Posted on 10/03/2013 10:24:45 AM PDT by matthewrobertolson
Martin Luther said and wrote many heretical things, but here are a mere five quotes, along with Biblical passages that disprove them.
1. "For reason is directly opposed to faith. This is why you must let reason go. It must be killed and buried in believers." [1]
(Answer: Proverbs 14:15, Colossians 1:9, Colossians 4:5-6, 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22)
2. "..[A Christian] could not lose his salvation, however much he sinned, unless he refused to believe. For no sin can condemn him save unbelief alone." [2]
(Answer: Hebrews 10:26-27)
3. "Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. ...No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day." [3]
(Answer: Psalm 4:4, Matthew 5:48, Hebrews 10:26-27)
4. "It is good that we have such a man [Jesus Christ], because God in himself is cruel and bad." [4]
(Answer: Psalm 51:1, Jeremiah 9:24, Jeremiah 31:3)
5. "I miss more than one thing in this book [Revelation, aka Apocalypse], and this makes me hold it to be neither apostolic nor prophetic...and [I] can nohow detect that the Holy Spirit produced it. ...My spirit cannot fit itself into this book." [5]
(Answer: Revelation 22:19)
References:
1. Luther's Sermon on Matthew 19:13-15. "What Luther Says," 1:485-486 (entry 1440). [link]
3. Let Your Sins Be Strong: A Letter From Luther to Melanchthon. Translated by Erika Bullmann Flores. [link]
5. M. Reu, Luther’s German Bible: An Historical Presentation Together with a collection of Sources (Ohio: The Lutheran Book Concern, 1934) 174-175 [link]
This is nothing new, and as in all Christian messages, context is paramount. There are substantive differences between Crazy Evangelical (like me) and Roman Catholic view points, but we shouldn’t let quibbles cloud the issues.
For example, and I won’t go down the whole page, but for #1, reason that is based in fallen human premises is what has to be let go. Not reason in the absolute. And Luther alleged that the Roman Catholicism of his day was basing its reasoning in fallen human premises.
Dear Mr. Blog Pimp
You could always move to Mexico. It’s a Catholic country, with all of the charming features that such places have to offer.
And then you wouldn’t have to waste time pimping your blog about idiot interdenominational crap while we’re fighting the greatest battle between Godless Socialism and Egalitarian Liberty since FDR tried to shove the 1928 Socialist Party platform up our collective b***s.
Piper, on Lewis, on ecumenicism:
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/does-mere-christianity-mean-eliminate-denominations
Don’t Stay in the Hall...
Sounds as if old Party Marty was a cafeteria Catholic priest before he decided to lust after a nun.
In reply to your post, I only recall what Fr. Donald F. Shea taught us in Western Civ 101 at St. Joseph’s College of Indiana, in my 1965-66 freshman year. Which I paraphrase: “Martin Luther brought up good questions to the Church as it existed when he wrote them. Unfortunately let to the Protestant reformation, and a hundred years of war. Martin Luther actually one his arguments, as the Church ended up correcting all of its faults he laid out in his 95 theses; unfortunately it took 100 years to accomplish that.”
Well said!
I used to be catholic, now i’m a heretic (Lutheran) apparently!
Yeah, Martin Luther was a real character from what I’ve read. Wouldn’t you have to be to go up against a monolith like Rome?
2. “..[A Christian] could not lose his salvation, however much he sinned, unless he refused to believe. For no sin can condemn him save unbelief alone.” [2]
(Answer: Hebrews 10:26-27)
So I guess Catholics also lose their salvation? If they can get it back via communion and confession then so can Protestants who confess and reaffirm their belief and love for Christ.
Nice to know that some Catholics still hold a grudge against Martin Luther 496 years after the fact.
Quite seriously, prior to joining FR I had very little contact with Catholics and knew very little about Roman Catholicism. Since joining FR I’ve been exposed to numerous postings by Catholics that condescend, sneer at, mock, and ridicule Christians who do not care to worship the way you do.
I’ve also seen how these drive-by attacks on non-Catholics are frequently posted in the ‘Religion’ section of FR where some of you folks will cry to the Moderators if anyone calls you out for picking a fight. Not unlike the schoolyard bullies who run to the teacher when the rest of the kids get tired of their antics.
Likewise, in my time on FR I’ve also seen why so many Catholics are attracted to the Democrat Party. Where your faith is hierarchical and bureaucratic it follows that your thinking on government would mirror your thoughts on faith. To that end it is no surprise that most Democrat Catholics deify Obama much the same as they deify their pope.
