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.
Great analogy.
Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda, by the grace of God.
Using your terms, God waves the magic wand first and then we believe and are saved within time. We are born as slaves to sin, and are incapable of coming to God by our own devices. God must touch us first because God chose us first, we did not choose Him.
Amen.
Jude 24.
Now until Him that is able to keep from falling and present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy...
No you got the right person. I do not consider St. Paul a Gnostic. Gnostics consider him one of their own for many reasons. As for the Torah, your belief is as good as mine.
"Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.
Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.
But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.
For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield." -- Psalm 5:8-12
Are you recanting that opinion now?
I have noticed it. The first verse clearly says that God (meaning the Father in +Paul's language). The second verse, Rom 8:11, is truncated. The full verse leaves no doubt that it was the Father who raised Him via His Spirit. It subordains the Spirit to the Father.
But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
The credit still goes to Father. The third verse is of course +John which, unlike +Paul, correctly teaches that it was Jesus who raised Himself, which the Church incorporated into the Creed. We cannot mix and match divine Hypostases, although the Three are never without each other, their separate roles and identities in the divine economy of our salvation are not to be confused, mixed.
+Paul, on the other had, on more than one occasion puts "God" above Christ, such as 1 Cor 11:13
Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
The subordination of Christ to God in +Paul's eyes is very clear. +Paul's concept of the Spirit seems to reflect the Judaic and not the Trinitarian view.
Nowhere does the Bible call the Holy Spirit "Lord." Both the Spirit and the Son are subordained to "God" (meaning the Father, without specifying it as such). This shows that early Christians did not have a well developed and clear Trinitarian doctrine. That is evident from all the different Christological and Trinitarian heresies that sprang up among various groups who followed or at least professed to be the followers of Jesus Christ.
No, to my knowledge we are given no indication at all that the Spirit indwelt Adam and Eve before the Fall. Do you have any evidence?
Were they not under grace?
Jesus sent the Spirit to sinners. Adam had no need for salvation before he sinned, so the Spirit should not have been in him until when and if he ever repented.
So, the Holy Spirit will not indwell in heaven?
In the abstract, "Yes", murder does not disqualify one from Heaven
Even though one of the Commandments is clear about that. Why then give commandments?
But no true believing Protestant takes this as a "license" to murder
But if a murderous impulse is reached and acted upon, no big deal. Salvation is assured. I am sorry, this way of thinking may not give license to kill, but it makes mockery of commandments and laws because, ultimately, all laws and everything we do are meaningless as far as our salvation is concerned, which is why Luther says "I can commit 1,000 murders a day" and God wills till forgive me. Rules are no barriers to "act on impulse" since no matter what i do my sins are forgiven...it's insane.
First, I want to completely agree with WM's excellent reply to your post. Now, it is possible to pray to Jesus before formal surrender because the Holy Spirit does not instantaneously ZAP belief into us, in the vast majority of cases. It is a gradual process, the time of which varies among new believer to new believer. In my case, at one point, I really truly DID say a prayer along the following lines: "God, I don't know if you're up there, but if you are and if this "thing" is real, then could you just help me out a little bit". I PRAYED that before I accepted Christ. (In case anyone is wondering, my testimony is that God answered my prayer favorably. :)
Anyway, I remember the unknowing seed that was in my heart at that time like it was yesterday. I had NO CLUE what was happening or was going to happen. Yes, it's anecdotal, but it was very real to me, and I don't think I'm the only guy with a story like this. God was growing me to faith, and as is true for all of the elect, it worked.
Are you saying the HS just "sneaks up" on you and zapps you with a magic wand and then you start praying to Jesus to let the Spirit in. It sounds like some hypnotized, brainwashed robot, FK, who was turned into a believer without knowing it or wanting it.
Well, the one thing I can say for sure is that I wanted it when I prayed for Jesus to be the Lord of my life. I didn't experience any brainwashing, as I said the prayer alone in my room during high school, and no one was pushing me into it. The Holy Spirit DOES claim those who are of His elect. But if God just stays out of it, and watches from the sidelines, then I wonder what the experience is like for Apostolics. Or, does this even apply? Do Apostolics even ever formally invite Jesus into their lives in terms of a commitment that did not exist a minute ago, but after the prayer it did? I honestly don't know.
No. He subordains Chirst to the Father and the spirit to the Father (whiom he calls "God"); he claims secret knowledge that was "downloaded" in an instant, etc. and many other things that suggest Gnostic leanings, but the Church doe not condemn him as it condemned Origen. The Church reads Paul differently, and I defer to the collective wisdiom and knowledge of the Church in the extreme, but I am not fully convicned.
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.hosepipe, you are of course absolutely right in your argument, although you and Seven seem to be talking past one another. Seven, the parable is from Christ's very lips. We indeed "stumble upon the treasure hidden" and finding it there is a definite response! And there must be.
When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy
went and sold all he had and bought that field."
