Posted on 03/20/2015 6:36:17 PM PDT by Steelfish
Why I Left Protestantism for Catholicism
He is a Fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and the Managing Editor of The Free Market.
I am no fan of "conversion" essays, which are sometimes pompous and self-serving. My purpose is to achieve a greater spirit of mutual respect. How rare are Protestant conversions to Catholicism? More rare than reverse, but I know enough cases, including my own, to make the subject worth exploring.
J.I. Packer recently wrote in Christianity Today (May 1989) that the contrast between the "zany wildness" of Protestantism and the "at-homeness" of Catholicism alone is sufficient to explain conversions to Catholicism. It is the only Church that can, and does, claim institutional continuity from the time of Christ to the present. He contrasts the "at home" motive with a more genuine longing for the truth.
But the Road to Rome is a long one, and, I submit, the choice between instability and continuity, sectarianism and universality, is not a sufficient reason for conversion. The Christian ought to be willing to be a minority of one if the truth is at stake.
It is precisely the conviction of truth that led to my conversion to Catholicism. I wrote Rev. Packer that "My conversion to Catholicism was motivated by more than a feeling of 'at-homeness.' God makes us feel at home when we have a sincere conviction of truth. There is no dichotomy between the two, as you suggested. Truth is what I sought when God led me to Rome....My plea is for you to take my conversion, and others like mine, seriously."
Anti-Catholicism
Catholic and Reformed theological discussion has matured since the Reformation, when neither side was immune from using smear tactics to score debating points. Today the inflammatory rhetoric is largely gone, yet fundamental misunderstandings persist. My own anti-Catholicism was partly a product of ethnic prejudice, growing up, as I did, as a Southern Baptist in a largely Hispanic town in West Texas. It took years before I could look at Catholicism as more than a hypocritical, anti-scriptural, even anti-Christian cult.
The Baptist culture of my childhood treated Christianity as a wholly individualized phenomenon. No man was to exercise authority over any other, in the affairs of the church, or, more importantly, in the understanding of doctrine.
There was no discussion of history, councils, creeds, saints, martyrs, or controversies. I don't think my experience was far from typical. Even in the "good-old days" when every family attended Wednesday night prayer meeting such instruction was absent. The Bible -- one's subjective interpretations of it -- was all that was necessary for individualized Christianity.
My high-school conversion to Presbyterian Church moderated my anti-Catholicism. I began to understand, for the first time, the significance of the creeds, of Church government, of liturgy (however loosely defined). But the most important thing being a Presbyterian did for me was to alert me to the meaning of Christian history. It was the overwhelming weight of 2000 years of history that finally convinced me of the truth of Catholicism.
The Devil Theory of History Presbyterians do not want to tear themselves away from church history, but rather want to be part of God's eternal covenant with His people, from its inception to eternity. At my Orthodox Presbyterian Church, we read the words of the great Reformers with respect and even veneration. We discussed their theological views. We tried to imitate their liturgical styles.
All of this is important; it helps in the maturation process. Even though Presbyterians endorse the Reformed doctrine of Sola Scriptura (formed in opposition to Rome), they recognize that the Church has a teaching role and that pious individuals in Church history have a level of understanding that supersedes most of our own. Individual faith and conscience are the final guides, of course, but our primary earthly allegiance must be to the teaching authority of the Church.
But there was still something missing from Presbyterianism for me. It seemed to concentrate too heavily on post-Reformation Church history, and the first 1500 years of Christianity received scant attention. Do these years offer us anything that will enhance our understanding of Christianity? One easy way to answer this question is to adopt the Devil Theory of History, which says the history of the Church is the story of corruption.
The way to sound doctrine is to adopt the views of the Persecuted simply because they stand against Rome. The result of this view is intolerable: heresy becomes orthodoxy and anybody who shouts "to hell with the Pope" gets a hearing.
The Devil Theory collapses on the most superficial analysis. Christians justifiably take pride in their heritage, yet the Catholic Church was the only Christian Church for at least 1500 years (leaving aside the 11th century Orthodox break). Why would Christ have allowed his Church to wallow in the mire of falsehood and heresy for so long? What kind of witness would that have provided to the world? If Christ did indeed establish a Church, wouldn't He have providentially protected her from significant error?
