Mary and the Problem of Christian Unity

Coming Home Network ^ | Kenneth J. Howell, Ph. D.

[Quester]

Because threads like this are really a lot more about hating Catholics and everything connected with Catholicism, than they are about loving Jesus or truth.

I don't think that anyone said anything about 'hating Catholics'.

What has been expressed is a hatred of any tradition ... which opposes the Word of God.

Matthew 15:1 Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,

2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.

3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.

5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;

6 And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,

8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

[Quix]

What you seemingly fail to recognize is that if the Church did not have singular authority through the centuries that these types of heresies would have run rampant.

Heresies have run rampent IN the RC edifice and outside it--through the centuries.

Of coues, one has to consult the UNrubberized histories, to realize that.

We are flawd creatures. Collected together, our flaws seem to multiply in diversity and potency virtually regardless of the structure or type of political power exercised therein. Some are worse, some better.

!!!!TRADITION!!!! bound hierarchical structures seem to be amongst the worst.

Such structures are better at hiding the truth from the serfs longer and from managing spin when things do leak out

However, in terms of preserving truth from error as in every other sin issue--it is humble, broken-before-God [vs before a statue] hearts demonstrating Christ-like character that wins the day with most individuals in most contexts. It is NOT organization, nor structure, nor style or type of political !!!CONTROL!!!.

I think it was the Welsh revival that manifested so many startling miracles for so long . . . until someone sought to organize it and bring some "order" and "control" to it. It went downhill, from ther.

That, too, is a matter of the UNrubbized historical record.

[stfassisi]

Dear Friend, you should try keeping things within context of what I was writing about in my post,which was about the early church.

They DID NOT have fully canonized Bible's until the fourth century. They had scrolls of what they thought to be inspired, and they used oral tradition passed from the Apostles to verify some of it.

There were NOT thousands of copies of theses scrolls given to each community of the Church either.

Your modern mindset fails to recognize the important role tradition played in giving us the Bible in the first place

I wish you a Blessed Evening!

[roamer_1]

Whatever can you mean! roamer!

LOL! You crack me up!

Great post Quix. Nice to see you haven't lost that rapier wit. :D

[roamer_1]

Christ said to satan . . . IT IS WRITTEN . . . NOT "Mommy said . . ." [...]

Quite exactly.

[Quix]

YUP.

ALONE WITH GOD . . .

when every idle thought, word, deed is reviewed from the perspective one’s own consciousnness as well as the perspective and feelings of every other consciousness impacted.

Only Jesus will make it tolerable—by HIS PRESENCE.

Rumor is that Mary will be off teaching hanky folding miracles or some such. Evidently even the Romans believe that the Co-Redemptrix thing only goes a certain distance.

Thanks for your kind words.

BTW, when I saw Fiddler on the Roof . . . I was rather wistful about heretage, traditions. Of course I deplored the kind Scripture was so wholesale against. However, we didn’t have much even family tradition which was warm and fuzzy. And I thought a nurturing community with a lot of warm fuzzy holy traditions might be quite nice.

And, I think—moderate ones, in their place, Guided by Holy Spirit—they CAN be. They rarely seem to be so, IN PRACTICE, however.

There’s good reason that CHRIST HIMSELF WAS MOST HOSTILE TOWARD POLITICALLY MANAGED ORGANIZATIONALLY STRUCTURED !!!!TRADITIONS!!!!

[roamer_1]

With that I firmly agree. It is why I do not consider Mormonism Christian, but pretty much all of the other mainline “Professing to be Christian” churches I do consider to be Christian.

I will not go so far... Mormons are terrific Christians when restricted to the Word of God (It IS the true pearl of great price). I cannot abide their doctrine, no I cannot. It is confusion, to be sure. But shall believing and sincere Mormons be damned to Hell for their having been taught that confusion? No, I think not. I recognize their God as Jehovah. I recognize their Priest as Christ. Too bad for the confusion, all the same.

[stfassisi]

Basically ,all you ever do is rant a rave and offer NO content of any historical significance

I wonder if you say the words RC Edifice in your sleep?

Like I have said to you before,I would rather just pray for you than to have useless discussions so you can impress yourself with your bold colored letters.

Good Night and stop posting me with your nonsense please.

I wish you peace of mind!

[annalex]

Also 2 Timothy 3:14, right next to the sola scripturalists’ fake prooftext.

[RobRoy]

I need to make it clear that I very strongly separate Mormonism, and mormons.

One of my friends is a Mormon and he knows more about the bible than most of my Christian friends. We have interesting discussions but must part company regarding Jesus fully atoning blood. We agree to disagree there.

The band I used to be in was almost ALL mormon. I suspect some Mormons are even Christian, but if they are, they do not agree with their own church’s doctrine about who Christ actually is.

But regarding the points of your last paragraph, I am seriously confused about that. I do know that many Mormons, as they learn more and more about Mormonism, leave the church and either become agnostics or become Christians.

[Quix]

i AGREE about the diversity issue.

Have pondered it a long time. Unity can be a screamingly important issue for a child of divorce at age 2—back before divorce became a National sport.

And, I’ve often, out of that internal press, worked energetically to bridge gaps within groups I was a part of. It’s been a very mixed record. Egos get so hooked.

It seems evident in the NT that God used the diversity to spread His Word far and wide. Certainly that has been the case since.

I’ve often noticed that even within Pentecostalism . . . some churches fit some personalities better than others.

It’s certainly clear that UNITY IN CHRIST’S BLOOD AND SPIRIT WILL NOT OCCUR UNTIL

HE

ARRANGES IT, EFFECTS IT.

