Posted on 07/20/2007 8:52:53 AM PDT by Between the Lines
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Instead of taking offense at a recent Vatican statement reasserting the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, evangelicals should seize the chance to respond with equal candor that “any church defined by the claims of the papacy is no true church,” according to a prominent Southern Baptist leader.
The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote on his blog that he appreciated the document’s clarity in voicing a key distinction between Catholics and Protestants over papal authority.
He said those differences are often forgotten “in this era of confusion and theological laxity.”
“We should together realize and admit that this is an issue worthy of division,” Mohler wrote.
“The Roman Catholic Church is willing to go so far as to assert that any church that denies the papacy is no true church. Evangelicals should be equally candid in asserting that any church defined by the claims of the papacy is no true church.
“This is not a theological game for children, it is the honest recognition of the importance of the question.”
This month, the Vatican released a document restating the contention that the Roman Catholicism is the one, true path to salvation. Other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches, the document said, restating the views of a 2000 document.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict XVI headed before becoming pope, said it issued the new document because some contemporary theological interpretations of the Second Vatican Council’s ecumenical intent had been “erroneous or ambiguous” and had prompted confusion and doubt.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Light and Love cannot be separated. God is Love. God is Light. Jesus is the brightness of the Father's glory (Hebrews 1:3) - and Love is the first fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5.)
Therefore, I find it quite revealing that Ephesus is mentioned first in Revelation 2. Because if a Christian (or in this case, a church) loses its primary focus, its first love, i.e. fails to love God first above all else - darkness comes.
Nevertheless I have [somewhat] against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. - Rev 2:4-5
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great [is] that darkness! - Matt 6:22-23
One who condemns his neighbor for not believing Christ exactly the same way is not loving him and is therefore at risk of darkness. Conversely, the one condemned has the opportunity to forgive, to return love for hate, good for evil.
My apology, dear DarkSavant. I don’t have a clue why I pinged you.
As opposed to the king’s men, who drew and quartered Jesuits and cut off the ears of Puritans?
The First Presbyterian Church of Rome?
Gen 3 vs. Gen 1 is a theme that seems to confuse the metaphor-challenged atheist and it seems that these two versions of the Creation are challenging you, too.
Gen 1:27,28 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Mat 19:4-9 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”
He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
Every human is created in the image of God. Am I not God’s temple and doesn’t He dwell in me as He does in my husband? I know Whom I trust for my reconciliation to the Lord, I know Who circumcised me, Who covers me, in Whom I have life rather than death, Whose Spirit dwells next to mine, Who is the “Head of all rule and authority” to me long before I became my husband’s wife.
And we know that Corinthians 11 is unique because it opens by speaking of traditions:
1Co 11:1 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
1Co 11:2 Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.
1Co 11:3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.
We understand that we don’t really understand what Paul meant when he said that a woman should have power over her own head for the sake of the angels. We should understand that Jesus prayed in the Temple, that he most likely used a prayer shawl, and it was not a shame for Him.
However, those of us who have looked into the original as best as we can, understand the depth of the meanings of the words kephale, “head” and doxa, “glory.” We should go out in front, and reflect the image of God in worship and submission to one another. We certainly believe that the whole is of God.
Because we also know Christ’s teaching about submission: loving and willing submission doesn’t make anyone “subordinate,” that we should submit one to another, and try to make ourselves the least, not the greatest. Christ showed He was one with the Father in submitting to His will. We are one in the One, different members in the body “holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.”
BTW, you haven’t explained whether women with alopecia from disease or chemotherapy are shamed by being bald, and can’t pray.
As always, sister in Christ, you have put into order and into words of blessings the thoughts on my heart.
Grace, Peace, and Strength to you this Lord’s Day.
X
In #183, I assumed you implied a question on the order of “What do I think?”
So I answered.
Wiley/Culbertson is a standard, well-received text on Christian Theology. In its day, very widely used. You should care, because you would want to know what another side, at its best level, is saying. Also, it is a concise summary quote, so you can get this perspective without much effort.
No, I don't think Christians are all united to the eye of the unbeliever and I think it's because of believers magnifying the importance of differences in the way we conduct our services. I DO believe we are united in status before the Lord as His "church" if we are born-again. I DO believe we are united in purpose -converting the unsaved.
