A Simple Timeline Proves the Early Church was Catholic

[Tomb54]

Originally Posted by JustaServant
I could, but the fundamentalist/evangelical response is ‘well, Constantine changed the Church and all these pagan elements came in after 300 years’. I limit this to one generation (roughly 80 to one hundred years). That way we can see the events through the eyes of the people who actually experienced them, or were the children and grandchildren of those early christians. What were they like? How did they think? What did they experience. To walk in their shoes for a short time and see what it was like from the horse’s mouth. How did they view two most important issues that divide Catholics and evangelicals: the Eucharist and Baptism?
Staying within that first generation reveals much.

This is what the Mormons say as well.

Even these statement say allot about their beliefs. If they are right in their claim then they are saying Jesus lied to us and the Gate of Hell did prevail against His church and as they say He had to start over with their Church. I am not sure I would like to say Jesus was lying.

 

[lax16]

Originally Posted by JustaServant
I could, but the fundamentalist/evangelical response is ‘well, Constantine changed the Church and all these pagan elements came in after 300 years’. I limit this to one generation (roughly 80 to one hundred years). That way we can see the events through the eyes of the people who actually experienced them, or were the children and grandchildren of those early christians. What were they like? How did they think? What did they experience. To walk in their shoes for a short time and see what it was like from the horse’s mouth. How did they view two most important issues that divide Catholics and evangelicals: the Eucharist and Baptism?
Staying within that first generation reveals much.

Even these statement say allot about their beliefs. If they are right in their claim then they are saying Jesus lied to us and the Gate of Hell did prevail against His church and as they say He had to start over with their Church. I am not sure I would like to say Jesus was lying.

I agree. Even if I was quite sure that the power of the Church somehow fell away I would want to make quadruple sure because I would have to at least think about the meaning of Jesus’ words in more than one way.

 

[Memaw]

If anyone has watched Coming Home on EWTN you will see that all faiths who look for the true church come home to the Catholic Church. The truth is out there and if you search you will find it. People at high levels of other denominations convert after seeking the truth. They tell why they converted and the erroneous belief they were taught. Even some stray Catholics come back to the CC.

I think your referring to the program called “Journey Home” on Monday night at 7 pm CST on EWTN Catholic Cable Network. Very interesting !! God Bless, Memaw

 

[jimpres]

Yes, my error it is Journey Home with Marcus Grodi. A very good program to watch. Give those who are not Catholic a view of why non Catholics convert to the true church.

 

[KathleenGee]

Yes, Mr Grodi a former Presbyterian minister…an excellent and thought provoking program, low keyed.

I think Catholics can provide all the historical information and documents but there are those who will refute no matter what. So it is a matter in the end of faith.

 

[jimpres]

True many faced with facts still will not change there opinions. That is the human condition.
But if they search for the truth and follow it the only church created by Jesus was the Catholic church.

 

[Nicea325]

Of course Paul was teaching the Lord’s Supper in the correct form, but (IMHO) it didn’t look anything like the Catholic Eucharist…either in form or substance.

nor did he explain a bloodless manner of eating transubstantiated bread…he let those who didn’t believe in him go away

It has nothing to do with a new and more modern approach. It has everything to do with the elimination of man-made (as opposed to divinely inspired) teachings and that begins w/o making the assumption that the CC can not err

You should realize that devout Protestants also want to serve the Lord according to his will

You should realize that many devout Protestants will also claim that the Holy Spirit led them out of the CC…I don’t find your testimony somehow more reliable. A mere 500 years Christians started to stand up against the abuses of the CC. This forced the CC to reform itself and also led to new denominations. Now Protestants number about 800 million…and are still growing fast. Tis easy how some might see that as a powerful act of the Holy Spirit

800 million? And how many divisions occur on a yearly basis? Still does not change the facts most are still divided and growing and not in accord with each other. The number is minor compared to its total LACK of unity. Nothing to hold one’s head up!

 

[JustaServant]

I think Catholics can provide all the historical information and documents but there are those who will refute no matter what. So it is a matter in the end of faith.

I wouldn’t call that faith, I would call that willfull blindness.

 

[Memaw]

I wouldn’t call that faith, I would call that willfull blindness.

As Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, " The truth is the truth even if no one believes it and a lie is still a lie even if everyone believes it." If you have the courage, JustaServant, I suggest you watch, Journey Home, tonight and every Monday evening at 7 pm, CST, on EWTN Catholic Cable Network. You might see WHY so many protestant ministers (as well as others) are coming back home to the Catholic Church. God Bless, Memaw

 

[JustaServant]

As Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, " The truth is the truth even if no one believes it and a lie is still a lie even if everyone believes it." If you have the courage, JustaServant, I suggest you watch, Journey Home, tonight and every Monday evening at 7 pm, CST, on EWTN Catholic Cable Network. You might see WHY so many protestant ministers (as well as others) are coming back home to the Catholic Church. God Bless, Memaw

Our wonderous cable system doesn’t carry EWTN. But we can still watch it online.

