Thank you, Christian Unity. For being here too. The Forum is so much the better with you here.
I agree prayer is so significant. I think the sign of the cross is probably very historical which is very cool too. Sometimes, certain Protestant groups just throw out our historical roots as Christians which is an embarrassment because God has been saving sinners for a very long time for His own glory. Heck, the Sacred Scriptures is His redemptive history book in which we are privileged to be part of. I’ve discussed the issue on Mary at a Christian Fellowship site consisting of both Catholics and Protestants alike. As being Protestant, I just disagree agreeable on the issue on Mary. I think many Protestants tend to have too low of view of Mary (me included), but I hope you can understand why some Protestants have difficulties when some Catholics put Mary over and above official Catholic doctrine. I believe Mary as co-redemptive with Christ is not official Catholic dogma, right? Therefore, views on Mary vary per individual Catholics, maybe?
How wonderful would it be for you to start doing this! Imagine the looks on some of your brethren if you did this in your church!
If any Catholic puts Mary over and above official Catholic doctrine (not sure what this would look like?) then he has divorced himself from the Catholic faith.
It is indeed not “official”, but no Christian ought to have any problem with calling Mary co-redemptrix. For are we not all co-redeemers with Christ when we bring someone to Him?
My wife is Orthodox, mother-in-law is Anglican and maid is Pentecost-like non-denominational. We often pray together and even discuss faith topics and never faced any tension or serious difference. We do feel like one flock of the One Shepherd. All four pastors have visited our home to pray and none of them found any fault.
Well…let me see…how can we have a dialogue with you…when in one of your posts…you said that the discussion should be limited to Scripture alone in your proposal for a debate?
I think you need to correct yourself…CU…this website is NOT a Catholic Website.
Yep, each thread takes a life of its own. I think that was a response to certain Catholics who seem to be very aggressive in attacking my particular flavor of Christianity. I hope this particular thread is toned down some in regards to those apparent aggressive kinds of debates. Maybe this thread is more about understanding each other’s viewpoints without a need to debate these things in an apparent aggressive manner. Maybe most of our disagreements are related to how we understand how God reveals Himself to us: Sola Scriptura verses Apostolic Succession. Since we have a different understanding of final authority, we can have tolerance with each other… learning to disagree agreeably on many of these issues that seem to divide us. In all honesty, I don’t think on the other side of glory that we will be wearing Catholic hats or Protestant hats. I guess on this ecumencial thread, we should be able to share from all the different sources available to us.
Yep, I agree. I have already apologized on two additional postings regarding that anti-Catholic site. It was my posting error. We do have two additional Catholic links regarding the Pope’s statement about Luther already posted to replace that one.
That point has already been pointed out several times on this thread, each time the OP has acknowledged this as a genuine mistake. We are now using an English translation of the Holy Fathers text from zenit and vatican.va
While Catholics don’t accept the Sola Scriptura argument we do of course accept the Authority of Scripture. Therefore for most of our discussions we can refer to the authority of Scripture without causing too many issues, as Scripture does reflect Catholic Teaching.
Ok…I apoligize, I did not see the later posts that you had made the correction.
I was reading somewhere on the Internet that there are different Catholic views of authority of Sacred Scripture verses Sacred tradition. Do some Catholics have a higher view of Sacred Scripture than Sacred tradition? Or do Catholics believe Sacred Scripture is equal to Sacred tradition? We both agree that Sacred Scripture is God-breathed, but how does Sacred oral and written tradition compare to Sacred Scripture in that sense and to overall authority?
Something beautiful and rarely seen at CAF. Ecumenism has truly come of age. We are surely NOT going to disappoint our Lord when He comes again.
The Teaching of the Church would be that Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition have an equal footing in the Church. Catholics make a distinction between small t tradition, the smaller stuff like the Rosary which has developed later, and capital T Tradition, the Apostolic deposit of faith handed on in the living Church, but not written down in Sacred Scripture. I think that the Catechism, the complied teaching and explination of the Churches beliefs say it much better than I can.
Internet religious Forum sites can be a great way to grow in ecumenism. Some religious forum sites are good and some are really bad. I think some Protestant Forum sites are terrible for non-Protestants. Catholic Answers is a pretty cool site for non-Catholic Christians. I don’t understand the need for Catholics or Protestants to proselytize each other since we are siblings in Christ.
Sola fide, sola scriptura, forensic justification, once saved always saved, a rejection of Mariology, the rejection of the true Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the rejection of the real and perpetual presence in the Blessed Sacrament, the rejection of the need to cooperate with (merit) God’s Grace through works… A few pretty major differences between Protestants & Catholics just off the top of my head. Now I’m sure there are some “flavours” of Protestantism that do not hold some of these beliefs, and therein lies the problem. When one talks about Protestantism, it is necessary to know which of the 40,000 or so denominations one is talking about.
Yep, it’s probably difficult to understand what a particular Protestant believes. I thought we only had 33,000 denominations and not 40,000
. My particular flavor of Protestant Christianity probably can be somewhat loosely summarized by Reformed theology or Monergism.com, but I don’t consider myself to be staunchly trenched into those theological distinctive. I can understand why certain Protestant denominations are so much closer to the Catholic faith such as Lutherans, or maybe Anglicans, or Methodists?Yes, through the same Great High Priest, yes.
Yes, we are siblings in Christ, but there is one objective truth and it is not ambiguous.