The role of bishops is a good discussion . Of course we can elect them for superficial reasons as easily as you can. Their method of election has changed, their roles have changed.
Their roles have changed? How so? Did Judas’ betrayal of Christ negate the authority of the office of Apostle? This would be akin to claiming the actions of a bishop negate the authority of the office of bishop. In the epistles of Clement and Ignatius, they outline the requirement of obedience to bishops, and that there must be one sacrifice and one altar. They serve the same purpose today: to shepherd the flock, to keep the Church ONE. They are the voice of the Apostles. Why would Paul tell the men he appointed to appoint others? Do you not think the Apostles (or rather Christ through them) foresaw the threat of division? Would God be so inept as to expect division and dissent and not give a solution to resolve these issues?
The idea of what just constitutes “church” has changed. Petrine doctrine has evolved.
Did you read any of Irenaeus? Petrine doctrine did evolve, when Apostolic Churches began to equate themselves with Rome, claiming that Rome was merely ‘first among equals’, even while they wrote to her as presiding over them.
What others have done you have done also .When a bishop goes bad you dump him. Clement is very careful to say Corinthians wrongly dumped “good men”, he hammers that home, they were totally upright with no doctrinal /personal problems.
If they were wicked men, would the people be encouraged to simply dump the entire office of bishop and start running things on their own? Choose and ‘annoint’ their own bishops? If this was expected, why would Clement even bother writing to them? No, they would be dealt with by other bishops and through councils, as has been done through the millenia.
Now if they were bad presbyters then it is not only Ok to dump them but required. Luther may have been proud, but you just disagree with his assessment of the bad things he saw.
Who said I disagreed with much of what he claimed? The bishops were probably terrible people that didn’t deserve the office. Does this justify the rejection of the office itself? Of the authority of the collective of the leaders of the Church? Other Catholics, who managed to reform the Church through action and holiness while maintaining unity, didn’t seem to think so. The Apostles, who replaced Judas and continued to appoint successors, didn’t think so.
Anyways, I do not follow Luther, or Calvin or Wesley. They are Protestant. My heritage in faith perhaps goes further back, closer to baptists ( lumped into Ana-baptists). They have no founder per say and many of their basic elements go back to being postulated around 4 th century, as the church was evolving, into what they claim with things that were " not from the beginning" . Again, nothing perfect with the anabaptists either , but give honor where honor is due, whether it be to Catholics, anabaptists ,Lutherans, Orthodox etc.
Anyone who picks and chooses doctrine based on personal opinion and separates from the Church is exactly who Clement and Ignatius and Ireneaus and a plethora of other Fathers refer to as ‘heretics’ or ‘schismatics’. Anabaptists, Gnostics, Arians, Iconoclasts, Judaisers, whatever other faction or group, all of the ilk that Paul warned against: factions and divisions that are poison to the Body of Christ.
If the Church isn’t one, as Christ is in His Father and His Father in Him, then Christ’s Body is being poisoned. The three Fathers I allude to constantly (along with Justin Martyr, who wrote to enlighten the emperor and separate true Christians from heretical Gnostics) were almost entirely preoccupied with refuting heresy and maintaining unity.
If this was so important in the early Church, and remained an important goal for the entirety of its existence, why, pray tell, would it somehow become a non-issue because the ‘church evolved’, as you say? Does Christ change? Does God change? Did He allow the entire Church to apostize for over a millenium?
My God is not impotent, and keeps His promise of guiding us and being with us until the end of the world. He keeps His promise of guiding us to knowledge of the Truth, and preventing Hell from prevailing upon the Church. I mean, why would you trust that Christ is God, if He couldn’t even prevent His Church from corrupting His word from the beginning? According to Protestants, He couldn’t even help the Church get the Bible right. How impotent is that? The Lord said there would be divisions and false teachers. He never said His Word would pass from the earth. There is only one Church who has consistently held the unity and taught the Truth that Christ promised, using the methods of resolving disputes outlined in Scripture itself, with the confidence in Christ that He deserves. Is it the anabaptists? Hardly.
