Intended Catholic Dictatorship

Independent Individualist ^ | 8/27/10 | Reginald Firehammer

[Quix]

From where my eyes sit 4’ away from my screen in my Laz-Y-Boy, I love ALL CAPS.

I probably also gained an increased affinity for them in High School drafting class.

[D-fendr]

My Church has NO self declared "Infallible" declarations nor does it even claim Infallibility for the writings of any of it's leaders.

However you claim it, it's an odd church or religion that would not believe in some truth. Is there nothing your church claims is always true? If so, what is it?

[betty boop]

Isn't the classical distinction that between reason and revelation? It takes revelation (a gift, a grace — as is the inclination to believe the revelation) to know God, but reason can provide an amazing amount of truth ABOUT God.

It took divine revelation to motivate St. Anselm of Cantebury's fides quarens intellectum, faith's quest or search for its reason. This quest is "God-pulled," if I might put it that way; it begins in faith. As Anselm put it,

"Speak to my desirous soul what you are, other than what it has seen, that it may clearly see what it desires."

Reason itself cannot supply the divine leading to Truth for a soul attuned to the love of God and His Truth, by the grace of God. But I believe, dear brother in Christ, that you are right to say that "reason can provide an amazing amount of truth ABOUT God." "ABOUT" is the operative word here.

But first one must be led to seek God; then reason really has something to do (other than spin its wheels in useless human fatuities). Bearing in mind God does not ever reduce to the rational categories of the human mind. He is "beyond" all such categories; He cannot be "reduced" to them.

What philosophy can never do is make human reason (i.e., man) the measure of God.

If we are to speak of God at all, we begin in faith, not in reason. Reason (and philosophy) cannot penetrate to what God IS; but as you note, dear Mad Dawg, it (they) can provide insights ABOUT God, in human language that can be shared with others.

I see no danger from reason or philosophy rooted in fides — faith, trust in God. For His Logos is the very root of reason itself.

Just some thoughts, FWIW.

Thank you oh so much, dear brother, for your excellent observations!

[wideawake]

"the misguided litany that young members of the Brazilian TFP made"

That's a loaded sentence. Far from being "misguided" it was blasphemous and heretical. We know that it is attributed to "young members of the Brazilian TFP" but there is no proof of such an attribution. Moreover, the use of the term "Brazilian TFP" implies that this was small wayward branch of the organization. In reality, the Brazilian TFP was about 90% of the organization at that time. The Brazilian TFP was personally created by Oliveira. Where did these supposed authors of the blasphemous litany get their ideas? In what context did they think this was appropriate to use? In an organization so dedicated to hierarchy and loyalty why are we to believe this was an aberration? Is it possible that these "young members" took a bullet for the real author, their beloved Oliveira?

[Quix]

OF COURSE, I THOROUGHLY AGREE

as usual.

[OLD REGGIE]

I was introduced to the Word of God and the indwelling of the Spirit something that appears to be wanting in the responses of your group . Jesus commands us to let our Yes mean Yes and our No mean No. You would be well advised to follow that rule.

You did not have Jesuit training?

[Cronos]

Quicx: "I love all Caps"

INDEED TO THE MAX

And Aliens too!

What brazen
unmitigated
UNBiblical
arrogance!
Displayed by
the
followers of Sister Aimee McPherson
In
The FourSquare Cult
with their brothers
in
The Cult of Machen, the OrthoProsbotarians
?

What an
ABSURD
HILLARIOUS
(YET PATHETIC)
!FARCE!
&
BRAZENLY
FALSE

ASSERTION!

And since when have The FourSquare Pantecoastal quixotic cult sent out missionaries to MARS now?

[Quix]

I didn’t realize that the RC rabid cliques were now giving “merit” badges in BEARING FALSE WITNESS! LOL.

HOW VERY CLEVER OF THEM!

[OLD REGGIE]

There. That's a few of the "simple" infallible dogmas of the Catholic Church. Feel free to start at the top and work your way through showing how they are denied, modified or reinterpreted. I'm particularly curious about "God is eternal". "Fallen man cannot redeem himself" is a fun one too...

