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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[american colleen]

I agree with you as well (what's going on here?) - however, I have and do read the Bible but I also see God in a lot of things - you know what I mean, you probably see him in the same things I do - everywhere and everything everyday.

We can go on and on and make everyone barf, so I'll stop here!

BTW, I read your earlier post about the "Karen" book and the sequel - I LOVED those! I had totally forgotten about them and now I can even remember the covers. Wish I could find them for my daughter. The other book I remember reading was a book about a wealthy teenaged american girl who contracted leprosy (I think this was really a true story in the early 1900s) and finally died a very saintly person - it made me want to contract leprosy and go and live wherever Fr. Damien had the colony. Think this was about the time I wanted to be a Carmelite Nun... to me, that stuff is part of the fun in being Catholic.

[the808bass]

Is that whole first paragraph quoting me?

[Iowegian]

Christ own words are the truth to me, no one elses. God cannot lie.

I don't think anyone here disagrees with this, so why would you ask if we think God does lie?

[Havoc]

Must be lunch time, my stomach is chewing on my backbone, time to raid the ice box. :)

I hear ya. It's time for a cheesecake break! LOL.

[Havoc]

Havoc - You may want to look at the context of this statement by Dave before you rip into him with such anger. The person he was debating was arguing that the term Theotokos does not mean "Birthgiver of God," as has been maintained at least since 431 and the council of Ephesus, but rather "God of Usury." The debate got rather silly, and many - including very knowledgeble NC's like angelo and bassman - tried to get him to see his mistake. But he continued to claim that the only valid meaning for the term was the one that he could construct out of the appearance of its root components, The- and tokos, in Scripture via Strong's. This is why Dave was telling him that Scripture didn't matter in this case.

Sorry, didn't rip into him with any anger, I just made statements. If I were going to rip into him in anger, he would know it and so would you.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Yeah, thinking about those two books this afternoon made me type them in the search engine. I found out both books are still in print, I still have my copies, Marie Killilea died in 1991 at the age of 78, her husband died several yrs. later at 80. All 4 children were stil alive. Nothing was mentioned about Gloria. I think it said 6 grandchildern and 1 great. FYI:)

Becky

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

We need to read the Bible and forget what others say, if you started right now and read and studyed only the Bible it would take you the rest of your life just to understand what God has to say to you, let alone what others think He says.

There are so many distractions today from the study of the Word of God. And the greatest distraction we have is the church. The church is made up of committees and organizations and banquets and entertainments and promotional schemes to the extent that the Word of God is not even dealt with in many churches today. There are churches that have disbanded the preaching service altogether. Instead they have a time in which the people will be able to express themselves and say what they are thinking. I can’t imagine anything more puerile or more of a waste of time than that (although it is a fine excuse to get out of preaching for a lazy preacher who will not read or study the Bible.) I find that the people who are more ignorant of the Bible than anyone else are church members. They simply do not know the Word of God. And it has been years since it has been taught in the average church. We need to read the Bible. We need to get into the Word of God—not just reading a few favorite verses, but reading the entire Word of God from front to back in that order because God has revieled Himself over a long period of time to us, and if we don't understand it from the beginning we will miss what is in the rest. That is the only way we are going to know it, friend. That is God’s method.

I supposed I knew my Bible,

Reading piecemeal, hit or miss,

Now a bit of John or Matthew,

Now a snatch of Genesis,

Certain chapters of Isaiah,

Certain Psalms (the twenty-third),

Twelfth of Romans, First of Proverbs—

Yes, I thought I knew the Word!

But I found that thorough reading

Was a different thing to do,

And the way was unfamiliar

When I read the Bible through.

You who like to play at Bible,

Dip and dabble, here and there,

Just before you kneel, aweary,

And yawn through a hurried prayer;

You who treat the Crown of Writings

As you treat no other book—

Just a paragraph disjointed,

Just a crude impatient look—

Try a worthier procedure,

Try a broad and steady view;

You will kneel in very rapture

When you read the Bible through!

—Amos R. Wells

It is a God-Book. In the Bible God says twenty-five hundred times, “God said … the Lord has said … thus saith the Lord,” and so on. God has made it very clear that He is speaking through this Book. It is a Book that can communicate life to you.

BigMack

[american colleen]

Thanks! I couldn't remember the name of the author and the name "Karen" for a book in amazon.com brought up everything but the book. I am definately going to order them. Geez, I bet I haven't thought of those books in 30 years or so - thanks again.

[OLD REGGIE]

I do know that! Just because I am a Red Sox fan doesn't mean I am completely stupid...

Just easily entertained and misguided. That's all.

[Havoc]

Havoc - I apologize if I'm not understanding your point. Are you proposing that the for the past 1500 years the Orthodox have been mistaken about what they're talking about when they say "Theotokos"? Or are you defending the other poster's interpretation just to be contrarian? Or something else?

I'm saying that, context or no, looking at definitions: one that would render theotokos as "investment of God" would be completely valid. Usury is after all an investment that draws interest. And modern dictionaries actually invoke the word "investment". I'm not saying it to be contrary. I'm saying the obvious.

[Havoc]

Did you catch my reference to the decretals a few pages back. There were some notes accompanying Cyprian's "On the Unity of the Church" that indicated that the decretals played a key role in the establishment of the absolute authority of the Roman See. Thought you might be interested... I can shoot you a hot link if you want, just freepmail me...

Yep, thank you, I did catch it. Was treating it as "nuff said". I see no one has touched it - must be too hot or too truthful to attempt to call it a lie - that or i missed the slur campaign. LOL - I did skip a hundred posts or so.

[Havoc]

Yeah, I've read the Windsor debates. The NC side has mopped up the floor with the argument and taken it ten times around the track. I note you are posting only the Catholic side of that ongoing debate series.

