S
Bible ? for all Non-Catholic Christians: Why are you not Catholic today while at the same time you accept her Authority in that you use the 27 books o
- Status
The curious thing, nsper, is that when Catholics say this, I can hear Orthodox saying this about Rome. Is papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction a late-in-time Roman “concoction”? What about Transubstantiation?
Again, you claim it as your councils. The Bishop of Rome is only one patriarch, whose jurisdiction, according to Nicaea is the west. And our division with Rome is, frankly and primarily, a result of the late-in-time “concoctions” I mentioned above.
The point is the accusation that we don’t recognize authority can also be pointed at Rome.
Universal jurisdiction appears to be a direct contradiction of Nicaea. Transubstantiation is not to be found pre-schism. Our differences are largely related to things Rome has taught since the schism.
And in strict truth, there are no Lutherans, a misnomer often used in shorthand for evangelical Catholics, a name which truly expresses the fact that the Reformation remains incomplete until there is reconciliation between us.
Jon
SMM,
I can’t speak for others, but we accept the Authority of the early councils. IOW, it could be said that we accept the authority of the Catholic Church, but not as Rome claims it to be their’s. The authority of the Catholic Church is only partly based in Rome. In fact, we might say the “universal jurisdiction” claimed by the Bishop of Rome is itself a rejection of authority. Show me in the early councils where the Bishop of Rome is granted universal jurisdiction.
Jon
J
James1982
Guest
I’m not going to respond to that, because I would hope you would realize the mean-spiritedness of that statement and retract it on your own.
S
SingleMomMonica
Guest
Jon, may want to get your facts straight.
S
SingleMomMonica
Guest
Hi James,
I have no mean-spiritedness.
Here is a copy of what the poster: L2Gospelplz said:
Third, I said pretty specifically that I wasn’t bound to use the same books you do, but tradition for the Confessional Lutherans is not completely ignored or worthless.
I simply said it back to them:
For Confessional Lutherans, the Bible is somewhat ignored or considered worthless. That is interesting to know. I’ve learned something new about Confessional Lutheran’s beliefs.
If what L2Gospelplz said was an accurate statement of the tradition for Confessional Lutherans regarding the Bible and you don’t like it, then you should not continue to be Lutheran.
If it is a false statement of the tradition for Confessional Lutherans, then get on L2Gospelplz case about it, not mine.
I don’t know anything about Lutheranism the religion. I only know that Martin Luther was German, a son of a murder and he became a Catholic priest-monk and he was plagued by horrible apparitions of the devil as he himself wrote about and that he later rejected the Catholic Faith and had children by a former nun and he pulled out 7 books of the Old Testament and attempted to pull out a few books, especially the book of James, from the New Testament as they disagreed with his new theology - but his followers did not go for the removal of any of the New Testament books of the Bible.
I only know about the man Martin Luther, not about the current Lutheran religion. If someone here who says that they are Lutheran and they teach me something about the Lutheran Faith…I learn something new. If that person is teaching falsely, how would I know? If L2Gospelplz taught falsely, then correct them privately and let the rest of us know what Lutheranism really teaches on the matter.
N
NotTooSmart
Guest
But the early Christian Church was not only the Catholic church of today.
That is like saying the Methodists of the time of Wesley were only the United Methodist church and not the Free Methodists and the Wesleyans,.
Ok, I’ll try. And I’ve included the following. Let me know if these Orthodox have their’s straight.
helsinki.fi/~risaarin/lutortjointtext.html#ecum
Would St John Chrysostom recognize today’s claims by the Bishop of Rome?
So do Lutherans. From the above referenced document:
First, read everything I’ve said here. I said the accusation can by pointed at Rome. And it is done so by non-Catholics other than Protestants. The accusation may be false, but the Church remains divided, long before the Reformation, on the issue. In addition, I have said before that I’d be willing to accept the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome in any manner the Orthodox do when and if reconciliation between east and west occur.
I can offer no proof of a negative. So, I ask you, where in the early councils is the Bishop of Rome granted universal jurisdiction?
Jon
S
SingleMomMonica
Guest
Ok, I’ll try. And I’ve included the following. Let me know if these Orthodox have their’s straight.
helsinki.fi/~risaarin/lutortjointtext.html#ecum
I don’t know anything about that website you’re referencing or what Orthodox Church it’s supposedly representing. I can tell you if you want authentic Orthodox Teaching you can trust the information provided on: goarch.org/ and patriarchate.org/ and scoba.us/
Would St John Chrysostom recognize today’s claims by the Bishop of Rome?
