Posted on 06/10/2007 3:02:20 PM PDT by NYer
Many modern people have the notion that the principal mission of the Catholic Church is to impose belief on unbelievers. The reality is that most of its time is spent trying to restrain belief in everything from spoon-bending to the aliens who allegedly speak to us through a cat in Poughkeepsie.
The riptides and cross-currents of religious enthusiasm in American culture are kaleidoscopic and dizzying. Cradle Catholics can be forgiven for just ignoring the whole thing and many of them do. But it’s still worth taking into account because some religious trends can have decided real-world effects.
Some of the effects of unrestrained belief can be amusing.
For instance, after five centuries of being told by Protestant polemicists that we “Romanists” do not trust the saving grace of Jesus Christ and ignorantly seek salvation by the works of the law, it is a weird thing for a Catholic to see the spectacle of kooky apocalyptic Protestants eagerly excited about the birth of red heifers because this will (they hope) be the prelude to rebuilding the Temple of Solomon and the re-institution of the Mosaic sacrificial system. Just how that Temple will be rebuilt when the Dome of the Rock is situated on the site of the Temple is not quite as clearly worked out.
Which brings me to something just as kooky, but less amusing.
Recently, James Dobson, a leading Evangelical and a usually sensible man, hosted on his show one Joel Rosenberg, author of something called Epicenter: Why Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future. Rosenberg claims to know “what the Bible says” about what is happening in the Mideast and is not shy about making “predictions regarding the fate of the Middle East regarding issues such as Iran’s nuclear threats against Israel, the arms race and ultimately ... Armageddon.” Here’s a snippet:
Dobson: “Well, Joel, let’s explain to everybody how Ezekiel 38 turns out, because Israel is about to be attacked, and a huge number of troops from Russia and Iran are coming toward Israel to destroy it, and what happens?”
Rosenberg: “Well, God is going to move. You won’t find in the Scriptures that the United States is coming to rescue Israel or the European Union, but God says he is going to supernaturally intervene — we’re talking about fire from heaven, a massive earthquake, diseases spreading through the enemy forces. It is going to be such a clear judgment against the enemies of Israel that Ezekiel 39 says that it will take seven months to bury all the bodies of the slain enemies of Israel. “
Such standard-issue Evangelical prophetic cocksureness is an excellent example of why a magisterium is so useful and necessary.
Not only does the magisterium help us know what is essential to the faith, it also helps us remain free of what is unessential. For the various species of Protestantism, in addition to denying real biblical truths such as the Real Presence or infant baptism, also have a tendency to invent “biblical truths” that do not exist and impose them by means of a sort of cultural pressure via charismatic preachers with pet theories who, in their own sphere, are granted an infallibility the Pope could never dream of.
Now, a Catholic is quite free to have a kooky private reading of Ezekiel 38-39 as a prophecy of the “coming resurgent Soviet Union” and its alliance with Muslims, communist Chinese or whoever, all in a vast Cecil B. DeMille battle against Israel. The Church has all sorts of room for eccentrics, and everybody needs a hobby.
But a Catholic is not free to go around telling everybody that “this is the clear teaching of the Bible” and demand it be believed. For the fact is, this kooky theory is emphatically not the clear teaching of the Bible, nor does it have any sanction whatsoever from the Church, the tradition, the Fathers, the councils or the popes. It is a pure novelty we can and should ignore.
What we should not ignore is Rosenberg’s claim that, “Given the events going on in our world today, people at the Pentagon, people at the CIA, people at the White House are asking to sit down and talk about these issues, to understand the Biblical perspective, because it is uncanny what is happening out there and it deserves some study.”
I suspect that Rosenberg is exaggerating his clout with the big cheeses in DC. I doubt that the Pentagon’s intel meetings are dominated by exegeses of Ezekiel 38.
But I do think it matters if a significant portion of the American polity drinks in such bizarre theories as if they were God’s revealed Truth.
Ideas have consequences, especially crazy ones. Most crazy ideas do no harm.
