestants and Catholics. Unfortunately, as in much of European history the peasants and poor were caught up in power politics that had nothing to do with religion.
In fact, this entire smoldering sidebar on abuse report insider information began with the very same offense by you at post 847.
All posters need to stop making the thread "about" individual Freepers. Now.
Discuss the ISSUES all you want, but do not make it personal.
No. The Spanish Inquisition did not persecute public Jews or Muslims. It was only concerned with public, baptized Catholics who were secretly working to overthrow church and state. Some of these public Catholics were known as Marranos, secret Jews, and Mariscos, secret Muslims. This was great problem since many Marranos had attained the rank of bishop and were destroying dioceses and religious orders. Moriscos were assisting Muslim raiders from North Africa who murdered and enslaved entire towns along the southern coasts of Spain.
On the whole, the Spanish Inquisition was a very worthy and successful Christian enterprise that took great care to guard against racial bigotry toward Jews and North Africans.
Today, many offices of bishop and cardinal have been captured by unrepentant homosexuals who work as a conscious fifth column to destroy the Church from within. Catholics desperately need to revive the Holy Inquisition as a means to restore the purity of Church offices once again.
annalex wrote:
“That the Church is the rule of faith above all others is indeed taught in the Scripture. See Mt 18:17-18.”
Ahhh, the one indispensable verse of the Bible ... again. Really, what need is there of all the other verses?
And he also wrote:
“Nothing comparable is said of the scripture.”
Scripture, schmipture.
And he also wrote:
“(Yes, I am familiar where it teaches that the man of God completes his priestly formation by studying the scripture, which is divinely inspired and useful for reproof...).”
Priestly formation ... truly scriptural terminology ... but, then again, Scripture, schmipture, who cares? Priestly formation ... it just rolls off the tongue so, so ... well. It sounds just like Jesus ... well, not, but then again what did He know, he was never the bishop of Rome ... poor sod.
And he also wrote:
“The holy Scripture is useful. But the Church, not only the scripture written by the Church, binds with a heavenly bond.”
Yup, the Bible has its uses, but the CHURCH, now that is where it’s at. The church knows all. The church knows better than God ... Caiaphas, call your office. How dare God? We’ll tell the Word of God what it really says.
You know, annalex, this path has been trod before. It didn’t work very well then. What makes you think that ... ?
Never mind. It is pointless.
If the church is infallible in the matter of faith and morals, then its not dealing with priests who molest children is what then?
How can you justify, excuse, or explain separating the "Church" as an organization or institution from the individuals who comprise it? How can the *Church* make any pronouncements without the men who make it up making those decisions and pronouncements?
annalex wrote:
“But the Church, not only the scripture written by the Church, binds with a heavenly bond.”
To all who might read this, I apologize for returning to something already commented on, but I can’t get this out of my craw, head or heart. What is here being asserted is that the Church is superior, because the Church gave birth to the Bible, not the other way around. This is really quite a clever and compelling argument, until you think about it a little.
Let us take a direct analogy: Mary gave birth to Jesus. Ergo, Mary is superior in authority and stature to her Child. That is what is being argued above. The clever part is that there is an element of truth in it. As soon as God made known His will that the Seed who would crush the serpent’s head would be born of a woman, He established the (partial) truth that the “Church” would give birth to its Lord. This is, of course, true. But it is only a part of the truth, and the lesser part. For the Son of Man, the Seed of the woman, was also, as John says, the Word, who was at the beginning, who was with God, and who was God. Separate these two truths and what do you have? Well, to make a long story short, whatever you have is not the holy Christian faith, the faith once handed down to the saints. It is something else. It is akin to the “something” of the Sadducees or of the Pharisees. And however sincerely it is believed - as it was sincerely believed by both Pharisee and Sadducee and whose sincerity was vouched safe in their decree of crucifixion! - it is also, simply, wrong and utterly contrary to the revealed will of God. Mary, as the Church, is the ministerial servant of the (infinitely) greater One, not the other way around.
