Replies

Does the New Testament describe a collection of buildings and rituals ruled by a hierarchy of sinners as being somehow automatically filled with the Holy Spirit, ever? No, it doesn’t.

To the extent that those within the Church are indwelled with the Holy Spirit, then the instiution is also by virtue of their presence. If not, then not. Surely a dispassionate reading of church history will reveal this to you, within the Roman Catholic Church or any other.

The “Protestant” Reformation did not arise in one place, it welled up across Europe and the British Isles over a period of decades, more or less. Do you suppose they all just decided randomly to risk their very lives to speak out for Christianity, or perhaps was it that the “magisterium” had gone seriously astray and various groups of Christians in various locales recognized that truth and were willing to become martyrs in order to set things aright?

I have Catholics in my acquaintance who have quietly and privately expressed gratitude for the Reformation. It was needed. Any student of history, church or secular, should be able to see this.

I’m a Catholic who would agree that some good things came from the Reformation. I also think it was a good thing that the Vatican lost its power as a secular state occupying a lot of land. It really freed the Church to focus on the things of God.

What I would say now, though, is that it’s been a few hundred years of separation. Isn’t it time to figure out how to be a connected Christian family again?

Using your own argument.

Does the New Testament describe a collection of buildings and rituals ruled by a hierarchy of sinners as being somehow automatically filled with the Holy Spirit, ever? No, it doesn’t.

The reformation began with a single event, the nailing to the door of his 99(?)theses by Luther. The underpinnings may have existed prior but that action by Luther was the catalyst. From that event arose thousands of different denominations and sects all which have their own buildings and hierarchy and doctrine and are filled with and led by sinners. Do you think this was Luther’s intent? Or that he could have foreseen this?

Is Luther the same as Jesus? I ask this because, though Luther could not have foreseen the consequences of his words and actions, Jesus most certainly could.

Knowing this, why does Jesus not make His intent clearer?

Knowing the consequences of His words would be a Church, one that claims for itself authority by virtue of Jesus’ words to Peter, why didn’t Jesus make certain that what He meant was as clear as could be and easily grasped by His followers of the time?

I submit that Jesus’ words were very clear and quite understood by the followers and what came from those words, and all the others found in the NT is the organic Church we have today.