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To: terycarl; HossB86
Catholics identify as Catholic because that's what true Christians are....Catholic. That was the case for 1,600 years and still is. If you come along 16 centuries after Catholicism was instituted by Christ and decide to change the definition of the word Christian...good luck getting that through....If you are not a Catholic, you are either incomplete as a Christian or in serious error....there are both in the protestant world....but there are NO protestants who are complete or errorless Christians...NONE.

The kind of things one expects bigots to say.

You're entitled to your own opinion, but you are NOT speaking the truth here. The word "catholic" (note lower case "c") was an adjective first used by an early second century church leader (Ignatius of Antioch). The word, (from Greek καθολικισμός, katholikismos, "universal doctrine"), was used as a broad term for describing specific traditions in the Christian churches in theology, doctrine, liturgy, ethics, and spirituality. Did the Apostles EVER use the term "Catholic"? No, they did not. Over time, the term came to be used by those churches that adhered to the orthodox faith as taught by the Apostles and handed down through teaching and sacred Scripture. It was many centuries later when Rome asserted her authority over all Christendom, that the term became a proper noun depicting a singular ecclesial tradition and distinguished those churches in communion with Rome and the Pope. There are MANY churches that retain the orthodox faith who do not identify with nor submit to the Pope of Rome. Like I said, you can have your opinion about who is a Christian but that is really up to Almighty God, who alone sees the heart.

For Roman catholics today to smugly and boastfully claim they alone hold the "true" Christian faith and all others are "lesser" or "in error" is to forget that their church teaches novel doctrines unheard of in the early Christian churches, NEVER taught by the Apostles and completely absent from the divinely-inspired Scriptures.

So, who are the TRUE Christians who hold to the orthodox/catholic/universal faith? It's NOT the ones who claim to BE Catholic, though, no doubt, there ARE some genuine Christians among them. What the Reformation accomplished was to redirect the faith, once delivered unto the saints, BACK to the true roots of what Christianity really is about. Those who believe what Jesus and the Apostles taught are the TRUE Christians - no matter what they may call their ecclesial community. Get use to that, TC, eternity is an awful long time to be hateful towards ones brothers and sisters in Christ!

585 posted on 05/14/2015 11:27:52 PM PDT by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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To: boatbums; terycarl

Yet, all of the Churches that cling to orthodoxy would disagree with your interpretation of Christian belief, boatbums


590 posted on 05/15/2015 3:35:12 AM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: boatbums
Get use to that, TC, eternity is an awful long time to be hateful towards ones brothers and sisters in Christ!

I hate no one...I hate the error that has drawn peopple away from the true church of Christ...the REVOLUTION (reformation comes from within), has caused the loss of untold millions of souls....

751 posted on 05/15/2015 8:12:14 PM PDT by terycarl (COMMON SENSE PREVAILS OVERALL)
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