Any criticism of the RCC is directed at those teachings — like those of the self-appointed, self-anointed charismatic new “Apostles” — that have no basis in the traditions handed down from the apostles in Jerusalem and recorded in the pages of the New Testament. The Roman Catholic Church is not a special target for me or Sharon.
For the record, Sharon’s statement around the 44:00 mark about which you claimed she lied was taken out of context. Her comment referred to the story the caller was telling of her trouble as a teen getting help at a Methodist church with loneliness and anger at God after her mother’s death. Sharon’s point was that this was not due to a doctrine unique to the UMC.
]]>That’s a fine distinction. A prayer for Mary’s intercession is still addressed to Mary, and it still has no scriptural basis. Asking the dead for help is completely different from asking the living.
My point stands: I’m sorry you take offense but we have no bias against the Church.
]]>Paul, I completely agree with your opinion of Stephen Hand, Bill Kennedy, and Michael Corbin. But please don’t assume that my criticism of Roman Catholicism is rooted in misunderstanding. I was married to a Roman Catholic for ten years and was myself a Roman Catholic for a number of those years.
That doesn’t mean I’m an expert in the catechism, but I’m familiar enough with it and with scripture to know that the pope is not infallible, we do not pray to saints, Mary was born with original sin like the rest of us, and she is not the Mediatrix of all graces.
Over the last five years, we’ve been just as critical of so-called New Apostles, Word/Faith teachers, and the Emergent Church, if not more so. We have no bias against the church of Rome.
]]>I come from a Protestant background, but I sympathize with you and understand your frustration. I have collaborated with several Catholics (Michael Corbin, Stephen Hand, and William Kennedy) and I can say, without reservation, that they have a better grasp on the nature of the antichristic movement in the world today. It’s obvious they are being scapegoated (much like the jews were with the Protocols of Zion forgery), and Protestant prejudices are playing right into the hands of manipulators who don’t publicize their existence.
The elites here in America are a predominantly WASP ruling class who are scared to death of Catholics as a potential political force to be reckoned with, so you can expect the slander to escalate. They’ll play us off of one another, even though we share the core precepts and non-negotiables of Christianity that were established by Jesus Christ and the Apostles.
I am happy with my current Church home and I don’t believe I’ll be changing denominations any time soon. That being said, I won’t go as far as religious bigots who claim that Catholics are not Christian. It should be noted that Ignatius of Antioch referred to the Church as Catholic before the New Testament came together. So we both share a spiritual heritage that goes back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles.
Most people won’t say that and don’t believe that because, simply put, they don’t know the history behind the formation of their own canon. Pure and simple.
Finally, for 1700 years, the Catholic Church was the only Christian church there was. All the other groups claiming to preserve the Apostolic faith during the medieval period, upon closer examination, were heresies, mainly of the gnostic variety. What does that means? If the Catholic church is not Christian, then Jesus was not correct when he said the gates of hell would not prevail against His church.
Oh well, I guess pseudo-researchers like Charles Wilcox and Eric Jon Phelps will be calling me a Jesuit spy, or whatever, now.
]]>G.K. Chesterton once pointed out that the Reformers always jettisoned those aspects of Catholicism they did not understand, and that may have been folly.
Given Chesterton’s sound advice, it’s probably best not to classify a tradition or aspect of Catholicism as unscriptural just because you don’t understand it.
You have a tendency to attack tradition, which is very dangerous; we a beneficiaries of tradition because it was through tradition that the New Testament was accepted as canonical.
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