Posted on 04/30/2010 8:03:48 AM PDT by Quix
Simple, by the word itself - Followers of Christ.
Since they are missing the guidance of the Institution that Jesus labouriously created over his three years of ministry, and only have one of its created teachings and documents - the Bible - to go by, their following is like having a map, but not the translation. In the cases of the aftermath of the Restoration, or what the Reformed churches have degenerated into, their maps have not proven sufficient.
Jesus and the Apostles never taught anything about a hierarchy of leadership, and very definitely not a clergy system.
I'd suggest a second look at the Pauline letters and especially his relationships with Timothy and some of his other subordinates. The relationship of Luke to both Peter and Paul, and Mark to Peter might also be relevant.
The first heresies were failure to follow what the Apostles taught and instead take the traditions as taught by influential men who sought power over the assembly. History shows this, and it happened with the Apostle John was still living. It is also recorded in the NT for you to read. Start your search with open eyes and mind.
It is well recorded in the NT and in early Church history. Your website leaves little doubt as to which heresies you favour.
Good luck...
I'd prefer a prayer to Almighty God from a believer. I find that there is no such thing as luck.
The Catechism and Bible leave little or no room for interpretational error. Therefore any departure is a willful decision by the individual.
Fascinating statement. The Church teaches, as it has always taught, in those statements of faith and belief. There is no need of a line by line teaching because the Faith is a composition of the whole Bible. A line here goes with a paragraph there goes with an entire chapter over there. This again is nonCatholic teaching and very different than the first 1500 years of Christianity. The Faith comes first, then the Bible.
I heard some terrible hermeneutics in my days as a catholic .
And so have I. I cringe sometimes.
INDEED.
No matter how holy a man is, he is a mere man. Christ is God. Men are men. God inspired the Bible, according to the Bible and to Church teachings. I don't know which Catholics you are speaking of.
And Jews, who were given the choice convert to Catholicism or die. Ferdinand and Isabella were quite the couple. Ferdi and Izzy just had to have their very own inquisition. But the medieval inquisition had begun a couple of hundred years earlier in France and Germany, Italy.
The Spanish Inquisition was instituted to make Spain Catholic again after 600 years of rule by Islam. There were specific inquisitions earlier, certainly, but not the full Inquisition of Spain. The Jews were considered by all Christians to be lesser than Christians and in need of conversion. Martin Luther was ruthless about them; I don't believe that any of the major Reformers were less than anti Semite.
Yes, most of us want to be virtuous but at what cost?
I'm not sure of the question here.
Therefore I cannot claim that all SBC churches agree on every issue on which the SBC gives a position, but I can say that there is very substantial agreement on the major issues, including social issues like homosexuality, abortion, women clergy, etc.
I see. So it's not quite as definite or binding as the Catechism. In the instance where a female pastor would be hired, what would the SBC do?
I'm not. I don't have a mothership, outership, or space ship. The question remains: where does your planet of Vaticania hang out?
Are you referring to Hans Kung et al?
The charge by Catholics that every protestant is his own pope rings hollow when the church has never taken time to teach the scriptures in context in an OFFICIAL catholic commentary ...so every bible study teacher , every theologian , every priest on Sundays is in fact giving his personal reading ...because your church knows if they ever did a contextual commentary it would show the faulty doctrine for what it is
Negative. Christianity teaches that Jesus is the pinnacle; therefore the Gospels are the core of Scripture, with the NT read through the Gospels and the OT through the New. Just as it is with the teachings of Jesus - the Faith - being the core and the Scriptures interpreted through the Faith and not vice versa. The Faith came long before any NT Scriptures were written, and in fact, the Scriptures were chosen to support the Faith, not vice versa. That is why Protestant understanding is often so different from traditional Christianity. The development of the myraid Protestant faiths came about in an entirely different process.
