Posted on 04/14/2005 12:00:51 PM PDT by Dean Baker
Baptist church 'fake pope' sign attracting attention, criticism By JEANNINE F. HUNTER, hunter@knews.com April 13, 2005
NEWPORT, Tenn. - Two days after being posted, a church marquee message that questions the purpose of the papacy is still attracting attention in this small community.
"What I am trying to do is to let people know there's only one way to heaven through Jesus Christ," said the Rev. Cline Franklin, pastor of Hilltop Baptist Church. "There's no need for help. God sent his son, Jesus Christ. We're all priests if we're saved. I don't need to go to anybody else to pray."
The sign's side facing Broadway, the main thoroughfare in Newport, reads, "No truth, No hope Following a hell-bound pope!" On the other side, facing the church parking lot, it reads: "False hope in a fake pope."
The message appeared days after Pope John Paul II's funeral last week.
"It is unfortunate when it comes from within the Christian church. It's really sad," said the Rev. Dan Whitman, 54, pastor of Newport's Good Shepherd Catholic parish and Holy Trinity parish in Jefferson City. "You learn how to deal with it and pray not to be that way yourself."
It does not reflect mainstream Baptist thought, said Dr. Merrill "Mel" Hawkins, associate professor of religion and director of the Center for Baptist Studies at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City.
"When you see signs like that, they are almost like relics or artifacts of a bygone era," Hawkins said.
He spoke about animus between Protestants and Catholics persisting after the Protestant Reformation and for centuries, during which "harsh things were said, couched within misperceptions, misunderstandings."
Among the major misperceptions is that Catholics "venerate the pope on the same level as Jesus," Hawkins said, and that "the pope is connected to their salvation in place of Jesus Christ."
Catholics make up about 12 percent of the population in the South.
"Catholics are a minority faith in the South, and there's often bias toward minority religious communities because people don't understand," he said.
James Gaddis, a lay speaker who also chairs the board at First United Methodist Church, said he had not seen the sign but had heard about it.
"I understand that it's very degrading," he said. "I think it's tragic that any church group would stoop to this posture."
Following Tuesday night's council meeting, Newport Mayor Roland Dykes Jr. said he was a little saddened by the message.
"It doesn't behoove any of us to determine who is going to heaven or hell. I think the pope is a highly, highly respected person," he said.
Franklin's church is a five-year-old independent Baptist church. When asked what the message meant, he said: "What does 'pope' mean? It means father. We have a heavenly father, and the Bible says we shall call no man a father. "
He said people have been driving by or taking pictures or calling to share their views. He said the intent was not to offend Catholics and people are misunderstanding the sign.
Copyright 2005, Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.
ah,....
my three favorite types of posts:
Guns
Babes
and Catholic vs. Protestant
Cause I like you best....I was only responding to your being told you were going to hell....I have been attacked for saying what I posted to you.
Of course, if you believe Cartman...."I can't go to heck, I'm not black."
LOL
No, but I have heard of ad hominem, hominem being the accusative case of the Latin word for "man," with the adverb "ad" always being followed by the accusative case.
or by trusting in Christ?
Neither. When babies are baptized (as the Church has done from the earliest times), their sins are forgiven even though they neither "trust" in Christ nor "follow" the Law. God chose to redeem Mary at conception not because of anything she did. If you read any of the Pauline epistles you see grace as unmerited favor, God often picks people not because of merit. Think of St. Paul (aka Saul) himself. God's act of revealing himself to Saul was not based on Saul's following the Law or trusting in Christ. It was on account of God's good favor, not Saul's merit.
-A8
Oh, so now he's to blame for Christians fighting.....I guess Christians shouldn't be held responsible for their own actions. Until today this thread was a pretty civil one - I guess some people (Christians) just can't control themselves.
If baptizing babies has been done from the earliest times in the Church, give me book, chapter, and verse where I can read about it.
