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 ...
Right it was your Bishops and not the Holy Spirit that led them..
could be worse i could say that protestants are ‘not people’.
if protestants beleive the Holy Spirit was upon the Bishops when declaring heresies (which is what shaped the canon by removing spurious books) which took place in the 300s, then they must acknowledge that the rest of the things our Bishops were doing at the time were equally guided by the Holy Spirit. If not they should give us our Holy Book back and go find their own
Of course you could, but God calls us to be Holy as He is Holy.
The Oriental Orthodox were excluded from the short list of "true churches."
Catholic Pride in 'One True Church' Makes Enemies, Says Coptic Pope
-A8
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