Posted on 06/27/2009 10:01:54 AM PDT by 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. |
I’d probably be in trouble there, too!
NOBODY likes a Baptist!
“An interesting read. Thank you.”
You’re welcome. It’s interesting to talk about Holy Scripture along with the Traditions as it gives one a fuller sense of what was going on...
1987
Scott Hahn blows my mind over and over again. He’s even more mind-blowing seeing him speak in person. I watched a video of him, in a one on one interview with Aquilina, from EWTN, on the Lamb’s Supper. The guy goes on for hours and hours, and is basically talking off the top of his head, making all these connections between Revelations, other books in the NT, and the OT, pulling back layers and layers of the Scripture — and you listen to this guy and you KNOW this is simply not humanly possible. His hand and voice are guided by the Holy Spirit. I get goosebumps listening to him and reading his books.
lol - When I was working in Texas, something traumatic happened to me, my saviours were two beautiful Baptists. I remember them fondly and keep them in my prayers.
I honestly haven’t paid much attention to him. I really do need to get some of his books. Do you have the link to his video?
to the 3 three lets pretend it ain’t true Catholics....... facts ...historical facts.....the proof is in the pudding......Christ’ church does not do the things the Roman religion has done, it couldn’t ....fact!
Another fact - not one of you disputed anything I wrote about the religion of Rome...because you can’t ...it is true.
Answer me this. How could the true church of Jesus Christ burn Jews and those it considered heretics at the stake?
It couldn’t and it didn’t, but the Roman Catholic Church, did. Wake up and smell the sulfur!
“How could the true church of Jesus Christ burn Jews and those it considered heretics at the stake?”
I’m not a huge fan of burning people at the stake, but I think your answer lies here: What is worse, killing the body of a person (murder), or endangering their immortal soul (heresy)?
If we kill people for the former, then why not the latter?
Mind you - I’m a Baptist. I believe in Potluck Dinners & Shooting the Breeze, not burning at the stake!
***I cannot blame them for that,***
Well, they came on like ‘We’re right and YOU are going to Hell if you don’t cross the t and dot the i our way!”
Needless to say, that was the clarion call to dogpile on them.
***I cannot blame them for that,***
Well, they came on like ‘We’re right and YOU are going to Hell if you don’t cross the t and dot the i our way!”
Needless to say, that was the clarion call to dogpile on them.
“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...”
Do you know why they take the side of the Mohammedans? In certain circumstances, especially with the Kurds, I think I can guess why but what that might have to do with the Armenians and the Copts is a mystery to me.
In the meantime, those ecclesial groups outside The Church which don’t qualify as churches are Rome’s spiritual children. They may be juvenile delinquents, but their delinquency is likely the result of bad parenting.
I still enjoy your family fights!
Do some reading, try Professor Thomas F. Madden who writes:
To understand the Inquisition we have to remember that the Middle Ages were, well, medieval. We should not expect people in the past to view the world and their place in it the way we do today. (You try living through the Black Death and see how it changes your attitude.) For people who lived during those times, religion was not something one did just at church. It was science, philosophy, politics, identity, and hope for salvation. It was not a personal preference but an abiding and universal truth. Heresy, then, struck at the heart of that truth. It doomed the heretic, endangered those near him, and tore apart the fabric of community.
Or read - Philip Jenkins, Professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University and a self-professed Episcopalian, remarked on the Inquisition in his book, The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice (2003):
“There never was such a thing as a Church-wide inquisition, a terrifying monolith comparable to the NKVD or the Gestapo. It is more accurate to think of inquisitions that operated extensively in some areas in a highly decentralized way, although they notionally acted under papal authority. Inquisitions were important at certain times and places but never existed in other areas.”
“The main problem about speaking of ‘the Inquisition’ is that it suggests that religious repression of this sort was a Catholic prerogative. In fact, before the Enlightenment, virtually all religious traditions on occasion acted similarly when they had the power to do so..This indictment of religious savagery and intolerance applies to.all the Protestant nations, even relatively liberal ones such as England and the Netherlands..Equally blameworthy would be Muslims, Hindus, and even Buddhists. After all, in the seventeenth century, when Catholic inquisitions were at their height, the Buddhist/Shinto nation of Japan was engaged in a ferocious attempt to stamp out the deviant faith of Christianity through torture and massacre. In just forty years, these Japanese religious persecutions killed far more victims than the Spanish Inquisition would in all the centuries of its existence.”