I am a former Baptist pastor who returned to my Catholic roots three years ago. To answer your question, the bottom line issue is authority. Who decides doctrine? How to worship? What is and what is not prayer? We can accept the legacy of our ancestors, or we can try to figure it out ourselves. Ministers, unlike lay people, tend to read more, pray more, and seek more. Truth is just around the corner, the problem is, it’s scary. It’s out of the ‘comfort zone’. Even many Catholics I know have no desire to move beyond the borders of their own comfort zone, and as a result become nominal.
For many anti-Catholics, it’s comfortable for them to believe the standard line, when they meet someone that does not fit that pigeon-holed sterotype, they rationalize it and deny it. That’s the only way they can emotionally deal with it.
Tell you one recent instance.
I was with several other guys in a van on our way to a business seminar in another city. One fellow, a Baptist deacon, asked me (since I am new to the business) what I did before. In retrospect I probably gave TMI, but I said I have been fortunate to have more than one career. Journalism, and for a time, a Protestant minister. His eyes lit up and he held out his hand and said “AMEN BROTHER”! Then he asked me why I am no longer pastoring. I said “I missed my Catholic roots”.
The temperature in the van dropped. He said very little to me in the course of the trip.
For some, as long as you fit into a stereotype that makes them comfortable, they can handle it. When they encounter one that doesn’t, they simply don’t know how to deal with it.
What a sad, small world some people live in.

 

[KathleenGee]

JustaServant,

That is my observation as well as Fr Thomas DuBay in ‘Faith and Certitude’, that the lack of faith gets down to the issue of authority…people cannot accept authority, doctrine, dogma, understand that we need rubrics in liturgy to ensure that the true message of Jesus is imparted and so on.

 

[Lutheranteach]

Any time I see the words: simple, irrefutable, problem, fallacy, proof, or evidence I’m sure trolls are about.

 

[GaryTaylor]

The only thing we can do is shine the light. It’s us to them to find their own way.

I agree, and pray for them. If theirs a point in a discussion where it becomes a debate, and at that point, one or the other becomes “Closed” to whats being said? Then it becomes and excercise in ignorance? No?

 

[KathleenGee]

The other issue is that you can’t prove the Church by Scripture alone…it ended at Revelation at the beginning time of the Church. It was the Holy Spirit then Who began to lead the Apostles after Christ’s glorious ascension into heaven. And there is the time when in earliest apostolic times the faith was travelling to many people in different areas…

And then the next work was to define the truth of Who Jesus is and be faithful to His Oral Tradition given to the Apostles. There are early records of faith by various writers, but not all were used by the successors of the Apostles…the believers recognized the True Shepherd in the teachers, and the Apostles accurately chose those who would remain faithful to the fulness of the Gospel. And there were others who wrote and commented in early times…but they were not chosen as successors.

So you have to go beyond Scripture with the Holy Spirit Who Christ promised would come to take His place…the Holy Spirit working with the Apostles and Scripture…to form the Church in Tradition…drawn from the witnesses of Christ and His Oral Tradition…and the revelation then begins with the new People of God, the Christians.

So the Bible must be accompanied by believers, not stand alone. You will not get an accurate picture of how faith was inculturated. You have to look at the Church after
Revelations.

 

[bona_fides_1]

I wouldn’t call that faith, I would call that willfull blindness.

It is faith - but a different kind of faith - a faith that is not supernatural and generally dead (unless it produces works). The faith is not faith in Jesus but rather first it is faith in the Protestant theology being correct. If sola Fide is wrong (as Catholics know it is wrong because it is not all the truth) then Protestantism utterly falls apart and is doomed to endless divisions and factions as its only lasting fruit.

 

[Radical]

800 million? And how many divisions occur on a yearly basis? Still does not change the facts most are still divided and growing and not in accord with each other. The number is minor compared to its total LACK of unity. Nothing to hold one’s head up!

You are right that division is nothing to be proud about. A long history of unity around error is also nothing proud about. When we see all the sin that is so evident in Christendom it is rather embarassing.

 

[KathleenGee]

Radical,

I have met so many who want to be one in Christ…so many…Catholic and Protestant…

 

[Memaw]

It is faith - but a different kind of faith - a faith that is not supernatural and generally dead (unless it produces works). The faith is not faith in Jesus but rather first it is faith in the Protestant theology being correct. If sola Fide is wrong (as Catholics know it is wrong because it is not all the truth) then Protestantism utterly falls apart and is doomed to endless divisions and factions as its only lasting fruit.

Maybe that’s why there are more than 40,000 protestant denominations in only about 500 years. Most of them popping up within the last 150 years or so. And for over 2,000 years, there has been only One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that has survived many trials and persecutions from its very beginning. And it will survive all others until the end of time. Christ promised HIS Church would be protected by the Holy Spirit never to teach error. And it doesn’t. God Bless, Memaw

 

[Lutheranteach]

800 million? And how many divisions occur on a yearly basis? Still does not change the facts most are still divided and growing and not in accord with each other. The number is minor compared to its total LACK of unity. Nothing to hold one’s head up!

I think you get lost in the names. Take two mainstream protestants and you will as likely as not find there is very little difference.

 

[Nicea325]

I think you get lost in the names. Take two mainstream protestants and you will as likely as not find there is very little difference.

If there is ‘little’ difference as you state,then why go and start entirely different churches? If Lutherans differ very little from Baptists,then why are they two entire separate churches?