Did I Really Leave the Holy Catholic Church?

Christian Truth ^ | 1994 | William Webster

[Lee N. Field]

OOoooww! This is all complicated, not warm and fuzzy.

[Between the Lines]

Long read, but please read before commenting.

No comment.

[Terabitten]

Very interesting article. I’m becoming fascinated with the writings of the earliest church fathers (ie, prior to 100 AD) because in those writings are the thoughts of the people who knew Jesus themselves, and the thoughts of those who studied at their feet.

[steadfastconservative]

Just because something is long doesn’t mean that it is worth reading, especially not in this case.

[jacero10]

Protestantism which is a jumble of conflicting teachings and divisions based on ego and self serving doctrine is the best proof of the Catholic Church’s claim to being the Church founded by Christ.

The Church founded on Peter and the Apostles has remained intact and undivided even while embraced by a billion souls and more.

Henry VIII gave us a church that has continually divided. Some of those divisions include:

Methodists
Presbyterians
Baptists

and all their subdivisions.

The Anglican Communion in the pat 100 years or so has spawned countless bodies each claiming to accurately represent the “Anglican” tradition.

Here are some of those divisions:

American Anglican Church
American Anglican Convocation
Anglican Catholic Church
Anglican Catholic Church in Australia
Anglican Catholic Church of Canada
Anglican Catholic Communion, Diocese of Southern Africa
Anglican Catholic Communion USA
The Anglican Catholic Diocese of New Orleans
Anglican Church IN America
The Anglican Church International
Anglican Church International Communion
Anglican Church Of America
The Anglican Church of Virginia
Anglican Church Worldwide
Anglican Diocese of the Great Lakes
The Anglican Episcopal Church
The Anglican Independent Communion in the British Isles and Europe
Anglican Independent Communion Original Province
Anglican Mission in America
Anglican Orthodox Church
The Anglican Province of America
Anglican Province of Christ the King
Anglican Province of Saint Jude
Anglican Rite Catholic Church (Archdiocese of Pacific Northwest)
Anglican Rite Old Catholic Church
Apostolic Anglican Church
The Catholic Anglican Church
The Charismatic Episcopal Church
The Christian Episcopal Church
The Church of England (Continuing)
Church of England in South Africa
The Church of Torres Strait
The Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches
Diocese of the Holy Cross
Diocese of St Paul the Apostle
Diocesis Misionara Hispana
Ecumenical Anglican Catholic Church
The Episcopal Missionary Church
The Episcopal Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of America
Episcopal Orthodox Mission in Italy
Evangelical Anglican Church OF America
Evangelical Anglican Church IN America
Evangelical Episcopal Church
FCE (Evangelical Connexion)/A Connexion of Covenanting Churches
Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas
Filipino Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches
The Free Church of England (see also Reformed Episcopal Church)
The Free Episcopal Church
Free Protestant Episcopal Church
Free Protestant Episcopal Church (Saskatchewan)
Hawaiian Reformed Catholic Church
Holy Catholic Church (Anglican Rite)
Holy Cross Anglican Communion
Iglesia Catolica Anglicana Sagrado Corazon de Jesus
The International Free Protestant Episcopal Church
La Iglesia Episcopal de Chile
Igreja Episcopal Anglicana Livre no Brasil (Free Anglican Episcopal Church in Brazil)
Independent Anglican Church (Canada Synod)
Mariners Church of Detroit
The National Anglican Catholic Church
The Orthodox Anglican Church
Orthodox Anglican Communion
Province of Christ the Good Shepherd
Province of the Transfiguration - Anglican Rite
Reformed Anglican Catholic Church
Reformed Episcopal Church
Reformierte Episkopalkirche in Deutschland
Saints Cyril and Methodius Church
Southern Episcopal Church
The Traditional Anglican Church
The Traditional Anglican Communion
The Traditional Church of England
The Traditional Protestant Episcopal Church
The United Anglican Church
The United Episcopal Church of North America

So any claim of these churches to have the true teaching of Christ is just crap, crap, crap.

[dangus]

It’s more like Webster is saying that he’s found a certain diet to be bad for him, when he’s never actually followed the diet.

[Missey_Lucy_Goosey]

[[[How can this be a GRPL ping when it is mostly about the Catholic Church?]]]

It seems to me that while the article is drawing the glating distinctions between Roman Catholic theology and Biblical, Protestant theology, the article was written specifically for benefit of Protestants, and done so in a magnificient manner.

[marshmallow]

Beckwith got it right and Webster has it wrong.

He abandoned the real Body and Blood of Christ for personal Bible study and grape juice.

[Uri’el-2012]

Very interesting article. I’m becoming fascinated with the writings of the earliest church fathers (ie, prior to 100 AD) because in those writings are the thoughts of the people who knew Jesus themselves, and the thoughts of those who studied at their feet.

43 posted on 09/28/2007 10:59:34 AM MDT by Terabitten

I agree with your train of thought!

All of the apostles except Doctor Luke were Jews.

Yah'shua is a Jew.

He will come again to rule and reign from Jerusalem on the throne of David.

Greek Paganism was introduced during the second and third century.

Greek Paganism was codified and mandated by the leader of the Pagan Empire in the fourth century.

All Jews were driven from the "Corporate Church" which was part of the Pagan Empire.

Yah'shua taught from the Tanach.

Rav Shaul(Paul) taught from the Tanach.

The New Covenant as taught by Yah'shua is in Jeremiah 31:31.