Or better yet read - Jenny Dobbins - a WICCAN historian:
Since the late 1970’s, a quiet revolution has taken place in the study of historical witchcraft and the Great European Witch Hunt. ... many theories which reigned supreme thirty years ago have vanished, swept away by a flood of new data. the quantity and quality of available evidence has dramatically improved...Today, for the first time, we have a good idea of the dimensions of the Great Hunt: where the trials occurred, who was tried in them, who did the killing, and how many people lost their lives. Every aspect of the Great Hunt, from chronology to death toll, has changed. And if your knowledge of the “Burning Times” is based on popular or Pagan literature, nearly everything you know may be wrong.
For years, the responsibility for the Great Hunt has been dumped on the Catholic Church’s door-step. 19th century historians ascribed the persecution to religious hysteria. And when Margaret Murray proposed that witches were members of a Pagan sect, popular writers trumpeted that the Great Hunt was not a mere panic, but rather a deliberate attempt to exterminate Christianity’s rival religion. Today, we know that there is absolutely no evidence to support this theory.
When the Church was at the height of its power (11th-14th centuries) very few witches died. Persecutions did not reach epidemic levels until after the Reformation, when the Catholic Church had lost its position as Europe’s indisputable moral authority. Moreover most of the killing was done by secular courts. Church courts tried many witches but they usually imposed non-lethal penalties. A witch might be excommunicated, given penance, or imprisoned, but she was rarely killed. The Inquisition almost invariably pardoned any witch who confessed and repented.
... in York, England, as described by Keith Thomas (Religion and the Decline of Magic). At the height of the Great Hunt (1567-1640) one half of all witchcraft cases brought before church courts were dismissed for lack of evidence. No torture was used, and the accused could clear himself by providing four to eight “compurgators”, people who were willing to swear that he wasn’t a witch. Only 21% of the cases ended with convictions, and the Church did not impose any kind of corporal or capital punishment.
... Ironically, the worst courts were local courts. ...”Community-based” courts were often virtual slaughterhouses, killing 90% of all accused witches... national courts tended to have professional, trained staff — men who were less likely to discard important legal safeguards in their haste to see “justice” done.
“Do you know why they take the side of the Mohammedans? In certain circumstances, especially with the Kurds, I think I can guess why but what that might have to do with the Armenians and the Copts is a mystery to me.”
You’re not guessing very well when you can’t connect the Armenians with the Kurds. Sorry you find it all so funny but thereagain it takes all kinds.
“You’re not guessing very well when you can’t connect the Armenians with the Kurds.”
Oh, I understand that connection; I can’t see what Orthodoxers supporting Kurds has to do with Armenians, or as I said, Copts.
“Sorry you find it all so funny but there again it takes all kinds.”
Indeed it does...something the Orthodox laity will preserve.
Wonderful. Can you show me in the New Testament where an Apostolic succession is required to be a Christian? Or is this your own personal theology creeping in?
“Oh, I understand that connection; I can’t see what Orthodoxers supporting Kurds has to do with Armenians...”
Then you’re not understanding the historical connection.
“Indeed it does...something the Orthodox laity will preserve.”
Yes indeed, and I’ve observed it’s usually at the expense of others.
That sounds like one man’s opinion.
What Apostolic Succession represents is a dated notary’s stamp on the Orthodox Church’s birth certificate. So, we know where the Eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in fact worshipped and glorified.
Aside from that, the Orthodox Church does not make pronouncements or declarations about where the Lord isn’t.
We’d appreciate it if the other expressions of the Faith would return the favor.
Bronx, I really liked your earlier explanation regarding why James and not Peter gave the conclusions of the Council of Jerusalem. So many of our Protestant friends refuse to acknowledge that the Church, from its earliest days, was Hierarchical and Liturgical. Doing so betrays a blind eye to a VERY rich history of the Faith.
Now that I’ve buttered you up a little, I’m going to tweak you:
“... I’ve observed it’s usually at the expense of others.”
You mean like the Sacking of Constantinople, The Inquisition, and the indifference to Hitler?
Oh, wait. That wasn’t the Orthodox.
***... Ironically, the worst courts were local courts. ...”Community-based” courts were often virtual slaughterhouses, killing 90% of all accused witches... national courts tended to have professional, trained staff — men who were less likely to discard important legal safeguards in their haste to see “justice” done.***
Reminds me of a really bad movie THE CONQUERER WORM aka THE WITCHFINDER GENERAL staring Vincent Price.
I don’t see the Protestant denominations calling Catholics heretics and withering limbs and fallen away, to be called back to the “true Church”.
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