“Here, you haven’t dealt with the fact that this symbolic description (less rudely voiced as apostasy, or spiritual adultery) cuts across all the “Protestant” spectrum, as indicated by the sample of non-Catholic commentators that I listed.”
Because I do not care about any commentators listed in order to justify calling the Catholic Church the whore of babylon. I don’t care why you call it the whore of babylon, that was never the point of my posts.
“You seem to add the qualification that on the Free Republic forum, you hear of this interpretation only from individuals who don’t/won’t certify their authority to speak on the basis of their religious affiliation.”
Yes. I am talking about what I have observed on FR, that those who make claims like the Catholic Church is the whore of babylon don’t bother to claim any specific faith or creed of their own. Because it is too embarrassing. Do you disagree that this is the case?
“In fact, no such certification is desired nor required.”
Of course not, it is an observation about those who post on FR and claim the Catholic Church is the whore of babylon. I made this observation to another Catholic, you responded to this observation by claiming the post-Pentacostal Apostles, as anyone can read.
“Your point seems to have no value.”
I think it is interesting that those who claim that the Catholic Church is the whore of babylon don’t disclose what part of Christianity they are closest to with any specificity, and that there are reasons for that. If someone disagrees that it isn’t interesting, or that there are no reasons for this, I don’t care.
“But you also claim that those who do disclose their religious bent do not expose this view on FR. To that I can only respond, “Oh? Please prove that, when the whole drift of Protestant theology, and the need for a refuge from Catholicism stands on that symbology.”
OK, every time I see any garbage about the Catholic Church being the whore of babylon on FR I could ping anyone ineterested. It doesn’t happen often, and I never recall a poster claiming any specific group of Christianity. What might get more results is if you post a thread with a title like ‘I think the Catholic Church is the whore of babylon, and I claim the (fill in religious affiliation) and I go to the (fill in the blank) church. And see what happens.
Freegards
Ransomed: ".... those who make claims ...(but ... don’t bother to claim any specific faith or creed of their own. "
imardmd1: “In fact, no such certification is desired nor required.” (from post #35)
Again, you simply are not getting the point. The group to which I belong is that group consisting of the eye-witnesses and regenerated, sanctified believer-disciple-priests of Jesus, The Son of the (hu)Man, titled by The God as "Son of My Love," whose simplest, sufficient, and comprehensive confession is that as a bondslave persistently and completely committing unreserved total trust (present tense, passive voice, participle), in Him (Jn. 3:16, Rom. 10:9-10) and He that sent Him (Jn. 5:24), and whose salvation is on the basis that The Spoken Word is (present, no voice, indicative) constantly in ones mouth, and The Faith's Sayings continually in that ones heart (Rom. 10:8), that one agrees (aorist, active, subjunctive -- conditional, 3rd case) with Him "Jesus! Lord!"; and believes (same TVM) in the heart that The God has raised (AAI) Him from the dead, one shall absolutely be saved from perishing.
That is Paul's Gospel, as well as Peter's, and that of all through the ages likewise taught by disciplers authorized by the Apostles in a (so far) never-ending stream. At the first, this group had no other title but that proclaimed by the servant lass of Peter to them that were there in the lower hall,"Thou wast with Jesus of Galilee." Another maid said in the vestibule to others,"This (man) also was with Jesus the Nazarene." (in both instances, meta with genitive = in accompaniment). In a bit, other men kept insisting to Peter,"Thou art (one) of them." That is the only designation they had regarding Peter and the other faithful disciples: "of/with Jesus." These were the "Of Him" guys, if you want to coin a name for the group.
That group, bound into one local assembly at Jerusalem, were a church, the ones "of Jesus." They were not "The Church" as a proper noun. They were just _a_ church, a group which could be summoned to assemble locally, to congregate for breaking bread and for public instruction. They were ones who subscribed to the teaching of the written Word, partook weekly of the tokens of His Passion called to mind bu the Suppper of Remembrance, sovereignly preferred Him above ones own self and others, and appealing to The Father as His family members in concerted dedication.
"Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD, that walketh in His ways." They were followers of Jesus, Who was/is The Way, The Truth, and The Life (personified). So they were referred to as "people of The Way," not "people of a Church." Later on, in Antioch of Syria, people following this Way as a vocation were first titled "Christians," which simply another mode of saying,"of Christ." So, now they had a proper noun for a name of the vocation, which they adopted. The grouping designation still exists, and that is name applied to the group to which I count myself belonging.
Later on, schisms splintered away from it, as Paul recounted:
"We are not as many which corrupt the Word of The God: but as out of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ" (2 Cor. 2:17)(en Xristou, dative of association).
"Brethren, be my followers together, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things.)" (Phil 3:17-10).
Such splinters kept falling away: those of the Gnostics, the Manichaeans , etc.; but especially those the ones who plumped up the Gospel of Jesus with the philosophies of Platonism, and who invented an organizational entity external and superior to the autonomy and polity of the local churches, thus imposing the power node of universalism = catholicism, which error has now been given as a proper noun "Catholic". That form of government was rejected by the Donatists, Montanists, Novations, Paterins, Paulicians. Arnoldists, Albigenses, Waldenses, Baptists, Darbyites, all of whom rejected infant baptisms and transubstatiation, thus giving a blood-spattered continuous persecuted line of texts, persons, and doctrine to this day. It is the Romanists and Orthodoxen who are the splinters off the true Tree of Life, not vice versa.
These are those "of Christ" to whom Peter and Paul and Luke and Mark and Tyndale, and Owen, and Bunyan--and I, by faith--belong. We have no other name but "followers of The Christ," walkers in The Way, with His Word our Light. We do know who and what comprises the city set on seven mountains, revealed in times that Beloved John could not yet see, but which is fully visible now.
Ransomed: "Because it is too embarrassing. Do you disagree that this is the case?
No. I am not at all embarassed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but The Truth. And yes, I disagree with you on this quite completely.
As to another brief summary of a shorter creed than the completed and sealed Word of The God, I would completely subscribe to the old Roman (Pauline? Petrine?) Creed to which confession was substantive for the baptism of catechized disciples claiming regeneration by witness of The Spirit. That creed does not contain the term "catholic" -- only "holy church" referring to the local church into which the disciple is baptized by successive commissioning under the authorization of the Godhead, The Trinity. Even the "Apostles' Creed" is palatable, when the word "catholic" is removed from it, since it is a later, and unScriptural addition.
If, as a deputized Christian, one "of Jesus," as was Peter, being a constituent of a local independent fundamental baptist church assembly does not make me a "Baptist" (as a proper noun taken as perhaps superior to simply being of The Way). So you have it. The assembly I attend has more authority over a local communicant's spiritual life that the whole global Roman "Catholic" Church, lock stock, and barrel.
That's it, for now. Sorry you didn't have the comprehension to put this all together previously. But now you know.