Partial Corruption? An alternative view is to see the Church as only partially corrupt. As I understand it, this is the Presbyterian position (the new one; not the traditional). But given the Church's own historical claims of authenticity, authority, and infallibility, this view is difficult to sustain. One cannot have it both ways: the Church was either in Christ's hands (as she claimed) or she was the anti-Christ by virtue of making such claims.
One can selectively draw from pre-Reformation doctrine and expunge from it its pro-Papacy statements. For example, Reformed thinkers are famous for quoting St. Augustine in support of predestination and election. But rarely quoted is St. Augustine's view of the Church, which anticipates ultramontanism (an extreme position on papal authority).
Yet the partial corruption thesis collapses from internal contradictions. Christendom's greatest thinkers and the most pious saints were also devoted to the Church as a divinely protected institution: its catholicity, apostilicity, infallibility, and sacraments. It is anomalous to claim the authority of a saint like Augustine without mentioning his views on the Church. It's like discussing the development of a child without mentioning the mother's role in nurturing, sustaining, and reinforcing the maturation process.
Presbyterians must decide if they were ever part of the universal Church of Catholicism. Did they ever endorse the papacy as a legitimate institution reflecting Christ's will? Was it corrupt from the beginning or just become so in the 16th century? Under what conditions would Presbyterians have been willing to be in communion with Rome? Ideally, should the papacy have been wiped out? It seems to me the correct path is to regard the Catholic church as Christ's church and to regard her claims as true.
The Role of Tradition Protestants look skeptically on the Catholic view that Christian tradition has doctrinal authority stemming from Christ and the apostles.
Yet tradition (the teaching authority of Christ and His apostles) is essential to full Christian understanding for several reasons. First, not everything concerning Christ's work is found in Scripture (Jn. 21:25) and some Christian teaching is handed down by word of mouth (II Tim. 2:2).
The Bible instructs us to "stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle" (II Thess. 2:15). Second, the early Church did not have a Bible in the sense that we do today; yet their faith was fully protected and sustained through tradition. The Bible itself is a product of the 4th century Church. Third, no single individual can fully derive the meaning of scripture by himself; it takes tradition to set up the proper framework for understanding and for asking the right questions.
Say the Bible was given to a fully competent scholar and he was asked to write a creed based upon it. Even if he had ten years to do so, who doubts that he would not get it quite right? Christ never intended him to. The Church was established to articulate and defend Christian doctrine (Mt. 16:18-19).
As a Presbyterian, I rejected the subjectivist position of Biblical understanding, and I wanted to embrace Church history. Then I had to decide which parts of the tradition to embrace and which parts to reject. It seemed to me that the doctrine of the Reformers was too much in flux to provide a sufficient grounding in the Faith. And that approach freezes Christianity in time.
The Reformers had valuable things to say; but I thought their words and liturgical practices should be weighed against the whole of Christian tradition. I settled on this: I reject the part of tradition that is contradicted by the Bible. And that is the rule the Catholic Church herself has accepted.
The consistent Christian finds that the Church is the anchor of his faith. The fair-minded historian finds that the Catholic Church is the anchor of history. In both cases, I came believe, Providence is at the helm.
My Conversion Process There were many steps in my conversion, but the most important one was the initial one: investigating what the Church has to offer. My experience accords with G.K. Chesterton's: "This process, which may be called discovering the Catholic Church, is perhaps the most pleasant and straightforward part of the business; easier than joining the Catholic Church and much easier than trying to live the Catholic life. It is like discovering a new continent full of strange flowers and fantastic animals, which is at once wild and hospitable."
There were a host of Catholic terms and objects that have meaning with Catholicism with which I was completely unfamiliar: offices, the magisterium, mortal and venial sins, confession, penance, rosary beads, the saints and martyrs, and even, yes, Marian theology. Suddenly, I found that most of the anti-Catholic ideas that I held were canards with no basis in fact (e.g., that Catholics worship Mary and statues, that they don't believe the Bible inerrant, that they cannot pray directly to God).
Even the dreaded doctrine of the infallibility sounded more reasonable considering its limits: the Pope must speak ex cathedra (from the Chair of Peter) and he must do so in communion with the Bishops.
This discovery process led me to the proverbial slippery slope of Romanism. As Chesterton describes it: "It is impossible to be just to the Catholic Church. The moment men cease to pull against it they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair."