There are many future prophesies to be fulfilled from the Tanach.

shalom b'shem Yah'shua

[wmfights]

So any claim of these churches to have the true teaching of Christ is just crap, crap, crap.

Boy that's a really erudite comment.

1 Peter 5:1 The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder...

Not the comments of one who considered himself the "one supreme leader" is it.

3John 9 I wrote to the church but Diotrephes, who loves to have preeminence among them does not receive us.

Even in the earliest days of Christianity we are being told about those that would assert personal control for their own ambitions.

Luke 17:21 "nor will they say 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."

The Church is the body of believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit not a particular earthly institution. There may even be some of these folks where you go to church.

[jacero10]

Your history is way, way off.

First, that 4th Century Imperial Church infused with paganism is the same Church that gave us the creeds and the canon of the New Testament.

Wow, the ignorance of history is mind boggling. You cannot at once decry the Church after Constantine and call yourself a credal Christian or even a biblical Christian.

[jacero10]

I save my erudition for the worthy. Sometimes you just have to say that crap is, well, crap.

Actually, the pope is one among many elders, that is, the bishops of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

If you think that the scripture supports groups of elders like in TEC, PCUSA, UMC, UCC voting on scripture, you are deluded.

The petrine ministry is clearly outlined in Peter’s undeniable leadership throughout the gospels and the rest of the NT.

[Uri’el-2012]

ou cannot at once decry the Church after Constantine and call yourself a credal Christian or even a biblical Christian.

I only follow Yah'shua.

Yah'shua is "YHvH is become my Salvation"
As He stated in His Word.

I call on the Name Yah'shua for my salvation as He required of me.

shalom b'shem Yah'shua

[Glenmerle]

It’s more like Webster is saying that he’s found a certain diet to be bad for him, when he’s never actually followed the diet.

So for you Christianity is largely experiential? If I told you that you should follow a diet of raw oysters and Bourbon, would you have sense enough to stay away from it without trying it?

[GCC Catholic]

“Yah’shua taught from the Tanach.

Rav Shaul(Paul) taught from the Tanach.”

Actually, they both referenced some books only existing in the Septuagint, that did not exist in the Tanach:

A list:
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/deuterocanon.html

[Uri’el-2012]

Church that gave us the creeds and the canon of the New Testament.

Creeds are derivative
and the canon of the New Testament
was given to us by the Ru'ach HaKodesh
as was promised by Yah'shua.

shalom b'shem Yah'shua

[Uri’el-2012]

I did not say exclusively taught.

[arielguard]

“If this crap is the Church, then Christ is not God. If Protestantism is the true Church, then there is no God at all.”

Jacero...tell us how you really feel? LOL My brother graduated Central Bible College in Springfield, and became a youth pastor. After several years he was so disillusioned with protestantism, having lived through so much of what you saw with your co-worker, that he actually left the faith entirely and converted to orthodox Judaism. I also saw so much of this growing up in Pentecostalism that by 17 I had decided that Jesus was a bunch of bunk. After I became an evangelical at 33 I began studying church history intently from books written by protestant historians of all people. They should have never been honest about what the early Church’s doctrines were, and certainly should not have given out the names of the early Fathers! Either one is in communion with the Fathers or one is not in the Church at all! Thus this fella doesn’t impress me, and I feel no need to waste my time going point by point. Maybe someone else will have the time to waste. Though I would like to give kudo’s to the fella who did take the time out of his life to type all that up for us to read. Forgive me.

[Diamond]

The misuse of Jerome’s writings are, sadly, quite typical of Webster’s arguments. One has to conclude that his “research” into the Fathers was either simply reading someone else’s proof-texting, or that, before embarking on his studies, he was so convinced by such proof-texting, he did not even truly consider what the Fathers actually wrote. How can one have independently studied Jerome, and not have read of how he calls those who say he denigrates the scriptural status of the deuterocanonicals, “fools and slanderers”?

I guess Cardinal Cajetan must have been a moron, too, like Webster:

"Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St. Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed among the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned canonical. For the words as well as of councils and of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorized in the canon of the bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clear through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage."

You night want to infom The New Catholic Ecyclopedia of their error, too, while you're at it.

"St. Jerome distinguished between canonical books and ecclesiastical books (the apocrypha). The latter he judged were circulated by the Church as good spiritual reading but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture....The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries....According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church. This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church at the Council of Trent....The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent."

Cordially,

[Uri’el-2012]

XS>“Yah’shua taught from the Tanach.

Rav Shaul(Paul) taught from the Tanach.”

Actually, they both referenced some books only existing in the Septuagint, that did not exist in the Tanach:

This is a summary of guidelines that were used in determining the canonicity of the books of the Bible.

OLD TESTAMENT GUIDELINES:

1. The book must have been written, edited, or endorsed by a prophet.

2. The Old Testament books were endorsed by Christ and Paul.
Christ, Luke 24:27,44; John 5:39.
Paul, 2 Timothy 3:16.

3. The New Testament quotes all but seven of the Old Testament books.
(Obadiah, Nahum, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Esther, Ezra, and
Nehemiah. Some list only Esther, Ecclesiastes & Song of Solomon.)

The Apocrypha, those books included in the Roman Catholic Canon, were never quoted in the New Testament.
The Apocrypha was accepted as part of the Catholic Canon at the Council of Trent in A.D. 1546.

shalom b'shem Yah'shua