It Came From The Roman Church: Catholic horror stories told by Evangelicals & how to respond

This Rock/ Catholic Answers via Petersnet ^ | David Mills

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Ok, you have been posting this morning, where are the scripture references you said you would give me today.

Are there any?

Becky

[Matchett-PI]

"Yeah, I've even heard of that one. I've read Fox's Book of Martyrs. Of course, all of the Protestant atrocities were conviently left out."

That was Teresa's complaint, too. She wrote:

"Calvin and Luther were not very big on religious freedom either --- both Catholics and Protestants burned witches at the stake".

To save time, my reply to her will serve as my reply to you [This is an excerpt]:

Luther and Calvin had been indoctrinated by, and steeped in Roman catholicism all their lives. De-programming takes time.

But God is patient, and as events unfolded, it is clear that he considered it more needful to reform his church back to the origional theological doctrines first.

And as his reformation proceeded, he showed the ones he was using to do it (and their students) many biblical principles, including the fact that he created all men equal and that they and receive their rights and freedoms (including religious freedom) from him.

Eventually, those of that "REFORMED" church came to America. Luckily, of the 55 Framers of the Constitution, 45 of them were very strong Calvinists. They made absolutely sure when they drew up our founding documents, that no religious tyrant of ANY stripe would ever be able to gain absolute political power in America.

The non-establishment clause of the First Amendment absolutely prohibits the theological doctrines of the Bible to be explicitly woven into the fabric of government.

However, America was founded on biblical *principles* by Christian men who had a deep commitment to the closed canon of Scripture.

The Biblical view of the world -- the existence of God who is active in human history, the authority of the Scripture, the inherent sinfulness of man, the existence of absolute objective morality, and God-given transcendent rights -- was the philosophic foundation of the Constitution. The American community presumed a common set of values which were principally biblical.

The founding principles of the Republic were clearly informed by biblical truth.

As long as America's Constitution and Bill of Rights are upheld, we will have nothing to fear from tyrants who falsely teach their "faithful" that the infallible Word of God is a "dangerous" book, and refuses to retract its official denial of religious freedom and what it considers to be its right to use violence to force people to accept its doctrines, just has in the past.

The only thing that prevents it from enforcing its religion on the world, is absolute political power.

God, himself, is the inspiration for our Constitution. Those who want to dictate to, and dominate others, hate it....

....just like they hate the true God and his infallible Word, the closed canon of Scripture.

[constitutiongirl]

When you say 'closed cannon of Scripture' are you referring to the first time the cannon was closed or the second time in the 1500's?

[Matchett-PI]

CG: "When you say 'closed cannon of Scripture' are you referring to the first time the cannon was closed or the second time in the 1500's?"

Heb. 1:1-2:

"In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son...".

God's speaking to us by his Son is the _culmination_ of his speaking to mankind and is _his greatest and final revelation_ to mankind.

(The exceptional greatness of the revelation that comes through the Son, far exceeds any revelation in the Old Covenant as noted over and over again in the first and second chapters of Hebrews.)

Once the writings of the New Testament apostles and their authorized companions were completed, we have everything that God wants us to know about the life, death, & resurrection of Christ, and its meaning for the lives of believers _for all time_. In this way Hebrews 1&2 shows us why no more writings can be added to the Bible after the time of the New Testament. The canon is now closed.

It is not accidental that the apostle John wrote that warning (about adding or subtracting to the words of Scripture) in the very last chapter of the very last book of the Bible. [Rev.22:18-19]

For many books, their placement in the canon is of little consequence. But just as Genesis must be placed first (because it tells us of creation), so Revelation must be placed last (because its focus is to tell us of the future and God's new creation). The events described in Revelation are historically subsequent to the events described in the rest of the New Testament and require that Revelation be placed where it is.

Thus, it is not appropriate for us to understand this exceptionally strong warning at the end of Revelation as applying in a secondary way to the whole of Scripture.

Placed here, where it must be placed, the warning forms an appropriate conclusion to the entire canon of Scripture. Along with Heb.1&2 and the history-of-redemption perspective implicit in those verses, this broader application of Rev.23:18-19 also suggests to us that we should expect no more Scripture to be added beyond what we already have.

The warning God gave through John in Rev.22 shows that God himself places supreme value on our having a correct collection of God-breathed writings, no more, no less. He's quite able to see to it that we have them. The closed canon we have today is God's doing. What we have didn't depend on men.

In fact, some of the earliest writers CLEARLY distinguished the difference between what they wrote and the writings of the apostles. In A.D.110, Ignatius said, "I do not order you as did Peter and Paul; THEY WERE APOSTLES, I am a convict; they were free, I am even until now, a slave".

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would see to it that the disciples would be able to remember and record without error all that he had said to them when he was with them. [John 14:26; 16:13. See also: 2 Pet.3:2; 1 Cor.2:13; 1 Thess.4:15; and Rev. 22:18-19].

