Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
Yesterday's Reuters headline: "The Vatican on Tuesday said Christian denominations outside the Roman Catholic Church were not full churches of Jesus Christ." The actual proclamation, posted on the official Vatican Web site, says that Protestant Churches are really "ecclesial communities" rather than Churches, because they lack apostolic succession, and therefore they "have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery." Furthermore, not even the Eastern Orthodox Churches are real Churches, even though they were explicitly referred to as such in the Vatican document Unitatis Redintegratio (Decree on Ecumenism). The new document explains that they were only called Churches because "the Council wanted to adopt the traditional use of the term." This new clarification, issued officially by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but in fact strongly supported by Pope Benedict XVI, manages to insult both Protestants and the Orthodox, and it may set ecumenism back a hundred years.
The new document, officially entitled "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church," claims that the positions it takes do not reverse the intent of various Vatican II documents, especially Unitatis Redintegratio, but merely clarify them. In support of this contention, it cites other documents, all issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973), Communionis notio (1992), and Dominus Iesus (2000). The last two of these documents were issued while the current pope, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was prefect of the Congregation. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was born in 1542 with the name Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition, and for centuries it has operated as an extremely conservative force with the Roman Catholic Church, opposing innovation and modernizing tendencies, suppressing dissent, and sometimes, in its first few centuries, persecuting those who believed differently. More recently, the congregation has engaged in the suppression of some of Catholicism's most innovative and committed thinkers, such as Yves Congar, Hans Küng, Charles Curran, Matthew Fox, and Jon Sobrino and other liberation theologians. In light of the history of the Congregation of the Faith, such conservative statements as those released this week are hardly surprising, though they are quite unwelcome.
It is natural for members of various Christian Churches to believe that the institutions to which they belong are the best representatives of Christ's body on earth--otherwise, why wouldn't they join a different Church? It is disingenuous, however, for the leader of a Church that has committed itself "irrevocably" (to use Pope John Paul II's word in Ut Unum Sint [That They May Be One] 3, emphasis original) to ecumenism to claim to be interested in unity while at the same time declaring that all other Christians belong to Churches that are in some way deficient. How different was the attitude of Benedict's predecessors, who wrote, "In subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the [Roman] Catholic Church--for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame" (Unitatis Redintegratio 3). In Benedict's view, at various times in history groups of Christians wandered from the original, pure Roman Catholic Church, and any notion of Christian unity today is predicated on the idea of those groups abandoning their errors and returning to the Roman Catholic fold. The pope's problem seems to be that he is a theologian rather than a historian. Otherwise he could not possibly make such outrageous statements and think that they were compatible with the spirit of ecumenism that his immediate predecessors promoted.
One of the pope's most strident arguments against the validity of other Churches is that they can't trace their bishops' lineages back to the original apostles, as the bishops in the Roman Catholic Church can. There are three problems with this idea.
First, many Protestants deny the importance of apostolic succession as a guarantor of legitimacy. They would argue that faithfulness to the Bible and/or the teachings of Christ is a better measure of authentic Christian faith than the ability to trace one's spiritual ancestry through an ecclesiastical bureaucracy. A peripheral knowledge of the lives of some of the medieval and early modern popes (e.g., Stephen VI, Sergius III, Innocent VIII, Alexander VI) is enough to call the insistence on apostolic succession into serious question. Moreover, the Avignon Papacy and the divided lines of papal claimants in subsequent decades calls into serious question the legitimacy of the whole approach. Perhaps the strongest argument against the necessity of apostolic succession comes from the Apostle Paul, who was an acknowledged apostle despite not having been ordained by one of Jesus' original twelve disciples. In fact, Paul makes much of the fact that his authority came directly from Jesus Christ rather than from one of the apostles (Gal 1:11-12). Apostolic succession was a useful tool for combating incipient heresy and establishing the antiquity of the churches in particular locales, but merely stating that apostolic succession is a necessary prerequisite for being a true church does not make it so.