I may need to go baptize my son;)
Nice try to start a flame war, but better men than you have tried, later
Because he had an insufficient understanding of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Catholic and Lutheran churches have issued a joint statement on the issue of justification, meaning that they no longer disagree on what Luther saw as the central issue. My theology professor in college always said that there was no real disagreement on that point, but that Luther just didn't understand what Aquinas was saying. I actually think Luther was a brave and sincere man, and a genius in many ways, but he wasn't perfect.
Speaking of flame wars - that's a nice one you tried to start yesterday. Don't be so hypocritical - I simply made an observation. One I assume you didn't like.
Thanks for the heads-up, TightyRighty.
Thank you. "By their fruits ye shall know them" Matthew 7:20
You're welcome. "Back off of me and clean-up your own yard". Dean Baker 4:15
Human reason again. God is not limited by our intellect. You've shown nothing apostolic. But I'll check out the book.
This one's too good not to bump into.
"Did you hear on Fox News where the pope is hit in the forehead 3 times with a small mallet to break the seal and release the spirit to go into the next pope."
Urban myth. They used to tap the head --- and hold up a silver mirror for breathing BTW --- b/c up until recently it was hard to tell if someone was dead. (The steothoscope is a recent invention.)
The "release the spirit" is pure B.S.
You have a warped view of Catholic Doctrine and "Grace". That is either by design or purposeful ignorance. Either of those precludes a meaningful conversation. I will not waste my time with a ravening wolf.
St. Irenaeus [189 AD], for example, writes, "Christ came to save all who are reborn through Him to God, infants, children, and youths".
Origen [248 AD] says, "In the Church, baptism is given for the remission of sins, and, according to the usage of the Church, baptism is given even to infants. If there were nothing in infants which required the remission of sins and nothing in them pertinent to forgiveness, the grace of baptism would seem superfluous" (Homilies on Leviticus 8:3).
Again, Origin writes, "The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants. The apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of the divine sacraments, knew there are in everyone innate strains of [original] sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit" (Commentaries on Romans 5:9 [A.D. 248]).
Gregory of Nazianz [388 AD] writes, "Do you have an infant child? Allow sin no opportunity; rather, let the infant be sanctified from childhood. From his most tender age let him be consecrated by the Spirit. Do you fear the seal [of baptism] because of the weakness of nature? Oh, what a pusillanimous mother and of how little faith!" (Oration on Holy Baptism 40:7) He also writes, "‘Well enough,’ some will say, ‘for those who ask for baptism, but what do you have to say about those who are still children, and aware neither of loss nor of grace? Shall we baptize them too?’ Certainly [I respond], if there is any pressing danger. Better that they be sanctified unaware, than that they depart unsealed and uninitiated" (ibid., 40:28).
Augustine writes, ""What the universal Church holds, not as instituted [invented] by councils but as something always held, is most correctly believed to have been handed down by apostolic authority. Since others respond for children, so that the celebration of the sacrament may be complete for them, it is certainly availing to them for their consecration, because they themselves are not able to respond" (On Baptism, Against the Donatists 4:24:31 [A.D. 400]).
"The custom of Mother Church in baptizing infants is certainly not to be scorned, nor is it to be regarded in any way as superfluous, nor is it to be believed that its tradition is anything except apostolic" (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 10:23:39 [A.D. 408]).
"Cyprian was not issuing a new decree but was keeping to the most solid belief of the Church in order to correct some who thought that infants ought not be baptized before the eighth day after their birth. . . . He agreed with certain of his fellow bishops that a child is able to be duly baptized as soon as he is born" (Letters 166:8:23 [A.D. 412]).
-A8
So can God both exist and not exist at the same time? Can God create Himself? Can God be perfectly good and entirely evil at the same time? Can God be limited by our intellect, and not limited by our intellect at the same time?
Anyone who claims that God is not limited by our intellect does not know what he is saying, since it makes all theology impossible, including the very statement that God is not limited by our intellect.
-A8
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