Hello all,
Thanks for all of the posts and for challenging me to be a better thinker. Since there are many responses, as one member has noted, I will be concocting my rebuttals offline in a Word document and then posting them when time permits. This way, I won’t get so many responses before I adequately address certain individuals.
For now, I leave you all with this.
Through my scan of some of the rebuttals, many have accused me of prooftexting. One individual brought up birth control and concluded that because the Church of Christ view does not (or so he claims) line up with the ECF’s, then we cannot be the true church.
However, the use of choirs and instruments in the assembly of Catholic Churches flies against the ECF’s as well. In fact, the first instrument wasn’t used in the NT church until the 7th century by a Roman Catholic. Note that the EO have in large part retained the Acapella method of singing.
Pertinent quotes
Catholic Encyclopedia:
“Although Josephus tells of the wonderful effects produced in the Temple by the use of instruments, the first Christians were of too spiritual a fibre to substitute lifeless instruments for or to use them to accompany the human voice. Clement of Alexandria severely condemns the use of instruments even at Christian banquets. St. Chrysostum sharply contrasts the customs of the Christians when they had full freedom with those of the Jews of the Old Testament.” (Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, pg. 648-652.)
“For almost a thousand years Gregorian chant, without any instrumental or harmonic addition was the only music used in connection with the liturgy. The organ, in its primitive and rude form, was the first, and for a long time the sole, instrument used to accompany the chant…. The church has never encouraged and at most only tolerated the use of instruments. She enjoins in the ‘Caeremonials Episcoporum’, - that permission for their use should first be obtained from the ordinary. She holds up as her ideal the unaccompanied chant, and polyphonic, a-capella style. The Sistene Chapel has not even an organ.”" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, pg. 657-688.)
Aquinas:
“Our church does not use musical instruments, as harps and psalteries, to praise God withal, that she may not seem to Judaize.” (Thomas Aquinas, Bingham’s Antiquities, Vol. 3, page 137)
Chrysostom:
“David formerly sang songs, also today we sing hymns. He had a lyre with lifeless strings, the church has a lyre with living strings. Our tongues are the strings of the lyre with a different tone indeed but much more in accordance with piety. Here there is no need for the cithara, or for stretched strings, or for the plectrum, or for art, or for any instrument; but, if you like, you may yourself become a cithara, mortifying the members of the flesh and making a full harmony of mind and body. For when the flesh no longer lusts against the Spirit, but has submitted to its orders and has been led at length into the best and most admirable path, then will you create a spiritual melody.” (Chrysostom, 347-407, Exposition of Psalms 41, (381-398 A.D.) Source Readings in Music History, ed. O. Strunk, W. W. Norton and Co.: New York, 1950, pg. 70.)
EUSEBIUS “Of old at the time those of the circumcision were worshipping with symbols and types it was not inappropriate to send up hymns to God with the psalterion and cithara and to do this on Sabbath days… We render our hymn with a living psalterion and a living cithara with spiritual songs. The unison voices of Christians would be more acceptable to God than any musical instrument. Accordingly in all the churches of God, united in soul and attitude, with one mind and in agreement of faith and piety we send up a unison melody in the words of the Psalms.” (commentary on Psalms 91:2-3)
Very interesting to say the least. How can the RCC claim to follow the unanimous consent of the Fathers in birth control and fly against a unanimous view for nearly 1000 years in terms of acapella worship? The sources are telling. (See
bible.ca/H-music.htm, where all of my quotes were pulled from).
If individuals in this forum can conclude that the Church of Christ isn’t the true church because of a contradiction with the ECF’s on birth control, than the logical extension is that the RCC can’t be the true church because they contradict the ECF’s on non-instrumental worship. Props to the EOC for staying true to the early sources and NT. Of course, I would side with the EOC in terms of denying papal infallibility, affirming baptism by immersion, and making belief in the Immaculate Conception optional.
Hmmmm, two churches both claiming to be apostolic and yet coming to contradicting doctrinal claims. One believes in papal infallibility, one expressly denies it; one uses choirs and instruments, the other in most instances refuses; one holds that the Immaculate Conception is an infallible teaching, the other believes it to be a matter of opinion; one baptizes infants by pouring; the other by immersion.
In fact, Bishop Kallistos Ware has a hard time reconciling pouring with immersion:
He writes: "Many Orthodox are disturbed by the fact that Western Christendom,
abandoning the primitive practice of Baptism by immersion, is now content to pour a little water over the candidate’s forehead, or even to smear some slight moisture on the forehead without pouring any water at all…there is no doubts about the true Orthodox teaching: immersion is
essential (except in emergencies), for if there is no immersion the correspondence between outward sign and inward meaning is lost, and the symbolism of the sacrament is overthrown…Baptism by infusion (when the water is merely poured over part of the body) is permitted in special cases, but Baptism by sprinkling or smearing is quite simply not
real Baptism at all " (277-78)
The point that I’m trying to make is that the EOC and Church of Christ would side together against the RCC in terms of acapella music, baptism by immersion, and denial of papal infallibility. And yet whenever I cite quotes from the Fathers, you dismiss my contentions because you do not consider the Church of Christ to be apostolic. Well fine, deal with them from the perspective of the EOC. Tell me which of the apostolic churches who comes to contradicting conclusions about doctrine is the True Church. One is forced to conclude that at least one of these churches has departed from the fullness of the faith, something one individual in a previous post considered blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and I might add, an impossibility.
But we see from history that an “apostolic church” can in fact drift away from the apostolic teachings. And if one can “apostolic” church can drift, then logic implies that the other can too. You can’t have it both ways.
The following argument builds on itself:
- The RCC confers apostolic continuity on both themselves and on the Eastern Orthodox.
- Both churches consider only themselves to contain the fullness of the faith.
- Since 2) contains a contradicting assertion, they cannot both be true. One of the apostolic churches has drifted from the apostolic teaching.
- If it is possible for one apostolic church to drift, then it is possible for the other to drift as well.
- I conclude that both have in fact drifted in certain areas.
- Enter Church of Christ
- Here I am
