Posted on 06/19/2009 7:09:41 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
For the non-Calvinists or anti-Calvinists among us who may worry that this issue of WORLD has several articles about John Calvin, be not afraid: It happens only once every 500 years. July 10 brings the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birth—and the great theologian, even with his warts, deserves a better press than he has typically received in recent decades.
Calvin was a fallen sinner, as all of us are, but was he especially mean-spirited? He taught that God created the world out of love and loved the world so much that Christ came down from the glorious kingdom of heaven and plunged into this world's muck. Calvin saw God as a generous giver and His mercy as an abundant resource. Jehovah's Witnesses would later insist that heaven has room for only 144,000, but Calvin understood that God's grace is infinite.
Did Calvin emphasize in-group harshness toward the poor and the alien? No: He wrote, "We cannot but behold our own face as it were in a glass in the person that is poor and despised . . . though he were the furthest stranger in the world. Let a Moor or a barbarian come among us, and yet inasmuch as he is a man, he brings with him a looking glass wherein we may see that he is our brother and neighbor." Everyone is created in God's image and worthy of respect.
Did Calvin want us to abstain from all material pleasures? He wrote that God "meant not only to provide for necessity but also for delight and good cheer. . . . Has the Lord clothed the flowers with the great beauty that greets our eyes, the sweetness of smell that is wafted upon our nostrils, and yet will it be unlawful for our eyes to be affected by that beauty, or our sense of smell by the sweetness of that odor?" He opposed any doctrine that "deprives us of the lawful fruit of God's beneficence."
Calvin also opposed doctrines that deprive us of political liberty. His understandings—that God-given laws are superior to those of the state, the king, and any other institution, and that individuals have direct access to the Bible, without dependence on pope or priest—are common now, but compare them to the political and theological theories fashionable before his time. In ancient times, pagan states revered leaders as semi-divine. Those who argued with such bosses were seen as deserving death. In medieval times, the interpretations of church officials often trumped the words of the Bible itself (which few people could read). They identified God's kingdom on earth with a church monopoly, and hanged, burned, or decapitated some with other ideas.
Calvin and other Reformation leaders, though, separated church and state while emphasizing the importance of believers working to lead the state. Calvin contended that, since God reigns everywhere, His followers should be entrepreneurs in every strategic institution, including government, civil society, commerce, media, law, education, the church, and the arts. This emphasis led directly to what has become known as the "Protestant ethic," with its unleashing of individual initiative and its emphasis on hard work in purportedly secular areas. Many kinds of labor are equally worthy, Calvin argued, and those in charge of one activity should not dictate to others.
Calvin's writings also had an implicit anti-statism. Since fundamental law comes from God, obeying the law means obeying God, not necessarily the state. Rebellion against an unlawful state act, led by "lesser magistrates" such as local leaders, is really a justifiable maintenance of true law. One Calvin disciple in 1579 wrote Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos ("Vindication Against Tyrants"), which emphasized the limits of power.
Would freedom ring? The English jurist Blackstone called "the power and jurisdiction of Parliament transcendent and absolute . . . sovereign and uncontrollable." English lawyers joked that "Parliament can do everything except make a woman a man, or a man a woman." (Some of our jurists and legislators are more ambitious.) But generation after generation of Calvinists read Vindiciae and emphasized that government must be under God. According to John Adams, its doctrines greatly influenced Americans of the 1760s and 1770s.
Calvin's birthday comes six days after the Independence Day that owes much to his teaching. Bake a cake and know that Calvin was not against enjoying it.
You posted a comment on a public forum and I replied.
I can dream.
Maybe.
******************
And for that you have my heartfelt gratitude.
lol. So far you're batting zero. You get EVERYTHING wrong.
I've rebutted the same sorry list of lies more times than I can count. It's like Groundhog Day.
You just ignore the questions or spit back snide remarks.
I do not submit myself to your interrogation, no matter how much that refusal irritates you.
We will be judged by the words we speak.
Yes, we will be judged by Christ, the founder and leader of the Catholic Church.
Thus you should learn Scripture and not the RCC catechism.
You should cast aside the Institutes of Christian Religion and return to the God of Scripture. I know nothing of any RCC catechism.
As that "snide remark" emanates from the Bizarro world of Jean Cauvin, I'd say I'm doing just fine.
Your dream is a nightmare. There are no lies in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Sorry to disappoint you.
I think we see the extremes of it here because of the anonymity of the internet.
The majority of the RC's I know don't know half of the stuff their church proclaims. In many cases the only reason they are still members is because it has been a family practice. I think a great many of them would say no way to a state church.
Thank you for the kind words.
On the contrary, I am faced with the disgusting prospect, given the numbers in Congress, that this socialist, probably lesbian, will be the SIXTH Roman Catholic out of NINE members on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Rather than discussing something substantive, you choose to belabor the fact that this likely appointee is not YET a member of the USSC.