[Havoc]

Where in the world do you get, or invent, the idea I think the "List of Popes" is claimed to be infallible? What historical fact? The fact there is no historical fact? The only "fact" is, there is no verifiable List of Popes. If I were a skeptic I'd say the list is fiction. I might go even further and suggest to Becky that Peter didn't know he was "Pope" because he wasn't during his lifetime. He was elected posthumously and he selected his "successor" posthumously.

Bingo! All "popes" prior to Nicholos I were selected and successors chosen, posthumously. The term and office did not exist until the time of the decretals. Much, in fact, of the 'early history' was fabricated by the decretals. And a good portion of that has never been renounced.

Truth is, if I had 1,000,000 bucks for every false or unproven claim they've made and every forgery and lie they've invoked to prop up those claims, I could buy out Bill Gates.

[D-fendr]

thank you for your apology.

graciously accepted.

[Havoc]

You keep making a big deal about it, as if the lack of historical certainty somehow undermines the entire Catholic belief system. It's simply not important, and I wonder why you think it is so.

The Decretals were used by the Roman church to usurp authority it did not by right have any claim to. The system that developed from there on was developed from fraudulent authority based in lies. Now if you want to say that isn't an invalidation, then you are deluding yourself. Non-authority doesn't become authoritative just because you believe it. As regards myself, I'm certainly not stupid enough to buy into it. Knowing the truth ahead of time, there is no way I can ever view the Roman Church as having any legit authority. The Orthodox have their own problems. They are closer to Christianity than Romanism; but, I'm not buying into either. I have the real thing. I have Jesus living in me and the Holy Spirit operating in my life. I don't need to look to false doctrine to find what I already have. I can command demons in Jesus name because I have that authority as a child of God. I have done so. When you've seen creative miracles, you can't accept fraud for the real thing either.

[D-fendr]

Becky,

If you have time and inclination, I'd appreciate an elaboration:

...what keeps it's hold of me so to speak is

1. A way to convince a catholic to take a different look at their faith.

2. Or find a way for me to view their faith differently, so that I can feel more comfortable about my family.

1)What, would be the different look at your family's faith that could/would satisfy your requirement here? Any general thoughts? Big differences, little differences? Acceptence? Forgiveness? Compassion? Do they reject you in some way?

2) What could change in your view of their faith that would make you more comfortable about/with them? Respect? Understanding? Forgiveness?

I'm throwing possible points out here, do any fit or is it something much different?

[D-fendr]

Becky,

If you have time and inclination, I'd appreciate an elaboration:

...what keeps it's hold of me so to speak is

1. A way to convince a catholic to take a different look at their faith.

2. Or find a way for me to view their faith differently, so that I can feel more comfortable about my family.

1)What, would be the different look at your family's faith that could/would satisfy your requirement here? Any general thoughts? Big differences, little differences? Acceptence? Forgiveness? Compassion? Do they reject you in some way?

2) What could change in your view of their faith that would make you more comfortable about/with them? Respect? Understanding? Forgiveness?

I'm throwing possible points out here, do any fit or is it something much different?

[american colleen]

I note you are posting only the Catholic side of that ongoing debate series.

Just as you post the non C side... :)

I did post the link to the non C site so anyone could see the "other side" to what I posted if they were interested. Anyway, I posted the entire thing because I had not seen it addressed except by you. I have not studied the issue in depth as you have, but I am trying to work up to it. Looks like a "he said" "she said" issue to me.

No one condones forgeries btw, so I am not doing that. I can't anyway because as I've said, I only know the surface of the issue. I do have to say that from what I have read, the decretals were first questioned for authenticity by Catholics and the last of the decretals that were declared forgeries (in the 1800s?) were declared forgeries by Catholics as well. I'm pretty sure no Church would want forged anything as a part of their history.

I believe one of the reasons that the NT took so long to put together was because of the amount of forgeries that were circulating even 100 years after the death of Christ. My point is that since Jesus' time, forgeries have been abundant and the problem has been deciding what was real and what was not. In case anyone is wondering, the decretals Havoc is talking about were written in France probably 3 Popes (not sure in years) before they ever made it to Rome - they had been accepted in general use well before Rome ever got them.

[american colleen]

Just easily entertained and misguided. That's all.

But happy all the time!

[fortheDeclaration]

FYI, the Orthodox world has long translated Scripture in to the native tongue. The written Russian language was born out the evangelical work of St. Cyril, thus the "Cyrilic" alphabet. I don't speak for the RC's here, although we often agree on matters of faith.

And what does the 'Orthodox' Church have to do with Rome? Why do you bring it up as if it has some bearing on what we were discussing? Rome has long held that the people cannot read the Bible for themselves, since they need the Church to interpret it for them. Now, in America, where Bibles are plentiful, while Rome will say that it is good for a Catholic to read their bible, Catholics are not encouraged to do so (despite indulgances being given)

"...an eternal witness of the real attitude of Rome about the Bible." Wow. So, even if what you say is true,

What do you mean even if what you say is true ? What part of it do you doubt? Do you doubt that Tyndale and hundreds of others were killed for the crime of producing bibles in their own language?

you deny the possibility of the Church of Rome ever changing its "attitude?"

Romes view on the difference between clergy and laity is fixed. Spiritual matters are for the Priesthood, not the laity.

Rome may adjust her position but her roots are firm. Erasmus's NT is still on Rome's forbidden book list.

Since Rome no longer has the power to stop Bible reading, they have corrupted them with their corrupt Vaticanus text, first introduced by Westcott and Hort and is still the underlying text of every new bible produced today (the exceptions the NKJ and King James 21-both of which have their own problems aside from the corrupt text)