Catechism? Is this an "official" documented, referenced list?

[Mad Dawg]

Actually, I don’t know this quote first hand. Somebody told it to me and said it was from a movie, but that’s all I know. I probably didn’t quote it accurately either, but close enough to make me laugh, at least.

[Cronos]

Early Neo-Montanist Healing Cults & Sects

Four Early antecedents to the healing revival

1. "Prophet" Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, believed not only that he was a prophet of God but that he had divine healing power and laid hands on many sick people and sent out anointed handkerchiefs to the sick. (1835)
2. John Humphrey Noyes, founder of the Oneida Community prayed for the sick and taught sickness was due to personal sin and the work of demons. He expected supernatural signs and miracles to be exhibited today as they were in the early Apostolic Church.
3. Ellen Gould White, founder of the Seventh Day Adventist sect, was considered a prophet, and she too prayed for the sick, laid hands on them, and taught divine health. (1840's)
4. Aimee Semple McPherson, nationally known healing evangelist in the 1920's - 1930's. Founded and headed the Foursquare Gospel Church, led a controversial life and died of a drug overdose in 1944.
5. Kathryn Kuhlman was ordained a Baptist minister, but did not associate her ministry with any denomination She was heavily influenced by the Azusa street revival, and by the Roman Catholic church. She was well known for the manifestations that occurred at her meetings, including "laughter". She is said to be responsible for the introduction of the manifestation of "Slain in the Spirit". There were some differences to the current movement, though, in that she insisted that her meetings be orderly. Manifestations interrupting the service were not permitted. She was highly regarded in many Christian circles, and strongly influenced Benny Hinn and John Arnott.

All four of these individuals taught the ancient heresy of neo-Montanism.

An example of the pent-e-costal neo-Montanism is William Branham the Father of Neo-Montanism

Even though William Branham denied the Trinity and taught it was a demonic doctrine believed only by those of the whore Babylon false church - he was still revered as a true prophet by almost every major Pentecostal and Charismatic ministry (who are Trinitarian). Even though he believed in numerology and taught that God had made the Great Pyramid - he is still accepted as a true prophet. Even though many of his prophecies regarding future events did not come to pass - he is still regarded as a true prophet. Even though the majority of his teachings are totally in error and diametrically opposed to the plain teaching of Scripture, he is still held up as God's true prophet.

William Branham's heretical theology:

1. God's Word consists of the zodiac, Egyptian pyramids and scripture.
2. Doctrine of trinity is considered demonic
3. The claim that he was Elijah the prophet
4. Millennium to begin in 1977.
5. That he was the seventh angelic messenger to the Laodicean Church Age (Footprints, pg. 620).(Using the dispenational theory that each of the churches in Revelations represents an age of the church, the current one being the Laodicean Church Age).
6. That anyone belonging to any denomination had taken "the mark of the beast" (Footprints, pp. 627, 629, 643, 648).
7. That he received divinely inspired revelations (The Revelation of the Seven Seals, Branham; Spoken Word Publications, Tucson, Ariz., n.d.; pg.19; Questions and Answers, Book 1, Branham; Spoken Word Publications, Tucson, 1964; pg. 60.)
8. The fall of man happened when Eve had sexual relations with Satan, that his sexual union produced Cain.(Branham said that "every sin that ever was on the Earth was caused by a woman....the very lowest creature on the Earth" The Spoken Word, Vol. III Nos. 12, 13, 14;, Branham; Spoken Word Publications, Jeffersonville, Ind. 1976; pp. 81-82. Quoted in The Man and His Message, pg. 41).
9. Branham denied the biblical triune Godhead. He pronounced it a "gross error" (The Spoken Word, pg. 79) and as a prophet with the authority of a "Thus saith the Lord," revealed that "trinitarianism is of the devil" (Footprints, pg. 606).
10. Unsaved descended from the serpent.

[HushTX]

Yeah, but I don’t already have something in common (religiously) with Islam. I mean, I love explosions well enough, but prefer them to stay in movies and video games. Or to be used to remove terrorists.