Finally, I cannot discuss my conversion without mentioning the Eucharist, the source and sacrament of Catholic spirituality. Here lies a central difference between the Catholic and Orthodox faiths as versus Protestantism. The vast majority of Christians believe what scripture says about the Eucharist: the bread and wine is fully transformed into the body and the blood -- the doctrine of transubstantiation. The Real Presence is indeed a divine mystery (as is much else about our Faith). I was amazed to discover that both Luther and Calvin, in different degrees, taught the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
The Memorialist view--that the Eucharist is all bread and that communion is really without divine significance, done merely "in memory" of Christ--that is, the common teaching of evangelicals, wasn't believed or taught by the Reformers.
I rejected the Memorialist view, but could see no reason not to go all the way to a pure Catholic position.
From Geneva to Rome
It was in my search for a "pure" Presbyterianism that I found Catholicism. I became tired of "protesting"; I wanted a real and positive Christianity. I didn't want a liturgy and theology defined in opposition to something else; I wanted the Christian liturgy and theology that the Church throughout the ages defined and practiced. Moreover, I did not want these things because they were part of the past; I wanted them because they will be part of the future.
John Henry Cardinal Newman, among the most famous of converts from Protestantism to Catholicism, makes the point in Apologia Pro Vita Sua that the best and most orthodox elements of evangelical, Reformed, and Anglican Christian doctrine find their fullest expression and glory within Catholicism.
The bread in the Lord's supper becomes the mystery of the Real Presence; collective confession becomes private, specific, and efficacious; the claim of Church authority becomes the hard-core position of infallibility; Scripture becomes the infallible story of the covenant of God, both in content and canon; mere perseverance becomes a well-defined penance; martyrs and saints, whose lives are to be admired and emulated, become advocates on your behalf; the pastor becomes priest; the worship service becomes the Mass, with liturgy based on Scripture and imbued with holiness; the Christian "quiet time" becomes the requirement of a regular and disciplined prayer life, with litanies, memorization, and hours of intense contemplation on the Triune God.
Yet at the base, there is one reason why I converted to Catholicism. It is summarized by the line from the Apostle's Creed: "I believe in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church."
It's no wonder that Catholics have been so hysterically hated and persecuted throughout history. The Church's claim to be a fortress of truth, fully expressing the whole of Christian doctrine, makes it the single biggest threat to the forces of modernism and atheism. If a person hates God, why bother attacking Lutherans, Methodists, or the Reformed movement when he can attack Catholicism?
I am not hostile to Protestantism in general, and certainly not to Presbyterianism, to which I owe a great debt. I came to believe that Christ's Church subsists in Catholicism, which is why it has been so successful in defending orthodoxy and in standing against the tides of Christian sectarianism and atheistic modernism. Catholicism offers orthodoxy, universality, and stability.
Conversion was not an easy decision; the agonizing process lasted nearly three years. My final step was taken out of a conviction of truth, and it was a step I shall never regret.
Conversion reading material: Vatican II; The Catholic Catechism by John A. Hardon, S.J; anything by G.K Chesterton, but especially Orthodoxy and The Catholic Church and Conversion; Apologia Pro Vita Sua by J.H. Cardinal Newman, Catholicism and Fundamentalism by Karl Keating (Ignatius Press, 1988); and Evangelical is Not Enough by Thomas Howard (Ignatius Press, 1989).
You need to seriously read the Word and quit studying catholic theology.
What do the writers of the New Testament; Paul, Peter, John, Luke, Matthew, Mark, James have in common?
Not one mentioned the immaculate conception nor did they even hint at it. Nor did they mention the "assumption" of Mary. None even hint at all of the super abilities the catholic church has bestowed upon Mary.
Just because someone is a contemporary of someone doesn't mean they cannot be without error. I note that Peter was corrected by Paul as Peter was refusing to eat with the Gentiles. We also know there was a lot of false teaching the church was battling at the time the NT was being written. That battle continues today.
Catholic apologists admit there is NO SCRIPTURAL SUPPORT for this false notion fostered by catholicism.
http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=6056
No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture.
http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=6056
In regard to the sinlessness of Mary the older Fathers are very cautious: some of them even seem to have been in error on this matter. (yeah, they understood she had sin so the catholic church calls them in error!)
So all the catholic can cling to on this issue is a lot of "it seems like", "it should be" and "it stands to reason". That's pretty weak justification for such a profound false doctrine.
