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Childish behavior |
Posted on 04/28/2011 8:24:27 AM PDT by Cronos
The problem I had was that what I had been told about Catholicism was simply not true; it was distorted teaching from Protestants who did not bother to discover the truth. ....
Over the last several years, I have known deep down that the Catholic Church must be more than I thought it was. I fought myself and denied all the signs I was seeing. I was afraid; even though I knew deep down there can only be one truth, I would always find something to dismiss Catholicism
At this time I had been a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church for almost 10 years.. I had also been in a constant journey for God’s truth, studying his word as well as church history. The problem I began to see, however, was that my church had no authority for how it interpreted Scriptures. We claimed to be sola scriptura, and yet to hold office in the church you had to subscribe also to the full truth of the Westminster Confession of Faith
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
Rita, I am no longer Catholic and disagree with a some of what you’ve said, but I thank you for your very gracious response.
God bless you, and I hope God continues to reveal His exact intentions to us all so that one day, all who profess Him as Lord can act be as one in the Body of Christ.
All denominations follow some tradition - noone denies that. The question is whether or not the tradition is considered to have equal authority as scripture.
Some of the traditions you mentioned (The Liturgical Calendar in which Christmas is celebrated on December 25th, Sunday worship and Easter coinciding with the date set by the Catholic Church; Election of Clergy by the laity; the pulpit instead of an altar) are of little importance compared with major doctrines like salvation.
You claim infant baptism is scriptural??? What verse supports that claim? You also claim that the concept of the Trinity is not scriptural. While the term, “Trinity” is not mentioned in the Bible, clearly the concept that God exists as God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is found in scripture.
Protestants do confess their sins; just not to priests for absolution. I fail to see how that is a tradition.
We are so close, but yet so far from one another here. Catholicism teaches a hierarchy of Truths that proceed from the Revealed Word of God. Tradition cannot be discounted because the Bible proceeded from the Apostolic Traditions of the Church that carried the Word from the Resurrection until such time as the Word was put to paper and the Canon chose which writings would compromise the Bible.
The Church further teaches that the Holy Spirit is still active and guides the Traditions to this day. Surely Protestants must believe this or they could not claim that the works of the Reformation had any divine inspiration or authorship.
“he said that he wanted to focus on his joy of entering The Church”
That’s how I have felt every single day that passes since I entered the Orthodox Church several years ago. If asked I will admit those who taught me as a protestant were both sincere and sincerely wrong about some things. However, I always point out that they did instill in me a love of the scriptures, and that is never wrong.
I’m a member of a particular PCA church, but I can’t imagine from any general or specific doctrinal comments I make that you could assert that I was in the PCA church — you know because I tell you.
You could certainly figure out I’m reformed, I’m someone at least in the Sola Scriptura camp, and that I am a predestinationalist. Probably could figure out I’m a presbyterian, and not a baptist or methodist.
But I don’t know how you could figure out whether I was in the RP, PCA, EPC, or OPC. Unless we happened to talk about the specific doctrine that separates any of those two and I gave you my opinion.
So, again I ask, what is it that makes you claim he’s a member of a church, when he says he is not? BTW, this isn’t one of those “well, he has similar beliefs” things, since you aren’t talking about the “belief system” of OPC when you call it a dead church, mention how few members it has, or how corrupt it’s leadership might be. All of those things are referencing a specific, real think that people can JOIN.
So saying someone is a member means that they are actually a member, not that you find they have affinity with the beliefs.
My opinion on SS and how it departs from what you claim as Catholic teaching is this: I think SS is a restrictive doctrine, while your doctrine is permissive.
In more detail, SS requires a scriptural basis for any doctrine; it appears to an outsider that you can have a Catholic doctrine so long as it isn’t contradicted by scripture.
Or in other words, in SS a person would ask “where does the Bible say that you should practice that doctrine, while in a permissive view a person would ask “where does the Bible say that you CAN’T practice that doctrine?
This is a general argument — I’m sure you are aware of many specific doctrines where the two sides argue that the Bible DOES specifically prohibit it, or that the Bible doesn’t allow it.
The permissive/restrictive construct is a common philosophical divide, not confined to religion. Constitutional arguments often hinge on a permissive/restritive viewpoint.
That is very perceptive. This has referred to as the French German or the Catholic Protestant legal construct. The Catholic / French model is that all things are permissable except for those that are specifically enumerated and forbidden. The Protestant / German model is that the only things that are permitted are those things specifically enumerated and directed.
This transcends religion and is culturally ingrained and is a very wide chasm to bridge. Neither side can fully understand the other. Of all of the peoples on earth we American are probably best able to bridge the gap and coexist. Although many claim it is the Protestant model that brought about the American Constitution it is actually a hybrid of both models since it was, after all, a Protestant nation and legal system we rebelled against.
But on the other hand, you don’t let them take communion even though they are a part of God’s family.
So you believe there is a caste system in “God’s Family”.
Of course, Baptists don’t baptise the infants, they wait until the child makes their own choice for salvation, and then can choose to be baptised. But they also teach their kids to pray to God and he’ll answer their prayers, and watch over them — which makes little sense if the kids aren’t part of God’s family.