[Quix]

Do any of you recall

when

hereon

some of the rabid clique sorts went about collecting . . . uhhhhh farm biscuits, framing them and trying to sell them?

[Cronos]

Of course, you may ask who started this pent-c-costal cult called the FourSquare cult

    Aimee Semple Mcpherson.
(1890-1944), founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. The Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements

here calls her "the most prominent woman leader Pentecostalism has produced to date." She was married three times and divorced twice.
    Her first husband, Robert Semple, died in China in 1910, where the young couple had gone as missionaries. In 1911 she married Harold Stewart McPherson. He complained about her hysterical behavior and her neglect of him, and
in 1921 the marriage ended in divorce Aimee had left Harold to attend to her preaching. Interestingly, Aimee's associate pastor, Rheba Crawford, also left her husband to preach, and Rheba's husband also divorced her.
    In May 1926, McPherson disappeared and was thought to have been drowned while swimming off the California coast. A month later she turned up in Mexico, claiming to have been kidnapped, but the evidence led most people to believe that she had an affair with a former employee, Kenneth Ormiston, who was married at the time. The two had been seen together earlier in the year during Aimee McPherson's trip to Europe. At the same time Aimee sailed for Europe, Ormiston disappeared from his job, and his wife, Ruth, registered a missing-person report at police headquarters.
    She told police a certain prominent woman was responsible for her husband's disappearance. They had also been seen together checking into the same hotels at
various times in California, after her return from Europe, prior to the alleged kidnapping. Though McPherson claimed to have wandered for 14 hours across roughly 20 miles of cruel desert covered with mesquite, cactus, and catclaw to escape her captors, when she was found she showed no sign of having been through such an ordeal.
    Her shoes were not scuffed or worn; there were grass stains on the insteps there was no grass in the desert through which she claims to have wandered, she was not
dehydrated or sunburned; her lips were not parched, cracked, or swollen; her tongue was not swollen; her color was normal; her dress was not torn and bore no dust or perspiration stains. The dress collar and cuffs, though white in color, were barely soiled. Further, she was wearing a watch her mother had given her a watch she had not taken with her to the beach. Aimee told reporters that her ankles were bruised and torn by ropes from her captivity, but there had been no sign of such injuries when she was examined.
    An exhaustive search was made to find the adobe shack with a wooden floor where she claimed she had been held captive and which she described in detail to the authorities, but no such shack was found in a 46-square-mile area. Experienced desert men and trackers who attempted to find her attackers, traced her footsteps, and they found where she apparently had gotten out of an automobile on a road not far from where she was found.
    The senior tracker testified that he examined every foot of the ground over which she had claimed to have walked and that her tracks had been found nowhere. As for the shack, he said: "I do not know of an adobe house such as the one described by Mrs. McPherson within a hundred and fifty miles of Agua Prieta, and I know every house in this vast area, A grocery receipt signed by McPherson was found in a Carmel, California, cottage where it appears Aimee had met Ormiston during the time she was alleged to have been kidnapped. Several eye-witnesses testified that they saw the two together during that period.
    The year after this episode, McPherson rejected the social taboos preached against by Bible- believing churches of that day. She bobbed her hair and started drinking, dancing, and wearing short skirts. In her early years she had preached against such things. Her choir director, Gladwyn Nichols, and the entire 300-member choir resigned because of her lifestyle.
    He told the press that they left because of Aimee's surrender to worldliness her wardrobe of fancy gowns and short skirts, jewelry, furs, her new infatuation with cosmetics and bobbed hair, all specifically condemned by her own teachings.
    In 1931 the divorced McPherson married the divorced David Hutton. He divorced Aimee in 1934. McPherson's ministry featured the unscriptural spirit slaying phenomenon. One of her biographies, Least of All Saints by Robert Bahr, contains a photo of McPherson followers lying on the floor after she had laid hands on them and they were allegedly "baptized of the Holy Spirit." There were also
cases of "spiritual drunkenness" in her early meetings though her later ministry was not characterized by such displays.