Crazy ideas about the Middle East, backed by the force of arms, stand a better than average chance of killing millions.
This is a long thread, but I caught this, and disagree. Calling a fellow Christian to follow Christ, discipleship, is a good thing, not a bad one. Growth, not insult.
Is this prayer supposed to be said while kneeling before a statue of Mary with or without incense burning?
I'm still looking to find out whether the RCC should be classified as a cult or a pagan religion. While prayers like this help to reinforce the choice, they don't go so far as to help with the choosing!
Not sure what you mean. The rough history of the canon of Scripture is as follows. It is clear from the New Testament that Jesus and his disciples quoted from the Septuagint, not the Alexandrian canon of the Old Testament. This became the OT canon of the Apostolic age. It (and the NT) was formally canonized in several Church councils dating from the late fourth century.
The New Testament came about a bit differently. In the time after Jesus' Resurrection, the Apostles expected His imminent return. When it became apparent that His return would not come about immediately, some of the Apostles began to set down Jesus' teachings in writing. In later years, false (gnostic) gospels began to be circulated and read in churches. But over time, the wheat was separated from the chaff, and by the time of the Councils of Rome, Hippo and Carthage, in the late 300s, the canon of the Old and New Testaments were established.
Major Church Pronouncements on the Bible
Notice that there is no contention regarding the canon of Scripture for over 1100 years, from 400-1500 AD.
The Council of Trent seems to me to have changed the Catholic Church’s tradition with the inclusion of the Apocrypha. I am not a scholar so this is just my understanding.
See above.
It leads to the question: which was right, tradition before the Council of Trent or the edict of the Church after the Council of Trent? Tradition or Magisterium?
The canon of Scripture formally promulgated by Trent was the same canon that had been in constant use by all Christians for the previous 1100 years.
Luther's justification for this break with Tradition was an obscure "council" of rabbis dating from the year 100 AD, the "council" of Jamnia. At this meeting the rabbis rejected the Septuagint as canonical. But what authority did non-Messianic Jews have in the Apostolic age? None. They had no authority over Christ's Church. Moreover, Christ and the apostles quote from the Septuagint in the New Testament. (Septuagint Quotes in the New Testament
Luther's true motivation was his desire to remove from the Bible direct references to Purgatory and the practice of praying for the dead, doctrines which he objected to. (2 Maccabbees 12:43-46)
I also wonder about a vote itself when there is exclusion of Protestants voting in the Council — is the Catholic Church the “Church” if great numbers of Christians are excluded?
That's a good question, the heart of which revolves around the definition of a Christian. In a broad sense, it can mean any follower of Christ. In a more formal sense, it means any baptized person. In a strict sense, it means anyone in full union with Christ's Church, the Catholic Church.
The reasoning is as follows. If Christ is Truth itself ("I am the way, the Truth, and the life"), then to fully accept Him, we must fully accept the truths that He has revealed to us about Himself. We can know these truths through Christ's Church, which Scripture describes as "the pillar and foundation of truth."
Also keep in mind the fact that Church Councils are composed of bishops, who are the successors of the Apostles. Church councils are patterned after the first Church council, the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 1).
Is the Holy Spirit’s work divided? Or is the Church something greater than the Catholic Church (and if so can one part of a divided body claim authority for the whole without all the parts represented in the decision making process?).
See above. Keep in mind that Catholics regard baptized Protestants as fellow Christians, but fellow Christians in varying degrees of imperfect union with the Church.
2 Timothy 3 presupposes an understanding of what scripture is, and so in my quickly formulated view, where there is unresolved dispute among Christians, there is no infallible scripture. In other words . . . the additions by the Catholic Church are apocrypha because we do not hold them in common.
I think I've addressed this above. If not let me know.
Blast away! And take this in a good spirit.
I appreciate your charitable attitude.
I think the divide in the churches lead men to take positions and defend positions prematurely sometimes, contrary to their personal growth in Christ, in response to the assertions of others across some theological or denominational divide.
Agreed.