To say that the Church validated the Holy Scriptures, as if they had no validity in and of themselves, is exactly akin to saying that Christ would not be the Messiah but for the validity afforded Him by Mary. I cannot help but think how horrified Mary of Nazareth, the most blessed among women - and the very picture of true faith and trust in God, would find this preposterous idea and assertion. Her Child was her Lord. He was to her as He was to John the Baptizer - infinitely, INFINITELY, greater. By this I by no means denigrate either John or Mary. Rather, I validate them. For this is what each plainly said. The point of comparison between the Son of Man and Son of God and John simply doesn’t exist. The point of comparison between Him and Mary simply doesn’t exist. The pot does not claim equality with the Potter, much less superiority over Him. To do either is, in fact, blasphemy.
Without the Holy Scriptures the Catholic Church is nothing, NOTHING. Without the Christ, Mary is nothing, NOTHING. For the Holy Scriptures are the voice and will of God, without which everything is nothing. But with and under the authority of the Scriptures the Church is very kingdom of God, the chosen people, the heirs of God’s kingdom. With and under Christ Mary is no mere girl from Nazareth, she is simply the most blessed woman who has ever walked or will ever walk the face of the earth.
The first issue is the definition of the church ,the second issue is not to fail doing what ?
Where is Papal infallibility in scripture? How is believe in fables like the assumption aid in the salvation of anyone?
What seems to be insinuated here is people should accept the doctrine and beliefs of the catholic church on faith alone ...
Otherwise, where there is no spiritual understanding, and the Spirit himself speaks not through the preacher (though I set no limits to the preacher; for the Spirit can teach better than any Postills or Homilies) the end of it will be that every man will preach what he likes; and, instead of the Gospel and its exposition, they will be preaching once more about blue ducks! There are further reasons why we keep the Epistles and Gospels as they are arranged in the Postills, because there are but few inspired preachers who can handle a whole Gospel or other book with force and profit.As Luther told Zwingli
“I do not ask how Christ can be God and man and how His natures could be united. For God is able to act far beyond our imagination. To the Word of God one must yield. It is up to you to prove that the body of Christ is not there when Christ Himself says, ‘This is my body.’ I do not want to hear what reason says. I completely reject carnal or geometrical arguments…”Zwingli was the one who decided that human reasoning was enough to read the biblical texts. Zwingli’s view on the sacraments has permeated Presbyterian and Reformatted attempts to rewrite the bible to fit human reasoning.
Luther believed that just as the body of Christ was necessary for salvation, so a physical presence of Christ was important for the Lord’s Supper. Luther saw Zwingli’s ideology as one that denied Christ’s true humanity.
DCCLVII. I wish from my heart Zwinglius could be saved, but I fear the contrary; for Christ has said that those who deny him shall be damned. God’s judgment is sure and certain, and we may safely pronounce it against all the ungodly, unless God reserve unto himself a peculiar privilege and dispensation. Even so, David from his heart wished that his son Absalom might be saved, when he said: ‘Absalom my son, Absalom my son;’ yet he certainly believed that he was damned, and bewailed him, not only that he died corporally, but was also lost everlastingly; for he knew that he had died in rebellion, in incest, and that he had hunted his father out of the kingdom.
Martin Luther, Table Talk Number 2387 a-b, as quoted in Frans Funck-Bretano, _Luther_, 1939, p.319
After three days of hotly debating with Martin Luther in Marburg the nature of the Eucharist, Huldreich Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer, gripped Luther’s hands and said: “Here we’re fighting. Doctor Martinus, but, thank God, one nice day we both will be dead and then in Heaven we shall know the Truth, walking with the great sages, with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle . . .”
“Doctor Zwingli,” Luther interrupted him rudely, “They were pagans; they were not baptized; they are roasting in the everlasting fires of Hell.”
“But they were good men, were virtuous and followed their consciences.”
“If you talk like this, you’re not a Christian—and I regret to have wasted my time with you,” Luther snapped back
John Murray (1741 - 1815) believed that every individual shall in due time be separated from sin. Of Calvinist background, he was influenced by the Methodism of John Wesley but was converted to Universalism, the doctrine of universal redemption. He organized the first American Universalist Church in 1779 at Gloucester, Mass.
Hosea Ballou (1771 - 1852), a New England theologian and clergyman, formulated the basic tenets of Universalism. Upon reacting against the Calvinist position on salvation of the elect only, he began teaching that all people are saved (universal salvation) and that there is no eternal punishment.
Source reference?
