[blue-duncan]

“I will stay with “Orthodoxy is pure Christianity” because it’s the same orthodox faith that subsisted in the the same catholic and aposotlic Church from the beginning.”

Then extend the same courtesy to those who affirm their church pedigree with the same kind of interpretive history.

[MarkBsnr]

***Then extend the same courtesy to those who affirm their church pedigree with the same kind of interpretive history.
***

If you don’t mind, would you share your church’s identity with us?

[kosta50]

Then extend the same courtesy to those who affirm their church pedigree with the same kind of interpretive history

Which 'church?' Man-made 'churches' created 1500 years after Christ, and later?

For for the sake of "fainess" to man-made inventions, I am to accept such 'churches' as 'pure Christianity?' Your God is by everything I heavr and read form Portestant lips and writings is not the same God the Church knew from the beginning.

To you Christ is merely a "mediator." I tell you, I never realized how much Arainism and Gnosticism subsided in Protestant beliefs. This was an eye-opener into what heresy really means.

[Alamo-Girl]

kosta50: “I will stay with “Orthodoxy is pure Christianity” because it’s the same orthodox faith that subsisted in the the same catholic and aposotlic Church from the beginning.”

blue-duncan: "Then extend the same courtesy to those who affirm their church pedigree with the same kind of interpretive history."

I strongly agree with your request, blue-duncan.

The claim of the Catholic/Orthodox Church that the church always and everywhere believed thus and so fails due to the Church intentionally eliminating manuscripts and beliefs hated by those in power.

Around circa 490 at the beginning of the Dark Ages, Gelasius I sought to consolidate power under Rome, assert papal supremacy and enliven a practice dating back to at least St. Philastrius circa 380 of cataloguing heresies, dogging and condemning heretics and destroying documents, even ancient manuscripts containing things they hated even if they were loved by the earliest Christians.

We can clearly see control being asserted (and manuscripts being destroyed) even earlier under the Papacy of Damasus I (circa 366) in this document, The “Decretum Gelasianum de Libris Recipiendis et non Recipiendis”:

V. The remaining writings which have been compiled or been recognised by heretics or schismatics the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church does not in any way receive; of these we have thought it right to cite below a few which have been handed down and which are to be avoided by catholics:...

the works of Tertullian...

These and those similar ones, which Simon Magus, Nicolaus, Cerinthus, Marcion, Basilides, Ebion, Paul of Samosata, Photinus and Bonosus, who suffered from similar error, also Montanus with his obscene followers, Apollinaris, Valentinus the Manichaean, Faustus the African, Sabellius, Arius, Macedonius, Eunomius, Novatus, Sabbatius, Calistus, Donatus, Eustasius, Jovianus, Pelagius, Julian of Eclanum, Caelestius, Maximian, Priscillian from Spain, Nestorius of Constantinople, Maximus the Cynic, Lampetius, Dioscorus, Eutyches, Peter and the other Peter, of whom one disgraced Alexandria and the other Antioch, Acacius of Constantinople with his associates, and what also all disciples of heresy and of the heretics and schismatics, whose names we have scarcely preserved, have taught or compiled, we acknowledge is to be not merely rejected but eliminated from the whole Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church and with their authors and the followers of its authors to be damned in the inextricable shackles of anathema forever.

A well established example of the elimination of documents and beliefs is the Book of Enoch which was rejected by the powers that were in the Church (Philastrius, circa 380) even though the early Christians loved it and relied on it - as is evident by its being quoted in Jude and terms and phrases in Enoch being used in many other places throughout the New Testament.

Were it not for Ethiopia where it was rediscovered in 1775, Enoch would have been lost until it was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the copies there being carbon dated to about 200 b.c. IOW, the Book of Enoch is much older even than that, i.e. ancient by any measure.

Now the Church includes it in its collected writings - but for more than a 1,000 years it was "eliminated" because the Church hated it back in 380!

Who knows what else the Church "eliminated?"

In other words, because of their actions - for which we have strong archeological evidence - the claim of "always and everywhere believed" cannot be authenticated. Therefore, I strongly agree with you, blue-duncan, that alternative interpretations of church history should be treated with courtesy.