In other words, sometimes we argue before we understand and discuss differences when what is in common is more important.
True. There are two things needed for the acceptance of truth, knowledge of the truth, and a willingness to accept the truth. Sometimes our wills get in the way.
Do we get a bigger slice of heaven if we have bigger brains? I don’t think so. St. Joseph of Cupertino is a good reference if you don’t know of him. http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/JOSEPH.htm
Thanks for the link. I only know him as "the flying saint."
I don’t think that Christian thinking before Trent excluded the idea of apocrypha. I can’t sort out what view predominated, but Jerome, the Jews, and ultimately the Protestants adopted the view that the non-hebrew bible additions were apocrypha, worthwhile but not the word of God. Jerome translated much of what the Council at Trent adopted in the Vulgate. Most writing seems to reverse your view regarding the motivations involved in the decision on “apocrypha” or “scripture” — focusing on the desire of the Catholic church to enlist the aid of the Maccabees’ passages supporting the idea of indulgences, rather than a break with tradition by Luther.
That's a frequent claim, but the fact is that the canon adopted by Trent was the same canon in constant use by the Catholic Church for 1100 years.
Since Luther was a Catholic priest, the question remains, By what authority did Luther change the canon of Scripture?
I live at the headwaters of the Arkansas river
in Colorado at 8000' surrounded by snow capped 14,000' peaks.
*****************
Ah, too bad I was already gone from the forum when you posted this. :)
I think if you look at the histories the view of Jerome that the books were apocrypha predominated, certainly at periods of time across a millenia,even after the councils of Hippo, etc., . For example, Gregory the Great viewed the Maccabees as not being part of the Canon. Basically, I think you overstate your case! I say that where there is dispute, there is not scripture. It may be wonderfully edifying, but is not the word of God.
Must have passed near there on the way to Breckenridge CO to see another FREEPERS’s parents.
Right?
I consider it a historical fact.
but the fact is that the canon adopted by Trent was the same canon in constant use by the Catholic Church for 1100 years.
ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL IN 100% OF ALL RESPECTS? Do you have documentation for that? LOL.
I don't know that it matters . . . RC's posit a seamless bureaucracy from Peter on. That's simply historically false.
Excellent points.
Excellent points.
I don’t have links to such with the Calvinists or even the Mormons. There has likely been some with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod or WELS—a few, as I recall.
But the bulk of such on my part have been face to face with religious leaders of many different denominations and congregations in a variety of contexts across two Continents and half way around the world. I’ve held forth vigorously with a long list of such since about 1967.
In Southern California, I was blessed or cursed to be at least observationally close if not relationally close to quite a number of famous Charismania leadership circles. They certainly caught plenty of such from me.
And, quite frankly, honestly, truly . . . Holy Spirit has led me to lay down ultimatum flavored exhortations to a number such leaders and they were removed from their positions or taken out of this life as a function of their responses. But I haven’t walked in that level of anointing for a long time. That’s not my favorite sort of ‘ministry’ anyway.
By a long shot.
Perhaps.
Though I don’t think that motivation would have anything to say about the main purpose in avoiding a bureaucratic organization on His part or Paul’s part.
This is a long thread, but I caught this, and disagree. Calling a fellow Christian to follow Christ, discipleship, is a good thing, not a bad one. Growth, not insult.
= = =
LOL.
Sometimes there’s no accounting for taste or thin skins! LOL.
INDEED.
And sometimes the evidence from the perspective of one side is not remotely as convincing as it is for the other side.
80-90 mistakes a minute
LOL.
Finally caught your meaning—I think. Slow, overnight express!
On the other hand if you drove north on I-25 to Denver and over the pass to Breckenridge, then NO. Blessings Yes; if you came up thru Taos and San Luis valley and Poncha Springs
and Buena Vista and Leadville to Breckenridge.
I do not need to be called to follow Christ. I already follow Christ, just not in a way that matches his own personal interpretation of scripture.
"If you wish to follow Christ" makes it sound like some kind of indistinct future possibility. That is insult, not growth.
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