Posted on 01/31/2005 5:25:06 PM PST by Diago
So, did Jesus found the church? No, but...
No, Jesus did not found the church if by church we mean the structured institution we have come to know over the centuries. He did not give his disciples a blueprint concerning governance, sacraments, and laws. To think that way is not only simplistic, but misguided.
Even more radically, Jesus could not have founded the church because the church had already existed for a long time; it was God's people, Israel, the "assembly of God." Jesus' ministry was not about the establishment of a separatist sect or a new religious community that would leave Judaism behind and spread to the Gentile world. What the thoroughly Jewish Jesus, rooted in the prophetic tradition of his people, did was to call on his fellow Israelites in order to gather them into the community of the end time- a community renewed and restored through response to his message of God's mercy and acceptance of the last and excluded. That's what he called the kingdom of God.
There is no indication that Jesus forsaw a community seperated from Israel, engaged in a mission to the Gentiles, becoming predominately Gentile and developing the conciousness of being a different religion. this began to happen after Jesus' death and resurrection with the accompanying claims by his disciples that Jesus had been made Lord, had given them the Holy Spirit and sent them into mission first to Isreal and then increasingly to the Gentiles.
Not surprisingly:
Father Tosco, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, is a professor of Scripture at St. Mary Seminary and Graduate School of Theology in the Diocese of Cleveland.
You can e-mail a letter to the editor at editorial@catholicuniversebulletin.org
ping!
Hmmm ... Interesting suposition. So, Jesus, having no foresight would be totally surprised by what came about? He had no idea that the jews would not take to following Him as the messiah? Poppycock.
this began to happen after Jesus' death and resurrection .....
That it did .... a radical change to the 'church' caused by a radical event within the church, the payment of our sins' by the Son of God.
...with the accompanying claims by his disciples that Jesus had been made Lord, had given them the Holy Spirit and sent them into mission first to Isreal and then increasingly to the Gentiles.
This is a Catholic teacher? He makes it sound like the "claims" of the apostles are not according to God's plan, that Jesus had no mention of the coming of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus's rising from the dead may be just another 'claim' by the apostles.
These sort of writers scare me ... they should be locked up, at least until they read the scriptures 20 times and ask for the blessing of the Holy Spirit themselves. This fellow's writings show a strong 'absense' of any real knowledge of a Christ lead life.
More ambiguity where it has already been clearly defined.
Oh my what a post..who makes up this stuff?
Jesus Christ did found the Catholic Church!
Father Tosco, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, is a professor of Scripture at St. Mary Seminary and Graduate School of Theology in the Diocese of Cleveland.
>>There is no indication that Jesus forsaw.......<<
Ah, excuse me Father Looney, He's GOD. He forsaw everything.
Duh!
(we're gonna get the trolls on this thread!)
From Lamentabili Sane, Pius X July 3, 1907 :
"...Therefore, after a very diligent investigation and consultation with the Reverend Consultors, the Most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals, the General Inquisitors in matters of faith and morals have judged the following propositions to be condemned and proscribed. In fact, by this general decree, they are condemned and proscribed...
32. It is impossible to reconcile the natural sense of the Gospel texts with the sense taught by our theologians concerning the conscience and the infallible knowledge of Jesus Christ...
34. The critics can ascribe to Christ a knowledge without limits only on a hypothesis which cannot be historically conceived and which is repugnant to the moral sense. That hypothesis is that Christ as man possessed the knowledge of God and yet was unwilling to communicate the knowledge of a great many things to His disciples and posterity.
35. Christ did not always possess the consciousness of His Messianic dignity...
52. It was far from the mind of Christ to found a Church as a society which would continue on earth for a long course of centuries. On the contrary, in the mind of Christ the kingdom of heaven together with the end of the world was about to come immediately...
55. Simon Peter never even suspected that Christ entrusted the primacy in the Church to him...
60. Christian Doctrine was originally Judaic. Through successive evolutions it became first Pauline, then Joannine, finally Hellenic and universal.
etc.
Jesus was a pretty good rabbi, alright.
You've had some close competition from Albany, LA and Seattle but I think it's time to make it official.
You live in the most heretical diocese in the United States.
I'm sorry.
your comment is 'more ambiguity' ... i.e. no comment of value in either direction.
Seems to me Jesus knew the future quite well...Peter was told that he would deny Christ thrice before the cock crowed...and that is one example of many.
Amen! Keep "teaching the truth in love".
Spoilsport! ;-) (I've always considered it more sporting to toy with heretics a bit before demolishing them, much like a cat plays with a mouse. You've gone straight for the jugular ...)
>> Spoilsport! ;-) <<
Oh well golly you are right!
Next time I'll leave um for you to play a while, FRiend!
Jesus is God, Fr. Tosco ... He knows all things eternally.
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