Posted on 06/11/2007 8:11:53 PM PDT by markomalley
Thanks for your post. The discredited “thousands of denominations” keeps getting hauled it even thought it has been refuted many times.
Wellllllllll, it’s obviously not “refuted” to the ones redundantly bringing it up! LOL>
But, we can repeat plenty on the Proty side, too. Some things are necessarily repeated, it seems.
Much appreciate your kind words.
Ahhhh, but history has proved that the magisterical has
NOT been a seamless homogeneous imprimateur for the RC edifice.
The magicsterical has ALSO changed over the centuries as have it’s pronouncements.
Perhaps not as much as say SOME changes within some Proty circles—but more than within others.
This notion that the magicsterical even existed prior to what—AD 300? 400?
and then that THAT body was seamlessly constituted until now with totally lock-step-think-alike-eccleastical robots
is more than laughable. It strains credulity as well as the historical record to smithereens—to powder.
I realize the fantasy is comforting to the faithful. Fantasies often are. But that one won’t wash.
The historical record is too clear.
In terms of the speculative numbers . . . I’m a sociologist as well . . . just imagine for yourself the number of RC congregations. Even the number of Bishops. Add in the various orders. And the sub groups within those orders.
THAT’S A LOT of diversity.
And I suggest you avoid trying to convince me that they were all kept mostly in line by the magicsterical. People are too diverse to be herded that way. Doesn’t work. Doesn’t wash.
Hitler’s outfit showed it and he reinforced it with death camps the whole of his regime. Mao’s China showed it and he killed 30,000,000 trying to enforce group think. It does NOT work that way.
Christ Himself will have to write it in our hearts before it will work. And He hasn’t done that, yet. It is scheduled. Evidently in our era.
As, I think, Mad Dawg has confirmed, RC’s are AT LEAST as contentious a RELIGIOUS lot as any group of Proties.
And how does the Church act differently than its written documents indicate that She should?
= = =
I’m sure others could answer that better than I.
But a few things come to mind . . . .
1. LIBERATION THEOLOGY IN LATIN AMERICA.
2. ABORTION AND POLITICIANS in the USA and elsewhere with RC impunity.
3. ABORTION and RC member voting patterns in the USA and elsewhere.
4. Globalism and the culture of death a la Scuba Teddy et al.
All with VARYING degrees of ignoring, aiding and abetting, etc.
I’ve even occasionally heard of groups of nuns supporting abortion . . . evidently with impunity.
Now what was that again about this lock-step robot mentality administered by the magicsterical?
I haven’t seen it. Won’t see it this side of Heaven because it hasn’t existed; won’t exist; will not exist until Christ writes His law on our hearts.
Well, how many denominations are there then?
“Nehemiah 8:8: “And they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly; and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” (cf. Mark 4:33-34).
Acts 8: 27-31: “And he rose and went. And behold, an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a minister of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of all her treasure, had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go up and join this chariot.’ So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he said, ‘How can I unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.”
2 Peter 1:20: “First of all, you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.” (cf. 2 Peter 3:15-16).”
...Does the Bible itself teach that it can be understood by anyone who is filled with the Holy Spirit as Luther claims (elsewhere he claimed that even a “plowboy” could understand it)? This is not the outlook of the writers of the Old Testament. Indications are numerous:
Moses was told to “teach” the Hebrews the statutes and the decisions, not just “read” them to the people (Exod. 18:20). The Levitical priests interpreted the biblical injunctions (Deut. 17:11). The penalty for disobedience was death (Deut. 17:12; 33:10; cf. 19:16-17; 2 Chron. 15:13; 19: 8-10; Mal. 2:6-8). Ezra, a priest and a scribe, taught the Jewish law to Israel, and his authority was binding, under pain of imprisonment, banishment, loss of goods, and even death (Ezra 7:6; 10:25-26).
In Nehemiah 8:1-8, Ezra read the Law of Moses to the people in Jerusalem (8:3). In 8:7 we find thirteen Levites who assisted Ezra and who “helped the people to understand the Law.” Much earlier in King Jehoshaphat’s reign, we find Levites exercising the same function (2 Chron. 17:8-9). There is no “sola Scriptura” with its associated idea of perspicuity here.
The two passages above from the New Testament (cf. Acts and 2 Peter) demonstrate that this function did not change with the New Covenant. The Apostles promulgated an authoritative tradition (see next section) and they did not tolerate dissension from it (see the previous chapter on divisions and denominationalism). Once again, we find that an important Protestant distinctive is not biblical...”
from “The Catholic Verses,” Dave Armstrong, Sophia Institute Press, Manchester, NH. 2004. pp 31-33.
Please don’t disappoint me by allowing yourself to be thin-skinned or have a chip on your shoulder.
Yes, it’s still ongoing, although I don’t think it’s nonsense. But it is true that it needs careful monitoring, and this is what the Church has done that throughout the ages.
The figure of Mary is very attractive, and while the reality, IMHO, is quite sufficient, there are people who seem to feel the need to go beyond that into their own special Marian world. This may be real; or it may be wishful or even ideologically motivated thinking. I remember the awful Veronica Lukens of Queens, whose followers would go around sticking bizarre tracts under the windshield wipers of unfortunate New Yorkers.
Apparitions of the Virgin are always carefully examined: Fatima, Lourdes and Guadalupe, for example, were deemed to be real after years of serious investigation and challenges from Church authorities. At the same time, there have been many “apparitions” that have been completely rejected by the Church, and others where the faithful have been told to proceed with great caution and which are not approved by the Church for formal devotion, pilgrimages, etc. (such as Medjugorje).
It’s a very delicate matter.