Since they are missing the guidance of the Institution that Jesus labouriously created over his three years of ministry, and only have one of its created teachings and documents - the Bible - to go by, their following is like having a map, but not the translation. In the cases of the aftermath of the Restoration, or what the Reformed churches have degenerated into, their maps have not proven sufficient.
We are only missing the so-called "traditions" the RCC so strenuously push from various men and movements of the times. And, the Bible is "translated" into our English so that we can understand it. Not being a member of the "Reformed churches" that you refer to, we stick to what is revealed by God through the writings of Christ's inspired writers of the Bible. The assembly I affiliate with follows the lead of the Apostles as they taught everything that Jesus told them to. We do not add nor subtract from what is written, period.
I'd suggest a second look at the Pauline letters and especially his relationships with Timothy and some of his other subordinates. The relationship of Luke to both Peter and Paul, and Mark to Peter might also be relevant.
Thanks for the suggestion. That's exactly what we did, and we don't only read it two times, but as often as we are led by the spirit to do.
It is well recorded in the NT and in early Church history. Your website leaves little doubt as to which heresies you favour.
And, pray tell, just what are those "heresies" you think we favour? I'd like to know what they are!
Good luck - again!
Absolutely! Powers and Principalities... NO doubt about it. They are the same, all the way down through history.
It is too bad that folks won't look honestly at their beginnings - The Mystery Religion, founded by Nimrod in Babylon...
INDEED.
THX THX.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
You know that, and I know that, but do we know the person who originated the information knows that?
And people are always saying that I make assumptions!
Concerning punishment of Catholics who violate the teaching on abortion,
Would any bishop petition the Vatican to have a powerful Catholic politician excommunicated?
Especially one that could retaliate in some way? Or would a popular Catholic priest be excommunicated for making abortions easier to get and increasing the number performed by making the practice legal?
We both know from experience the answer to these questions. To actually follow through and excommunicate such persons might impose a cost the Catholic church is not willing to bear.
“The Jews were considered by all Christians to be lesser than Christians and in need of conversion.”
My mother shot down this kind of logic when I was about six years old by saying she didn't care what others did, I was not to set fire to the neighbor's chicken coop and then she thrashed me soundly. I wasn't any worse than the other kids so why should I get a beating? And some kids really were hoodlums unlike myself.
Murdering Jews because they would not accept Catholicism or any other religion is not the act of Christians.
Balancing virtue against the cost, pragmatism wins outs out everytime somehow.
Hmmm...maybe we should start a thread on this and gather a variety of people to speculate whether the one who wrote "7/5/2010" was in the Military, Fed Government, Post office, etc., or that the one who wrote it didn't know what he was doing. I didn't use any assumption, just logic; although using philosophy could be fun in an odd sort of way!
Belonging to a military organization, I enter dates like that on all the reports I submit - it's standard is that the day comes first, the month second and year last. Although the form we use is DDMMYYYY - 07/05/2010 which varies a little from the one posted.
Applause. Your post explains Purgatory better than anything that I have been able to compose. Perhaps friend Quix may be closer to us than we all think.
You guys and we agree that there are impostors, pretenders, as it were, to the title "Queen of Heaven."
The difference,of course, is that you all think that because there are pretenders to that title, there can be no 'real' Queen of Heaven.
There have been pretenders to the title "Son of God." That does by no means prove that there is no real Son of God.
But when we speak of the Queen of Heaven, you all pretend that we are blurring her with Astarte and Parvati and who knows what all.
Just as I do not find my faith in Jesus as the only-begotten Son of God weakened by the claims of Krishna or Hercules, so my confidence that the Mother of the King is rightly given the courtesy of Queen is not shaken however long your list of pretenders might be.
Then we came home and lounged and ate supper and watched America's Funniest Home Videos. I wound the clocks. We are winding down to bedtime. The Lord God Almighty is better to me than I could ever hope of deserving. Or even imagine...
As I tell my wife often, it never hurts to check.
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