The second problem with the new document's insistence upon apostolic succession is the fact that at least three other Christian communions have apostolic succession claims that are as valid as that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox Churches, which split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1054, can trace their lineages back to the same apostles that the Roman Catholic Church can, a fact acknowledged by Unitatis Redintegratio 14. The Oriental Orthodox Churches, such as the Coptic and Ethiopic Orthodox Churches, split from the Roman Catholic Church several centuries earlier, but they too can trace their episcopal lineages back to the same apostles claimed by the Roman Catholic Church as its founders. Finally, the Anglican Church, which broke away from the Roman Catholic Church during the reign of King Henry VIII, can likewise trace the lineage of every bishop back through the first archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine. In addition to these three collections of Christian Churches, the Old Catholics and some Methodists also see value in the idea of apostolic succession, and they can trace their episcopal lineages just as far back as Catholic bishops can.
The third problem with the idea of apostolic succession is that the earliest bishops in certain places are simply unknown, and the lists produced in the third and fourth centuries that purported to identify every bishop back to the founding of the church in a particular area were often historically unreliable. Who was the founding bishop of Byzantium? Who brought the gospel to Alexandria? To Edessa? To Antioch? There are lists that give names (e.g., http://www.friesian.com/popes.htm), such as the Apostles Mark (Alexandria), Andrew (Byzantium), and Thaddeus (Armenia), but the association of the apostles with the founding of these churches is legendary, not historical. The most obvious breakdown of historicity in the realm of apostolic succession involves none other than the see occupied by the pope, the bishop of Rome. It is certain that Peter did make his way to Rome before the time of Nero, where he perished, apparently in the Neronian persecution following the Great Fire of Rome, but it is equally certain that the church in Rome predates Peter, as it also predates Paul's arrival there (Paul also apparently died during the Neronian persecution). The Roman Catholic Church may legitimately claim a close association with both Peter and Paul, but it may not legitimately claim that either was the founder of the church there. The fact of the matter is that the gospel reached Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Edessa, and other early centers of Christianity in the hands of unknown, faithful Christians, not apostles, and the legitimacy of the churches established there did not suffer in the least because of it.
All the talk in the new document about apostolic succession is merely a smokescreen, however, for the main point that the Congregation of the Faith and the pope wanted to drive home: recognition of the absolute primacy of the pope. After playing with the words "subsists in" (Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church] 8) and "church" (Unitatis Redintegratio 14) in an effort to make them mean something other than what they originally meant, the document gets down to the nitty-gritty. "Since communion with the Catholic Church, the visible head of which is the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Peter, is not some external complement to a particular Church but rather one of its internal constitutive principles, these venerable Christian communities lack something in their condition as particular churches." From an ecumenical standpoint, this position is a non-starter. Communion with Rome and acknowledging the authority of the pope as bishop of Rome is a far different matter from recognizing the pope as the "visible head" of the entire church, without peer. The pope is an intelligent man, and he knows that discussions with other Churches will make no progress on the basis of this prerequisite, so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the pope, despite his protestations, has no interest in pursuing ecumenism. Trying to persuade other Christians to become Roman Catholics, which is evidently the pope's approach to other Churches, is not ecumenism, it's proselytism.
Fortunately, this document does not represent the viewpoint of all Catholics, either laypeople or scholars. Many ordinary Catholics would scoff at the idea that other denominations were not legitimate Churches, which just happen to have different ideas about certain topics and different ways of expressing a common Christianity. Similarly, many Catholic scholars are doing impressive work in areas such as theology, history, biblical study, and ethics, work that interacts with ideas produced by non-Catholic scholars. In the classroom and in publications, Catholics and non-Catholics learn from each other, challenge one another, and, perhaps most importantly, respect one another.
How does one define the Church? Christians have many different understandings of the term, and Catholics are divided among themselves, as are non-Catholics. The ecumenical movement is engaged in addressing this issue in thoughtful, meaningful, and respectful ways. Will the narrow-minded view expressed in "Responses" be the death-knell of the ecumenical movement? Hardly. Unity among Christians is too important an idea to be set aside. Will the document set back ecumenical efforts? Perhaps, but Christians committed to Christian unity--Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant alike--will get beyond it. The ecumenical movement is alive and well, and no intemperate pronouncement from the Congregation of the Faith, or the current pope, can restrain it for long. Even if ecumenism, at least as it involves the Roman Catholic Church's connection with other Churches, is temporarily set back a hundred years, that distance can be closed either by changes of heart or changes of leadership.