False catholic teaching has ascribed the following to Mary: co-redemtrix, helper, advocate. Slowly but surely Mary is replacing Christ and the Holy Spirit in the catholic church.
Only Christ is our Redeemer and Advocate.
The Holy Spirit is our Helper and Advocate.
Mary, a mortal human being, cannot be involved in any of this. Yet, many in catholic church are wanting a fifth marian dogma to proclaim her as all of these and let it be official church dogma.
The whole issue revolves around who do you put your focus on and your reliance upon. Jesus or Mary? It cannot be both. If you say both, then Mary has been elevated, or more correctly, Jesus has been reduced.
Satan would love nothing more than for people to pray to Mary and rely upon Mary. Why? Because then they are not praying to or relying upon Christ. And that is, and has been, Satan's aim: to distract people away from Christ and what He does for us.
Mary will be greatly distressed when she rises from the dead at the Resurrection and discovers that prideful men had built a world-wide religion incorporating a pagan goddess bearing Mary’s name and continuously claimed to have drunk her son’s literal blood and ate his literal body, although His blood had been shed and His body resurrected and ascended to the right hand of God the Father.
Now he should read pre-Vatican II documents on religious liberty and true ecumenism.
You must have missed Boatbums' post #33. Protestants trust the infallibility of the Holy Spirit to protect the Word, not the infallibility of the early Church Fathers, nor the infallibility of any institutional church. We trust that the Holy Spirit protected God's Word throughout the human process.
There is nothing inconsistent with accepting the truths of the Apostles' Creed while questioning some undocumented legends about its origins. That is exactly what all these scholars with whom you seem to be so impressed do as a vocation. Whether actually created by the Apostles or a later creation, it is a wonderful summary of the Christian faith. A scholar would also realize that if the word "catholic" is included that it would be the small "c" version of the word meaning universal.
But you can’t have both.
In a true dilemma, that would be correct but not in a false dilemma like you laid out.
Thanks for your reply.
I agree with you regarding the Catholic church as the one founded by Christ which is the foundation of Christianity.
I wrote the above message in order to try to tone down the frequent bashing of each other’s positions here FR.
You write: “Protestants trust the infallibility of the Holy Spirit to protect the Word, not the infallibility of the early Church.”
But this makes no sense. Christ entrusted His infallibility to the Church He founded. He established ONE truth. If you doubt the infallibility of the Church, then you must doubt the canonical texts because it is the Church that assembled the canonical texts in the Synod of Rome in AD 382 some ELEVEN centuries before Protestantism.
So according to you, before the Reformation the Holy Spirit was either not at work, or was misleading the Church founded by Christ. Either conclusion is an absurdity. And if you think Protestants trust the Holy Spirt, then you may wonder how several thousand branches of Protestantism has had this trust misplaced. It is also lethal since that is what Jim Jones and David Koresh taught as well.
How you lightly dismiss the conversion to Catholicism of pre-eminent Lutheran scholars, theologians, and preachers betrays a view commonly held: namely that Bible Christians are “comfortable” only in the shallow end of the theological swimming pool, you try taking them to the deep end and either they do want to go there or if they do they drown or stay afloat by converting to Catholicism as did the author of “Why I Left Protestantism For Catholicism.”
“As matter of curiosity, why do you suppose that there was a Protestant Revolution, as the nuns of my youth used to call it, in the Church in the West where there was/is Petrine Authority and no such thing in the Church in the East where there isn’t and never was any Petrine authority, at least not as it is being defined here?”
The base problem is that while there are vast superficial differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, at the core they subscribe to the same authority principal. This is why it is sometimes observed by the more polemical Orthodox that Protestants and Catholics are really two sides of the same coin. All Protestants are crypto-Papists and the Roman Catholic Church was the first Protestant denomination. They all believe in the authority of an individual person to interpret scripture and doctrine infallibly. The only real difference being in the number of Popes they have. Protestants have millions, with wholly predictable results. While Catholics only have one, though they have at times had long and bitter disputes over who that one is/was.
That approach to authority is antithetical to Orthodoxy where it is the Church as a whole that decides important doctrinal issues with the sensus fidelium guided by Scripture, the Creed, the Fathers and Holy Tradition, often, though not always, expressed in the decrees of the OEcumenical Synods.
Not quite what I said but I'll respond to it anyway. Any collection of humans is capable of error unless the Holy Spirit leads them "to all truth."