One of the more touching things in China—was the capacity to worship in love regardless of Christian perspective. Majoring in majors and minoring in minors tends to be easier when prioritites are stripped to the bone.

[roamer_1]

As everyone knows, churches, when they become corporations have to operate like a corporation not a church.

I do agree with all you said.

It is unfortunate that moments after the pews are installed, and the sign is hung up, every church must compete corporately. It is all about getting butts in the pews, to some degree. How they do that without stepping upon their calling makes all the difference. Unfortunately (for them), their calling will invariably be short and ignominious if they do not do it right.

But along with that, I might observe that the variance and focus of different churches are also part of what I would suppose is God's plan for the Protestants- Some people can only digest milk, while those more experienced crave the meat. I can tell you surely that many I have met came from more mainstream lackluster churches to the one I frequent craving Spirit, their training wheels having been removed.

So it is not necessarily a bad thing to have "get 'em in the pews" churches out there, for their milk does serve a purpose.

[Quix]

A 4th model is described, “The Godward Church” – A group of people gather in a room. One of them stands up, opens a Bible and says, “This is what God says.” He explains the text and how it should affect one’s life. The church sings, prays, shares the bread and the cup, and goes home. Not very market savvy. Not very exciting. But the Word of God comes with power, the Holy Spirit, and deep conviction. Consciences are pierced, lives changed. People go home worshiping God by hating sin, loving one another, and proclaiming the gospel to their neighbors. A Godward church is a worshiping church, which will make it a supernaturally attractive church; distinct like salt and bright like fire. The people begin to look like – sons and daughters of God. That’s most attractive – and it starts with hearing the Word of God.

= = =

I posted a thread a year or 3 ago . . . about

FAITH COMES BY HEARING . . . HOSANNA MUSIC SPONSORED EFFORT TO GET SCRIPTURE INTO THE HANDS OF ALL THE UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUPS ASAP via hand crank MP3 players.

A big missions problem has been that translating Scriptures and handing out a lot of texts didn’t help a whole lot in a tribe or people group where few to no one was literate.

Their policy is to ask WHO THE MAN OF PEACE is in the village. Then, they make a contract with the man of peace. The Man of Peace agrees to host a group to listen to 30 minutes worth of Scripture AND THEN DISCUSS WHAT THEY HEARD for 30 minutes—once a week. IIRC, that’s about it. There’s very little other requirements.

Then the distrubtors will return in maybe 6 months or however long to check on how things are going. I think in about 60% of the cases or more, SPONTANEOUS CHURCHES HAVE SPRUNG UP AND MANY ARE PLANTING OTHER CHURCHES.

ALL the organization and style of service is derived from Scripture filtered through their own cultural ethos. The churches are flourishing and God is working miracles in theirm midst—ALL QUITE SPONTANEOUSLY ACCORDING TO HOLY SPIRIT

and certainly without any heavy idolatrous powermongering handedness from ROME, or SPRINGFIELD or MILWAUKEE . . . etc.

To quote their strategy from their website:

Thursday, April 3, 2008

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THEIR stats as a charity are here:

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[Quix]

It’s becoming increasingly evident that reading my posts is as mentally challenging for some RC’s as reading Scripture and UnRubberized histories and dictionaries is.

I referred to Paul’s verse about traditions in a post above. And noted that Christ was across the board MOST Hostile TO . . . .

TRADITIONS . . . throughout the Gospels.

In terms of emphasis . . . SCRIPTURE IS CLEAR . . . TRADITIONS OF MAN ARE A HIDEOUS THING IN GOD’S EYES.

[Quix]

Is RobRoy right, that I HATE traditions . . .

. . . hmmmm . . . .

Wellll . . . I hate idolatrous, blaphemous traditions of man.

[Quix]

1. 150 AD is considerably BEFORE—more than 350 years BEFORE Romanism.

2. The mass is structured and managed top-down virtually to the nth degree quite in contrast to the description given and quite outrageously in contrast to Holy Spirit manageing such from the bottom up.

3. Most groups got it wrong on such scores.

4. Check out the Welsh Revival and the Asbury revivals.

[Quix]

I stand corrected . . . though I would class the Corinthian one as one passage. But, yeah—there was more than one verse. I wish I were only that wrong more often.

The points I made still stand.

And you have yet to deal with those—AS USUAL.

[Quix]

Is it a doctrine of the RC edifice that slapping prottys down is as required and commendable, if not preferrable to trying to defend the indefensible of blasphemous, idolatrous doctrines and practices?

Sure seems like an enormously high priority compared to “to every man an answer” . . . especially a Biblical, FACTUAL answer.

I can’t remember last hereon when an RC has given me a solid reasonable, Biblical even reply to my main points—much less a viable reasonable explanation.

. . . however, . . . to be fair . . . I don’t carry a lot of rare stray bits of info in my noggin outinely . . . of that sort, anyway.

[Quix]

I’ve come to the conclusion that the

concept of

hate the sin but love the sinner

is utterly lost on great percentages of Roman edifice folks.

Just does not seem to compute. I think it’s the foaming at the mouth and at the fingers that seems to clog their logic circuits on such scores. Fascinating.

[Quix]

That’s wonderfully, precisely and well put. Deserves a repeat:

---

I don’t think that anyone said anything about ‘hating Catholics’.

What has been expressed is a hatred of any tradition ... which opposes the Word of God.
Matthew 15:1 Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,

2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.

3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.

5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;

6 And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,

8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.