Posted on 12/10/2014 6:32:20 AM PST by marshmallow
"Christian unity" is one of those terms that stir up a whole spectrum of—sometimes emotional—opinions.
On the one hand, we know that Jesus prayed to the Father concerning future believers "that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you" (John 17:21a, NIV).
On the other hand, charismatics know it is almost pointless to discuss the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12, 14) with Baptists or most anyone else from a mainline denomination. And Protestants of just about any stripe get riled up when they hear Catholics talking about papal infallibility or their adoration of the Virgin Mary.
It's on this latter point that Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and successful author, has waded into a hornet's nest of controversy by telling a Catholic News Service interviewer that Protestants and Catholics "have far more in common than what divides us" and that Catholics do not "worship Mary like she's another god."
Regarding Warren's view that Catholics do not worship Mary, Matt Slick, writing on the website of the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry, goes into great detail with material from Roman Catholic sources that say Mary is "the all holy one," is to be prayed to, worshipped, that she "brings us the gifts of eternal life" and she "made atonement for the sins of man."
If that's not putting her in the place of Christ as a god-like figure to be worshipped, then what is it?
"We believe in Trinity, the Bible, the resurrection, and that salvation is through Jesus Christ. These are the big issues," Warren says. "But the most important thing is if you love Jesus, we're on the same team."
To Warren's point about being on the same team, Slick.....
(Excerpt) Read more at charismanews.com ...
Thanks; Luther; for keeping ME from having such a screwed up ability to think straight!
I saw it before your follow up post. No crime no foul.
vlad, I’m now convinced you are smarter than he.
Then I'll take it back.
The OPPOSITE of what I said is now true.
“Those new-fangled inner-tubes sure help staying up when the water is very very very deep.”
In the case of Protestant anti-Catholics water wings might be best. If not age appropriate, they are, at least, fitting for other reasons.
I like paranormal shows for entertainment alone. I can tell which investigators are Catholic and which are not. The Catholic ones pray to either Mary or a saint while the others pray to Jesus. Very telling.
No, I'm just looking for honest people. I think most of the population think that religious people, in general, are hypocrites, deceitful, obfuscators, cannot be relied on to tell the truth straight out, etc. It is like pulling teeth without medication which is rather odd, given who they profess to know and follow. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: 22Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: 23Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: 24Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
Nope, you said Jesus, God.
God the Father or God the Holy Spirit?
No. The Holy Spirit never took on humanity to be born into the world as a singular person both divine and human. Jesus did. Mary gave birth to one Person, not two. That one Person had two natures - divinity and humanity.
So you are kicking The Holy Spirit out of what is commonly called the 3-in-one, or Trinity?
God is NEVER existent without being all three.
That's going to look bad on your resume when St. Peter reads it at the Pearly Gates.
Wow, look at that. You can cut and paste without attribution to the anti-Catholic site you got it from (CARM.org). What other skills will you show?
Your description very much fits the holy catholic apostolic church at the time of the Jewish Apostles, and many Jews and Gentiles absolutely despised and hated them for holding them accountable..
Where did you get the idea that God can exist devided?
[Posting fast before the mods see that you broke the "potty language" rule that I c/p'd)[I just backspaced and starred your use of a forbidden word]
“Thanks; Luther; for keeping ME from having such a screwed up ability to think straight!”
The same Luther who thought Mary was always a virgin and didn’t mind calling her ‘mother of God’? So much for that sola scriptura thing again.
Martin Luther:[Mary] became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man’s understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child.... Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God.... None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God.” Luther’s Works, 21:326, cf. 21:346.
Because some of their "leaders" started thinking that, since Jesus was a good Jewish boy, he HAD to do whatever his mother asked him. So, they figured if they went to Mary, rather than to Jesus - who they imagined was a stern judge and much too busy with running the universe that he couldn't be bothered with the mundane lives of individuals - their requests would have a better chance of being granted.
From Ludwig Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma Chapter 3, “Mary’s Co-operation in the Work of Redemption—the Mediatorship of Mary”, we read that Mary’s obedience qualified her to dispense grace and become the cause of salvation:
In S. T. Louis De Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, Mary Barbour translator (Bay Shore, NY: Montfort Publications, 1976), p. 84, We read that Mary claimed in an apparition:
From these and many, many other writings from the Roman Catholic church we can see that they have gone WAY beyond what was written and, whether they admit it or not, they have exalted Mary to be equal, if not superior to, Jesus Christ. It truly is bad.
See post 1302
“Then I’ll take it back. The OPPOSITE of what I said is now true.”
And so Elsie became a house divided against itself.
I cannot find the phrase "personal Saviour" anywhere in the scriptures. I tend to view it as a marketing technique used to make a sale with people who do not really want to do all that the LORD said they need to do. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church, just as the LORD Jesus Christ prayed for here. I believe Him. These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: 2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. 3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. 4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. 5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. 6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. 7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. 8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. 9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. 10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. 11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. 12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. 18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. 20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; 21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. 24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. 26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
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