Christ entrusted His infallibility to the Church He founded. He established ONE truth. If you doubt the infallibility of the Church, then you must doubt the canonical texts because it is the Church that assembled the canonical texts in the Synod of Rome in AD 382 some ELEVEN centuries before Protestantism.
To the extent that any institutional church acted infallibility, it was due to the Holy Spirit's work who is the active agent of infallibility. To the extent that the Synod at Rome acted correctly, it was the Holy Spirit who guided them to that truth (John 16:13).
When a tree forks, both forks have a claim on the trunk. Protestants can trace their spiritual lineage back to the Apostles as well as the Catholics can. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, we share a common heritage. The RCC has no right to claim this as their exclusive property. The Synod at Rome is part of the Protestant's heritage as well.
So according to you
WARNING, WARNING, WARNING. A straw man argument is coming.
before the Reformation the Holy Spirit was either not at work, or was misleading the Church founded by Christ. Either conclusion is an absurdity. And if you think Protestants trust the Holy Spirt, then you may wonder how several thousand branches of Protestantism has had this trust misplaced. It is also lethal since that is what Jim Jones and David Koresh taught as well.
Just as expected. Because I didn't say that, I'm not going to defend it.
How you lightly dismiss the conversion to Catholicism of pre-eminent Lutheran scholars, theologians, and preachers betrays a view commonly held:
Pre-eminent? Says whom? Commonly held? By whom? I'm sure that Catholics like to think this but I doubt any neutral observer would make that claim.
namely that Bible Christians are “comfortable” only in the shallow end of the theological swimming pool, you try taking them to the deep end and either they do want to go there or if they do they drown or stay afloat by converting to Catholicism as did the author of “Why I Left Protestantism For Catholicism.”
If by "deep end" you mean the doctrines that can't be supported by Scripture but instead must be created from uninspired writings and deemed as "Holy Tradition", then I agree.
The members of the Greek Orthodox Church believe that the only infallible authority is an ecumenical council of all the bishops of the world. They believe that there were only seven such councils held before Eastern Schism, when the Eastern churches split from Rome. They say the charism of infallibility is now inoperative or nonexistent and will be until the Eastern churches are reunited with Rome.
This is in stark contrast to their predecessors at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, who said “Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo [the then-reigning Pope Leo I].The matter is closed. Let him who will not listen to Leo be anathema.”
Often times in Protestant circles, we hear about the Holy Spirit informing oneself of the Word of God. But there are two things about this that are inherently contradictory.
First, the Word of God is both the written and the unwritten Word (John 21: 25). The early Church Fathers checked and crossed check the written from the unwritten word of Christ for nearly three centuries before they came up the with the authenticity of the canonical texts in the Synod of Rome in AD 382. That authority did not vanish either a thousand years later with the Great Schism or the Reformation eleven centuries later.
Second, the Hoy Spirit is not some weathervane that changes course and direction over time. The Words of Christ have a compelling coherence to it, that He established ONE Church
Matthew 16: 19: “And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.” Followed by Matthew 28: 20: “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have enjoined you. And behold, “I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age.”
Thus we can all agree there is ONE truth for ALL time.
Thus there are no two sides to this coin you speak of. The center of Catholic worship is the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. You deny this and what’s left is a vapid nonsense open to exploitation by anyone from the likes of a Billy Graham to Jimmy Swaggart or a Benny Hinn or Joel Osteen. They are all cut from the same cloth. Not having a clue about what is the Word of God each gallivants on journey of their own to authoritatively tell us what is the word of God having denied its central truth and yet these same folks find themselves in a conundrum.
Either you accept Petrine infallibility and the validity of the canonical texts or you don’t. If you do not admit to Petrine infallibility, then surely the selection of the books in the Bible is suspect as well.
Thus when mainline Protestant denominations now admit married lesbian and gays as pastors, it not that the Holy Spirit suddenly took flight. They never had the Holy Spirit to begin with. The Holy Spirit is not some bird that takes flight from one branch of Christianity to another.
Rarely have I seen such a collection of misstatements regarding the Orthodox Faith.
“The members of the Greek Orthodox Church believe that the only infallible authority is an ecumenical council of all the bishops of the world.”
Ummm... no. That’’s just silly. Not one of the OEcumical Councils had all the bishops of the world. Where are you getting your information about us from?
“They believe that there were only seven such councils held before Eastern Schism, when the Eastern churches split from Rome.”
