Pope says Protestants are on the Outside – Bible says Pope is on the Fringe

CrossActionNews ^ | Rev Michael Bresciani

[Victory111]

Pope Benedict XVI has drawn fire from Protestants worldwide for saying in early July of 2007, that they are not part of the “true church.” Protestants have weighed in and the response has included everything from disappointment to anger.

[Petronski]

You are not going to get very far with someone who insists the crucifixion was on a Wednesday and everyone else is wrong about the whole Good Friday thing.

[MarkBsnr]

http://www.sxws.com/charis/doctrine-1.html says that:

In November 1552 the city state of Geneva declared Calvin’s Institutes a “holy doctrine, which no man might speak against.” Within five years of Calvin entering Geneva the second time fifty-eight citizens were sentenced of death for deviating from Calvin’s moral codes, seventy-six had their property confiscated and were banished from Geneva on the charge of wrong thinking, numerous eminent citizens were sent to prison for being frivolous and engaging in dancing. A twelve-year-old girl was publicly flogged because she refused to renounce her Catholic faith. As the self appointed defender of public morals Calvin placed “sur les paillardises, adulteres, blasphemes, juremens et despitemens de Dieu” (debauchery, adultery, blasphemy, and contempt of God) on his list of crimes to be punishment by death.

In Calvin’s Geneva unacceptable interpretations of the Bible were considered be “et despitemens de Dieu.” Morally upright citizens who believed in Jesus were sentence to death by Calvin not for any real crime against society but simply for wrong religious thinking. Under Calvin’s direct orders Michael Servetus was burnt at the stake for the unforgivable offence of opposing infant baptism and for questioning the Trinity doctrine. Roland Bainton says: “On only two counts, significantly, was Servetus condemned — namely, anti-Trinitarianism and anti-paedobaptism.” Roland H. Bainton, Hunted Heretic (The Beacon Press, 1953), p. (see, http://www.bcbsr.com/topics/servetus.html)

Calvin was determined that Serventus would not get a fair trial. Before the charges against him were assessed by the judiciary Calvin declared, “If he comes [to Geneva], I shall never let him go out alive if my authority has weight.”(Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (Baker Book House, 1950), p. 371)

When Serventus was eventually captured to ensure that the court did impose the death penalty Calvin wrote: “I hope that the verdict will call for the death penalty.”(Walter Nigg, The Heretics (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1962), p. 328) In view of this directive the court did exactly what Calvin ordered it to do.

When Serventus was tied to the stake ”the fiery French preacher Guillaume Farel”, Calvin’s number man and mentor, ordered green timber so that the fire would burn slowly. Serventus suffered excruciating agony for half an hour and his legs were cooked to the bone before he finally died. Sad to say, on account of his close friendship with Calvin, Melanchthon referred to the brutal murder of Serventus as “a pious example, which deserved to be remembered to all posterity.” Today we are remembering it, just as it was.

Forced drowning, beheading and burning at the stake were Calvin’s method of upholding the purity of his creedal religion. In Geneva it was not the Bible but Calvin’s interpretation of the Bible that ruled the day. And who does not know that Calvin’s system of religion (brute force is good) originated in Rome?

When Calvin made it illegal for the citizens of Geneva to worship God according to their conscience, under threat of confiscation of property, imprisonment and other forms of severe punishment, when he had believing Christians put to death for opposing such things as infant baptism, he was a pope, and not a Protestant. Calvin was a self-deluded despotic leader who knew how to piously packaged his own ideas and murder by slow and painful means those who disagreed with him. The court records of Calvin’s own enforcement agency show he was prepared to kill other Protestants, and other Christian believers who disagreed with him. And yet there are millions of Calvinists who regard this pathetic man as a hero.

Calvin’s autocratic rein in Geneva was in his own day rightly identified as “a religious terror.” (Honoré de Balzac, La Comédie humaine, Quoted in Alister E. McGrath, A Life of John Calvin: A Study in the Shaping of Western Culture, (Oxford: Basil Blackford, 1990), 105) This is how much religious freedom Calvin offered the citizens of Geneva. In his Geneva “it was forbidden to give non-Biblical names to children.”

In his “A History of Political Thought in the 16th Century” (New York, 1928) W. Allen claimed that if the essence of Protestantism was a claim to liberty for the individual then “certainly Calvin was not a Protestant”.

Here is Calvin’s record as a “Protestant Reformer”.