See 2,618
No, when there is a change of heart it is to believe in something. That "something" coincides with the fundamentals of core Christianity
Christianity is based on the trinitarian God. When you come to believe (by change of heart or mind, whichever), you have no idea what you are believeing except that you realize there is God. So you just don't become a core Christian form the start. You are indoctrinated in it.
I don't see any trouble because I cannot recall the verse that says that satan is more powerful than God. While satan can outwit me alone, satan cannot snatch me out of God's hands
Have you ever heard of Adam and Eve?
And yes, I absolutely could be driven to violence if I turn away from God to a certain degree. I have certainly lost my temper before as a Christian, so it's just a different level of the same thing
Many a Christian has committed murder. But you believe those are already forgiven because Christ "paid" the bill. It is no wonder we have such a violent society, FK. It's based on the Protestant notion that no matter what one does, he is safe as long as you call on Jesus (it's that pecca fortiter again...).
KJV is based on Textus Receptus which is as bogus as a three-dollar bill. It's appeal comes from the fact that the Protestants had a hay day altering an already altered and thoroughly corrupt text.
I'm afraid sola fide is just fine with this. :) No one can truly believe unless he has already been baptized by the Holy Spirit. That is, in effect, the installation of faith, and so we believe. Sola Fide is secure. No one can "believe" without the Holy Spirit first acting, otherwise it is just "claiming" to believe. It isn't real.
Thus, Mark seems to suggest that faith is a requirement, but is not salvational without Baptism!
That's right! That IS what he's saying. He's just not talking about water baptism. :) A claimed faith without baptism of the Spirit is a false faith.
Mythological, given that Babylonias have an identical account for all practical purposes.
Can God kill children in wrath, but not in mercy?
Why would he kill them in wrath when the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these?
What about children that just die? Is God powerless to prevent it?
So, whoever dies is 'killed' by God?
So, whatcomes first, FK, faith or the Holy Spirit? Are you more likely to look up and say "There's God!" or does the Holy Spirit "jump" into you and then you say "I believe?"
Do you believe and ask the Holy spirit to come and dwell inside of you or does he just make Hismelf comfortable with or without invitation?
Why do I feel the Protestants believe the latter? No wonder you guys like Paul so much! :)
The Bible is what we have and the most sure way I know to be certain of the meaning is to study the KJV along with the Strong's Concordance to understand the Hebrew and Greek, unless you are gifted with those languages.
Those that don't, that just trust their teachers and don't hold their words up to align with God's, run the risk of what God warns us of in Jeremiah 7:
4. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, 'The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these.'
So...even with a Book that may hold some mistranslations it, to me, is far better than anything else at our disposal, including a "temple of the Lord". (His words, not mine).
This brings me back to where we started. How do you answer the questions I have posed. How does a faulty Bible hold a story, written in different times by different people with the same story carried forward - no mistakes, the same story. Explain the acrostic in Esther (and there are others). Tell me how Ps. 22 told of the crucifixion 1,000 years before the event? Explain what the scriptures mean that I gave you about the 3 ages and what really happened in the garden.
Some are calling them dark, heretical, etc. but no one has explained them. They won't just go away. They are written for a reason so tell me why our churches don't teach it. Calling it "dark" is unfair. It isn't dark because it hasn't been taught. To me, the teaching lets in the light and brings understanding.
If you will let go of talking about the church and telling me why the Bible can't be trusted maybe you, or others, will answer the questions.
.........Ping
But even with that as a ‘standard’ they cannot agree.
The whole idea of individuals being able to interpret Scripture is ludicrous based upon that alone, never mind that the Bible tells them that it is verboten. More evidence that our Bible-only friends are full of man-made traditions and, intentionally bereft of Christ’s institution upon Earth, cannot make the correct decisions, the correct interpretations or the correct doctrines.
