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 ...
Baptism dogma is useless for the thief on the cross to whom Christ said, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
I wish this were so.
It is so.
I also "embrace" all departed saints (not just the "official" Catholic ones) and Mary in the way you mention.
My statement was an actual both-of-us there embrace. Looking into the eyes of her spiritual body. Will be way cool! I think I will embrace Jesus first though!
The indoctrination of some Catholics is totally pervasive and complete.
Yes and for good reason.
They wanted to not have a man between them and God.
Catholicism protested that and therefore are the first Protestants.
You admit you falsely attributed a word to me to make what I did write appear different. Rather than repent and apologize you blame me and claim I am "really are posting quite hatefully this evening."
I don't really believe all the claims people make are true and complete. I think about them to weigh the credibility thereof. For example, the claims to belong to nondenominational Bible based assemblies that have no denominational or group affiliation beg the question as to who founded the church and which Bible colleges the pastor(s) attended. I know there is a business aspect and much thought goes into image and marketing. These assemblies come from somewhere though.
MAY 19, 2014 C. J. Mahaney, Joshua Harris Resign from Gospel Coalition after SGM Abuse Conviction
“Baptism dogma is useless for the thief on the cross...”
I don’t know what you mean by the dogma being useless. The dogma might simply not apply because of his situation which prevented baptism at that point. That doesn’t make the dogma useless. It just means it isn’t applicable to him.
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/dismissing-the-dismas-case
In any case, God is merciful to those who sincerely repent. The Good Thief seems to have done that. We call him St. Dismas.
Baloney. Mental semantic gymnastics serving no purpost. Facts is facts.
I asked a simple question, explained quite clearly in more that one post to you.
In the same way, your question, “Without backup for your claims, you post a south park video??” means you are saying that the video was a South Park video. It’s just that simple.
Double baloney. No it doesn't.
It means you have no backup for your claims.
You claimed it was one thing when it was another.
No I didn't, I asked you a question. From watching your posts it seemed you would post a South Park video. Just a guess.
Then my eyes glazed over as you continued with the convoluted sematic gymnastics which you already posted. I would have added as nausem if I knew how to spell it.
And then a block of text, sorry I can't read stuff like that, it's too difficult when someone doesn't use proper HTML
I remain vindicated.
Why? because these are all natural, good things which Christians took back from paganism to return to their highest and most legitimate use: to adorn the worship and show forth the truths of the Christian faith.,
Seriously,do you think we are all forbidden to use (quoting from these quotes):
just because pagans once used them, too?
CB, then go ahead and do a thorough research of every kind of pre-Christian religion, and make a comprehensive catalog of all the things they used, so that we will know ALL the things that are forbidden us.
You will find yourself not allowed to plant a garden, weave a tapestry, educate a daughter, name the days of the week or the months of the year with non-Biblical names, use a non-Hebrew calendar, compete in an athletic contest, write a love letter, put a statue in a cemetery or flowers on a grave.
We'll have to sandblast all the Scriptural references off of the public buildings in DC too, since nothing in the Bible justifies mixing Scripture quotes with graven images of people like Washington and Lincoln.
You'll have a lot of new friends, though, over at the ACLU and the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
But no, really. I don't think you'd want that. Not at all.
Then why protest on a thread about Catholics and nonCatholic Christians finding unity in Messiah ?
As a group maybe, but not individually. That is against the rules. That would be an anti-Catholic. (a quite misused word here today)
Attacking an individuals faith is allowed.
Thank you, Elsie. You're right again.
"Some" really is a special word. It allowed you to tell a modest, limited, accurate truth rather than a fat, flabby universalized lie.
Falls short of cybertechnology, though...
I'd say humor.
No loving Christian ever described the Virgin Mary this way.
It is shameful. It wounds her dignity, and it wounds those who love her. Did you want to do that?
Actually, you ask too many irrelevant questions that do not straight forward deal with straight forward statements, as if your questions extinguish those statements.