Wrong again. There have been nine. The first eight of which occured before the Roman Schism.
“They say the charism of infallibility is now inoperative or nonexistent and will be until the Eastern churches are reunited with Rome.”
WHAAAT???!!! Again, where are you getting your information from?
“This is in stark contrast to their predecessors at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, who said “Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo [the then-reigning Pope Leo I].The matter is closed. Let him who will not listen to Leo be anathema.””
Pious Roman mythology. The tome was actually received with a great deal of very heated debate. Nor was the Council unanimous as evidenced by the schism of the non-Chalcedonian Churches (the Oriental Orthodox). In the end however Leo’s tome was ratified by the Council which deemed it Orthodox. Romans like to think the council all dropped to bended knee when it was read when in fact it was the Council that ratified Leo’s tome as Orthodox. Leo is commemorated as a Great Orthodox saint.
“Often times in Protestant circles, we hear about the Holy Spirit informing oneself of the Word of God. But there are two things about this that are inherently contradictory.
First, the Word of God is both the written and the unwritten Word (John 21: 25). The early Church Fathers checked and crossed check the written from the unwritten word of Christ for nearly three centuries before they came up the with the authenticity of the canonical texts in the Synod of Rome in AD 382. That authority did not vanish either a thousand years later with the Great Schism or the Reformation eleven centuries later.”
You do realize that the Eastern Churches have never accepted the Roman Canon of Scripture... right?
“Second, the Hoy Spirit is not some weathervane that changes course and direction over time. The Words of Christ have a compelling coherence to it, that He established ONE Church”
Of course, the Orthodox Church. We confess that every time we recite the Nicene Creed. (Which I note that Rome no longer recites, preferring instead the Creed of the Second Council of Lyons. In so doing they have arguably incurred the anathemas of the 3rd, 5th, 6th and 8th Ecumenical Councils which forbade any alterations to the Symbol of Faith.)
“Matthew 16: 19: “And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.” Followed by Matthew 28: 20: “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have enjoined you. And behold, “I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age.””
The giving of the Keys was to the Church as a whole. It is the foundation of the concept of Oikonomia.
“Thus we can all agree there is ONE truth for ALL time.”
Yes, the Holy Orthodox Catholic Faith.
“Thus there are no two sides to this coin you speak of. The center of Catholic worship is the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. You deny this and what’s left is a vapid nonsense open to exploitation by anyone from the likes of a Billy Graham to Jimmy Swaggart or a Benny Hinn or Joel Osteen. They are all cut from the same cloth. Not having a clue about what is the Word of God each gallivants on journey of their own to authoritatively tell us what is the word of God having denied its central truth and yet these same folks find themselves in a conundrum.”
I don’t think anyone is arguing that Rome has clung to much more of the Orthodox faith then her “Reformed” offspring.
“Either you accept Petrine infallibility and the validity of the canonical texts or you don’t. If you do not admit to Petrine infallibility, then surely the selection of the books in the Bible is suspect as well.”
See above.
“Thus when mainline Protestant denominations now admit married lesbian and gays as pastors, it not that the Holy Spirit suddenly took flight. They never had the Holy Spirit to begin with. The Holy Spirit is not some bird that takes flight from one branch of Christianity to another.”
Now you are sounding decidedly Orthodox. This is why we generally do not accept the grace of sacraments outside the Church.
This won’t wash.
From Christianity’s beginnings, the Church has been attacked by those introducing false teachings, or heresies.
The Bible warned us this would happen. Paul told his young protégé, Timothy, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths” (2 Tim. 4:3–4).
Faiths outside the Catholic Church are not just two sides of the same coin as you earlier posted. There is the genuine coin that established ONE truth and the rest are all cheap counterfeits just as Paul warned.
The spirit of Alinksy is alive on FR!
I'm glad someone else noticed that. I had a good chuckle over that phrase. Like cattle stampeding to the slaughter...
The only "droves" I have noticed recently is the rapid decline of many denominational churches who are not teaching the Word. People are hungry for the Spirit and Truth. They will not find either in religion, and the rituals and reasoning of man.
“This won’t wash.”
What specifically?
“From Christianity’s beginnings, the Church has been attacked by those introducing false teachings, or heresies.
The Bible warned us this would happen. Paul told his young protégé, Timothy, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths” (2 Tim. 4:3–4).”
