Who are the Catholics: The Orthodox or The Romanists, or both?

Me

[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?

[Mr Rogers]

I’ll try to read a book by Kelly sometime. I’m certain of two things as well - scholars debate, and Schaff knew more about the early church fathers than either of us.

http://www.ccel.org/index/author-S.html

[Natural Law]

"How many Antiochs do you think were scattered around the world of the Bible?"

That is like asking how many Rome's and Paris's there are. You can bet that a biblical reference would not be about Rome, NT or Paris, TX. The Antioch of antiquity was rivaled only by Alexandria as the center of Roman military, commerce, and culture in the eastern Meditrerranean. That Antioch is a city in southern Turkey on the Orontes River near the Mediterranean Sea. It was founded c. 300 B.C. by Seleucus I, one of Alexander's generals.

[Religion Moderator]

Do not use the word “lie” in speaking of another Freeper on the Religion Forum. The word suggests the intent to deceive which is “making it personal.”

[Running On Empty]

“1st of all it is R N mom as in nurse..Secondly I was a cradle Catholic, educated by Franciscans, Srs of Namur and Srs of Mercy..Catholic educated through college. I was lector, liturgist, CCD teacher, and speaker at woman’s retreats, my guess is I have forgotten more Catholic doctrine than you have ever known”.

A long tassle of accomplishments.

Reading this, I realized that I have none of these to put after my name.

But, strange as it may seem, in spite of my lack of credits, I found the Catholic Church. I loved it. I found Jesus the Lord there. I have spent 60 years of my almost 82 years as a Catholic. I read and pray Sacred Scripture and I know that I’m in His hands.

So maybe I came to a good place in spite of myself.

I am convinced that all of us who live in Christ Jesus know that we have nothing to recommend ourselves. The only gift we have is to give ourselves completely into His hands.

As for “being insulting in addressing the issues”-—there are enough posters of all professions of faith on this forum who have made an art form of posting insulting comments. There are posters here who are acrimonious and bitter and condescending. When it all comes down, each of us is responsible for the verbal portrait we give of ourselves for others to read.

[Forest Keeper]

FK: It is simply impossible to worship the God of Abraham while denying Christ.

Hmmmm ... who or what do you suppose Jews worship?

Well, that depends on which Jews we are talking about 'cause there's lots of different kinds. :) I believe that the OT righteous surely understood the Person of Christ since Christ is all through the OT. They didn't have the details we do today, but they had enough to wait for the correct Christ.

As for the Jews of today, we know that some do believe in Christ. But of course there are others who deny the Divinity of Christ and are still waiting for a first coming. With all due respect to those people I would have to say that they worship a different God than the one Christians worship. I wouldn't know what to call it, but it's not our God. In terms of salvation they would unfortunately be in the same boat as any other non-believer, IMO. True faith must recognize the Trinity (the identity of God) or it is something other than true saving faith.

[Cronos]

what would be a protestant service than a catholic one..

Closer to WHICH Protestant service? A Baptist one? Or a Pentecostal Hallelujah one? Or a Methodist one? Or a Christian Scientist, red from the Bible one? Or an Anglican/Lutheran service? Or a Quaker-style meeting?

[Natural Law]

"With all due respect to those people I would have to say that they worship a different God than the one Christians worship."

I see this theory come up with respect to a number of faiths. If you profess to be a Christian you are an affirmed monotheist and cannot acknowledge the existence of any other gods regardless of how inferior. It is possible for Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Hindus, Unitarians, etc. to be wrong about God and mischaracterize God, but they cannot change Him or alter Him.

[Cronos]

YOU made the claim .... that makes it YOUR job to prove it.


Stuff and nonsense. How dare you ask a member of the "Hate-The-Church" brigade to do that?

They have a standard play:

1. Make a random false claim ("Catholics used to play the saxophone in the 2nd century in Church, but that's not what ______ (Fill in random non-Church group) do now.")
2. Church member says "hold on there -- do you have any proof of that?"
3. "Hate-The-Church" member says "WHAT do you mean? The burden is on you to prove that CAtholics did NOT play the saxophone in the 2nd century.
4. "Hate-The-Church" member gets a fit: "PHREAK! Saxophone wielding 2nd century Catholic BASOONISTS
AND DEMAND, DEMAND, DEMAND MORE AND MORE CONFORMITY TO THEIR OBOE WIELDING DEMONS

DEMAND, DEMAND

5. "Hate-The-Church" member posts some more lies and states them as fact.



repeats ad nauseum

[the_conscience]

Not if you are Calvinist.

