Posted on 01/05/2010 9:46:47 PM PST by the_conscience
I just witnessed a couple of Orthodox posters get kicked off a "Catholic Caucus" thread. I thought, despite their differences, they had a mutual understanding that each sect was considered "Catholic". Are not the Orthodox considered Catholic? Why do the Romanists get to monopolize the term "Catholic"?
I consider myself to be Catholic being a part of the universal church of Christ. Why should one sect be able to use a universal concept to identify themselves in a caucus thread while other Christian denominations need to use specific qualifiers to identify themselves in a caucus thread?
The reply was adequate, and scriptural. It just is not appealing, apparently.
We could always use better catechesis.
But you appear to be ignoring the statistic that the overwhelming majority of Catholics believe in the Real Presence, even if they have difficulty differentiating between theological conceptions thereof during the course of a telephone poll. LOL.
sitetest
Sorry, should have pinged you to my response above.
I apologize then.
At best this was a telephone survey of American Catholics. There are over a billion Catholics who don't live in the United States.
Do you actually know why the Orthodox don't hold the Immaculate Conception as dogma?
Do you actually think that the Orthodox agree with Calvinists about the Immaculate Conception?
Do you think that the Orthodox believe that the Blessed Mother was stained by Original Sin?
Yes, Jesus said He was born in the flesh and became Man just like the rest of us...
But the more you pin these guys down, the more they claim that we don't read the scriptures the same way they do...We are wrong, of course...
You have to read bend and twist the scriptures in the light of the Catholic tradition handed down from God to their religion...Thus, making the word of God of none effect...
10-4
been there, done that, got the Lithograph of Freud.
I SO get that!
I love Alphonse Liguori. But I really recognize that he is an acquired taste.
Nancy and I still sort of randomly insert (ahem, by your intercession) when we read stuff like that.
Catholic Piety and culture are lush, extravagant, stuff that I as, by culture, an Episcopalian - God’s Frozen People — find a little icky. I mean, you start talking like that, you might end up using the wrong fork!
Tell you what: you want it clarified, you clarify it. You guys make generosity and humor almost impossible. Stop trying to tell me what to do. And then, wow! Suddenly the suggestion that there is some projection going on! And right before your post describing projection we get a fabulous example, one of many, and it's not from a Catholic either. There are a lot of free-floating control needs going on around here. I don't tell people what to call me, and I sure as shooting am not going to follow your request to modify my language to assuage some anxiety that I do not share. You got a problem, you fix it.
“You know, Mr. R, you spend a lot of time telling us we “innundate” you with inconvenient Scripture and yet you say you give us Scripture “ad nauseum.”
Some have a gift for misquoting.
What I wrote - one time, which is hardly ‘a lot of time’ - was:
“I guess there are a couple of possibilities for how we come to be saved. It could be we, in all humility, and filled with love for our fellow man, ‘win life’s lottery’. Or it could be we are sick, and need a physician. I was sick. / And please don’t inundate me with scriptures saying I was dead - I’m using the analogy of Jesus Christ! ANALOGIES.”
Many PDs take the statement that we were dead in our sins to mean we were utterly incapable of responding to God...that when He came to us, per John 1, that no one could ‘receive’ him because we were all dead.
As I HAVE pointed out multiple times, this takes one analogy - dead in sins - and applies it across the board. However, OTHER analogies include being servants of sin, slaves of sin, and in the passage I had just quoted, being “sick”.
So in CONTEXT, my request was not to flood me with those scriptures saying we were dead in sin, because I know them already. But I ALSO have read scripture saying we were slaves, servants or sick.
My comment was intended to point out the other analogies clarify and correct the one, and they indicate someone who COULD say yes to the offer of God - who COULD open the door to Jesus.
So, no - I don’t need to “Take something for that and try to calm down.” I want to discuss scripture, not assertions - but I want to look at all of scripture, and not just a couple of verses taken out of the surrounding context, and applied with no regard for the rest of the Bible.
You write, “Nor does it say, “A new heart is given and he believes.” / Sure it does, many times in many ways. Men receive a new heart from God in order to believe.”
OK...since scripture says it many times, inundate me with those! Where does it say belief follows being born again. I’ve shown, I think, that the gift of the Holy Spirit follows our belief, and I’ve always thought THAT was being born again, since Jesus said the second birth was of the spirit, or the water & spirit, depending on how one interprets that verse.
So show me the verses saying we are born again before we believe.
“Why would someone get a new heart after they have already believed?”
Because God said:
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” - John 1
“14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16”For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” - John 3
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” - John 3
“40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” - John 4
“The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way...53The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household.” - John 4
“24Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” - John 5
“37And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, 38and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life...For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” - John 5
[Note: Jesus says “you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe”, not “you do not believe because you do not have his word abiding in you”.]
“28Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” - John 6
” “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” - John 6
[J Vernon McGhee says this teaches BOTH free will & election, and I’m not inclined to argue otherwise.]
I could go on, but why?
Again and again, throughout scripture, we are told belief & faith is what salvation hinges on, not election. Election is TO something. We elect official by vote, but the election means the winner of the most votes (a category) goes on TO something. And we are elected to what we were predestined for - being conformed to Jesus.
It is silliness to say again and again that belief & faith is what is critical, if God forces that belief on some and denies it to others. If THAT is the correct interpretation of election, then all those verses about repenting, and God wanting all to be saved, and all to repent, and how believing is what God requires of us - they are all lies.
Sorry. If God has a “secret will” that conflicts with his “public will”, then God is a liar.
And God is not. At a minimum, it is a dance, not a kidnapping!
LOL
If Jesus wanted to have His relationship with His sheep filtered by a church, why didn't He just set up shop in the Temple. The Jews were already conditioned for this type of relationship between them and God.
As long as each RF caucus can acheive a sanctuary in the midst of all the religious debate, my administrative objective will be met.
I personally have no problem with the term "Roman Catholic"> IN fact my Army dog tags said "Roman Catholic". I do however, bristle at being called an RC. That term has a history associated with oppression and discrimination and for the Irish is very much the same as the N-word is for American blacks. The term RC had its origins in the protestant conquest of Ireland and was used as a pejorative term for Catholics because is a homonym of "arse". I will caution you this, if you are ever in Ireland, or most Irish pubs around the world, don't say it out loud. It could significantly alter the quality of your day.
Great point.
However, I believe the largest denomination in Mass. is RC. They've been electing the most liberal pols for a long time. We shouldn't lose sight of the reality that the RCC is a liberal church. We have FReepers that are RC that are conservative, but they do represent the majority attitude of their church.
I've seen articles posted about their Bishops being involved in supporting "HC reform" and just recently they came out in support of "immigration reform".
The problem in expecting any type of meaningful support from RC's is that support will disappear in an instant if their church changes it's position on something. They are followers of Sola Ecclesia. The Reformed and Evangelicals follow Sola Scriptura this is something that can not be reconciled no matter how much we talk.
Do you actually have anything to back up this claim or is it just something you WANT to be true?
They already call us Catholics whatever names they want. Like trying to reason with a spoiled two-year old, to talk to them.
Perhaps the protestants have a secret ceremony that lets them go back in time to actually SEE the early church services. Or, perhaps they are THAT OLD, and remember from personal experience.
Does that sound silly? So do some of the posts I’m reading.
INDEED!!
It’s like the Baptist claim that they are somehow not Protestant because they had existed in secret since the first century.
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