The Neverending Story (The New Christian Chronicles)

Southern Baptists ending talks with Catholic Church ^ | 3/24/01 | AP

[malakhi]

The Neverending Story
An ongoing debate on Scripture, Tradition, History and Interpretation.

Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams

Thread 162
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[IMRight]

Here's one for consideration.

Psalm 127:2-4 Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.

Can we conclude from this one that the "fruit of the womb" is a reward for the entire duration?

I think that's circular reasoning. At what point would the child be fruit of the womb (I almost typed "loom")? I would presume that it refers to the finished product. The "fruit of the vine" is wine (or at least a rippened grape) not a fertilized flower on that vine. I think in this Space, time and matter theatre we are Body, Soul & Spirit and as soon as the sperm and egg combined it was me.

I agree 200%. But because the Spirit (and the Church) tell me so, not because I have seen it in Scripture.

[IMRight]

It was still Jeremiah in the belly no matter what stage of the contruction.

I agree, but it still begs the point, it can't be used to demonstrate that life begins at conception.

Let's take an earlier example: I God came down to you and said "Stevie (He calls you Stevie right?), You began not at the moment of conception but three days later at the moment of implantation" the verse you quoted would still be True. Therefore it cannot prove that life begins at conception and a "morning after" pill would not be sinfull. The same argument could be made for 1,2,or 3 months in the womb.

[IMRight]

Oh Lord, help me!

That was "if God" not "I God"

Could there be a worse typo?

[hopefulpilgrim]

Well. I would rather have fish than bull like this. Whoever said that meatless Fridays....was ever anything except a matter of discipline?

"These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgences." Col. 2:23

[the808bass]

Could you expand on that? I may be missing your point.

Many Protestant churches (mainline denominations) don't even officially believe God had much to do with the authoring of Scripture or if there is such an entity as God. There can be little surprise that they then declare such things as abortion to be "jim-dandy-fine" or homsexuality to be "normal." The real danger in Protestantism is not Sola Scriptura but the creeping liberalism of the Historical-Crits.

[OLD REGGIE]

How meany said they were the children of Mary? As I pointed out before, yes the early Fathers believed Jesus had siblings, however the one's I've read maintain that they were the sons of Joseph from a previous marriage as recorded in 'The Protoevangelium of James'(that has come up right?). What Early Church Fathers said Mary was the mother of the other children?
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". . . For also JAMES, THE BROTHER, ACCORDING TO THE FLESH, OF CHRIST OUR GOD, to whom the throne of the church of Jerusalem first was entrusted, and Basil, the Archbishop of the Church of Caesarea, whose glory has spread through all the world, when they delivered to us directions for the mystical sacrifice in writing, declared that the holy chalice is consecrated in the Divine Liturgy with water and wine. And the holy Fathers who assembled at Carthage provided in these express terms: "That in the holy Mysteries nothing besides the body and blood of the Lord be offered, as the Lord himself laid down, that is bread and wine mixed with water." Therefore if any bishop or presbyter shall not perform the holy action according to what has been handed down by the Apostles, and shall not offer the sacrifice with wine mixed with water, let him be deposed, as imperfectly shewing forth the mystery and innovating on the things which have been handed down" (Philip Schaff, Ed., The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, Vol. 14; The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church, The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council, A.D. 692, Canon 32, p.716)
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Does a Church Council qualify? I have already listed about 6 Early Church Fathers in prior posts.

[IMRight]

severe treatment of the body

You must really like beef (or really hate fish)! You really think this is "severe treatment of the body"?

Certainly you don't think prayer and fasting are extra-scriptural, do you? Or is it sinfull because Catholics choose to do it together?

[RobbyS]

It was indeed the mark of a Catholic, and I was amused by those Proddies who thought it their duty to tempt me with hamburger on Friday as I was amused at Catholics who were upset if they happened to get meat in a soup. But loyalty is loyalty.

[IMRight]

I believe you are correct. I further believe that a similar sin is at work within my church as well. "American Catholics" are far more liberal both with doctrine and with politics.

However, most of the "historical" Protestant denominations still maintain something like a "believing remnant". The Presbyterians, for instance, still have a core of strong Calvanistic believers.

Thanks for the converstation, everyone. I'm off to bed.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

Let's take an earlier example: I God came down to you and said "Stevie (He calls you Stevie right?), You began not at the moment of conception but three days later at the moment of implantation" the verse you quoted would still be True. Therefore it cannot prove that life begins at conception and a "morning after" pill would not be sinfull. The same argument could be made for 1,2,or 3 months in the womb.

