Why Evangelicals are Returning to Rome

CIC ^ | April 2008 | Bob DeWaay

[Campion]

The RCC adds burdens on people, claiming they are from God.

You mean like Baptists who condemn dancing, smoking, social drinking, and mixed-sex swimming?

Those burdens would, of course, be directly revealed by God in the clear words of Scripture, right? Maybe in the First Letter of Paul to the Confusions, around chapter 4?

Protestants haven't a leg to stand on when it comes to adding burdens on people; they do it all the time and have for centuries. Ask the Puritans about all the freedom they'll give you to celebrate Christmas.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

I didn't know you'd been let back after your previous unforgivable anti-Catholic slur.

Of course.

Catholics thank God for the profound gifts of the Old Testament.

Nice. Wasn't my point however.

[muawiyah]

During the latter half of the first half of the Dark Ages the true Christian spirit was maintained by the monks working out of Ireland, not Rome (in the West); and the East continued on under the tutelage of several different Orthodox organizations.

You guys are always trying to make out that Rome was in top form when the rest of the Western Empire was prostrate ~ but it wasn't.

[muawiyah]

BTW, the best extant contemporary texts of materials that've made it into the Bible were discovered a few years back in the ancient drived out remains at the bottom of what had been a public toilet in Egypt.

You going to claim that as one of the secret libraries kept by the church?

[muawiyah]

BTW, my particular "splinter" differs from yours in only a couple of items ~ you have a Pope, and you have a church hierarchy.

Otherwise it's pretty much the same thing.

You folks should learn to "do church" without the assistance of the specialists. Time to grow up, stand up and move on.

[Alamo-Girl]

Very engaging insights! Thank you so much for the ping, dear sister in Christ!

[Petronski]

Wasn't my point however.

You claimed Catholic resentment for the preservation of the OT by Jews.

That was your point and your claim is false.

[HereInTheHeartland]

In Christ alone my hope is found.
Not by organizations founded by man.

Those organizations should only exist to bring us to the feet of Christ.
If they attempt to do any more, then they have circled back and are no better than the Pharisees and others that Jesus condemned.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

You claimed Catholic resentment for the preservation of the OT by Jews. That was your point and your claim is false.

What the hell thread you readin'? I was speaking to an individual. Dang dude, I may have to rethink naming myself ignorant.

[Campion]

Aren't you ever struck by the obvious contradiction in Protestants, on the one hand, asserting that the Scriptures are clear and perspicuous to every believer; and, on the other, denouncing, not only Rome, but each other as heretics and apostates ... as this article itself does????

This has been a built-in, Mack truck-sized hole in your theology and ecclesiology from the very beginning. It's not a new thing, and it didn't start with Robert Schuller and Rick Warren.

It started with Martin Luther, or even before him. Luther insisted that he had every right to call the Pope antiChrist and decide for himself what Scripture meant, but before his death, he bitterly complained that every milkmaid was now claiming the same right that he had claimed previously! (Of course, to justify himself and his rebellion, he had already had to claim for the milkmaid precisely the right he now expected her not to exercise.)

Protestants who are coming to Rome because they've thought things through carefully often enough are coming because they see the same glaring illogic that bothered Luther.

The only resolution possible within the Protestant framework is to either set up a de facto Pope (either one's denomination, or one's minister, or one's self), or to simply walk away from the idea that truth is objectively knowable.

The first one just pushes the contradiction a bit further away, it doesn't really solve it.

The second one ultimately destroys any semblance of Christian faith. And it's going down that road that has destroyed any number of mainline Protestant denominations, and will continue to do so. It isn't crypto-Catholicism, nor is it really a repudiation of the reformation. It's following reformation ecclesiology to its logical and self-destructive end.

[Mad Dawg]

the new reformation will return our focus to the sacred right of every person to self-esteem!

AM I allowed to puke now?A pious and well-informed Calvinist believes that God, the source of the only values that matter, values him as worth the blood of Christ. He knows that this valuation does not depend on his works, but on the unmerited but unshakable love of God Almighty.

In this knowledge he is free, as few on earth are (but I would include catholics among the free) to see his sinfulness with clear and unfrightened vision, because what really matters, his "being right with God" is not affected by his sinfulness.

Consequently, as far as theology is concerned he is (a)ABLE to do what, in the human sphere can be done to sin less often and to live into deeper holiness;
(b)UNAFRAID, and also not compulsive or panicky about taking (after the flesh) responsibility for his actions; and
(c) Eager, because of the always astounding and wonderful love of God which can only call forth gratitude from his heart, to be as good a person as he can be.

I have my difference with Calvinists, but, by heaven, if some bozo says that Calvinism needs to be abandoned for something else for the reason that it doesn't support psychological health, I will go to bat for the Calvinists.

That kind of remark gets my dander up.

Newsflash: no one has a "RIGHT" to self-esteem>

'Nother newsflash: If you believe that God loves you enough to die for you and that His love is strong enough to be raised from death, you don't need no feelthy, steenkin' "right". You HAVE it, and no one can take it from you.

Dawg the Papist, comin' out swingin' for the Calvinists.

[Mad Dawg]

(Sometimes being red-green colorblind is a good thing. What red font?)

[Mad Dawg]

If the early, primitive Church was complete and equipped with all it needed, all additions are superfluous dross.

An acorn is complete and equipped with all it needs. And what an acorn does with all that "equipment" is grow into an oak "and birds nest in its branches".

I'm not pretending this is some devastating refutation. (I'm dumb, but not THAT dumb.) I'm suggesting a different understanding of "complete"

[Quix]

Great points.

Thanks.

[Mad Dawg]

Nothing that leads one closer to God is a burden.

We Papists are so vicious. We serve banquets, but insist that people eat. We serve the purest water and the richest wine, and then severely require people to drink.

The ancient offer stands: grain and water, milk, bread and wine, at no cost. But then we cruelly ask that people eat and drink. What sadists we are!

[Mad Dawg]

Cute. Good work.

This thread was doomed from the start.

[LurkingSince'98]

The difference is: We have been eating the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking His Blood as He commanded consecrated by the same priests ordained by the same bishops in the same manner for the last two thousand years.

What has your spinter been doing for the last two millenium.

[BnBlFlag]

What’s a “spinter”?

[Dr. Eckleburg]

lol.

I love frosted cookies. Twice the fun.

[Chaguito]

Thank you for your comment about the primitive church. I think it is a middle ground between sola scriptura and the extravagances of the Catholic Church. But, as you may know, striving to imitate the primitive church has produced a lot of strife and division, as well. As a guiding principle, though, I think it is a worthwhile effort to find the nucleus of faith and practice of the contemporaries of the Apostles.