~Matthew 13:44
The treasure of the Kingdom of Heaven is here now. Wandering upon the earth some will 'find' it. Is it possible to 'find' such a treasure - even picturing here the literal one just out there in the field, available, unclaimed - and not wish to have it for oneself? If it is possible to possess the treasure by any means available, I suggest that anyone that 'finds' it will use all means at their disposal to obtain it. I am confident that this is Christ's meaning in the metaphor, and the point that hosepipe is making.
It is my personal testimony. When I 'stumbled upon' the surpassing riches of Christ Jesus I changed my sleeping, reading, purchasing, fellowshipping schedules, and many other things besides, so as to obtain Christ - to know Him, to call Him my own.
At the time I was miraculously saved I was married to an ardent unbeliever who was severely envious of my time spent with Jesus - in prayer, in Bible reading, in church attendance. So I began getting up at 2am, silently slipping out of bed so that I could be with Jesus until he woke up, at which time I would then devote my entire attention to him, as he wished. I have, by the grace of God, maintained this habit.
Before I knew Jesus Christ personally, when I got done work for the day I'd start in to drinking, and spend the whole evening wasted with fellow party animals, my husband included. There was nothing else to live for.
After 'finding' Christ my Treasure I would come home from work and spend my time in prayer and reading the Bible until my husband also came home. He still wanted to party, and I tried very hard to continue those same practices - going, even if not participating in the behavior - but my very presence there, not participating in "the same flood of dissipation" as it is written, made them extremely uncomfortable. Soon I wasn't invited anymore. Soon my husband left me.
The 'finding' of the great treasure of the Kingdom of Heaven, in Christ Jesus, effected changes in every aspect of my thinking and action, circumstances and relationships! How could it not do so? I was transformed from wandering aimlessly about the earth to being the possessor of the greatest treasure man can know.
"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life."Ain't no lie!
~Matthew 19:29
Consider what a person in a Muslim family or nation, or a strictly Orthodox Jewish one, risks and loses by 'finding' the Treasure of the Kingdom of Heaven - they may lose their very lives.
But what is life without Christ?
Gladly will I trade my life for His, amen.
O the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
how unsearchable are his judgments,
and his ways past finding out!
For who hath known the mind of the Lord?
or who hath been his counsellor?
Or who hath first given to him,
and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things:
to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
I'm just curious, but have you ever asked yourself what REALLY repulses you to the idea that God is in total control of everything? To many, I would imagine, the problem would be the idea of concentrated power, all in one place. That just wouldn't be "fair", in some minds. But for others, the issue might be that if God is in control of everything, then the role of man in the universe is diminished. The importance of man is lessened. I can understand why hundreds of millions of men throughout history would find this idea intolerable. Man must control his own destiny BECAUSE he is man.
That's comfy, and certainly builds self-esteem, which is very important in salvational matters, because if our free will is on the fritz, then we might make bad decisions about our eternal destiny. But Apostolics need not worry much because God is always there to lend an opinion or a guidance, while never interfering with the ultimate "decider-in-chief". Hey, that's it! To Apostolics, God is like Karl Rove. :) And, this even fits now with Rove leaving because Apostolics believe that the Holy Spirit ditches and runs for the tall grass whenever we sin too much. The comparison is pretty close. :)
My quote was: "As I'm sure you would agree, no one should struggle to merit his way into Heaven." (emphasis added) It appears that you are arguing that we SHOULD struggle to merit our way into Heaven. Before I unload, is this really what you meant to say?
P.S., I routinely read from the NIV translation, I agree that all of the elect must persevere until the end, and I have no idea who this Jacqueline person is.
John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
What does "in spirit and truth" mean? Spiritual worshop is not physical.
Actually, she didn't "say" such a thing. She spoke of Adolf Hitler and God being in charge of everything that happens. You might rightly surmise that she included the Holocaust, but she didn't use the words you said she did.
That being said, was the Holocaust any worse than the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, or the Babylonian? Were the murdered in those eras less murdered than in the holocaust? The truth is that God claims to be in charge in those destructions. One would think that God is also in charge in the Holocaust.
God foreknew the Holocaust before creation, yet He created anyway. He could easily have prevented it, or not created the world to go in that direction, or not created at all.
Why didn't He?
And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. – John 6:65
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: - John 10:27
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:38-39
Much like God intervening at the tower of Babel to confuse the common language - at Pentecost, He enabled them to speak in many languages.
And I see it also as the will of God that some Christians - much persecuted - must hand copy what they have of Scripture to share in secret - whereas others have the benefit of open worship, mass media and printing presses. The former have the opportunity of Smyrna (Rev 2) whereas the latter have the risk of Laodecia (Rev 3.)
At pentecost The Spirit allowed men to hear in their language what an unlearned fisherman was preaching in his language, possibly Hebrew but most likely Aramaic. For it is by the power of God that we have ears to hear.
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