How Old Is Your Church?

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[Salvation]

How Old Is Your Church?

If you are a Lutheran, your religion was founded by Martin Luther, an ex- monk of the Catholic Church, in the year 1517.

If you belong to the Church of England, your religion was founded by King Henry VIII in the year 1534 because the Pope would not grant him a divorce with the right to remarry.

If you are a Presbyterian, your religion was founded by John Knox in Scotland in the year 1560.

If you are a Protestant Episcopalian, your religion was an offshoot of the Church of England founded by Samuel Seabury in the American colonies in the 17th century.

If you are a Congregationalist, your religion was originated by Robert Brown in Holland in 1582.

If you are a Methodist, your religion was launched by John and Charles Wesley in England in 1744.

If you are a Unitarian, Theophilus Lindley founded your church in London in 1774.

If you are a Mormon (Latter Day Saints), Joseph Smith started your religion in Palmyra, N.Y., in 1829.

If you are a Baptist, you owe the tenets of your religion to John Smyth, who launched it in Amsterdam in 1605.

If you are of the Dutch Reformed church, you recognize Michaelis Jones as founder, because he originated your religion in New York in 1628.

If you worship with the Salvation Army, your sect began with William Booth in London in 1865.

If you are a Christian Scientist, you look to 1879 as the year in which your religion was born and to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy as its founder.

If you belong to one of the religious organizations known as 'Church of the Nazarene," "Pentecostal Gospel." "Holiness Church," "Pilgrim Holiness Church," "Jehovah's Witnesses," your religion is one of the hundreds of new sects founded by men within the past century.

If you are Catholic, you know that your religion was founded in the year 33 by Jesus Christ the Son of God, and it is still the same Church.

[Petronski]

Here. I’ll answer for you.

LOL

THAT'S why I don't answer. You're not seeking information, you're trying to make a point.

Of course, that point does nothing to improve the (laughably-low) quality of Foxe's historiography.

[bdeaner]

Is that what you meant when you made your comment about the Creed?

It is time for East-West schism to end -- we are moving closer to that reality with each new day.

But, with that said, the Nicene Creed dates as you know to the year 325, and the East-West schism does not begin officially until 1054, with the mutual excommunication. The matter of the Filioque is I think a distraction in the context of this discussion, because the focus of the matter is on the catholic and apostolic nature of the Church, as specified in the Creed, irregardless of one's theological position with regard differences on Christology between the East and West.

God bless.

[Yudan]

{snicker}

[Blogger]

You didn’t answer the question.

[Mr Rogers]

“I’m interested in taking the questions of those genuinely interested in the Catholic Church, but not those who ask only for the sake of attack and/or games of gotcha.”

Yes, the original post was certainly phrased to encourage honest and sincere consideration of conversion to or interest in Catholicism. It sure didn’t attack anyone else - Methodists, Lutherans, or Baptists, for example.

And no one on this thread has suggested that as a Baptist, I’m the functional equivalent of a cult that denies the deity of Christ. < / sarcasm >

[Petronski]

I don’t answer compound loaded questions with false premises.

[free_life]

The church Jesus founded huh?

Yes as the New Testament tells us, Jesus wore rich scarlet and purple robes, gold rings, cups, bowls, gold all over His grand palace, jewels in all His religious paraphernalia, wealthy beyond imagination, property, investments, His own city and corporations galore, armed guards at His beck and call, while needy and starving people all around Him suffered and died, He changed His superstitions every decade or so and overruled the Word of God whenever it did not fit His fancy. Worshiped idols and bowed to lavish traditions with the pomp followers He surrounded Himself with. How He prayed to His mother and dead people while selling salvation to those with money to buy it. Remember when He tortured people and burned them at the stake for being Jews or heretics because they would not join His religion.

You are right ‘salvation’ you have an old religion; but it never has had an relationship with the Son of God Who walked the dirty roads of Israel going to the poor, with no place to lay His head, rebuking the religious hypocrites of that day. How will the religious hypocrites of the religion in Rome escape the terrible end they have brought on themselves?

The RCC sells religion and God gives relationship. They are as opposite as it they be. Come out from them and walk in the Light of God, your heart is revealed by the purpose of this thread you started ‘salvation’...turn to the mercy of the Living God and find His freedom from this dark religion of devils and men.

[Petronski]

Yes as the New Testament tells us, Jesus wore rich scarlet and purple robes, gold rings, cups, bowls, gold all over His grand palace, jewels in all His religious paraphernalia, wealthy beyond imagination, property, investments, His own city and corporations galore, armed guards at His beck and call, while needy and starving people all around Him suffered and died, He changed His superstitions every decade or so and overruled the Word of God whenever it did not fit His fancy. Worshiped idols and bowed to lavish traditions with the pomp followers He surrounded Himself with. How He prayed to His mother and dead people while selling salvation to those with money to buy it. Remember when He tortured people and burned them at the stake for being Jews or heretics because they would not join His religion.

Is that slander salad supposed to describe the catholic Church?

Good grief.

[bdeaner]

Yes as the New Testament tells us, Jesus wore rich scarlet and purple robes, gold rings, cups, bowls, gold all over His grand palace, jewels in all His religious paraphernalia, wealthy beyond imagination, property, investments

I realize you are being sarcastic here, but you got it partly right in this first section of your response I have quoted. The New Testament you'd be referring to would be Revelations.