Yes
So do Lutherans. From the above referenced document:
Baptized Lutherans are valid Christians, so don’t take this statement to mean otherwise: Lutherans do not have Apostolic Succession which means they do not have a valid priesthood which means there is no possible way that their priests have the power of the Holy Spirit for Holy Orders which would allow God to work through them to truly change the bread and wine offered into the Actual Flesh and Actual Blood of Our Lord Jesus at the Consecration Prayers. Jesus breathed on the Apostles giving them this power and the power to forgive sins via Confession - this breath is passed on via the laying on of hands by a Bishop - so since Martin Luther himself was a valid priest perhaps he provide the people with the Actual Body and Blood of Christ even after he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church, but he was not a Bishop and so he could not pass on the breath of Christ - he could not pass on a valid priesthood.
In addition, I have said before that I’d be willing to accept the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome in any manner the Orthodox do when and if reconciliation between east and west occur.
Many of the Orthodox Churches have already accepted the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome - they are called Uniates by the Orthodox, who have chosen to remain separate from Rome, since they “united” themselves with the Pope. They include the Coptic Catholics, Melkite Greek Catholics, Ukrainian Catholics, etc.
You say that you will accept the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome in any manner the Orthodox do when they do - I have, entire Orthodox Churches already have - what are you waiting for? An invitation?
But I really do seriously hear by formally invite you to accept the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome in the same manner that entire Orthodox Churches already have. melkite.org/ here’s a website of one of those Churches & that Churches Patriarchate website pgc-lb.org/english/index.shtml - I invite you to take a look at how this Orthodox Church in union with Rome sees the jurisdiction of Rome.
I can offer no proof of a negative. So, I ask you, where in the early councils is the Bishop of Rome granted universal jurisdiction?
Rome had the Universal Jurisdiction given directly by Christ - you can read about it in New Testament book of Matthew - Christ gave to St. Peter alone the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven (not just the Universe) to Bind or Loose anything on Heaven and Earth.
The jurisdiction was not given in a Council, but about 300 years before any Ecumenical Council by Christ Jesus Himself. If you follow history, you know that St. Peter was first the Patriarch of Antioch, but after assigning a Bishop there, he went to Rome and was the Patriarch there and he handed down the Keys to his Successor at Rome when he died after 3 days of being hung upside down on a cross.
Jon
I’ll check them out. thanks.
Doubt it, but I think it is safe to say that this is, at foundation, our disagreement on the nature of the authority of the Bishop of Rome.
yes, I am familiar with the POV of Rome on this issue.
I hadn’t heard the schism had ended.
The right invitation, yes. Where our Churches are reconciled.
Unlike some others here, I appreciate sincerely the invitation. Perhaps the day will come soon when our communions share the altar together.
Jon
H
Harpazo
Guest
Please stop saying that you are Orthodox and please stop attributing false writings to St. John. It diminishes your credibility greatly. By communing with Catholics, you are not Orthodox, de facto. I’m sorry if that sounds mean, but it is the truth. You cannot be both. If you keep trying, you’ll end up with spiritual schizophrenia.
In Christ,
Andrew
J
James1982
Guest
What L2Gospelplz said was correct. We do not just throw away all tradition in Lutheranism. Many astute Lutherans have called the Book of Concord our “magisterium.” Some of them are the same traditions of the Roman Catholic church, some are not.
However, that is a huge leap to the ultimate conclusion that “the Bible is somewhat ignored or worthless.” Perhaps both of you were speaking on a level beyond what I can discern from this thread, but I do know that I have about 5 bibles in my home and one app on my iPod that has about 20 different translations on it, in multiple languages. I read the same New Testament as you do and I assure you I and any other Confessional Lutheran take it every bit as seriously as anybody.
A lot happened after Luther died- he died in 1546, some three months after the Council of Trent began. Lutheran doctrine at the time of his death was not fully hammered out as it is today- there were those who sympathized with Reformed christians and thought Lutherans should try to work things out with them (in part by abandoning the Real Presence and infant baptism, two things Martin Luther abjectly refused to give up), while others wanted to stay closer to what Martin Luther preached, which was closer to Roman Catholic theology. There was a process of consolidation as an identifiable denomination after Luther’s death; even later in Luther’s life, there were opportunities for reconciliation. I’m not proud of the political nature of that process, much of which had a color of power politics, but religion and the government was highly integrated back then, and the Papacy had its own secular political interests as well.
In some ways, who Luther was as a man is kind of irrelevant to Lutheranism today- one reason my pastor on Reformation Day can refer to him as just “a theologian from the middle ages” and not sound crazy.
I think I understand to some degree where you are coming from - the books in the bible being RC (or rather, as you implicitly argue, early christian tradition of all stripes) tradition, how does one accept parts of the tradition and not all of it?
I can offer nothing really new up in answer beyond what others have said. The early church was a confusing, decentralized mess of interests that grew organically over time through things like ecumenical councils. One of those interests is what has evolved over time into the modern-day RC church. Another is Eastern Orthodoxy. The centralized RC church of today developed over time, and as others have noted, there was at least some room for debate on the issue of what was inspired scripture and what was not, at least until Trent. Maybe there was some kind of implicit agreement that the deuterocanonical books were inspired, I don’t know and have no way of proving it beyond the few documents that survive history, but apparently it was not clear enough to everyone, if someone like St. Jerome initially thought to not include them.
