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To: William Terrell
These passages [Mt 6] are just about as anti-central authority as you can get

They are not "anti", they merely do not mention any authority because the topic here is personal relationship with God. No question, the Church has always taught that faith is intensely personal, as it culminates in Penance and the Eucharist, both acts demanding an individual movement of soul.

But the Church also recognizes the communal aspect of faith. To start, communion is a public, communal act just as much as it is personal. While confession is necessarily private, penance often is public. Christ wanted us to have communal life; for one thing He said that He will build His Church (singular, not plural). He taught us to pray in first person plural, "Our Father...". Paul wrote several letters dealing almost exculsively with Church life, see both letters to Timothy and Titus, and relating the Christian Church to the Jewish Temple worship in Hebrews. The union of the personal and the communal is best seen in this passage: "[I Paul] rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church" (Col 1:24).

731 posted on 11/06/2006 11:42:58 AM PST by annalex
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To: annalex
But the Church also recognizes the communal aspect of faith.

So do I, but not having to do with a church. Whenever two or more are gathered. . . Of individual election, a church not being necessary, or the two or more being the generic church.

No question, the Church has always taught that faith is intensely personal, as it culminates in Penance and the Eucharist, both acts demanding an individual movement of soul.

When you have personal faith, a personal communion with God and the power of prayer, you do not need a church, except to commune with others of faith.

A church, such as the RCC, sets itself as a central authority, determining the worthiness of souls to Christ, the rituals necessary to the practice of faith and investment of oneself in the church to insure salvation.

The fact that God adds all things to those who seek first the kingdom makes a church, as a regulating entity, superfluous, because the seeking, finding and the reward are personal and individual things.

No one person in a church who finds the spirit insure the salvation of any other in the church, but the church can be leavened by strange and rootless doctrine and damage individual election unless one separate himself from it.

The only central authority of Christian faith and salvation must be Christ Himself and His Gospels, readable and understandable and the Spirit inside callable by any human being on the face of the Earth at his election and decision.

Any church must and can be only a gossamer net thrown over the whole of like minded individuals seeking to call the Christ by gathering in His name, and investing no authority on the net itself, which can itself receive no inspiration, spirit or salvation.

It's nice to belong to a church, but I don't think it necessary, or perhaps wise in some cases, artificial entities being especially vulnerable to corruption through leavening of only a few.

In my mind, the Body of Christ are spread throughout the world, members, many, of groups that meet together and worship, and many not, but no less saved.

741 posted on 11/06/2006 12:36:17 PM PST by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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