If you say that, you have no clue as to my beliefs. My friend Kosta is Serbian Orthodox and I do not believe his faith faulty. My friend Kolo is Greek Orthodox and I do not believe his faith faulty. My friend NYer is Maronite and I do not find her faith faulty.
And I consider your faith faulty because of the extra requirements of allegiance to Rome and its extra-biblical doctrines.
I have no allegiance to Rome. I follow the Church. I despair at times of enlightening all those who would disparage the Church. I would that you guys would simply get it right as to the Church of Christ and not your comic book beliefs.
Perhaps peace is found in simply recognizing that Christ saves different people through different means, that what He said with his final breath on the cross is true.
Jesus spent three years in teaching His fledgling Church and the Holy Spirit commissioned it. Beyond that I dare not go, for the sake of my soul.
Theo, are you saying that all the "churches" in the first millennium that were outside the Church were professing an equally "orthodox" and true Christian faith? If you are, then you are wrong because these "churches" taught things about God that are not really Christian.
So, there was but one Church that came out of the Apostolic succession, and that church defined the Holy trinity, Christology, Mairology and the Christian Bible . Any Church that shares the same dogmatic beliefs of the undivided, apostolic catholic Church of the first millennium is by default a true Church, and there is none other, simply because there was no other. Now, are you suggesting that there was? If so, which "church?"
You're gone far, far beyond that, demeaning my faith in Jesus because I'm not a member of your denomination. You follow Peter. Other's follow Paul. I follow Christ.
I remain a member of Christ's church. And His church finds its home not in Rome, but in Heaven. His church consists of all those whom He has adopted, whether they defer to to Pope or not.
Done here. May Christ alone be praised. Christ alone, not Mary, not Rome, not your priests, not any of that. May Christ alone -- who alone suffered on the cross, who alone took on my sin, who alone is my mediator -- be praised.
Talk amongst yourselves, about how the Christ-follower is deceived because he trusts in Jesus as his Savior and Lord, and not in Rome.