No argument here.
“Faiths outside the Catholic Church are not just two sides of the same coin as you earlier posted. There is the genuine coin that established ONE truth and the rest are all cheap counterfeits just as Paul warned.”
The problem is that the Catholic Church is outside the Church. The One True Church is the Orthodox Church. Rome is at best in schism and arguably is heretical. So I see no contradiction at all.
Two sides of the same heretical coin.
So Petrine Infallibility suddenly vanishes with the Great Schism?
The Orthodox Church is an accident of history. The Byzantine Empire collapsed suddenly in 1453. A soldier forgot to lock one of the gates of the fortified city of Constantinople, and the Turks sacked the city. With the Turks in control of the capital city, the rest of the empire crumbled quickly. Under pressure from Muslims, most of the Eastern churches repudiated their union with Rome, and this is the split that persists to this day.
The patriarch of Constantinople sided with the heretical, iconoclastic emperors.
The current Eastern Orthodox communion dates from the 1450s, making it a mere six decades older than the Protestant Reformation.
Ironically, in the Church’s eighth-century struggle against the Iconoclastic heresy (which sought to eliminate all sacred images), it was the pope and the Western bishops mainly who fought for the Catholic practice of venerating icons, which is still very much a part of Orthodox liturgy and spirituality.
“So Petrine Infallibility suddenly vanishes with the Great Schism?”
Petrine Infallibility is a heretical doctrine and theological innovation of the West.
“The Orthodox Church is an accident of history. The Byzantine Empire collapsed suddenly in 1453. A soldier forgot to lock one of the gates of the fortified city of Constantinople, and the Turks sacked the city.”
Seriously I have no idea where you are getting your fantasy versions of history from. You are confusing the Empire with the Church. The Empire fell at least temporarily in 1204 when the Papal armies of the Fourth Crusade sacked the Imperial City in one of the greatest atrocities in the history of Christendom. There followed almost a century of Catholic military occupation which although eventually thrown off, left the Empire fatally weakened. The Turks may have administered the coup de grace, but make no mistake, it was Rome that struck the fatal blow. A knife in the back, from which the Empire never recovered.
“With the Turks in control of the capital city, the rest of the empire crumbled quickly. Under pressure from Muslims, most of the Eastern churches repudiated their union with Rome, and this is the split that persists to this day.”
Most of the local churches had severed communion with Rome long before the final collapse in 1453.
“The patriarch of Constantinople sided with the heretical, iconoclastic emperors.”
Fair enough. We have had heretical patriarchs. But of course we don’t claim any one bishop is infallible. Rome of course has had its share of heretics sitting on the patriarchal throne. And none of our patriarchs are proclaiming the heretical double procession of the Holy Spirit at every liturgy.
“The current Eastern Orthodox communion dates from the 1450s, making it a mere six decades older than the Protestant Reformation.”
Says you. Not even the Roman Church makes such a risible claim.
“Ironically, in the Church’s eighth-century struggle against the Iconoclastic heresy (which sought to eliminate all sacred images), it was the pope and the Western bishops mainly who fought for the Catholic practice of venerating icons, which is still very much a part of Orthodox liturgy and spirituality.”
Rubbish. The Western Church was largely unaffected by iconoclasm. They were little more than bystanders. Exactly two(!) representatives of the Pope were sent, one bishop and one monk, though in fairness they supported the Orthodox position. Rome was still Orthodox back then.
“Rome was still Orthodox back then.” Oh so by your your lights at one point before the schism, this “was” the true Church Christ established with the guarantee that it shall last until the consummation of the world, but somewhere around AD 1054 this Orthodox offshoot became the true career of the faith. Thus the Holy Spirit infallibly guided the Church up until this time but then like a bird took off and landed on the doors of the Orthodox Church.
This is incredibly convoluted thinking. The Church still has Eastern rites in communion with Rome where Petrine authority is accepted. Those that don’t are simply schisms and no less heretical than the thousands of Protestant denominations that sprung from the curse of the Reformation where each person essentially interprets the Word of God guided by the Holy Spirit from the Billy Grahams to the Joel Osteens and Jim Jones’! Wonderful isn’t that we then have not a single truth but to each according to his/her interpretation. By these lights those mainline Protestant denominations that allow for married gay and lesbian pastors can claim their “own” authentic interpretation of scripture. Kumbaya!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.