Posted on 08/04/2021 2:19:35 PM PDT by MurphsLaw
The promotion of Biblical interpretations serving secular, liberal political agendas of sex and race is only the latest manifestation of a centuries-old trend.
The Bible makes no explicit condemnations of transgenderism. It makes no claims as to the morality of abortion. It encourages racial reparations. Such claims can be found virtually everywhere in corporate media like the Washington Post, New York Times, or CNN, which seek to promote the various political objectives of the Democratic Party.
During his campaign for president, Episcopalian Pete Buttigieg argued that Jesus never mentioned abortion and that Bible verses censuring homosexuality were culturally conditioned, not eternal truths. The Washington Post, in turn, cites secular academics, who offer Biblical exegesis of a progressivist, feminist, and racial identitarian variety.
Of course, the Bible has always been a political document. The Old Testament was not only a religious and liturgical text but one that had much to say about the governance of the ancient kingdom of Israel. Jesus told his followers to respect and pay taxes to the Roman Empire. St. Paul described the temporal ruler as “God’s servant for your good.” (Romans 13:3-4)
For most of ecclesial history, the primary interpreters of Holy Scripture were not journalists, politicians, or secular academics, but the Catholic Church herself. Most early Church Fathers were priests or bishops. Ecumenical councils like Nicea, Chalcedon, or Lyon made determinations on theology, morality, and the meaning of the Bible.
But beginning in the fourteenth century, scholars like Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham began questioning the hierarchy’s hold on biblical interpretation. Instead, they proposed, the Bible should be under the authority of scholarly experts supported by secular political authorities. Though it would take several centuries for their ideas to proliferate, this thinking came to fruition in the Reformation and Enlightenment, and inspire trends in scriptural exegesis to this day.
This story is the focus of Scott Hahn’s and Benjamin Wiker’s book, The Decline and Fall of Sacred Scripture: How the Bible Became a Secular Book. Less than three-hundred pages, the book summarizes the central arguments of the authors’ 2012 Politicizing the Bible: The Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture 1300-1700, which is more than twice the size. This is a welcome development; it makes their important contributions accessible to a larger audience.
While the story begins with Marsilius and Ockham and their Erastian belief in the supremacy of the state over the Church, the reader will encounter many familiar faces. John Wycliffe, esteemed by Protestants as the “Morning Star” of the Reformation, argued that “the pope ought, as he formerly was, to be subject to Caesar.” The monarch would then employ “doctors and worshipers of the divine law” to interpret the Bible. Martin Luther also called for the German princes to wrest ecclesial power away from corrupt bishops and the Roman pontiff, and grant him unequaled interpretive authority. Indeed, Luther asked the prince of Saxony to expel fellow reformer Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt because of the latter’s radical teachings. Around the same time, Machiavelli viewed the biblical text as material for furthering secular political ends.
All of these men influenced the court of English King Henry VIII, who recognized that the Reformation offered an opportunity to consolidate his political power. Thus, he pursued the Act of Supremacy in 1534 to grant him “supreme” headship over the Church of England, followed by the dissolution of monasteries, closure of shrines, and seizure of Church wealth. His King’s Book then declared that individuals must be subject to the “particular church” of the region in which they live, and obey the “Christian kings and princes” to whom they are subject.
Other Englishmen would further endorse this thinking. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes asserts that there is only “one chief Pastor” who is “according to the law of Nature. . .the civil sovereign.” Hobbes also rejected many of the supernatural elements of Scripture, as well as Heaven and Hell. John Locke, dismayed by the violence and distemper caused by the English Civil War, endorsed a state-controlled church whose most important feature would be “toleration,” since religious sentiments were private matters “of the mind.” For Locke, Jesus was ultimately a political messiah whose teachings focused on the perpetuation of a “civil morality.”
There are many other actors in this torrid tale – Baruch Spinoza, J. Richard Simon, John Toland – but enough is clear from the above to appreciate the consequences of these religio-political trends. Proto-Reformers called for dethroning the Catholic hierarchy’s supremacy over biblical interpretation. The Reformers, relying on princes and kings, put that wish into practice. And political philosophers and state-sanctioned scholars normalized it. Wherever the Catholic Church ceased to exert ecclesial authority, the state took up the reins.
