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 ...
I checked your link and am curious (forgive me if you have already addressed this)...do you see the "veneration" that Catholics give to Mary as no more than the "respect" that Jacob gave Esau as he approached him? (That is on your list) The Scriptures clearly tell us that God hated Esau, so whatever Jacob might have been doing, he was not "venerating" Esau, now despised by God.
Bowing clearly is not the point, which can occur when you are doing a country dance. The issue is what kind of status does one properly attribute to a woman who needed a Savior (by her own admission), was simply a woman given favor, and is not ever "venerated" in the Scriptures?
I don’t disagree with any of this. I just don’t agree with Catholic reasoning that Mary is the Mother of God.
“Mary is not above my comprehension.”
But reading comprehension might be. I said, “And yet you deny that Mary is the mother of God as if God is not above our comprehension.”
“She’s dead, ya’ know?”
She’s alive in Christ, ya’ know?
Not true. In ancient mythology, demigods were the offspring of gods and people, and they had supernatural powers.
Mary is simply revered as the Blessed Mother, the one woman chosen. Not as a god or goddess.
That's why people prayed to them like Catholics pray to Mary.
She simply is revered as the Blessed Mother, the one woman chosen by God. She's not considered a goddess herself. She was simply a woman who was given a very important role by God. Why do protestants not recognize the importance of her role?
We recognize the importance of her role but know when to say “when”. Our focus is on Jesus the Redeemer. Not on Mary, or any “super saint”, or any angel or even any denomination. Glory belongs to God and God alone.
Catholics pray to God. Some Catholic prayers ask for the Blessed Mother or the saints to pray to God for us too.
Now, that's where Protestantism and Catholicism may differ. But we're not praying to the saints or to Mary as if the saints or Mary are gods.
First, I want to express my appreciation that you gave this some thought and made the key distinction I was aiming for: that a gesture like bowing (as well as genuflecting, kneeling, kissing, etc) has different meanings in different contexts. It is not to be thought of as latria, the supreme adoration given to God alone.
So thank you for that!
"...do you see the "veneration" that Catholics give to Mary as no more than the "respect" that Jacob gave Esau as he approached him?"
Think of it as being on a spectrum. The fraught relationship between Jacob and Esau is not a model of the relationship between Christians and Christ's mother. I think it is more adequately imaged in Revelation 12, especially the first and last verses of that chapter:
So the better foreshadowing of Mary in the OT is maybe that glimpse of how King Solomon treated Bathsheba. This gives us a royal Biblical cultural orientation on what sort of honor was considered apt and right for a Queen Mother:
1 Kings 2:19Here’s the King bowing to his mother. Does that mean she’s equal to God? No. It doesn’t even mean she’s equal to the King. It means he’s pleased to honor her because of her royal dignity, her relationship as Queen Mother.
When Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah, the king stood up to meet her, bowed down to her and sat down on his throne. He had a throne brought for the king’s mother, and she sat down at his right hand.
If such is true even of Solomon, it is true to an even fuller degree of Christ, Who is the King, and whose Mother is worthy of greater honor, surely,than was Bathsheba.
There's no question that in Solomon's time, the most highly favored women in the Kingdom would have been his royal mother, who sits on a throne at his right hand. (He may have had 700 wives, but a man has only one mother. This is why the King's mother--- not his wife --- is generally singled out for honor.)
Similarly, Mary is the "most highly favored" --- the Angelic Salutation tells us at least that much. Hence the Catholic term for the honor accorded her, "hyperdulia," which means the highest degree of honor given to a human person.
She who was, and is, His lowly handmaid. A lovely scene is before us: the last being first, the humble one being exalted by her Savior, her Son.
The same with the Catholic Church.
Have you ever been to a Catholic Mass? If so, you would know that we’re not worshipping Mary or the saints. They are revered, but they are not treated as gods.
Not unless one sees the confused incoherency of American congregationalism as something positive.
Every storefront has the "true" Gospel".
Jesus prayed that all his followers would be "one".
That's not too communist for you, is it?
Good grief! Project much?
False. The Blessed Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, was human. It would be a mortal sin (a violation of the First Commandment) for a Catholic to claim otherwise.
1. I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.
....” I am supposed to think for myself. God says so in Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us reason together” says the Lord. Not let some priest or denomination do my thinking for me to follow blindly.”......
A new-born Christian is directed to grow to spiritual maturity, he or she should understand that it is necessary to transition from the “milk” to the “solid food” of God’s Word....so that that a Christian may fully discern both good and evil.
It is writtten...”As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby.”...1 Peter 2:2
And here....”For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the Word of righteousness, for he is a babe.” ...Hebrews 5:13
Without study and reading God’s Word independently from what is taught and preached one will generally not get past and intellectual understanding of scripture, which is even possible for the unsaved to acquire.
When people depend entirely on what their denomination or church teaches they remain infants who need to be fed and told what to believe.....they are spiritual babies unable to digest spiritual meat.
However ‘even a baby learns to hold the bottle himself’...so holding the world of God on ones own is not too much for God to ask of all Christians.
Agreed.
I know some people don’t “get” the Great Sign in Revelation.
Oh?
Says who???
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