Which is secondary evidence that it is true. The primary evidence that it is true is that Jesus Christ referred to it as a fact. Moses recorded it as a fact and the Babylonians apparently had a similar story (thus giving the story a secular source).
Why would he kill them in wrath when the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these?
So do all dead children go to heaven? If so, then Forest's contention that God sometimes kills off children in order to show mercy upon them would be true.
So, whoever dies is 'killed' by God?
If God does not want you to die, you are indestructible. Nobody dies in contradiction to God's will. God knows the number of your days. You will die at the appointed time.
The Bible can be trusted. Our private interpretation cannot. The Jews were given many prophecies.
And please remember that the KJV was a political translation. Google it up; I don’t expect you to believe me on that. I’d suggest that you might use the D-R or even the more accurate but more pedestrian NAB which is online at the USCCB website.
Does God determine all (predeterminism)? Or does He simply know (free will)?
Whilst I believe that God nudges people in the direction that they ought to go, it is still our free will in the end that determines our fate.
The Bible teaches us that God predetermines us to Heaven and it simply is up to us if we would go to Hell.
He ordains all.
Whilst I believe that God nudges people in the direction that they ought to go, it is still our free will in the end that determines our fate.
If it is up to YOUR free will, then you are destined for hell.
The Bible teaches us that God predetermines us to Heaven and it simply is up to us if we would go to Hell.
If that were true, then why would a loving God give us free will?
Now we are back to the idea that God has created a bunch of robots. If that is so, then why fight it? Why strive and struggle?
I can simply do as I want. If He wants me in Heaven (Biblical evidence), then I’ll get there and if he wants me in hell (no Biblical evidence) then I’ll go there as well. If nothing that my conscious mind can do to get me to heaven, then why do the right thing? If I’m predetermined to go to heaven and there’s nothing I can do about it, then what stops me from going out raping and killing when the whim strikes me?
If you follow every fleshly whim, then obviously you were NOT predestined to go to heaven.
Godly discipline and good works and wanting to serve the Lord is evidence of our election.
I think what perspicuity says is that not all scriptures were created equal. Some of them, like the ones that include basic salvational doctrine, are both clear and simple. A normal person could read those verses and come away with the basic understanding that Christ is God, and was incarnated to come to earth in order to die for our sins, etc.
Now, other scriptures are more difficult to understand, such as Peter's remarks about Paul. They are clear in that all the information is there, but they are not simple because they have to be correctly interpreted to understand the information. The classic example is eschatology.
Which obviously leads to the conclusion that any teachers need to be correct, or nearly correct. How do we know that they are?
Any interpretation, whether from a teacher or from someone's own reading, has to always pass scriptural muster. Of course, problems can easily arise when "new" interpretations are just derived from trusted old interpretations that may not have been correctly interpreted in the first place. That doesn't mean that the truth isn't clearly there (it is), it just means that it may be difficult to discern. For example, I thought about it one time, and I think that the vast majority of all my differences with Apostolic theology REALLY boil down to the interpretation of the very few verses that discuss "bind", "loose", and apostolic succession. We both might think those verses are clear (in opposite directions however :) but if they were simple, then Christianity would certainly have more unity today than it does.
“Mythological, given that Babylonias have an identical account for all practical purposes.”
Well then I guess we can say that the resurrection of Jesus was myth since long before the Gospels the Greeks had a resurrection story of the dying and rising of the god, Dionysus. The idea of a messiah, a divinely appointed king who restores the world to perfection is typical of Egyptian and Babylonian royal myths dating back to the Bronze Age so we can relagate the returning victorious Christ to the myth pile.
Let’s see, what’s left?
I try not to but there are times.... sorry.
Yup, see 2,626. That's all they have, so they use the Bible to provie the Bible, but it all defaults to "I believe this is so..." (personal opinion based on personal interpretation) and "God told me," (gnosticism) and, my favorrite, "I don't trust any man (read: except myself)." It's the ultimate narcissism.
That's why Luther says he can commit 300 adulteries a day, Chirst forgave him (if he is the elect). Like I said, with that mindset, it is no wonder we have a narcissistic violent society. If you believe you are the elect, no matter what you do you are forgiven already. It's a religion tailor-made to man's taste.
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