Posted on 07/20/2007 8:52:53 AM PDT by Between the Lines
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Instead of taking offense at a recent Vatican statement reasserting the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, evangelicals should seize the chance to respond with equal candor that “any church defined by the claims of the papacy is no true church,” according to a prominent Southern Baptist leader.
The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote on his blog that he appreciated the document’s clarity in voicing a key distinction between Catholics and Protestants over papal authority.
He said those differences are often forgotten “in this era of confusion and theological laxity.”
“We should together realize and admit that this is an issue worthy of division,” Mohler wrote.
“The Roman Catholic Church is willing to go so far as to assert that any church that denies the papacy is no true church. Evangelicals should be equally candid in asserting that any church defined by the claims of the papacy is no true church.
“This is not a theological game for children, it is the honest recognition of the importance of the question.”
This month, the Vatican released a document restating the contention that the Roman Catholicism is the one, true path to salvation. Other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches, the document said, restating the views of a 2000 document.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict XVI headed before becoming pope, said it issued the new document because some contemporary theological interpretations of the Second Vatican Council’s ecumenical intent had been “erroneous or ambiguous” and had prompted confusion and doubt.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I think WELS is exclusive in the same way as the RCC.
So much for unity among believers.
Some might.
What's your Church's position on creation of men's souls? Is a new soul created when someone is conceived (or born or at some time during gestation) or was the Creation a done deal & all men share in a soul that was created on the sixth day?
I ask, cuz I'd like to know if all Orthodox churches teach the same thing about it. It's an area where there's a difference between the RCC & (I believe) Greek Orthodox. Origen was condemned for his writings on the preexistence of souls a couple of centuries after his death.
It flows directly from Catholic sacramental theology.
To the non-sacramental Christian, liturgies may look like "processes" because that's all they are believed to be--just empty rituals.
We, however, regard every single Mass as a making present of Christ's sacrifice on Calvary, and a liturgy in which Christ Himself comes down upon the altar *literally* and feeds us with His sacred body and blood. It is, again literally, heaven breaking through to earth, and from that action flows infinite graces for humanity--not only the ones in the building but everywhere in the world. Yes, praying, reading the Bible, and witnessing are also encounters in some sense with Christ. But they are not as immediate and as intimate as the direct encounter with Christ at the Mass.
That's why we most decidedly do not see liturgies as "eating up our time." There's no better way, in fact, to spend one's time than to be at the Heavenly Banquet of the Lamb. :)
Well if it was condemned at the Second Council of Constantinople then i imagine the Orthodox do not beleive there’s some pre existing pool of souls, i never much thought about it, certainly the Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox would agree on this.
One could make the case that the Roman Catholics emulate the Gnostics as well.
Read carefully, and digest.
Read carefully. Digest the content.
Looking at the condemnation, it looked like a belief that souls weren't (or aren't) created was the problem. I think the RCC teaches that an individual's soul is created at conception, which would seem to take creation beyond the six days in Genesis. Greek Orthodox seems to teach something more along the line of a shared soul. Creation was complete in the six days mentioned in Genesis & children inherit their soul from their parents, in the same way they inherit their physical bodies.
heresey makes me vomit...
No.
and refrain from leadership in prayer in your church?
Yes.
i dunno that we have enough evidence on hand on this really... i’d bet on created at conception personally...
I don't know & will ask this Sunday.
fairer answer than i usually get... shows deference to ‘The Church’ as well on some level.
Significantly, especially in the Titus passage, conformity to apostolic teaching is listed as a qualification. The implication of the pastoral epistles on the issue of apostolic succession is precisely what Protestants maintain, e.g., that succession is succession of apostolic doctrine, not of inherent personal authority.
It's not what Protestants maintain. He's confusing two things here...infallibility and apostolic succession. Apostolic succession does NOT mean that a person in the line *won't ever go wrong*. It never meant that in the early Church and doesn't mean it now. It simply refers to the validity of the *ordination*, that *this* person is invested to dispense the sacraments and teach in *this* diocese. The ordained bishop holds an *office* that comes from the Apostles...but he himself is not protected from error and can stray from Apostolic doctrine.
Infallibility is a whole nother issue. It states that the Church *as a whole* will not be led into error and will always be faithful to the Apostolic teaching. Individual bishops may go bonkers, but Church Councils under the authority of the Bishop of Rome will never ever do so.
Well, that's a necessity, isn't it? The divisions that started immediately after the Reformation necessitated an ecclesiology where "the Church" was this invisible amalgamation of believers instead of an institution that was visible and identifiable.
To you, the non-assertion of exclusivity is a touchstone of orthodoxy. To me, it looks like a begrudging admission of an unpleasant historical fact.
If you do contact him and get a response to your observation I would really like to see it.
I’m glad you pinged them to this. I was 2/3rds of the way through a lengthy response to kosta50 about this & my computer’s harddrive went caput.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1856351/posts?page=23#23
I think you've raised a valid issue. Deference, sure, but there's probably a difference in my beliefs with respect to authority than I think you have.
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