To be fair, I’ve also come into contact with decent people who represent Catholicism honorably and openly and who make the case for their faith without attacking the faith of others.
Unfortunately, it’s posts like yours that end up speaking the loudest.
Perhaps you might wish to rethink your approach to evangelism as I believe you’re alienating more people than you’re attracting.
You could always not read it.
I’ll echo many of your sentiments.
The strongest argument that Luther put forward, IMO, was that one’s salvation rests not in churches, ceremonies, artifacts, pilgrimages and other fol-der-rol that the RCC seems to relish. For Luther, salvation is found through “faith alone,” and this is known in ecumenical circles as “sola fide.”
I also agree with your analysis as to why so many Catholics love the liberal viewpoint. The Church is quite liberal in their outlook, and while they talk a big game on being “pro-life,” their actions say that they’re pro-perversion, pro-abortion and not at all in consonant with their verbosity on these matters.
The USCCB is starting another push for immigration amnesty. What the Catholic Church wants is for the US to become yet another majority Catholic nation, where our economic system is a shambolic mess like every other majority Catholic nation, and the population is stratified into the very wealthy and the mostly poor, with a smattering of middle-class in between. The Catholic Church loves, absolutely loves, poor people, because those are the audience to whom they are attuned.
When people learn to not follow man this type of nonsense won’t make them any difference other than to call those who put there trust in man and his organizations to turn to Christ alone.
Just doing my civic duty to remind the Average Wandering Blogger not to pimp here!
You wouldn’t want us to overlook such scandalous behavior, would you?
Didn’t think so. Thanks, and have a Papist-Free day...
Interesting.
“You wouldn’t want us to overlook such scandalous behavior, would you?”
It might annoy you but there’s nothing scandalous about it.
“Didn’t think so. Thanks, and have a Papist-Free day...”
No, I’ll have a Protestant free day though tomorrow.
“Quite seriously, prior to joining FR I had very little contact with Catholics and knew very little about Roman Catholicism. Since joining FR I’ve been exposed to numerous postings by Catholics that condescend, sneer at, mock, and ridicule Christians who do not care to worship the way you do.”
It appears you still don’t know much about Catholicism. Or maybe I should say you don’t know that much about religious turnout on FR. I’d say its about 4 to 1 Protestants as vs. Catholics on FR. And Catholics get slam dunked regularly on the religious threads, second only to Mormons of whom there are hardly any left. I read these religious threads frequently, and I’d say for every one Catholic who might say something mocking, sneering or condescending, there are a whole heap of Protestants, who are the majority on this website that dish it out way more than they ever have to take it.
Oh, I forgot, the Jews get it in the jugular a lot too. Catholics and Jews get it because many of their fellow religionists vote Dem, heaven knows why, but not any of the ones who appear on FR, so be careful what you say about Catholics here, as most are very conservative, go to traditional Latin Mass services, and think way too many of the Bishops in the U.S. are too liberal for their liking. One shouldn’t paint with a broad brush lest one day someone does it to your particular vested interest group also. Peace.
All one needs to do is look at the Religion Forum and see what group posts the majority of the threads daily. Hint...it's not the "Protestants", a.k.a. non-Catholic Christians. I do not know the ratio of Catholics to non-Catholics on Free Republic, but if thread posting is any indication, the Catholics pretty much monopolize the RF.
This thread is actually a good example of why "Catholics get slam dunked regularly" here. The poster is a newbie who has signed up to blogpimp his column that tries to slam dunk Protestants as his raison d'être. Thankfully, we non-Caths are given the freedom to respond to the provocative and inciting threads and comments and these responses are often attacked as "hateful", "bigoted" and just plain mean (boo-hoo). I imagine some people are surprised when they see that non-Caths are pretty well educated and knowledgeable about the Christian faith and Holy Scripture and are not timid in the least to challenge false doctrines and incorrect accusations. This should always be done with gentleness and respect, of course, but we are all human and sometimes succumb to responding to nastiness and condescending tones with like attitudes. As far as dishing it out and who can or cannot "take it", I'd say look at some of these threads and see who does most of the whining to the moderators.
If the Religion Forum was allowed to function as it was originally intended - to discuss current events that had a religious overtone - rather than as an offshoot of the Vatican for daily Catholic-only devotions and such or direct and purposeful exaltation of the Roman Catholic religion and the denigration of those NOT RC, then this forum might actually go back to being a place of learning, respectful discussion and encouragement. I'm pretty sure Jim Robinson didn't intend for it to be a source of discord and animosity among fellow Conservatives. I'm all for a reset. How about y'all?
Poland is a Catholic country as well. They are booming and hardcore Catholics
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