I wasn't asking if we are "united [in] the eye of the unbeliever". I was asking if you think we are [in actuality] as united as Christ prays for us to be in John 17.
Here's what the Apostle Paul says: "I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. (1 Cor 1:10)
You are a Baptist and I am a Catholic. Presumably, then, you do not believe the line the Nicene Creed: "We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins", since you think baptism is merely a symbol, and not actually efficacious for the forgiveness of sins. But the Catholic Church, from the very beginning has taught that our sins are forgiven in baptism. (See here.) So we are not "perfectly united in mind and thought", because we disagree about basic doctrine [the doctrine of baptism is just one example of the many doctrines about which we disagree].
We disagree about authority. I believe that your Baptist pastor does not have true authority, because he has no mandate from the Apostles (Acts 15:24; Romans 10:15); you [presumably] believe that the bishop of Rome has no true authority. So because we disagree about authority we are not "perfectly united in mind and thought".
We disagree about the sacraments. You think there are only two: baptism and the Lord's Supper. The Catholic Church teaches that there seven. You think [presumably] that the Lord's Supper is merely symbolic. The Catholic Church teaches (and has always taught) that bread and wine, when validly consecrated, actually become the Body and Blood of our Lord, such that we eat His flesh and drink His blood, as Jesus teaches in John 6, and Paul teaches in 1 Cor 11. And I have already pointed out how we disagree about baptism. So because we disagree about the sacraments, we are not "perfectly united in mind and thought".
And those are the three "bonds of unity": unity of faith [i.e. agreement on doctrine], unity of worship [i.e. agreement on the sacraments], and unity of ecclesial authority [i.e. agreement on who has ecclesial authority]. So long as we are disagreed in any one of those three areas, we are not "perfectly united in mind and thought", and not as united as Christ prays (in John 17) that we would be. And Rodney King style pleas neither eliminate these differences nor eliminate our obligation to seek to resolve these differences and become "perfectly united in mind and thought".
-A8
Top o' the nice cool Sunday morning to you!
Standard for whom? Well-received by whom? Anybody, including heretics, can write a book, as St. Vincent of Lerins makes clear.
You should care, because you would want to know what another side, at its best level, is saying.
I do care in *that* sense. But if the authors do not have the approval of the magisterium, then by what authority do they presume to speak for the Church and teach the Church?
-A8
It is enough that you care in that sense.
Now you know what another side thinks and how they arrive at it.
"There exists a broad consensus among scholars, including most Catholic ones, that such churches as Alexandria, Philippi, Corinth and Rome most probably continued to be led for some time by a college of presbyters, and that only in the second century did the threefold structure of become generally the rule, with a bishop, assisted by presbyters, presiding over each local church."
[Sullivan F.A. From Apostles to Bishops: the development of the episcopacy in the early church. Newman Press, Mahwah (NJ), 2001, pp. 13,14,15]
Please list all the names of this "magisterium" of yours and their credentials and just where their authority comes from???
What a lovely idea! I can't wait until your side starts finding out what our side believes before they attack it.
which would mean for a man to pray uncovered he’d have to remove his hair and be bald. the whole hair is a cover is a nonsense interpretation, every other orthodox church has done this since day one, only in 1920s america was this ever questioned. go into any famous monastery and they’ll still ask women to do this and the bishops also remove their head wear during prayer spots in the liturgy. it’s only liberal churches where you find this practice condemned and be honest it’s not because people in the 1920s suddenly became aware of the hair=a type of cover verse it was because culture was telling people that it was wrong for women to wear covers.
now we’ve got folks on the forum who deny the church tradition on this and those who reject the Holy Scripture.
i’m gonna go ahead and follow both.
btw the text in Russian was far less confusing to folks i’ve asked to read it; there’s definitely flaws in the English possibly intentional.
actually making scripture subjective and writing parts off of it as ‘cultural’ is the same thing the gnostics did.
fact is protestants only like scripture which they choose off the bible buffet and they circumvent the rest in ways that would make liberal catholics heads spin.
-A8
well said.
i found a bunch of links on it too it seems that only in america and europe has this custom vanished.
yet protestants who CLAIM to hold scripture in the highest regard run rough shod over it as long as they’re siding with society over Catholics.
scripture teaches we must both be baptized and believe as Christ himself commanded
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