There has always been this tension between Church and state. St. Ambrose excommunicated the emperor Theodosius because of his execution of 7,000 citizens of Thessalonica. Pope Gregory VII excommunicated the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV because of a dispute over investiture. And Thomas Becket’s resistance to English King Henry II’s attempts to control the Church resulted in his murder at Canterbury Cathedral.
There is actually something healthy about this tension: when the state and the Church both operate strong spheres of power and influence, they serve as checks upon one another. Kings and governments cannot pursue any policy without risking moral condemnation from ecclesial leadership that will undermine their popular support. And Church corruption and nepotism can be used by secular authorities eager to usurp power.
Hahn’s and Wiker’s history tracks the growing imbalance in favor of the state, a disparity whose roots can be traced back to the late Medieval period. The ubiquitous promotion of Biblical interpretations that serve secular, liberal political agendas related to sex and race is only the latest manifestation of this centuries-old trend. To reverse it requires a return to a more ancient understanding that the Bible is, before all else, the book of the Church, rather than the state or its acolytes in the media or the academy. Catholics need to support and celebrate churchmen who appreciate and seek to realize that essential mission.
Those were all accurate statements. Where is the twist you claim?
Look at Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt
Karlstadt operated as a church reformer largely in his own right, and after coming in conflict with Luther, he switched his allegiance from the Lutheran to the Reformed camp, and later became a radical reformer before once again returning to the Reformed tradition.
From Spring 1524, Luther started to campaign against Karlstadt, denying his right to publish and preach without Luther’s authorization. In June, Karlstadt resigned as archdeacon. In July, Luther published the Letter to the Saxon Princes, in which he argued that Thomas Müntzer and Karlstadt agreed, and were both dangerous sectarians with revolutionary tendencies.
In September 1524 Karlstadt was exiled from Saxony by Frederick the Wise and George, Duke of Saxony. Luther also wrote against Karlstadt in his 1526 The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ—Against the Fanatics.
What is the twist you claim?
Did you read the next sentence?
It goes “Such claims can be found virtually everywhere in corporate media like ...”
Namely, the article agrees with you that those are incorrect claims.
“Bible was never translated correctly until Tyndale, Wycliffe, King James edition”???
What are you talking about?
Tyndale and the KJV are in early modern English, dating to the 1600s.
Wycliffe wrote in Middle English, a language foreign to you. This is the Our father in middle English
Oure fadir şat art in heuenes
halwid be şi name;
şi reume or kyngdom come to be.
Be şi wille don
in herşe as it is dounin heuene.
yeue to us today oure eche dayes bred.
And foryeue to us oure dettis şat is oure synnys
as we foryeuen to oure dettouris şat is to men şat han synned in us.
And lede us not into temptacion
but delyuere us from euhyl.
There are multiple other languages you know, besides Angleish
I’m not going to get into a lengthy debate, but let’s look at his summary of Wycliffe’s position in history...Wycliffe was a Bible translator who had the radical belief that everyone ought to have access to the Bible, and in their own language.
For that he was condemned, persecuted, etc., and after he died, his bones were dug up and burned. Just a foreshadowing of what would come in the English Reformation where St. (ahem) Thomas Moore burned Protestants at the stake.
And it wasn’t so much that Wycliffe wanted the state to be superior to the church, but that the state has a separate and defined realm of authority which is separate from the church, and the church shouldn’t be interfering in those matters.
Again, far from a radical opinion.
The twisting that I am referring to, generally, is the whole notion that somehow Roman Catholicism has been the great defender of the Bible, and that Protestants are, along with secularists, are responsible for the Bible being forgotten.
This is lunacy. And it’s propagandizing and twisting that only someone like Scott Hahn (a very intelligent former Protestant, who obviously has a huge axe to grind) is capable of.
No one is disputing that Luther had people in the more Reformed camp and especially the radically Reformed camp that he disagreed with. That’s not in dispute. It’s also entirely predictable in light of what Luther set in motion.
“while Rome requires RC rulers to exterminate all she deemed to be heretics or loose their authority.”
Another one of your blatantly false and non historical statements. They go well with the non biblical texts in the rest of your answers.
There was no such “requirement” so why are you making things up. Secular authorities saw having a common religious base as a good way to control the populace.
This was true too for the Calvinists in Netherlands, the Anglicans under Liz 1, the Lutherans under the Danish kings and the Catholic French kings.