It seems to be fairly common in many languages that “brother” simply means a male relative usually in the same age group. Often there was a way to make it more specific if it referred to a brother who was born of the same parents.
I understand your desire to to put this forgery in a good light, but even in it's day it was discredited.
Origen was quick to point out it's recent dubious appearance "like that of a gospel of Peter". What's really interesting though is the timing of this forgery. It followed by about 30 years the "Acts of Paul and Thecla" in this case Tertullian was able to point out who the forger was. Tertullian complained some Christians were using the example of Thecla to legitimate women's roles of teaching and baptizing in the church. How convenient, 30 years later "James the Just" (who by the way was dead) writes the protoevangelium and now we have a more submissive role for women. They no longer evangelize or confront pagans, as Thecla had. Now they remain silent and suffer quietly.
Your welcome my FRiend.
So what’s your point?
We’ve certainly done our part here on FR to bring this about, haven’t we?
Spiritual brothers. The Bible talks about Spiritual Brothers!
Red herring. As if you folks don't have SSPX, sedevacantists, the Palmarians, and various other Traditionalists. We Protestants don't consider many of the fringe churches which reject core Reformation doctrine "Protestant" any more than you consider the above "Catholic." (and please don't trot out the fictitions "30,000 Protestant Denominations baloney either as it's well-documented how bogus that claim is).
Not to mention the fact that to say the Roman Catholic Church is 100% unified on all doctrine is simply not true. While she may be unified on certain of her core doctrines, there is much variation on secondary and tertiary issues.
And feel free to link me to any document of the mainline Protestant denominations in which they claim to be the one true church to the exclusion of all others, or redact the statement.
There's nothing productive in spreading fiction about each other's churches, friend...unless you're looking to produce a fight.
And over half of that is Scriptural. I truly do wish that everyone could accept it.
The great leap is in the self-reinforcing notion that the earthly institution of the Roman Catholic Church is the sole and infallible fulfillment of this teaching.
The Holy Spirit is Mary,s spouse and St. Joseph knew it when he was informed by the Angel in a dream (Matthew 1:20). Would any sane man be so vain as to father mere human children with her? The idea of the spouse of the Holy Spirit becoming a mother to one not by the Holy Spirit, would have been repulsive, and would have had all the ingredients of sacrilege to him.
Dear Brother, here is something for you to think about...
If the Holy Spirit was indeed "Mary's spouse," then both Mary and Joseph were guilty of adultery by their subsequent marriage. Would not the idea of the spouse of the Holy Spirit becoming wed to another have been repulsive and have all the ingredients of sacrilege to Him?
My point is you might want to rethink your rationale there, friend.
Question: If one thing is clear, it's that there is one, single, visible Church that Jesus founded. This multitude of competing, conflicting denominations is no sign of God's work; therefore, it must be the work of the Evil One. Somewhere in the midst of these 30,000 denominations, there is one true church, and the rest are in sin and rebellion.
Answer: The "thousands-of-denominations" argument is very often employed to prove all sorts of things. Here are some citations from letters received from other Catholics:
How can all these denominations claim to follow the Bible yet all come to different conclusions? How can I possibly know which one of those above teach the truth when they can't even agree on what the Bible says? The Bible alone has created so much havoc in this world.
If there is only one Church, why are there so many Protestant denominations? Possibly many thousands throughout the world, as compared to only one Catholic Church? I do see it as a sign of God's judgment that there are close to 30,000 Protestant denominations.
The Bible alone can be dangerous. In fact, the Bible alone IS dangerous. Look at Protestantism: 100,000 different interpretation of the Bible, 100,000 contradictions, 100,000 different denominations claiming to have the key.
Peter said that no prophecy of the Scripture is for private interpretation. This is why you have 30,000 different Protestant denominations that all believe differently from one another. This alone should give you a clue that Protestantism is not the true Church of Jesus Christ.
So, the existence of many Protestant denominations supposedly proves that the Sola Scriptura is dangerous, that we should not try to understand the Bible for ourselves, that the church of Rome is the one true church, and of course, all the other churches are false.
Elsewhere I have written on the significance of the heterogeneity among Christians. (See That They May Be One and Disagreement among Protestants). Here I simply want to make one important addition, namely, that the allegation so often repeated by Catholic apologists that there are 20,000 to 30,000 Protestant denominations is simply FALSE . . . not to mention the double standard employed, for the Roman Church is not exactly united. There are untold factions and divisions, and diverse understanding of doctrine within Catholic groups and by different Catholic theologians and individuals.
In an article entitled "30,000 Protestant Denominations?", Evangelical apologist Eric Svendsen exposes the falsehood of this fabrication. Briefly:
*Svendsen shows that the source of this figure is the World Christian Encyclopedia (David A. Barrett; Oxford University Press, 1982).
*Barrett cites a figure of 20,780 denominations. However not all of them are Protestants. According to Barrett, Protestants account for 8,196 (and incidentally, Roman Catholics account for 223).
*However, even this figure of eight thousand Protestant denominations is misleading, for Barrett defines "distinct denominations" as any group that might have a slightly different emphasis than another group. The distinction is made on the basis of jurisdiction, rather than differing beliefs and practices.
*Barrett breaks down the Protestant bloc into twenty-one major "traditions" which are much closer to what we usually mean by the word "denominations." It is interesting that Roman Catholics are subdivided into sixteen such "traditions."
*Svendsen concludes, "In short, Roman Catholic apologists have hurriedly, carelessly - and, as a result, irresponsibly - glanced at Barrett's work, found a large number (22,189), and arrived at all sorts of absurdities that Barrett never concluded."
I for one will sleep much more soundly tonight knowing the number is closer to 8,000 than 30,000.
John 11:35. "Jesus Wept."
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