When God says "I formed you in your mothers' womb" you were still you when he was forming you. You won't need your present body eternally but its still part of "you" while your here. At what point its ensouled or enspirited it doesn't matter, its still part of "you". I really don't need the catholic church to tell me that. If this partial or later completed body is being prepared for me then nobody had better mess with it.

[Pelayo]

I think you must have me confused with Iowegian. I didn't ask the question in question. : ) See #1392.

Yhea I got confused, you responded to the post, I didn't even look at the Name (on your response to my post to Iowegian). So I just assumed you were Iowegian responding to me. Please disregard my respons to you.

Still not accustomed to this new board system.

[JHavard]

It was indeed the mark of a Catholic, and I was amused by those Proddies who thought it their duty to tempt me with hamburger on Friday as I was amused at Catholics who were upset if they happened to get meat in a soup. But loyalty is loyalty.

Now what are you telling me, that you were also convinced it was a sin to eat meat on Friday?

If these catholics you knew got upset if they got meat in their soup, why were they upset it they didn't think it was a sin?

I think you are giving me a run around on this, and I wish you would stop and start being honest. Did you ever on a weekly basis keep meatless Friday, and would you have considered it a sin if you had intentionally eaten it, and if you had eaten it, would you have to include it in your confessional?

[hopefulpilgrim]

RobbyS, tell me this: What else do you NEED, which the holy writings lack?

Like you, a key to their interpretation. After all we are taling about ancient writings in a foreign tongue about people whose culture we only dimly discern.

R U saying that the Holy Spirit went to the trouble ; ) of "breathing" out the scriptures---inspiring them, moving upon the authors so that they "spoke from God"---but made it too hard for people to understand what they read? Relatively speaking, there is very little in the scriptures which is difficult to comprehend once it is translated into one's own language. And when you receive Christ as your Saviour and Lord, you become inhabited by the Spirit of God. I encourage you to re-read Romans, chapter 8 and look for all the ways in which the Holy Spirit operates in one's heart and mind. I just did, and it was very encouraging and insightful. Also, 1 Cor. 2. For to us God revealed them [mysterious things] through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit."

[dignan3]

The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council, A.D. 692, Canon 32, p.716)
Does a Church Council qualify? I have already listed about 6 Early Church Fathers in prior posts.

The so called Quinisext Council does not qualify. It is not an Ecumenical Council as the Western Church never ratified it, thus it has zero authority.

It should be noted that the Perpetual Virginity of Mary was dogmatically taught by the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, which was an Ecumenical Council. Here is the relevant material:

"Additionally, we anathematize the heretical letter which Ibas is alleged to have written to Mari the Persian. This letter denies that God the Word was made incarnate of the ever virgin Mary, the holy mother of God, and that he was made man." (Sentence against the "Three Chapters")

"2. If anyone will not confess that the Word of God has two nativities, that which is before all ages from the Father, outside time and without a body, and secondly that nativity of these latter days when the Word of God came down from the heavens and was made flesh of holy and glorious Mary, mother of God and ever-virgin, and was born from her: let him be anathema."

"6. If anyone declares that it can be only inexactly and not truly said that the holy and glorious ever-virgin Mary is the mother of God, or says that she is so only in some relative way, considering that she bore a mere man and that God the Word was not made into human flesh in her, holding rather that the nativity of a man from her was referred, as they say, to God the Word as he was with the man who came into being; if anyone misrepresents the holy synod of Chalcedon, alleging that it claimed that the virgin was the mother of God only according to that heretical understanding which the blasphemous Theodore put forward; or if anyone says that she is the mother of a man or the Christ-bearer, that is the mother of Christ, suggesting that Christ is not God; and does not formally confess that she is properly and truly the mother of God, because he who before all ages was born of the Father, God the Word, has been made into human flesh in these latter days and has been born to her, and it was in this religious understanding that the holy synod of Chalcedon formally stated its belief that she was the mother of God: let him be anathema."

