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I was referring to the Church Christ established and his promise to protect it as he promised in Matt 16:18. Your rambling sounds like philosophy to me.

What, couldn't cut and paste a response to that one Peg? Try checking my words against the Bible. I'll help you. Many of you fully agreed with my statements re obedience several threads ago. Am I now wrong because it doesn't suite your purposes? God never made a blanket promise of protection absent obedience. The definition of the Church is the people who make up the body of Christ - the Sheep. The definition of a sheep is given plainly in John 10 - those who hear and obey Jesus. Obedience. One cannot be afforded a promise without it. That includes your above quotation. If one stands in obedience the gates of hell cannot prevail. That they have against Catholicism is shown blatently in the fact that forgeries entered in, the inquisitions were held, the crusades were held, and from the 9th through 16th centuries the Catholic Church was ruled by men so debouched as to make soap operas and modern R movies look like Childs play. If that's not the Gates of hell prevailing, what is? The Devil prevailing doesn't mean he wins altogether, we already know the devil loses in the end. But he sure had his way for hundreds of years in Catholicism. So your illusion of protection is laid bare in your history. There is and never was any such protection on catholicism or any other sect. The only protection is an assurance that so long as God's sheep hear, obey and follow him, he'll give us victory and not lead us astray. That is protection. Victory is victory over the devil - victory over sin. The ability to suppress and deny our carnal nature - favoring and clinging to righteousness and holiness - hating sin and rebuking it at every turn. That is victory, that is protection. Without God, no one can do those things.. no one. It's got nothing to do with carnal desire to proclaim whatever you wish, do whatever you wish and call it blessed of God and untouchable by the devil. There is no protection of your leaders or laypeople from going astray - unless they are 100% in God's will. Doing their own thing is not God's will. If you want scripture to back it up, just ask. I'll pour it on. I've said much of this before and provided verse for it, it's no trouble to do it again for this application of the same principles.

The crusades were held Are you really so ignorant about the Crusades? They, after all, part of a war between Christianity and Islam that lasted from the 630s, when the Muslim Arabs burst into the Byzantine Empire to 1683, when the Turks retreated from Vienna, routed by the forces of the king of Poland. It was a war, by the way, where Protestant Europe as well as Catholic France was an ally of the common foe, and where the full burden of the fight was born by the Catholic Hapsburgs. You, like so many American Protestants are inbued with the Black Legend, which makes Spain the great villian. But except for Spain, the crescent flag of Islam would long ago have been raised over the capitals of Western Europe and we would live under the torpid rule of a religious despotism such as we see in Iran today.

But I am curious. Does the name "Lepanto" mean anything to you? Does the name of Don Juan of Austria have any responance in your soul? You should know them, because at that place, led by that man, the Catholic forces of Europe stopped the advance of Islam and made possible your freedom to practice the Christian faith.

What, couldn't cut and paste a response to that one Peg? Try checking my words against the Bible.

If I want a scripture scholar you would be the last person I would ask. You haven't got a clue what Matthew 16:18 means so you ramble on like a vain philosopher. You have a bizarre understanding of scripture that you have to twist and turn to fit your needs. Its quite sad actually.