Well...do tell, tell me what I believe?

[Cronos]

A church called Roman Catholic was no where to be found, nor were their practices anywhere in the NT.

Wagg, a nation called the USA was no where to be found, nor were their practices anywhere in the NT. Hence it does not exist.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

The Catholics think they can ask Mary or Saints or angels for blessings, and the rest think blessing's can only come from God through Christ.

Amen!

"As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.

Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice" -- Psalm 55:16-17

[Cronos]

So, are you saying that Baptists are not Protestants since you say that The Baptists existed since Apostolic Times?

But, when I brought that up elsewhere to state that we need to differentiate between Protestants and Baptists, I was told that no one had ever heard of such a claim

[Natural Law]

"How dare you ask a member of the "Hate-The-Church" brigade to do that?"

It appears to me that too many are too insecure in their own faith and seek the relative affirmation of diminishing their neighbor in a vain attempt to look better in the eyes of God than said neighbor. At the end of the day God doesn't care which pew you sat in or which Hymn you sang. If you have lived the Beatitudes all else is trivial because salvation will have been achieved.

[Cronos]

Unless you’ve realised it by now, The Church is not a denomination. Protestant groups like Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists or Baptists like the Southern Baptists are denominations. Cults are like the OPC, the various acronomyned groups like BPC, MCC, APC etc.

[annalex]

This is not of my usual fighting remarks, just a comment from experience.

There are two way to talk to Jews and Muslims about Christian God. One is to start from the presumption that their God is our God the Father, and then go on convincing them that Jesus the Son is God also. It is not hard to get as far as agreeing that Jesus was an exceptional man, -- the Koran, after all devotes several heart-felt chapters to Him, and modern Jews readily accept, and claim as their own, Christian moral teaching. To get to divinity of Christ from that starting point is near impossible, because any logical argument you might make ends up with "Yeah, great man..."

Then you have to describe the Holy Spirit as a third divine person, and that is met with total incomprehension.

But the premise is wrong. It is, in fact not a Christian premise. This is why it does not work practically.

Here's a fulcrum question. Was God of Abraham one in three persons?

Well, there was no Jesus around. Sure there was Melchizedek and the Ram -- not Lamb -- of God that substituted for Isaac, but these are types, not hard teaching. Yet the Iconographer knew enough to depict the Trinity in the persons of three angels at Abraham's table.

The insight of this icon is that whenever one thinks of God, one thinks of Triune God. When an Aborogene puts a shriveled lizard in his pipe and smokes it to find out about God (I assume that's what they do), he is seeking the Triune God, not the Father in isolaton from the Son and the Holy Ghost.

There was a discussion here whether Allah means God. Well, it happens to mean so in Arabic, just as much as ha-El, or more often, Elohim (plural!), mean God in Hebrew (YWHW is His proper name, not the ontological name). But here's what Allah doesn't mean, it doesn't mean "the Father".

So what does it do to my and your discussions with Jews, Atheists and Muslims?

We do not have to convince them that they worship the right God Who has Trinity Partners. This is incorrect Christian theology and so it does not convince. It only convinces them that we are polytheists.

The truth is that Christ "through Whom all things were made" was there from the beginning. He was offering the Eucharist to Abraham, and He was blessing Abraham's table. The Holy Spirit was there hovering over the waters before there were waters and breaking Jacob's leg. The God the Muslims and the Jews worship is our God allright, but they do not see Him fully, so they don't worship Him right. He has no partners, He has persons inside of Him. As He always had.

[Cronos]

True — if you’re a Presbyterian, you wouldn’t want a cult like the OPC talking FOR you, I hope. Even worse if this cult pretends to talk for all Protestants and Baptists

[caww]

I hear ya!...with egg on face.

[Cronos]

That’s right — Lucy gets upset when you tell the truth as Lucy is happier when she gets to tell fibs