So in compiling the canon of Scripture, the work of the early church was not to bestow divine authority or even ecclesiastical authority upon some merely human writings --- but to RECOGNIZE the divinely authored characteristics of writings that already had such a quality.

This is because the ultimate criterion of canonicity is divine authorship --- (as Jesus promised) --- NOT human or ecclesiastical approval.

CAVEAT: I realize that unless one has "the mind of Christ" he will consider the infallible Word of God (Scripture) as "foolishness" and won't be able to discern spiritual truth from error, so what I wrote above is only for those who have "ears to hear".

[Khepera]

How do you deal with it?

I womp em on the hade with a great big stick.

[Desdemona]

You DO know that one of the conditions for inclusion in the New Testament was that the "book" had to be written in the first 100 years after the Resurection (which is how Revelation ended up in the book, or so the story goes). Good heavens, I hope so.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

The First Century Magisterium (Jesus, James, John, Peter, and Paul) on Absolute Predestination is every but as explicit, defined, and infallible as ANY magisterial teaching thereafter, including the magisterial teaching on contraception. Any deviation therefrom is, ergo, absolute Apostacy. ~~ The way some people interpret them, at any rate.

Sorry, that's like saying that someone could "interpret" the Second Century Magisterium to not be condemning contraception.

In either case, your "interpretation" simply amounts to a denial of the explicit, defined, and infallible teaching of the Church Fathers.

[nickcarraway]

Jesus didn't sit down at a Smith Corona and type up the Bible! Some people act as if He did.

[nickcarraway]

Here's an article by a Bible Protestant about contraception:

Contraception: The Tragic Deception

[EODGUY]

Absolutely!

[Matchett-PI]

"You DO know that one of the conditions for inclusion in the New Testament was that the "book" had to be written in the first 100 years after the Resurection"

Jesus' promise to his apostles that he would send them the Holy Spirit to remind them of "everything I have said to you", is a guarantee that what they wrote is "theopneustos" [God-breathed]. No writing after the death of the 12 can be canonical. Only the 12 can attest to the truth of a writing about Christ. When all the eyewitnesses had died, the canon of revelation about Christ ceased.

In A.D. 367 the Thirty-ninth Paschal Letter of Athanasius contained an exact list of the twenty-seven New Testament books we have today. This was the list of books accepted by the churches in the eastern part of the Mediterranean world. Thirty years later, in A.D. 397, the Council of Carthage, representing the churches in the western part of the Mediterranean world, agreed with the eastern churches on the same list. These are the earliest final lists of our canon of Scripture.

[Lady In Blue]

Jesus didn't sit down at a Smith Corona and type up the Bible! Some people act as if He did.

LOL! To hear some people,you'd think He did!

[Theresa]

"Well it's no wonder you don't see the truth. "

Ah brag all you want. It is the rebellious individualism of private judgement that has brought about "as many docterines as there are heads."

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

In either case, your "interpretation" simply amounts to a denial of the explicit, defined, and infallible teaching of the Church Fathers. ~~ Oh well, explicit, defined doctrine according to your interpretation, at any rate.

Same thing the Liberals say about the explicit, defined Moral Doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church -- "oh, sure, according to you!!"

Bottom line is, just like the Moral Liberals, you are prepared to prevert and deny the Magisterium of the First Century Fathers, simply because you personally do not like what they taught.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

prevert pervert

[Polycarp]

you have been posting this morning

1:30 am is technically this morning but for me it was definitely last night ;-)

[Polycarp]

From this thread, Contraception: The Tragic Deception, an Excellent protestant perspective on contraception!

Please, I beg you all, to read this WISDOM carefully!

Today, I am among the small but growing Protestant minority who deems conception God's domain and contraception a devious intruder. If loss of human life is a major indicator, contraceptives that contain birth control components comprise the most deadly force in history. The Pill (in over 40 varieties), Norplant, Depo-Provera, Prostaglandins, and the solely abortifacient intrauterine devices (IUDs) have, by research estimates, killed in America alone over 150 million unborn citizens after their conception.

If contraception bears homage to the spirit world, as I contend, that helps explain the mystery of today's passive Church amidst an unspeakable holocaust, and it helps explain the immense divide between our boisterous pro-life rhetoric and our ineffectual pro-life action. It also helps explain our readiness to apply the same regrettable response of nonintervention that our Church forebears applied to slavery in America and to Nazism in Germany.

As did they, we have yielded to a spiritual stronghold, and the senior villain is contraception rather than the surgical abortions on which pro-lifers continue to focus. Satan knows those abortions (or the chemicals ready to supplant them) are secure so long as contraception is secure. He knows the annual loss of 1.3 million American infants to surgical mutilation today is far below the number of unborn children killed in the U.S. by abortifacient birth controls, and that loss does not address the capabilities of contraception to tempt, cripple, and destroy incrementally. My generation has yielded to contraception because the portion of our hearts ordained for children has found other interests, and as a result we are less detached from abortion industry values than we want to assume.

Maybe now that this is being said by protestants this issue will be taken more seriously here on Free Republic.