I invite you to attend a Catholic Mass and then read John's Book of Revelations. All of the major elements of the Catholc liturgy are described by John in the Book of Revelations, as the heavenly liturgy. From Scott Hahn's The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth (pp. 119-121):

Sunday worship: Rev. 1:10
A high priest: Rev. 1:13
An altar: Rev. 8:3-4; 11:1; 14:18
Priests (presbyteroi): 4:4; 11:15; 14:3; 19:4
Vestments: 1:13; 4:4; 6:11; 7:9; 15:6; 19:13-14
Consecrated celibacy: 14:4
Lamp stands, or Menorah: 1:12; 2:5
Penitence: Ch. 2 and 3
Incense: 5:8; 8:3-5
The book, or scroll: 5:1
The Eucharistic host: 2:17
Chalices: 15:7; ch. 16; 21:9
The Sign of the Cross (the tau): 7:3; 14:1; 22:4
The Gloria: 15:3-4; The Alleluia: 19:1, 3, 4, 6
Lift up your hearts: 11:12
The "Holy, Holy, Holy": 4:8
The Amen: 19:4; 22:21
The "Lamb of God": 5:6 and throughout
The prominence of the Virgin Mary: 12:1-6; 13-17
Intercession of angels and saints: 5:8; 6:9-10; 8:3-4
Devotion to St. Michael, Archangel: 12:7
Antiphonal chant: 4:8-11; 5:9-14; 7:10-12; 18:1-8
Readings from Scripture: 4:8-11; 5:9-14; 7:10-12; 18:1-8
The Priesthood of the faithful: 1:6; 20:6
Catholicity, or universality: 7:9
Silent contemplation: 8:1
The marriage supper of the Lamb: 19:9, 17


Take together, these elements comprise much of the Apocalypse--and most of the Mass.

Also, like the Mass, the Book of Revelations divides rather neatly in half. The first eleven chapters concern themselves with the proclamation of the letters to the seven churches and the opening of the scroll. This emphasis on "readings" makes Part One a close match for the Liturgy of the Word in the first half of the Mass. Significantly, the first three chapters of Revelation mark a sort of Penitential Rite: in the seven letters to the churches, Jesus uses the word "repent" eight times. This recalls the words of the ancient Didache, the liturgical manual of the first century: "first confess your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure." Even John's opening assumes that the book will be read aloud by a lector within the liturgical assembly: "Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear" (Rev. 1:3).

Revelation's second half begins in Chapter 11 with the opening of God's temple in heaven, and culminates in the pouring of the seven chalices and the marriage supper of the Lamb. With the opening of heaven, the chalices, and the banquet, Part Two offers a striking image of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the second half of the Catholic Mass.

It's all in your Bible -- the one you espouse to be inerrant and infallible and your sole authority.

The early Christians, from the Apostles onward, were engaged in liturgy. See Mike Aquilina's The Mass of the Early Christians.

The rest of your post, er "rant," was mostly based on anti-Catholic propaganda and is either not factually correct or a gross distortion of the historical facts.

But in case you didn't know, the Catholic Church officially considers all Christians to be Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

God bless.

[papertyger]

Holy cow! hurling accusations to avoid defending man made doctrines... who could have seen tht one coming!

[bdeaner]

slander salad

*snort*

[Mr Rogers]

As a Baptist, I can cheerful allow that someone can be a Catholic, or Greek Orthodox, and also be a sincere, committed Christian. We don't have to agree totally on doctrine, just on the saving grace of God, through faith, uniting us in death with Christ so that we might live as new creations, sons of God by God's intervention.

" 1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

I spent 6 years living in Utah. My beliefs as a Baptist are in no way compatible with the LDS Church - polytheistic, works-based, and calling Satan & Jesus brothers. Under pain of death, I might be willing to become a Catholic, but I would hope and pray that no threat could lead me to become Mormon. I do resent it when someone suggests there is no difference.

[bronxville]

“BTW, I love watching your family fights! :)”

“snicker”

It’s certainly not funny nor anything to snicker about when one is on a ME site and the Orthodox Christians STRONGLY take the side of Muslims, especially the Kurds, over the Armenian, Chaldean, and Coptic Catholics on the forum. It’s a sad thing to witness and I’ve seen it often...

[xzins]

If you are a Methodist, your religion was launched by John and Charles Wesley in England in 1744.

This is actually wrong. John and Charles Wesley never left the Anglican Church. The "methodist movement" was actually a "study class" form of learning that the Wesleys were using within the Anglican Church. Consider it similar to RCIA. It was opposed by the Anglican hierarchy mostly because it wasn't their idea.

The separation of the Methodists actually was a result of the American revolution having all the Tory priests flee the colonies leaving no one to administer the sacraments. This happened, of course, starting in 1776.

Nonetheless, the Anglican Church of King Henry was a Catholic Church. There were, however, 2 lineages of the English Christianity, one through Catholicism and on through Orthodoxy.

[bronxville]

Post 249 = excellent. Thank you - a keeper. :)

[Petronski]

Nonetheless, the Anglican Church of King Henry was a Catholic Church.

It was, and then it wasn't.

But at one point, yes, it was....not long before it was not.

[papertyger]

It's all in your Bible -- the one you espouse to be inerrant and infallible and your sole authority.

Yeah, but only if you have the spirit to troof to guide you! Otherwise you'd "understand" the three times scripture mentions "born again" is to be taken literally while the five times Christ says "this is my body" is figurative.

[Petronski]

I simply MUST get that Scott Hahn book....ANY Scott Hahn book.

[bronxville]

“Happily, I don’t live in a place where the Catholic Church has power of life & death over us. I’m a wimp, and doubt I’d hold up well to being burnt.”

How about Puritan power? :)

[bronxville]

“I simply MUST get that Scott Hahn book....ANY Scott Hahn book.”

Me too.