While this may sound like a party political broadcast for all its worth I cannot in all honesty see how anyone would claim that the current catholic church is in any way similar to the original church for the following reasons:
1/ Apostles - there needed to be 12 (hence Judas' replacement) and I can see no evidence that the 12 were a temporary set up.
"And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive." (Ephesians 4:11-14.)
By any reading of the new testament letters after the gospels the church was anything but united in the faith nor where they no more tossed about by every wind of doctrine - in fact as the confusion has grown (we are debating furiously basic principles such as the trinity) over the ages surely apostles and prophets are more required now than at any other time in order to unify the church(es) ; since we have thousands of churches teaching different doctrines then we can see how easy it is to be fooled by the 'sleight of men'.
A cursory reading of the history of the Catholic church will see the folly in appointing Bishops who had wildly competing theories and ideas and swung church doctrine around to their particular theological/philosophical/mythical take on religion. The apostles where completely replaced by the idea of bishops.
2/ Scripture - new scripture. The early church was constantly writing inspired things that are given the status of scripture and have been published to the world as such. Where are the new scriptures that the church of God should be producing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_bull a good reading here should identify several key differences between scripture and bull.
3/ If the church was firing beautifully well why the need of the council of Nicea? St Hilary (a witness of the time) sums it up.
"It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous, that there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them arbitrarily. ... The homoousion is rejected, and received, and explained away by successive synods. ... Every year, nay every month, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have done, we defend those who change their minds, we anathematize those whom we defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others; and, reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's ruin."
"Since the whole argument is about words, and since the whole controversy has to do with the subject of innovation [i.e., the introduction of philosophical terms not found in the scripture], and since the occasion of the discussion is the presence of certain ambiguities, and since the dispute is about authority, and since we are quarreling about technical questions, and since our problem is to reach a consensus, and since each side is beginning to be anathema to the other, it would seem that hardly anybody belongs to Christ (or is on Christ's side) any more. We are blown about by winds of doctrine, and as we teach we only become more upset, and the more we are taught, the more we go astray."
"We avoid believing that of Christ which He told us to believe, so that we might establish a treacherous unity in the false name of peace, and we rebel with new definitions of God against what we falsely call innovations, and in the name of the Scriptures we deceitfully cite things that are not in the Scriptures: changeful, prodigal, impious, changing established things, abolishing accepted doctrine, presuming irreligious things."
The doctrine of the Catholic church has changed more than any other church in history:
Doctrine of Mary
Saints
Infallibility of Pope
Transubstantiation
Idolatory - iconography
Just to mention some of the teachings of men that the early church did not teach and the current Catholic one does.
4/ The catholic church was at war with other branches of the church who had arguably a purer form of the original christianity (Celtic church set up by early monks destroyed by the Roman church) - according to Gildas the gospel was taught in the Bitish Isles in AD37 - critically they traced their authority not via Rome and had to succumb.
On great Pelagius - "The rigorous asceticism of his adherents acted as a reproach to the spiritual sloth of many Roman Christians, whose moral standards greatly distressed him. He blamed Rome's moral laxity on the doctrine of divine grace... Pelagius attacked the teaching on the grounds that it imperiled the entire mortal law and soon gained a considerable following in Rome." (Britannica)
Pelagius was strongly opposed by Augustine, the architect of medieval "Christian" doctrine. This was the great battle of the late fourth and early fifth century: Augustine (infant baptism, predestination, good works are not essential) versus Pelagius (baptism of believers, we are free to choose, good works are essential).
Pelagius 'lost' to the preacher Germanus (Roman Catholic church)
Bede described the post Pelagian Britian of Germanus:
"With plenty luxury increased, and this was immediately attended with all sorts of crimes; in particular, cruelty, hatred of truth, and love of falsehood; insomuch, if any one among them happened to be milder than the rest, and inclined to truth, all the rest abhorred and persecuted him, as if he had been the enemy of the country.
"Nor were the laity only guilty of these things, but even our Lord's own flock, and his pastors also, addicted themselves to drunkenness, animosity, litigiousness, contention, envy, and other such like crimes, and casting off the light yoke of Christ."
5/ Apostolic succesion and authority - it is an undeniable fact that several popes where so corrupt as to have no real claim to authority unless you just accept that authority continues devoid of who you are or what you do in which case we have the supposed church of God led by ....
These scriptures are interesting in that they provide a very different interpretation on the idea that Peter had the sole authority to call bishops or lead the church.
Revelation 21:10-14
1 Peter 2:2-6
Ephesians 2:19-22
1 Corinthians 3:10-11
In other words the early church was not run as the modern day Catholic church - the small Pauline faith communities are far closer to born again movements than the pomp and ceremony of Catholicicsm. Modern day Catholicism could not handle another Paul.
First mention of the Catholic Church
by Amazing1914 51 Replies latest jw friends
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Qcmbr
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inquirer
Original apostolic church ended: 100 AD
Gnostic: 80-200 AD (I'm here thinking of Dan Brown and all the "holy offspring"
because of Jesus so-called sexual relations with Mary Magdelene. :) They seemed
to be around BEFORE the Catholic church! Whether they are an insane group of
people or not! )
Catholic* Church: 325 AD
Protestant church and breakaway groups: 16th century onwards...
that. Put it capitals, all upppercase, it still means the same thing.
know everything! Follow me or die!" Doesn't make it right! If people would read
the Bible properly and see that God doesn't live in man made churches, we'd
truly be a lot happier and feel like we are with the original Church setup in 33
AD... Why does it never mention in the NT about churches being built by the
flock and you never here Paul or Timothy "the pillars of the Church" finance
them? Because it didn't happen! They met in people's houses!
house servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed,
he will be made to stand, for Jehovah can make him stand.
