Pope: Other Christians not true churches
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press WriterTue Jul 10, 3:59 PM ET
Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.
The statement brought swift criticism from Protestant leaders. "It makes us question whether we are indeed praying together for Christian unity," said the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, a fellowship of 75 million Protestants in more than 100 countries.
"It makes us question the seriousness with which the Roman Catholic Church takes its dialogues with the reformed family and other families of the church," the group said in a letter charging that the document took ecumenical dialogue back to the era before the Second Vatican Council.
An Ecumenical Council (also sometimes Oecumenical Council) or general council is a meeting of the bishops of the whole Church convened to discuss and settle matters of Church doctrine and practice. The word is from the Greek language "Οικουμένη",which literally means "inhabited", and was originally a figure of speech referring to the territory of the Roman Empire since the earliest councils were all convoked by Roman Emperors. In later usage it was applied in a more general way to mean all places that are inhabited by human beings, therefore "world-wide" or "general." ~ Wiki
My comment:
Q: What is something the church possesses that is unique in all religion?
A: A risen savior.
What does the Pope mean when he says all other churches have "defects?" He probably means that he believes the Catholic Church is the most perfect religious institution on earth. He sees her as the guiding home and mother of all Christianity. But the world is presently looking at an institution getting ready to cough up $2 billion in potential lawsuits over pedophilia. There seems to be a disconnect with reality here.
Over the centuries there has been within Christianity a kind of competition to achieve the purest doctrine. This sport has created many permutations in the teachings of the church. Today we have ecumenical councils that try to bring a kind of democratic application to developing some kind of agreement among the various Christian tribes. But has it worked?
Is there any one thing we Christians all agree on: something we can sink our teeth into that says we are what we say we are?
Eph. 4: 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
We often think of the "one Lord, one faith, and one baptism" as our particular brand of it: the way we baptize or the way we worship and do church. We develop apologetics to defend the purity of our doctrine and explain why everybody else is out in left field. And we rarely see any chinks in our own armor. We move into a kind of religious denial.
There is an exclusivity to the Christian message: No man can come to the Father but through Jesus Christ. He is a person, not a congregation or specific church or system of beliefs. The churches point to him. But no one of them is the only way: he is the only way. It is to him they stand or fall, and he is able to make them stand.
What? Are we bored with this function? Do we seek justification by our affiliations with believers rather than our relationship with the Lord?
Sound doctrine is a worthy pursuit ~ don't get me wrong. But we have left sound doctrine when we use it to bash those who believe in the same savior we do. Then we practice division. Then we specialize in straining at gnats and swallowing camels.
Q: What is something the church possesses that is unique in all religion?
A: A risen savior.
What does the Pope mean when he says all other churches have "defects?" He probably means that he believes the Catholic Church is the most perfect religious institution on earth. He sees her as the guiding home and mother of all Christianity. But the world is presently looking at an institution getting ready to cough up $2 billion in potential lawsuits over pedophilia. There seems to be a disconnect with reality here.
Over the centuries there has been within Christianity a kind of competition to achieve the purest doctrine. This sport has created many permutations in the teachings of the church. Today we have ecumenical councils that try to bring a kind of democratic application to developing some kind of agreement among the various Christian tribes. But has it worked?
Is there any one thing we Christians all agree on: something we can sink our teeth into that says we are what we say we are?
Eph. 4: 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
We often think of the "one Lord, one faith, and one baptism" as our particular brand of it: the way we baptize or the way we worship and do church. We develop apologetics to defend the purity of our doctrine and explain why everybody else is out in left field. And we rarely see any chinks in our own armor. We move into a kind of religious denial.
There is an exclusivity to the Christian message: No man can come to the Father but through Jesus Christ. He is a person, not a congregation or specific church or system of beliefs. The churches point to him. But no one of them is the only way: he is the only way. It is to him they stand or fall, and he is able to make them stand.
What? Are we bored with this function? Do we seek justification by our affiliations with believers rather than our relationship with the Lord?
Sound doctrine is a worthy pursuit ~ don't get me wrong. But we have left sound doctrine when we use it to bash those who believe in the same savior we do. Then we practice division. Then we specialize in straining at gnats and swallowing camels.
The truth is, we are all defective. If we weren't, we wouldn't need a savior. Some may consider the Pope "infallible." That is up to them. But he must remember that he too is defective: and so is his church.
We Christians need to be supportive of one another. "They follow not us," protested the disciples to Jesus.
"So what? They don't speak evil of me. If they are for me they are not against me," answered the Lord in Mark 9: 38, 39.
Weird. We're for him and not against him. Why are we against each other? A kingdom divided......
2 comments:
This is not a knock on the RCC or any of the big Christian institutions. I would hope if real persecutions come to America, we Christians would lose our affiliation with creeds and become on with him and one another. I do see a trap that may already be set for God’s people. In the name of harmony and getting along we may miss God. Jesus is the prince of Peace but not as the world gives it or calls it. To get along with the world you can’t stand for anything that righteous because that would be judging and condemning and hurt peoples feelings. Jesus said we are not of the world as He is not of the world. God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that who ever believes in Him will not perish. The church institutions in the name of love seem to throw out a lot of what goes with love like correction, rebuke and conviction. They have adopted the worldview of no absolutes. I don’t think this is in every case true but the majority of the times it is. As the Holy Spirit begins a purging of our lives to prepare us for the wedding supper of the Lamb, we may see stiff resistance from the hierarchies of the church. They say the last move of God persecutes the next move so if the Church institutions see a significant move of God amoung the masses they will either accept it or persecute it. If one is to tied to Church tradition rather than Christ, he may be left with the foolish virgins. Then again I could be all wet which is most likely. You fixed the tszyaly thing. good
"In the name of harmony and getting along we may miss God."
Or, in resisting "harmony", we may miss God. I don't have to surrender my convictions to love someone who disagrees with me. It seems to me there is this whole dimension in apostolic doctrine that we've missed. It's like we have a brain-block when we read those scriptures about preferring our brethren. We think our brethren are those who talk and walk just like we do. We think our sincerity makes us right. But it's not about being right. Because it's always right to love. It's more right to love than to understand all mysteries.
"They have adopted the worldview of no absolutes."
The RCC is very absolutist. In fact, they have led the way in opposing abortion. The liberal churches struggle with absolutes.
Modernism produced both literalist/fundamentalists as well as the black-hole liberals. It reduced religion to a "flatland."
Some post-moderns are still navigating the flat universe, too.
It sucked all meaning out of the modern world and has reduced us to a mechanistic universe. But this is a transitional moment. It won't be the redefining of absolutes that wins the day: it is coming to the non-dualism of God and his creation. But I'll explain that in later blogs.
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