Faced with the straight forward statements (not even to you) that a wafer-worshiping, demigoddess praying, infallible caesario-papacy, salvation by merit preaching, etc, organization claimed to be the same as the NT church, you seem to imagine i was claiming a particular evangelical church, mine, made that unique claim. In which case that would be the issue.
But this is:
It should be obvious that the church (as the body of Christ) of today stands in contrast to the prima NT church in purity, power and passion, and which saw its unity under manifest apostles of God. Yet the deformation of the NT church was progressive, and which finally reached the point which required the Reformation, which itself was and is not the “work of one day or two.” (Ezra 10:13)
This reform was and is far from perfect and complete, and still has things to unlearn from Catholicism, yet it enabled the greatest modern increase in the kingdom of God of souls through manifest regeneration.
While much can be said about the state of the evangelical church today (and my need for much more Christ-likeness), yet it is Catholicism and the church of Rome in particular (as the church taking up the most space on the broad way to destruction) that is most manifest as standing in critical and overall contrast to the NT church. Which church as manifested in Scripture,
1. Was not based upon the premise of perpetual assured infallibility of office as per Rome, which has presumed to infallibly declare that she is and will perpetually be infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.
2. Never promised or taught a perpetual assuredly infallible magisterium was necessary for preservation of truth, including writings to be established as Scripture, and for assurance of faith, and that historical descent and being the stewards of Scripture assured that such had assured infallibility.
3. Never was a church that manifested the Lord's supper as being the central means of grace, around which all else revolved, it being “the source and summit of the Christian faith” in which “the work of our redemption is accomplished,” by which one received spiritual life in themselves by consuming human flesh, so that without which eating one cannot have eternal life (as per RC literalism, of Jn. 6:53,54). In contrast to believing the gospel by which one is regenerated, (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9; Eph. 1:13) and desiring the milk (1Pt. 2:2) and then the “strong meat” (Heb. 5:12-14) of the word of God, being “nourished” (1Tim. 4:6) by hearing the word of God and letting it dwell in them, (Col. 3:16) by which word (Scriptures) man is to live by, (Mt. 4:4) as Christ lived by the Father, (Jn. 6:57) doing His will being His “meat.” (Jn. 4:34) And with the Lord's supper, which is only manifestly described once in the life of the church, focusing on the church being the body of Christ in showing the Lord sacrificial death by that communal meal.
4. Never had any pastors titled "priests" as they did not engage in any unique sacrificial function, that of turning bread into human flesh and dispensing it to the people, or even dispensing bread as their primary ordained function, versus preaching the word. (2Tim. 4:2)
5. Never differentiated between bishops and elders, and with grand titles ("Most Reverend Eminence," “Very Reverend,” “Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord,” “His Eminence Cardinal,” “The Most Reverend the Archbishop,” etc.) or made themselves distinct by their ostentatious pompous garb. (Matthew 23:5-7) Or were all to be formally called “father” as that would require them to be spiritual fathers to all (Mt. 23:8-10 is a form of hyperbole, reproving the love of titles such as Catholicism examples, and “thinking of men above that which is written, and instead the Lord emphasizes the One Father of all who are born of the Spirit, whom He Himself worked to glorify).
6. Never required clerical celibacy as the norm, (1Tim. 3:17) which presumes all such have that gift, (1Cor. 7:7) or otherwise manifested that celibacy was the norm among apostles and pastors, or had vowed to be so. (1Cor. 9:4; Titus 1:5,6)
7. Never taught that Peter was the "rock" of Mt. 16:18 upon which the church is built, interpreting Mt. 16:18, rather than upon the rock of the faith confessed by Peter, thus Christ Himself. (For in contrast to Peter, that the LORD Jesus is the Rock (“petra”) or "stone" (“lithos,” and which denotes a large rock in Mk. 16:4) upon which the church is built is one of the most abundantly confirmed doctrines in the Bible (petra: Rm. 9:33; 1Cor. 10:4; 1Pet. 2:8; cf. Lk. 6:48; 1Cor. 3:11; lithos: Mat. 21:42; Mk.12:10-11; Lk. 20:17-18; Act. 4:11; Rm. 9:33; Eph. 2:20; cf. Dt. 32:4, Is. 28:16) including by Peter himself. (1Pt. 2:4-8) Rome's current catechism attempts to have Peter himself as the rock as well, but also affirms: “On the rock of this faith confessed by St Peter, Christ build his Church,” (pt. 1, sec. 2, cp. 2, para. 424) which understanding some of the so-called “church fathers” concur with.)
