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To: conservativegramma; Leoni
Christ Himself is the final judge - NOT Popes, unbiblical councils or decrees.

I'm sorry, but no one disagrees with you and NO ONE said that.

Matthew 18:19-20 - Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. 20"For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst."

Matthew 18 points out a good way of praying and when Christ is with us. It does not talk about the wider community of believers that is The Church. Two and three Christians together DO have Christ with them, but that does not answer the question of the wider community.

This excerpt, in contrast talks AGAINST individual believers ("2/3 gathered in my name") and against individual interpretation and prayer. The community of Christ is a community, a Church of believers stretching back 2000 years.

Depending on which denomination i.e. non-Church grouping you belong to, I have no compunction in calling you a part of the community of believers (I do not, IMHO, include Mormons in this Christian community)
424 posted on 06/03/2010 7:35:21 AM PDT by Cronos (Origen(200AD)"The Church received from theApostles the tradition of giving Baptism even to infants")
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To: Cronos
Matthew 18 points out a good way of praying and when Christ is with us. It does not talk about the wider community of believers that is The Church. Two and three Christians together DO have Christ with them, but that does not answer the question of the wider community.

Agreed that passage primarily points to how to pray together. However, while you maintain that it does NOT answer the question of the wider community, it doesn't refute my contention either. In the New Testament the 'church' has always been a body of believers gathered together, whether it be a home, a church building, or a cave, or a catacomb.

The community of Christ is a community, a Church of believers stretching back 2000 years.

Absolutely in the New Testament sense of a body of believers gathering together in the Name of Christ. That has never ceased. If you are speaking (and I think you are) of the ROMAN Catholic Church politic you err.

THAT organization of which you are a member in its present form has only been extant since about 312 A.D. and has become increasingly pagan.

More here on the paganization of the Church after the Edict of Constantine

In all actuality as a student of Roman History from my college days...your church stretches a lot farther back than 2,000 years. It stretches all the way back to Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome. Why? Because your church moved away from the New Testament and became Romanized with the introduction of many pagan Roman religious beliefs (i.e., Pontius Maximus as just one example) repackaged, revamped, and renamed so that it would 'appeal' to pagan Romans being forced into Christianity. So they came into the church by the hundreds, and the thousands, bringing all their paganistic rituals and beliefs with them and the Church accommodated their beliefs and CHANGED. THAT'S your true church.

439 posted on 06/03/2010 8:03:13 AM PDT by conservativegramma
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