Christian Unity and the Role of Authority

Matt1618 ^ | I. Shawn McElhinney

[big'ol_freeper]

I - The Necessity of Unity:

Truth by its very nature is unitive not divisive and Our Lord not only prayed for unity among His believers (John 17) but He also warned that divided houses could not stand (Matt. 12:25-29; Mark 3:23-26; Luke 11:14-20). There is a fundamental rule to logic that is called the "Law of Non-Contradiction" and it could be argued that by implication Our Lord was teaching it when he spoke about Satan casting out Satan. The Law of Non-Contradiction applies perfectly in these passages because it basically states that something cannot be both true and false. This is what happens if Satan casts out Satan- he contradicts himself. Therefore through self-contradiction his kingdom cannot stand. Well, what is happening when you have thousands of Christian groups professing different beliefs and all claiming to follow "the Bible"??? How does this square with the exhortations not only from the Scriptures but also from the writings of the early Church Fathers about the necessity of maintaining unity???

[big'ol_freeper]

From Part IV: Protestantism, in fact, started out upon its career nursing two massive errors, each of them sufficient to ruin it. One was the error of assuming that all Christians were really Christians, and the other was the error of assuming that they were intelligent enough to ascertain and embrace the truth. Both were found out very quickly, but not soon enough to get rid of them. Their collision with the veriest elements of human nature has produced an immense proliferation of fantastic sects and a long series of anti-papal popes, beginning with Luther and Calvin.

Today Protestantism is either a banal imitation of Catholicism or a cruel burlesque upon it. It is almost too incoherent to be discussed seriously. I could invent new forms of it almost ad infinitum, as a mathematician invents new algebras…[the result is that] bibliolatry [worship of the Bible] turns upon and devours itself. Any half-wit, searching Holy Writ, is free to found a sect of his own - and if not upon the actual text, then upon the interpolations, mistranslations and typographical errors. Thousands of such half-wits, as everyone knows, have made use of that franchise, and the result is chaos.

The Roman church has escaped the same disaster by keeping the Bible in its place. What the Bible says, however it may clash with common knowledge and common sense, is inspired and infallible --but Holy Church reserves the right to determine precisely what it says. In that reservation there is a wisdom beyond the highest flight of philosophers. Once a Frenchman announced to an American friend that he was leaving the [Catholic] church of his fathers. The American asked what variety of Protestantism he proposed to patronize. 'I have lost my faith,' answered the Frenchman icily, 'but not my reason’…

Protestantism, in truth, save in those borderlands where Roman altar-fires perfume and denature it, is endurable only to hinds. It spoils the most lovely poetry in the world by reducing it to harsh and illiterate prose…In Fundamentalism it reaches the nadir of theology. What is worst in Fundamentalism is common, perhaps, to all forms of Christianity, but it is only in the imprecations of the backwoods Wesleys that it is stated plainly. No more shocking nonsense has ever been put into words by theoretically civilized men.

[big'ol_freeper]

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