Again, what do you think the odds are that she will NOT be presiding over our Constitution?
For all intents and purposes, there are going to be SIX Roman Catholic Supreme Court justices on the USSC, which is a dismal, pathetic statistic, IMO.
But I do appreciate your bringing this up constantly because the more people's eyes are opened to the truth of this ridiculously lopsided count, the less likely they'll be hoodwinked into think the RCC is somehow a poor, picked-on bunch of Barry Fitzgeralds when in fact, it is a decayed, decrepit institution which produces fascists, foul-mouthed apologists, pederasts, and (in spite of it) the occasional saint of Christ who will ultimately leave Rome for the truth of Scripture at a time of God's choosing.
As God wills.
I said no such thing. I said you stated in the present tense that there are six Catholics on the Supreme Court. In reality, there are five.
The odds that she will be are irrelevant, because you were not dealing in the future tense, but in the present tense.
Currently, in realityville, there are five Catholic Justices on the Supreme Court. Step into the light.
Smart guy.
A perfect explanation of why we each need to decide what is the final authority we rely on.
2) I think Calvin's acceptance of the idea of her "perpetual virginity" was more a sign of the times. Let's remember most outlandish. anti-Scriptural Mariology -- that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven; that Mary hears and grants prayers; that Mary redeems sinners along with her Son; and that Mary was immaculately conceived herself without original sin --
I think the perpetual virginity is not a big issue, just poor reading of Scripture. The last three are big problems that she hears and grants prayers, she redeems sinners and was conceived without sin. All these lead away from not to Jesus.
Now for the third time, this is a public forum.
There is no such teaching of the Catholic Church.
What was submitted as a proposal to Pope John Paul the Great:
When the Church invokes Mary under the title, "Coredemptrix", she means that Mary uniquely participated in the redemption of the human family by Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. At the Annunciation (cf.Lk.1:38) Mary freely cooperated in giving the Second Person of the Trinity his human body which is the very instrument of redemption, as Scripture tells us: "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Heb.10:10).was not accepted, in part because it would be too easily be misinterpreted (for whatever motive).
And at the foot of the cross of our Saviour (Jn.19:26), Mary's intense sufferings, united with those of her Son, as Pope John Paul II tells us, were, "also a contribution to the Redemption of us all" (Salvifici Doloris, n.25). Because of this intimate sharing in the redemption accomplished by the Lord, the Mother of the Redeemer is uniquely and rightly referred to by Pope John Paul II and the Church as the "Coredemptrix."
It is important to note that the prefix "co" in the title Coredemptrix does not mean "equal to" but rather "with", coming from the Latin word cum. The Marian title Coredemptrix never places Mary on a level of equality with her Divine Son, Jesus Christ. Rather it refers to Mary's unique human participation which is completely secondary and subordinate to the redeeming role of Jesus, who alone is true God and true Man.
I used to think perhaps that was true. But I don't believe that anymore. I've talked to too many Roman Catholics in real life to believe they are being kept in the dark. For the most part, they ALL know what their church teaches and they all believe it, lock, stock and barrel. They question very little. They are comfortable in what they're being told because the answers are all given to them. They don't have to think things through. They are taught NOT to question authority, but to submit to it without without inquiry. That's why so many RCs know EXACTLY what their church teaches, but they know almost nothing of what Scripture teaches.
Ask any Roman Catholic about Mary. They all know the drill about her being an "intercessor" and a "dispensatrix of all grace." They ALL pray the Rosary. They know.
Ask them about the Lord's Supper. They all believe they are cannibalizing the body of Christ, which is contrary to God's word. They like the fact they think they are materialistically taking in the body and blood of Christ.
They all believe that unless a person participates in this ritual administered by "another Christ," they are damned.
They all pray to dead people.
They all confess their sins to a man in drag and they all believe that man has the power to forgive them so that when they walk out of the confession booth they are cleansed of all sin...until the next time they sin, and thus the endless, uncompromising cycle begins again.
They all believe their prayers take days off of dead people's stay in "purgatory."
They all believe their priests to be "another Christ," an "alter Christus."
They all believe most non-Roman Catholics are going to hell because they believe their magisterium is infallible when it tells them there is no salvation outside the church in Rome.
They all believe their own good works will redeem them which sadly negates the truth of Christ's justification of His flock.
They know. They like believing a lie. It appeals to men's fallen nature whereby they want to elevate themselves by their own righteousness.
They know. Ask them.
*******************
If someone responds to your posts, they are not "pinging" you. If you don't want to "speak" to another poster, don't.
Wholesale slander. "Cannibalizing" is your obscene epithet, a product of your distortion of Catholic teaching.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.