Posted on 04/29/2009 3:00:47 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
It is as meaningful and consequential theologically for you to say that the PCUSA tolerates sinful behavior as for an anti-Catholic to say that the sexual cover ups in the Catholic church show that it tolerates sin. Sorry to pull out the big anti-Catholic gun there, because I don't think it's fair (I would be very wary of Catholic clergy and suspicious of conscious hypocrisy because of it though). It seems to me that your arguments against Protestants are easily reversed and used against Catholics. It doesn't show anything about which theology is correct. The problem of the ultimate consequence of sin was solved for us by Christ. But the problem of sin and its consequences in this world remain even for the saved. Our natures are corrupt; Christ within us is good.The problem of sin within the Church is the problem of sin. It will always be with us until the end of times.
I think it says that we don’t take our denomination name as seriously as Catholics that Protestant bodies split. Some Protestants make fun of an allegience to denomination and call it “Churchianity” to say that the focus on Christ is lost and it becomes a “My church is better than your church” sort of thing. They often view Catholics this way.
Remember also that the Catholics split and became Protestants. They were all Catholics before and then the Catholics decided they didn’t want to reform or compromise when called to do so by their own priests. Catholics divorced too rather than reconcile or work through the problem. The history of it can be debated — probably not fruitfully by me — but it was all Catholics that split hundreds of years ago. They couldn’t work through Luther’s (justified) call for reform.
I’m glad you realized the argument you made could be reversed though. Think of it in terms of Sampson and all the other era’s in the Bible when Israel turned from God. Their churches were apostate and the people worshipped foreign Gods. They couldn’t even remember their own traditions. The people wept when they heard Ezra read the law, maybe because they hadn’t understood it before or heard it. My point is that there were the saved even in the apostate times — even when the church was weak or non-existant.
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