The Visible Church Was There All Along..

This Rock ^ | March 2002+ | Cindy Beck

[haole]

The Visible Church Was There All Along

by Cindy Beck “Lord,” I prayed later that night, “I’ll go wherever You want me to go. Please, just lead me to the truth.” I never imagined that I would one day become Catholic, even when I knew I could no longer be Protestant. Catholicism simply wasn’t an option. When I left Protestantism, I had no idea where I was going. I only knew that there had to be something else. No matter where it led, I had to find the truth. I never dreamed it would be in the last place I ever wanted to look. see this address for full article: http://www.chnetwork.org/cbconv.htm

[haole]

as we were troubled by the “secret rapture” teaching that was so prevalent in our Baptist church, for which we could find no Biblical support. We were surprised to learn that this teaching was less than two hundred years old and that it has never been accepted by the majority of Christian believers.

[fishtank]

Read the book "Pilgrim Church" by E. H. Broadbent to see just a part of the history of independent churches from 500 to 1500 AD in places like the Middle East, Central Asia, China, the Balkans and Europe.

[Campion]

Aspects of Broadbent's claims refuted here ... by Protestant researchers.

In addition, calling the Albigenses "Bible-believing Christians" is just silly. They were none of those things.

There have been heresies and offshoot sects all over since Pentecost. The common characteristic of them all is that they have no common characteristics, not that they were proto-Baptists.

[fishtank]

There were too many other groups outside of Rome OR the Waldenses to reject the fact that Rome had no monopoly on being the "Church".

What IS incontestable is that Rome (and Canterbury and Moscow and Luther and Calvin) ALL sought to establish State churches - which ALL brutalized any person who sought to be independent of their rule.

God Bless America for religious freedom.