(1) Calvin abolished the principle of sola scriptura and set up his own belief as the only rule of faith and practice.
(2) Calvin believed that a person could not be one of the elect unless they were in agreement with his teachings.
(3) He rejected the principle of the separation of church and state and he employed the civil authorities to force others to believe what he did and to punish everyone who did not.
(4) He turned Protestantism into a religio-political dictatorship that was identical to the Roman Catholic model. As the supreme authority over the church in Geneva he claimed religious powers the equivalent to papal authority.
(5) He had other Christians put to death for disagreeing with his teachings even if they professed faith in Christ.

Will Durant, author of the History of Western Civilization wrote: “We shall always find it hard to love the man, John Calvin, who darkened the human soul with the most absurd and blasphemous conception of God in all the long and honored history of nonsense.” But then Calvin was a pope.

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This particular website is definitely Chick-style anti Catholic, so you’ll get no mileage out of that argument.

[MarkBsnr]

Does eternal salvation hold true for every individual who calls upon the Lord?

[Petronski]

Bookmarking this thread. ;OD

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

The Bible never teaches any sort of office like a “pope”, and in fact, never teaches any organisation for Christians about the local church. The whole notion of dioceses, popes, and a universal church organisation comprising all Christians is unscriptural.

[Uri’el-2012]

Does eternal salvation hold true for every individual who calls upon the Lord?

83 posted on 07/18/2007 11:37:47 AM MDT by MarkBsnr

I trust the L-rd !

I do not trust in men or princes.

If I were you , I would do a word search for: "trust in the Lord"

and see what Yah'shua says.

b'shem Yah'shua

[Wonder Warthog]

"I pointed out a parallel grant of authority and asked an obvious question which you ignored. I'm thinking there is a very good and obvious reason that you are avoiding Matthew 18."

Since I'm at work and don't have a Bible to see what "Matthew 18" says (you "do" realize that "Matthew 18" is a CHAPTER, and not a verse??), I assume you're referring to the later grant to the Apostles as a group of the "power to bind and loose". This later grant does NOT include the authority of the "keys of heaven" or keys of stewardship which was granted to Peter alone, and is that grant of authority that the notion of "popehood" was based on. That, plus the direct evidence from Scripture that Peter indeed was considered, and acted as, the leader of the Apostles, and that his successors were so considered from the very beginning of Christianity.

[MarkBsnr]

I do see. And I also see a host of qualifications that are required of the individual.

Not every one who calls Lord, Lord...

[Wallace T.]

The Web site from which you quote was written by a man who is a five point Calvinist. He was critical of the authoritarian regime countenanced by John Calvin in Geneva. Some defenders of the Reformer will point out that the the execution of Servetius and others was performed by the civil rather than the ecclesiastical authorities. However, this argument is as disingenuous as those of Catholics who point out that most of the executions, imprisonments, and tortures of the Inquisition were civil matters. The fact is that few political regimes in the 16th and 17th Centuries permitted religious dissent. Thomas Aquinas, the "Angelic Doctor" of Roman Catholicism, stated that it was justified to execute heretics (Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part, Question 11, Article 3, as may be seen at newadvent.org). Aquinas supported his position with citations from the Church Fathers, Jerome and Augustine, who lived almost a millennium before him. Thus, Luther and Calvin did not deviate from historical precedent in this matter.

In the era of the religious wars of Europe, religious freedom only existed as a matter of political compromise, as in France under the Edict of Nantes, which did not cover Judaism or non-Christian religions. In America, the colonies founded by English religious minorities, such as the Catholics in Maryland, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, and the Baptists in Rhode Island, were the only ones where Christian religious dissent was permitted.

[Suzy Quzy]

The Bible doesn’t mention Protestants either.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“HMMMMMMMMMMMMM...well I would think it would. Wouldn’t it be a more loving attitude to care if people find the proper salvation.”

Did I say that I didn’t want them to find the “proper salvation”? I wrote exactly this: “Who cares? Does it matter what they think?” And I wrote it in response to this: “Protestants have weighed in and the response has included everything from disappointment to anger.” Now, I didn’t say anything in there about salvation.

“If you think the Catholics have it wouldn’t it be more Christ like to care that they come to an understanding of the church, and what the pope did say????”

Yes, and that is exactly why I think it is a waste of time for them to blather erroneous views about what the pope did say.

“BTW, I’m not Catholic, I just find it odd how unloving and unsharing of their faith, especially since most believe you have to be Catholic to spend eternity in heaven, Catholics are.”