Further afield the Safavids used it to forcibly converted iran to Shia. And the Omanis did the same with Ibadiism.
The only experiment in tolerance in a pre modern Abrahamuc religion country was in the Rzeczpospolita of Poland Lithuania where despite the majority being Catholic, all Faith’s were tolerated by the kings. That failed when, during the swedish invasion the Lutherans and Calvinists supported the Swedes.
Abrahamic religions didn’t lend themselves to multi religious states before the enlightenment era.
That’s because the authors are implicitly and at various points explicitly blaming Protestantism for the decline of belief in the Bible.
Classic projection.
halwid be şi name;
şi reume or kyngdom come to be.
Be şi wille don
in herşe as it is dounin heuene.
yeue to us today oure eche dayes bred.
And foryeue to us oure dettis şat is oure synnys
as we foryeuen to oure dettouris şat is to men şat han
synned in us.
And lede us not into temptacion
but delyuere us from euhyl.
-----------------------------------------------
fascinating
Most non Catholics are fine. The Lutherans, Methodists, Anglicans etc can discuss or even argue sensibly.
The problem are the sms, daniel, mg folks who believe that there are two covenants: one for Jews and one for gentiles. These folks believe in a white throne and that there are two gospels: the gospels we have are meant only for the jews and the gentiles got a different gospel called the gospel of grace. They believe there to be 2 covenants, 2 versions of the gospels and two churches. They are the pre tribulation rapture believers or Seventh day Adventists.
These folks go wild on these threads
Post 67
Hey, Elsie, how about a limerick?
What the heck am I missing
I can’t see it but I do hear the hissing
It follows me ‘round
And echoes the sound
Of everyone “solving” existing?
The solution is to open these threads under the caucus protection that the religion moderator gives.
Rather, it is your denial that there was no such “requirement” that is a blatantly false and non historical statement, which also goes well with biblical texts wrested in support of distinctive Catholic teachings in other of your answers. For there was indeed this “requirement,” so why are you making things up?
• Canons of the Ecumenical Fourth Lateran Council (canon 3), 1215:
Unless you are ignorant of such history, then it seems you must imagine that "Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure...to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church..But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated" does not mean Rome required "RC rulers to exterminate all she deemed to be heretics or loose their authority.” Or maybe you think "exterminate" never means kill.
Along with this is that of Rome requiring civil rulers to engaged in other means of punishment and compulsion under her claimed power of "coercive jurisdiction," such as, Pope Innocent IV, Ad extirpanda,1252:
(29) The head of state or ruler must...The head of state or ruler must......The head of state or ruler must... The head of state or ruler must... The head of state or ruler must...
More.
"Secular authorities saw having a common religious base as a good way to control the populace. This was true too for the Calvinists in Netherlands, the Anglicans under Liz 1, the Lutherans under the Danish kings and the Catholic French kings. Further afield the Safavids used it to forcibly converted iran to Shia. And the Omanis did the same with Ibadiism. The only experiment in tolerance in a pre modern Abrahamuc religion country was in the Rzeczpospolita of Poland Lithuania where despite the majority being Catholic, all Faith’s were tolerated by the kings. That failed when, during the swedish invasion the Lutherans and Calvinists supported the Swedes."
Well, I myself said "Early Prots actually had to unlearn this abuse themselves."
There are open tags on religion forums. They tend to be more civil than the average shiiteshow free-for-all.
I challenge you to prove that Peter EVER went to Rome. We know Paul stood trial there twice. “Ignore the FACT that Peter went to Rome to challenge and replace the pagan disease that ruled the world back then with a New Covenant.”, you claim. Prove that claim.
This is why the church practically lies in ruins. Just throwing out traditions, teachings, doctrines of men that can NOT be substantiated by God’s word.
THAT is our final authority, not a church. Truth is hidden under piles of man’s false, fickle, feckless opinions. Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
No replies (till now) to this presumption, perhaps since posts by Catholics so predominate, while the owner has stated that "I don’t belong to any organized religion."
A favorite ploy is to conflate The Church of all born again believers, with the catholic org church, as if they are one and the same. THAT is a demonic lie which gets used here often.
Yes, they are saying that.
NO ONE I know who is born again says such a thing!
If someone said it to you, they are in error and do not know God's Word.
If someone said it to me, I would point them to the truth.
So, you should keep from making the blanket claim. It would be the honest thing to do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.