Posted on 12/03/2014 7:10:14 PM PST by ebb tide
Allow me to blow your mind a little bit -- EVERYBODY used to burn apostates at the stake! Shocking huh?
Well that makes it alright then (not that I believe that). So why did the Catholic Church stop doing this? I mean being THE ONE TRUE CHURCH and all (founded by Peter no less!)?
Listen!
Is that the sound of an ox being gored??
With friends like this; who needs enemas?
Here; on the pages of FR; we merely heat them toasty warm.
“Show me where I called Catholics the *enemy*”
Now that’s funny.
The bigger question is *Why did they START it?*
Just WHERE in Scripture is the church admonished to label people heretics and treat them in such an abominable way?
Where is the sanction to torture for confessions?
Where is the sanction to burn at the stake those who disagreed with the gospel, or the apostles?
The question of why they stopped it seems to be that they lost the power to stop it. Secular power caused a stop to it. Not because the RCC because inherently better, because, based on the carrying-on of Catholic priests and the RCC's dealing with it (covering it up) AND the comments on FR from FRoman Catholics for a longing of the return to the Inquisition, it would still be practiced today if they had the ability to do so.
Show me.
Provide the links and post numbers.
His attacks on doctrine via his personally selected henchmen and his open contempt for traditional Catholicism and its "petty rules" suggest that he may also have jumped ship.
No Catholic is going to "rejoice" at the abandonment by another of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Christ Himself.
"And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
*They* didn't. Hammurabi's code specified burning as the appropriate sentence for certain crimes. Ancient Hebrew law also specified burning as the penalty for certain crimes (remember Tamar in Genesis? There's your scripture link). The Romans also burned people, and the Roman empire carried the practice into the Christian era, when the emergent Christian kingdoms continued to use it as a matter of course. In short, burning has been used for as long as there have been written laws, and probably before that. To say that burning people was a "Catholic thing" is like saying that hanging pirates was a "British thing." Everybody did it, because it was an accepted form of execution since forever.
"So why did the Catholic Church stop doing this?"
Why did Protestants stop doing it? Why did anyone stop doing it? Changing sensibilities, changing opinions...Whatever the reason burning as a form of execution in both secular and religious cases fell out of practice long before it was struck from the books. IIRC, some countries (Germany and Holland I think?) kept it in the law code into the mid-1800's.
Interesting indeed.
I find the words Roman Catholic missing from this verse. In fact there is no indication that this verse is about a denomination at all. Organized religious leaders are the ones that sent Jesus to Pilate anyway.
The ever changing and morphing church? That would be incongruous with inerrant and Spirit led church, wouldn't you agree?
May God bring such devastation, and more, upon every community on this planet.
Indeed. You would think that liberal Prot denoms would be seen as the greatest threat, not conservative evangelicals, but the preeminence of Rome is the priority, not holy fervent Christian faith.
You're comparing apples and oranges while simultaneously doing violence to historical context.
Dogma does not change. Disciplines can change, but this is not even a case of discipline. The short answer to your question is -- since ancient times it practically ubiquitous for religion and state to be inseparably intertwined. Again, the Roman empire brought this reality into the Christian era. The first seeds of separation of Church and state came with the Church having its own courts to handle certain categories of crimes. naturally, these courts applied the same penalties that were common and always had been. Fast forward hundreds of years and all Churches, not just the Catholic Church, started to get out of the business of being intertwined with the state, and the secular states took over the responsibility of handling crime. Whether or not the Church had it its own courts has nothing to do with Doctrine or Dogma. It was simply a feature of the times. Things unrelated to Doctrine simply changed.
Asking why this happened is like asking why monarchy fell out of fashion; there are hundreds of years of social, political, technological, and philosophical changes that all roiled and clashed and combined to change what people considered the norm. I might write a couple dozen books about it sometime. Or not. If I do I'll send you an autographed copy.
Prov. 28:5 Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand all.
I take it you’re suggesting we all move into a cave and start eating mastodon?
As I asked probably on another thread, just where in the teachings of Jesus or anywhere in the NT is there sanction for torturing *heretics*? For burning at the stake those who disagree with the church?
For that matter, where in the OT is there that kind of sanction for dealing with *unbelievers*. There are only two (IIRC) very specific sins for which burning by fire is commanded by God and neither of them is for religious dissent.
It is unconscionable that the Catholic church tortured and killed people in the name of Christ for dissenting from it.
For those who claim to be Christ’s representatives here on earth, to commit such an atrocity is a heinous evil and yet instead of Catholics denouncing such history of their church, they blame shift, excuse it, and some still even call for a return to the Inquisition and advocate the killing of *heretics*.
All I can say is that it’s a GOOD THING that the RCC has had its wings clipped. It’s a sad day when the secular world has more integrity than an organization which claims to be Christ’s body here on earth.
One true church, my foot.
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