1) Most Catholics do not hold to some sort of belief that “you have to be Catholic to spend eternity in heaven”. If you are trying to express some opinion about “no salvation outside the Church” please quit while you’re behind. Also, I know of no Catholic here who doesn’t desire to share the faith. Listening to whining Protestants complain about the church they’re not even members of is not sharing the faith on our part nor is our rejection of that common enough Protestant habit a refusal to share the faith on our part.

Again, I said NOTHING about Protestants not be saved. Nor did I refuse to share the faith with any Protestant. You are fantasizing. Please deal with what is actually written.

“I find that attitude odd in non-Catholic Christians too, the Christians who get offended by evangelism.”

Depends on what you call evangelism. I know many people who would inwardly sigh if asked by a stranger, “Are you saved?” or “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?” What some people call evangelism others simply call annoying.

[DungeonMaster]

This later grant does NOT include the authority of the "keys of heaven" or keys of stewardship which was granted to Peter alone, and is that grant of authority that the notion of "popehood" was based on. That, plus the direct evidence from Scripture that Peter indeed was considered, and acted as, the leader of the Apostles, and that his successors were so considered from the very beginning of Christianity.

So you are saying that Matt 16:19 "And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed[d] in heaven. " Is the entire justification for everything that is the office of pope? Well I shouldn't be surprised considering how much Marianism has been built based on "hail Mary full of grace, blessed are you among women".

It seems to me that by merely being the first to make the wild claim about the pope verse, one gets to own it and all the doctrine they can contrive about the pope.

[Wonder Warthog]

"So you are saying that Matt 16:19 "And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed[d] in heaven. " Is the entire justification for everything that is the office of pope?"

No. There is a good deal more inferential Scriptural evidence, as well as historical evidence from the very earliest days of the Church, but that verse is sufficient in itself.

I've seen MANY Protestant positions justifed based on a lot flimsier scriptural evidence.

Two good books:

"Upon This Rock"- Steve Ray

"Jesus, Peter and the Keys" by Scott Butler, Norman Dahlgren, and David Hess

Both of which have scores of references to scripture, history, and linguistics. The evidence is incontrovertible.

[DungeonMaster]

No. There is a good deal more inferential Scriptural evidence, as well as historical evidence from the very earliest days of the Church, but that verse is sufficient in itself.

I'm sure that same answer is used to validate the "Hail Mary full of grace" seed of the whole Marian doctrine thing. Such "evidence" has never really materialized though I've read many RC apologetics that try to support Marianism.

And, by the way, the verse is in no way sufficient in itself. There is no support that anything that the Lord may have given to Peter at that time survived Peter.

[Wonder Warthog]

"And, by the way, the verse is in no way sufficient in itself. There is no support that anything that the Lord may have given to Peter at that time survived Peter."

Wrong. Read the books and educate yourself. I did, and that's part of the reason I'm no longer Protestant. There's lots of evidence--but Protestants choose to simply ignore it.

And I say again---many Protestant positions have been justified with flimsier Biblical backing.

[DungeonMaster]

Wrong. Read the books and educate yourself. I did, and that's part of the reason I'm no longer Protestant. There's lots of evidence--but Protestants choose to simply ignore it.

I've seen those writings, they are lame. They contain 100 percent human reason with no regard for the bible.

[DungeonMaster]

Have you ever seen the arguments used to explain why Mary must have been assumed into Heaven or how it is that she remained a virgin and even after the birth of the baby? Perhaps you believe there is scripture to support that too.

[Wonder Warthog]

"I've seen those writings, they are lame. They contain 100 percent human reason with no regard for the bible."

If you haven't read those books, then you haven't "seen those writings". Every point in them is backed up by the Bible. Certainly human reason is part of it, but God expects us to use the reason that he endowed us with.

I'm a hard scientist (chemistry), and I know how to separate fact from BS. I've investigated both the Protestant and Catholic evidence, and the Protestant position is, in every case I've checked out in depth, either a strawman argument, a misunderstanding of the Catholic position, or an outright lie.

But you're now getting into the category of "willfully ignorant". I've told you where to find the data, either look it up or stay ignorant. I'm not going to waste any more time on you.

[DungeonMaster]

I believe that you are frustrated when it comes to defending Marianism. You know that it can’t be defended so you try to send me on a wild goose chase. I know because I’ve been sent on them so many times in the past. You know that when you read the case it made sense to you, but you can’t repeat it because of how convoluted it was. There is no biblical way to support Marianism, period.