    McPherson taught that healing is guaranteed in the atonement. She falsely promised to the eager crowds: "Your chains will be shattered, your fetters crushed, your troubles healed, if you only believe--for where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty It is blessedly true, of course, that the Lord is a very present help in time of trouble and that He goes with His children through all their trials, but to promise that in this present life all problems will be removed and all sicknesses healed if one only has enough faith is a deception.
    McPherson warned that the attitude "if it is His will to heal me, I am willing" brings no results In fact, McPherson claimed that physical healing is part of the gospel. The "foursquare" gospel she promoted was Jesus Christ as Savior, Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, Healer, and Coming King. She claimed that she had
obtained this gospel through a vision in 1922, in which God showed her that the Gospel was for body and soul and spirit. The Assemblies of God in the United States, and other Pentecostal groups. The "full" Gospel, though, is simply the death,
burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Aimee McPherson promised that physical healing is available to those who have complete faith. In spite of this, most who came to her meetings in search of healing left disappointed.
    Though there were some notable healings documented under McPherson's ministry, one of McPherson's biographers, Daniel Epstein (though extremely sympathetic to her), admitted that those healed were "mostly diseases of the immune system, or attributed to hysteria." He said: "Sister Aimee is
not credited with raising anyone from the dead, correcting a harelip or cleft palate, or restoring a missing limb, digit, or internal organ.
    McPherson preached an unscriptural positive- only message which predated the New Evangelical approach by many decades. Consider the following descriptions of her message by her biographer. Anticipating the 'creation theology' of Matthew Fox by sixty years, Aimee would stress grace above original sin, with the bait of love she would go 'fishing for whales. Her preaching was anecdotal and affectionate, never threatening And she took the opportunity to condemn the method of Billy Sunday, the teetotaler who yelled at sinners and threatened them with damnation and hellfire. 'Let us lead them by kindness and sympathy,' Aimee advised.
    Aimee built her career by replacing the 'Gospel of Fear, Hellfire, and Damnation' with the 'Gospel of Reconciliation and Love.
    McPherson's mother, Mildred (Minnie) Kennedy, worked as a business associate in her daughter's successful evangelistic empire. In fact, they owned the Angelus Temple outright, in a fifty-fifty partnership. They frequently got into terrific fights. In 1927 Aimee had her mother fired from the positions she had long held in her Foursquare church. Mildred returned for a brief time to help during a massive financial crisis created by Aimee's unwise investments, but in 1929 Mildred left her daughter Aimee's ministry permanently "after receiving a broken nose during an explosive argument. In 1937 Mildred sided with her granddaughter, Roberta, in a highly publicized lawsuit against Aimee's lawyer. The widowed Mildred Kennedy wed in 1931, but the marriage was annulled when it was learned that the man was already married.
    Later that same year the man obtained a quickie divorce in Las Vegas, Mildred met him there and they were remarried. The strange marriage lasted less than a year. When Aimee McPherson died of a drug overdose in 1944, she left her mother ten dollars with the stipulation that if Mildred contested it she would get nothing!

[OLD REGGIE]

However you claim it, it's an odd church or religion that would not believe in some truth. Is there nothing your church claims is always true? If so, what is it?

That's all there is.

[SoothingDave]

Wry as always.

[bronx2]

You omitted the Milton Berle incident.

[Legatus]

Catechism? Is this an "official" documented, referenced list?

I think I'm beginning to understand the problem here. The list I provided is from Ott's "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma". He went through all the documents of the Church and extracted specific propositions and tagged them according to the degree of authority behind the statement. For instance some are "de fide" meaning they have been solemnly defined by ecumenical councils or the popes. Some are listed because they arise by necessity from a solemnly defined dogma and others are somewhat undefined, still others are "merely" pious beliefs. I believe there are about 800 in all divided into six or seven degrees of certitude. Each of those 800 items has a paragraph or page explaining its origin, usually a citation from the defining document.

I think my point is that the "Faith" isn't a checklist. There is no Catholic shopping list saying "a dozen eggs, a pound of butter, six lemons, a hamster" because it's supposed to be lived.