"As for the demented, I hold it certain that all beings deprived of reason are thus afflicted only by the Devil."The adverse reaction to this was the neo-paganism dating from Wagner's Nibelungen Ring saga. In the year 1940/41, people with disabilities who were entrusted to the evangelical institutions for the disabled in Neuendettelsau/Bayern were, with reference to Lutheran state teachings, finally handed over to the state authorities. That they were put to death, was known to those responsible.
"Idiots, the lame, the blind, the dumb, are men in whom the devils have established themselves: and all the physicians who heal these infirmities, as though they proceeded from natural causes, are ignorant blockheads...." About children with disabilities, he had this to say: "Wenn man aber von den teufelsähnlichen Kindern erzählt ... so halte ich dafür ... dass es wahre Teufel sind" ('But when people speak of the devil-lookalike children ... then that's why I think .... that they are true devils'
"As to the common people, ... one has to be hard with them and see that they do their work and that under the threat of the sword and the law they comply with the observance of piety, just as you chain up wild beasts."Luther's theories were influential on the secular errors that followed, but Calvin's errors are visible today in the barely Christian groups ranging from the OPC to others, with Calvin's Taliban-like rule over Geneva where when Calvin came to power in Geneva, he first established a set of "Ordinances," and a committee called the "Consistory" to oversee adherence to the rules. These "spiritual police" would knock on doors and ask questions, go through people's books and letters, and were not to be resisted. Once a month, everyone in town, old or young, rich or poor, was required to submit to questioning, as to whether they knew their prayers, or why they had missed one of Master Calvin's sermons.
"If the peasants are in open rebellion, then they are outside the law of God. Therefore let all who are able slash, strike down, and kill (those who rebel) openly and secretly, remembering that there can be nothing more venomous, harmful, or devilish than a rebel. It is exactly like killing a mad dog."
"[In] a like manner we must endure the authority of the prince. If he misuse or abuse his authority, we are not to entertain a grudge, seek revenge or punishment. Obedience is to be rendered for God's sake, for the ruler is God's representative. However they may tax or exact, we must obey and endure patiently." "Tribute to Caesar" sermon, from The Political Theories of Martin Luther, Luther Hess Waring
"Most savagely of all were punished any offenders whose behavior challenged Calvin's political and spiritual infalliblity. A man who had publicly protested against the reformer's doctrine of predestination was mercilessly flogged at all the crossways of the city and then expelled. A book printer who, in his cups, had railed at Calvin was sentenced to have his tongue perforated with a red-hot iron before being expelled from the city. Jacques Gruet was racked and then executed merely for having called Calvin a hypocrite."
from "The Right To Heresy" by Stephan Zweig
Actually, it doesn’t — Lutheranism and Anglicanism, at least Traditional forms of these, retain roots in orthodoxy, but the Reformatted and other way-out cults there do not have roots in orthodoxy, but roots in Calvin and Zingli’s personality cults.
This is, after all, the church of John Murray, the ex-Calvinist Englishman who founded the Universalist Church in America 200 years ago and preached the doctrine of universal salvation, the belief that "every individual shall in due time be separated from sin.". Of Calvinist background, he was influenced by the Methodism of John Wesley but was converted to Universalism, the doctrine of universal redemption. He organized the first American Universalist Church in 1779 at Gloucester, Mass.
Hosea Ballou (1771 - 1852), a New England theologian and clergyman, formulated the basic tenets of Universalism. Upon reacting against the Calvinist position on salvation of the elect only, he began teaching that all people are saved (universal salvation) and that there is no eternal punishment.
Well put...coming out of TULIP-ism, I concluded Calvin’s god made Allah look like a nice guy.
This taliban-ism of Calvin is completely ignored by today’s reformed clergy...PCA, others.
The truth be known....none of them could tolerate living in Calvin’s Geneva for even 60 days. Their seminaries - RTS, Westminster...would be burned to the ground by Calvin.
This is the reason the Catholic Mass has three interrelated and cohesive readings in each Mass; an Old Testament reading; a second reading from the New Testament, usually one of the Pauline Letters, and the final reading from the Gospels.
I certainly hope this sets a precedent for the outlandish and blasphemous charges made against the Catholic Church and its dogma, clergy and history.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.