"14. If anyone defends the letter which Ibas is said to have written to Mari the Persian, which denies that God the Word, who became incarnate of Mary the holy mother of God and ever virgin, became man, but alleges that he was only a man born to her, whom it describes as a temple, as if God the Word was one and the man someone quite different; which condemns holy Cyril as if he were a heretic, when he gives the true teaching of Christians, and accuses holy Cyril of writing opinions like those of the heretical Apollinarius ;which rebukes the first holy synod of Ephesus, alleging that it condemned Nestorius without going into the matter by a formal examination; which claims that the twelve chapters of holy Cyril are heretical and opposed to the true faith; and which defends Theodore and Nestorius and their heretical teachings and books. If anyone defends the said letter and does not anathematize it and all those who offer a defence for it and allege that it or a part of it is correct, or if anyone defends those who have written or shall write in support of it or the heresies contained in it, or supports those who are bold enough to defend it or its heresies in the name of the holy fathers of the holy synod of Chalcedon, and persists in these errors until his death: let him be anathema."

The last three were among the 14 anathemas against the "Three Chapters".

So we see a valid Ecumenical Council which dogmatically taught that Mary was ever-Virgin almost 140 years before the bogus "Quinisext" council.

Pray for JP II

[Pelayo]

No it is not good enough for me you need to look at the nature of that council.

[RobbyS]

Who says that Peter was a "pope"? The papacy is a historical. development. The wandering preacher's successors became also the successors to Caesar in Rome, as pontifix maximus, but that could change in the course of time. John Paul II deliberately put away the imperial trappings and his successors may even move away from the Vatican, for these are non-essentials. The appointment of bishops is likewise a historical devlopment. To keep the Church from becoming a toy of monarchs, like the Russian Church, the pope finally won the right to "rule" the church after a thousand year struggle with Catholic princes, ironically after he lost a thousand year battle to remain a territorial prince. But his relationship with the organizational church will undoubtedly change. although in unforeseeable ways. In answer to your question, why didn't Peter--the undoubted leader of the Twelve--appoint James? Well, that wasn't Peter's job.

You play, I guess, a much different role in the scheme of things than did the remote great-grandfather whose name you own, but you are his heir, nonetheless. No pope is a carbon copy of Peter, anymore than you are of your remote great-grandfather, with whom you probably do not even share DNA. The mapping of the human genome surprised all in showing how even biology is unpredictable. Over 75 generations. how different do human beings becomes, and how different their ways. Yet there are constant threads.

[Titanites]

Of course, you forget asking for any reference to the sufficiency of Scripture in the Bible.

Yes, I guess I do forget asking for this. Are you sure it was me?

In all seriousness, have you ever read the Bible?

Yes, I have read and do read the Bible. Why would you ask such a thing?

[RobbyS]

And if that "spirit" is only you talking to yourself? Luther was wise enough to realize that there might also be another spirit involved in all this, the one that is unholy, which is the reason why the Church has always been suspicious of mystics and why Luther, I think, sought to avoid that trape. Alaternatively,allowing all good faith, there is something too psychological about this approach to the Scriptures, which is the reason I have rejected it. You find ypurself between the rock of intellectualization and the hard place of emotionalism.

[D-fendr]

Death

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.

From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,

Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;

And soonest our best men with thee do go.

Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!

Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more, death thou shalt die.

John Donne. 1573–1631

[JHavard]

Perhaps you are to young to remember what a serious thing this was, as you can see from the article below, others still hold it in reverence, and don't tell me that most of your people didn't have concerns of loosing their salvation over it.

How did your church tell it's people that they no longer had to keep meatless Friday, was it announced from the podium? Where is the official wordage that the church used?

From, catholic-pages.com
Eating Meat on Fridays Most Catholics think that Vatican II did away with the requirement of not eating meat on any Friday of the year. Most think it is now just Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent that we cannot eat meat.
This is what the new Code of Canon Law brought out in 1983 says about the matter:
Canon 1251 Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday.
Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Canon Law still requires that Catholics not eat meat on Fridays!

Of course, most Episcopal Conferences have determined that, instead of abstaining from meat, Catholics may perform an act of penance of their choosing. But, do you ever remember to abstain from a particular food or do some other penance on Fridays? And, at any rate, the main rule is still to abstain from meat on Fridays, the performance of another penance instead is an optional alternative.

It's very interesting to note that the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (the United States' Episcopal Conference) is currently debating whether to rescind the determination and require all Catholics to abstain from meat on all Fridays of the year. The Bishops are considering that a return to meatless Fridays for all Catholics would be of benefit because:

It is an expression of one's Catholicity; and
In reparation for the grave sin of abortion.

This is from another site,Assoiated Press

But Albacete doesn't want to see people scorned if they don't embrace the practice. "My concern is that it not be presented as, 'If you eat meat on Friday you'll burn in hell.' I think that would be an abysmal mistake."

Where did he get this idea that some may be scorned or think they may burn in hell? did he remember it from before?