Confirmation is a good example of a doctrine that has no basis in scripture; in a restrictive view, that would make it “extra-biblical”. In a permissive view, there’s nothing in the bible that precludes including a confirmation before allowing “full membership” into the church, or however Catholics frame that transition.
A nit, but Jesus never said that “both your and your household” should be baptised.
There are several references to “your household”, or “the entire hosuehold”, but they are post ressurection. In at least one case it is clear that the “whole household” believed the message, which means they were all old enough to understand and believe, and so their baptism comports with the idea of a “believer’s baptism”.
There is no reference in the Bible that indicates a baby was baptised. A household COULD have a child, but there are only a few specific references to household, and they are to specific households, not a general command to all households, and it not at all unreasonable that none of the referenced households would have children too young to understand.
Meanwhile, there are references which tie the concept of a believer’s baptism into the baptism of John, and again there is no indication that anybody was baptised by John that could not specifically voice their own repentance. I would note of course that the believer’s baptism is NOT the baptism of John — when a man is asked if he had been baptised, and said “only by John”, he was re-baptized.
Which means that Jesus’ baptism by John is not a direct sign to us to be baptised, since it was a different baptism than the one we are to engage in.
I also don’t buy a too-literal substitution of baptism for circumcision. We know that we do not need to be circumsized, because the Bible makes that perfectly clear. And we understand the parallelism that is taught in the bible — circumcision was a physical act to physical babies to denote a physical attachment to a physical nation.
Baptism is a spiritual act to spiritual babies (new Christians) to denote a spiritual attachment to the spiritual nation (family) of God.
If one wants to argue that baptism was a direct and literal replacement for circumcision, they would then have to explain why they baptise females.
My apologies for any misspellings.
I don’t think there are many reformed believers who follow the 95 theses as canon law. I couldn’t even tell you what they were.
So I’m not sure what the “works of the Reformation” are that had “devine inspiration or authorship” in the context of setting up doctrine or canon.
To me, reformation is simply the awakening to practices of christians which were based in traditions that were at odds with the scripture, and an attempt to return to a more scriptural state of being. I wouldn’t even argue that the authors of Reformation did a great job of that; I consider the task a work in progress, even today, and frankly one that in our imperfect world will likely remain for each of us until we reach our destination.
A nit, but Jesus never said that “both your and your household” should be baptised. There are several references to “your household”, or “the entire hosuehold”, but they are post ressurection. “
I very much appreciate your “nit”. I have to be correct about who said what.
You (above) mention “post ressurection”. Post ressurection and post Ascension into Heaven and post Pentecost begins the work of the Church. You will find the earliest works of the Church in its practices included infant baptism. Sola Scripture is not scriptural as you can not find the concept anywhere in Scripture, however, the practices of the early Church are quite known historically. In fact, in scripture there is more than one occasion where it is written that the book does NOT contain all that Jesus did because it could not be contained in the book. That which is not contained did not disappear but was passed on to his Apostles orally and to those after them on whom they laid hands. These compose much of the oral Sacred Tradition of the Church. The seven books lost to you in protestant bibles leaves understandable gaps in many Catholic doctrines that leave protestants aghast where it comes from in the universal Catholic Church. A “believers” baptism would, of course, be for adults a pre-requisite, however suffer the little children to come unto me takes care of the inclusion of infant baptism into the Christian fold. Human reason would not want to argue that command. It stands on its own. Thanks.
It’s really very interesting.
Clearly, we ride looser to Scripture than most Reform folks do — at least at first appearance. But it still seems that among those who claim Sola Scriptura there are irreconcilable differences, maybe not of highest importance but high enough to keep people from worshipping together, while the OPC calls at least one of them a damnable heresy.
Where it gets interesting is in the interpretation of “difficult” verses, Col 1:24 comes to mind, or the double barrel Phil 2:12-13.
Oh well, it’s all interesting.
And we invite you, too, to come home to the truth. He found answers to what he viewed were mistakes in his previous beliefs.
Where in the Bible does it say that ONLY sola scriptura is to believed?
I know that is heart felt. No thank you.
Christ (Our Example), when tested by Satan himself overcame his offerings with "It is written". If Sola Scriptura is good enough for my Redeemer, it's good enough for me.
You know, I had never really considered the concept of "cafeteria Protestants" because I always thought that there were enough species of Protestant that whatever the belief system one could find a home and welcoming congregation.
Whatever the pressures or persuasions of the Reformation I am certain that everyone involved initially had mixed feelings and very few had an advanced theological education from which to base their decisions. I'm not entirely sure decisions to remain in or leave the Church were always made for religious purposes.
One thing one must note is that the Church is continuously reviewing and its doctrines and revising or improving them as a result of very thorough and deliberate discussion and debate. It is still a major function of the Church. Luther did not awaken one morning with a list of fresh ideas that he was concerned about. Each of this 95 Theses were subjects of often fierce debate within the Church. Luther simply took them public and later regretted it.
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