[Conservative til I die]

"To study the Church Fathers (and Christian History) is to become a Catholic."

To study the Bible and obey is to become Christian.

We will not be graded on what the Church Fathers said (edifying as they may be), but on what we did with the words of Christ.

1.) You've set up a false dichotomy: choose the Fathers or choose the Bible (and by extension, Jesus).

2.) Why throw in the word "obey"? I only used the word "study" as it regards the Fathers.

3.)My post has nothing to do with authority, although as a Catholic I certainly believe in the authority of the Church. To expand on my original statement, many Evangelicals like to say that the early Church was some sort of Baptist group that was somehow corrupted or driven underground by the Catholic Church, and that the Reformers merely returned the Church to its original pristine state.

By reading the writings of the Early Church Fathers, who any good Christian should hold in esteem, one very quickly finds that the Church has always been Catholic in its beliefs.

[PetroniusMaximus]

"2.) Why throw in the word "obey"? "

Because without it, no one can understand the Bible. Period.


"one very quickly finds that the Church has always been Catholic in its beliefs."

I don't read of the immaculate conception, infallibility of the Pope and other such novelties in the ECF.