8. Never taught or exampled that all the churches were to look to Peter as the bishop of Rome, as the first of a line of supreme heads reigning over all the churches, and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church.
9. Never recorded or taught any apostolic successors (like for James: Acts 12:1,2) after Judas who was to maintain the original 12: Rv. 21:14) or elected any apostolic successors by voting, versus casting lots (no politics). (Acts 1:15ff)
10. Never recorded or manifested (not by conjecture) sprinkling or baptism without repentant personal faith, that being the stated requirement for baptism. (Acts 2:38; 8:36-38)
11. Never preached a gospel of salvation which begins with becoming good enough inside (formally justified due to infused interior charity), via sprinkling (RC "baptism") in recognition of proxy faith, and which thus usually ends with becoming good enough again to enter Heaven via suffering in purgatory, commencing at death.
12. Never supported or made laws that restricted personal reading of Scripture by laity (contrary to Chrysostom), if able and available, sometimes even outlawing it when it was.
13. Never used the sword of men to deal with its theological dissenters.
14. Never taught that the deity Muslims worship (who is not as an "unknown god") is the same as theirs.
15. Never had a separate class of believers called “saints.”
16. Never prayed to anyone in Heaven but the Lord, or were instructed to (i.e. "our Mother who art in Heaven") who were able to hear and respond to virtually unlimited prayers addressed to them (a uniquely Divine attribute in Scripture).
17. Never recorded a women who never sinned, and was a perpetual virgin despite being married (contrary to the normal description of marriage, as in leaving and sexually cleaving) and who would be bodily assumed to Heaven and exalted (officially or with implicit sanction) as
• an almost almighty demigoddess to whom "Jesus owes His Precious Blood" to,
• whose [Mary] merits we are saved by,
• who "had to suffer, as He did, all the consequences of sin,"
• and was bodily assumed into Heaven, which is a fact (unsubstantiated in Scripture or even early Tradition) because the Roman church says it is, and "was elevated to a certain affinity with the Heavenly Father,"
• and whose power now "is all but unlimited,"
• for indeed she "seems to have the same power as God,"
• "surpassing in power all the angels and saints in Heaven,"
• so that "the Holy Spirit acts only by the Most Blessed Virgin, his Spouse."
• and that “sometimes salvation is quicker if we remember Mary's name then if we invoked the name of the Lord Jesus,"
• for indeed saints have "but one advocate," and that is Mary, who "alone art truly loving and solicitous for our salvation,"
• Moreover, "there is no grace which Mary cannot dispose of as her own, which is not given to her for this purpose,"
• and who has "authority over the angels and the blessed in heaven,"
• including "assigning to saints the thrones made vacant by the apostate angels,"
• whom the good angels "unceasingly call out to," greeting her "countless times each day with 'Hail, Mary,' while prostrating themselves before her, begging her as a favour to honour them with one of her requests,"
• and who (obviously) cannot "be honored to excess,"
• and who is (obviously) the glory of Catholic people, whose "honor and dignity surpass the whole of creation." Sources and more.
You could avoid that by refraining from insulting Jesus' mother with your more demeaning comments.
It does not advance mutual goodwill and understanding, and it displays a repellent face to non-believers who may have unfortunately skimmed though some of this tainted dialogue.
Actually did laugh out loud on that one. Well played.
Amen to that, my Friend.
Tagline.
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