Romans 16:5 and [greet] the congregation
that is in their house.
1 Corinthians 1:11 For the disclosure was made to me about YOU, my brothers, by
those of [the house of] Chlo´e,
that dissensions exist among YOU.
1 Corinthians 16:2 Every first day of the week
let each of YOU at his own house set
something aside in store as he may be prospering, so that when I arrive
collections will not take place then.
Acts 20:7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to have a
meal, Paul began discoursing to them, as he was going to depart the next day;
and he prolonged his speech until midnight. 8 So there were quite a few lamps in
the upper chamber where we were
gathered together. 9 Seated at the window, a certain young man named Eu´ty·chus
fell into a deep sleep while Paul kept talking on, and, collapsing in sleep, he
fell down from the third story
and was picked up dead. 10 But Paul went downstairs, threw himself upon him and
embraced him and said: “STOP raising a clamor, for his soul is in him.” 11 He
now went upstairs and began the meal and took food, and after conversing for
quite a while, until daybreak, he at length departed. 12 So they took the boy
away alive and were comforted beyond measure.Regarding Acts 20:7, modern day churches don't have chambers and they are
only one story! A chamber is primarily a bedroom. NO KINGDOM HALLS, CHURCHES,
MORMON TEMPLES HERE! -
LittleToe
"Catholic" church, in this context does mean "universal". and as such it follows from Jesus comments that there would be one flock and one shepherd.
Methinks that he wasn't talking about an organisation here, although many groups formed to organise relief and fellowship, but rather in every land where someone feared God it was acceptable to Him.
Regardless of the slating that they get, the Roman and Orthodox churches (as well as a couple of other minor denominations) represented Christian worship for well over a millenia. They can't have done THAT bad a job, for all their foibles. Did God really leave himself without witness on the earth, as the JWs and Mormons suggest?
Personally I prefer reformed doctrine, but that's another story entirely.
Good thread, Jim
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greendawn
Catholic church refers to the early christian church to distinguish it from the gnostics and judeo christians. And it also refers to the western part of the church to distinguish it from the eastern after the split in 1000 AD. Somehow "catholic" stack with the western part.
The fact that the church developed certain beliefs and practices after the death of the apostles does not mean that these are necessarily wrong, they may or they may not be. Also it doesn't mean that if the church got certain beliefs wrong that they did so out of some bad motive. It was often a case of human error, of unintentional misinterpretation of the scriptures and at that time there were many apostolic letters and gospels circulating that later were determined to be fake.
More to the point is the fact that the church failed to christianise society and its own laxity has been a factor in this. Things went badly wrong after the pagan masses entered the church, with Constantine, most had no intention to abide by the christian ideals and morals but they were accepted nonetheless.
The church was secularised and to this day only a small percentage of the priests and monks and an even smaller percentage of the laity take their religion seriously. The rest are at the mercy of their instinctive forces and attitutes and the protestants are no exception, obviously. -
LittleToe
Gasp, so ya mean that churches are composed of fickle humans? Dagnabbit, tell me it aint so!!!!
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Undecided
I think you could change this statement like this:
churches are composed of fickle humans
Religions are composed by fickle humans.
If God really exist he hasen't taken much interest in keeping his worship easily identifiable. There are so many different views of what God expects of mankind that it's impossible to find the true one, unless of course you follow the faithful and discrete slave. We can see why God gave the GB control of all true believers.
Ken P.
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Qcmbr
Little Toe - did God leave himself without witness?
Are you saying that the Catholic church was it or could there have been other groups (The Jews have been a witness for God far longer and they survived far better than any early Christian teachings did under heretical teachings)?
Why couldn't God have left himself without a witness - as far as some tribes in the Amazon today are concerned He may as well have...?
Why do you prefer a reformed church? What logically can you get out of a reformation other than another layer of man's interpretation? I presume you mean rather than a made up church (I'm taking the assumption that you'd definately prefer a heaven restored church to a man made reformed church) but as I've just pointed out a reformation is just a made up church - it makes up its own authority and its own interpretation which has no more legitemacy than the made up church I think you are referring to. -
greendawn
I think that every sincere church (exclude all cults) has its share of divine grace in the sense that any of its members that sincerely worship God can receive the Holy Spirit regardless of the overall state of the church, of the members that make it up.
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Qcmbr
Greendawn how do you define a cult then? Aren't they sincere? How about a sincere church that taught that all other churches are cults and devoid of the spirit (indeed should be burnt at the stake as the Catholics and Protestants went through a period of doing) - would they still have aportion of the spirit? Is it possible to be a cult that through the process of time becomes seen as a mainstream (therefore sincere?) church? If sincerity is what matters then does it really matter what a church teaches? Would this then remove all traces of cults? Did the forcing by law/stake of religion by the Catholic church define them as a cult?
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PaNiCAtTaCk
Remind me again which scripture admonishes to kneel and kiss the popes ring?