Posted on 03/12/2015 9:30:16 PM PDT by Steelfish
Nope. Ain’t happening.
Of course ostriches bury their heads in the sand.
Welcome home, everyone.
Sure. Martin Luther didn’t know anything about the Church.
Luther taught that salvation is not earned by good deeds but is received as a gift of God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin and with an eternity in Hell. The office of the pope was broken in an important break from the all powerful monarchic alliances of Europe, by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge from God. Pretty powerful stuff.
The new presence of a jesuit pope will not increase the “flight” of devout Lutherans and other Protestants to the roman church. Other than those who have always followed the great wealth the church has amassed. That will never change.
The deists who were our greatest Founders would understand this, in founding the only country to largely escape euro-tyranny. Until now, of course.
How very welcoming of you.
There are so many reasons why Luther broke off from Catholicism, pretty much all of them applicable yet today.
Until the Catholic church reforms, there will be a large schism.
It has nothing to do with wealth, and everything to do with theological truth and the Petrine Doctrine. These converts are among the most pre-eminent Lutheran theologians with a lifetime of scholarship and instruction. I venture to suggest they know far more than any of the Bible-Christians who are on FR who have this habit of throwing out snippets of scripture.
Before the Bible there was the Church. The same infallibility that informed the assembly of the books in the Bible (the books in the Bible did not fall from the skies and self-assemble) continues to this day. The canonical texts were approved in the Synod of Rome n AD 382 after hundreds of years of sorting out various writings and having them cross-checked with the received oral tradition.
That infallible authority of one Church did not suddenly evaporate eleven centuries later with the Reformation. As America’s leading Lutheran convert to Catholicism, Rev. Richard Neuhaus remarked on his conversion, “the fullest expressions of scripture are found in the Catholic Church.”
The rest is all heresy ala Joel Osteen, Billy Graham, Jim Jones, David Koresh, Moonies, Mormons, and the list never ends.
See post #8. This is all about one theological truth.
This ex-Catholic Lutheran will never turn back.
You are still a Catholic, just not a practicing one. The marks of Baptism and Confirmation are still on your soul. We welcome you back at any time.
This Catholic would become an atheist before he joins any other religion.
So some theologists convert—that isn’t a “movement”- it’s more a statement of their lost faith. Pay to play is quite appealing. Luther was right. And so was Cromwell.
Before the Bible there was the Church? That’s a good one— there was no Old Testament? And Jesus formed the Catholic Church, did He? Don’t think so, despite all the teachings. There is, after all Greek Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Coptics, etc. Jesus would be first to deride the “moneychangers”. But that is an age-old conflict between the court jews and other “banks” of the euro-states (you know people like the Holy Roman Emperors and the monarchies we escaped).
A simple perusal of the Reformation would put pay to the “our way or the highway” mentality.
Thank God for the United States of America and the deist Founders who saw the wisdom of freedom of religion, and freedom from established religion— freedom from ANY of the sects you listed, including the europolitical religious swamps that embroiled our young nation then as it does now. That said, even disparate sects can unite around the concept of freedom vs. islamofascism since islam kills infidels, and especially any Christian. The sects cannot unite with the new world socialism posited by Francis. Can appreciate catholic need to feel as one- after so many scandals and purposeful house cleaning. As one who despises the spiritual abuse of any emotionally needy person by any so-called “person” of the cloth- it’s understandable there is a need for positive PR for the roman church. It’s what they do— evangelize for the world church and world govt.
In Hoc Signo Vinces exists in other Christian denominations,Constantine’s vision aside. Deo Vindice. Et Lux Aeterna.
Nope. Francis will tell them that they’re okay where they are — no need to come over.
If any really are, they are coming from the liberal denominations, not the conservative ones.
The schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholicism happened five centuries BEFORE the Reformation and that rift has not been mended. Like you said, until or unless the Roman Catholic church reforms those dogmas that caused those splits, the schisms will remain. People may come and go, but the problem is with Rome.
Welcome, Lutherans!
P.S. - Bring your hymnals and pipe organs with you - please! (-:
The fruits of the Reformation were division and violence. Luther was a very gift theologian and writer, but if he had been put to death as Huss was, Christendom might have been spared more than a hundred years of bloodletting and lasting hatred, and the kind of political division that almost allowed Europe to be overwhelmed by the Turk. That said, only God knows why he was spared. Perhaps some greater evil might have occurred if he had not.
That Pope Frank is a real draw for the Mother Church.
I don’t know if 4 makes a landslide...
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