Luther did not “try to get rid of” Hebrews, James, and Revelation, either. Early on, he expressed doubt as to their inspired status. He later saw the truth and changed his mind, something I am particularly thankful for (James is my favorite book in the Bible). Luther also did not just “toss out” the deuterocanonical books. He translated them, wrote introductions to them, and included them in in his translation. He further remarked that they are books christians may read with some profit, but are not regarded the same way we regard the rest of the modern-day Bible.
I regret any misunderstandings we have had, but I hope this adds to your understanding somehow.
L
L2Gospelplz
Guest
I think I get it. Since you think that the Bible is product of tradition, and I said tradition isn’t completely worthless, then you assume I think some of the tradition is worthless, and hence some of the Bible is worthless. If that’s not true then you have some seriously wacked reading of what I said.
There were two issues going on in my statement:
First, was that if someone comes up to me and says, “Hey, I think the book of James, was written by James the brother of Jesus, not an Apostle, and is contradictory to the Gospels. Therefore I refuse at this time to recognize it as Divinely inspired,” my immediate response is not to declare them a heretic and insult them. I think that those would be fine reasons if I agreed with them, which I do not. Not all the Bishops were using James in the same way, they didn’t do a lot of things in the same way. That’s why they came together to talk about them. If everyone agreed then they wouldn’t have anything to talk about. You see, like the Early Church, long before Cardinals and self assertions of infallibility and inspiration, we talk to each other in the grace of Christ, let us reason together? It’s difficult, I know, to allow the Holy Spirit to guide the Church and not try and save it with the sword. Certainly even in the garden the disciples turned to the same path, but he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. The Church is split because of sin, not just mine…
Second, I would engage them with the text in an exegetical way to show that they are not in fact contradictory. I would support that with the fact that the Church, (the community of all baptized believers throughout time and space), has been using James for a long time and those a lot closer to Jesus in history than us thought it was a book “God-breathed”. If the Church has been using James for all these years you need more than suspicion to remove the text. You must be sure, willing enough to stake your soul on it.
Ask yourself, are you really here to try and call your brothers/sisters to repentance and to return to God’s Word? I suspect you are frustrated, angry with the factions of the Church which should not be here. Your frustration and anger will not mend the Church. I share your pain, but friend, of all your enemies you choose the Lutherans, the confessional ones? We are about the closest thing you got to a friend in a lot of ways. We don’t deny the Bodily Sacrament, the inerrency of Scripture, the efficacy of Baptism, we don’t reject tradition outright and on principle, we worship the same God you do, Triune and dual natured. We have theologians who argue for the semper virgo, we observe the feasts and keep the Church year, we use the lectionary, we keep extensively similar liturgies minus the Sacrifice of the Mass which has been of late falling out of prominence in even your literature. God rejoices more about finding the one lost sheep than the other 99 who never left. If you being “right” in things you didn’t have until the middle ages is more important than the reunification with the biggest faction since the great schism then it is no wonder that we are still so far apart.
I do not blame you entirely, many of my brethren have confused hatred of your teachings with hatred of Rome itself. I expect some venomous retort that is completely non-productive, something condescending. Yet, though you may face it or not you are not the Catholic Church anymore. You are the Roman Catholic Church. You failed to hold the East, you failed to hold the West. You should be less angry and more sad, your city on a hill is in tatters. While the empires of old with only slightly new names froth at our gates, and the pagan bands which rise from within seek the destruction of all God’s people you seek homage not as servants but as lords.
So fixed are you upon defending the glory of your magisterium that we cannot even begin to talk about what is really at the heart of our distance; that Grace is not a substance, a fuel to power our engine of good works, rather a reality, life, and an identity solely found in Christ Jesus and Him crucified from which acts of Love to one’s neighbor cannot help but flow. Biased description of the difference? Of course it is, but that’s not the point.
The Trinity – In other words the reality of the trinity. I did not say “the word trinity is found in Scripture.” I said “this” it is a pronoun used to refer to the antecedent word “Trinity” which has been clarified to be a reality not simply a word. In addition to which it can be observed that every time “Trinity” was used it was preceded by the definite article “the” and excluding the noun “word” this supports the claim of the author that “the Trinity” refers not the “the word Trinity” but to the truth and reality described.
You again misrepresent the position. My claim was that the councils were right because we can cross-reference them with the Scriptures. This is far different from reading a text and knowing it to be true in your heart. Having two different statements compared against one another to see if they agree is no “burning in the bosom.”
L
L2Gospelplz
Guest
vs.
You quoted me out of context. The Papal decree, while I’m sure I could have found a better way to describe it, is in reference to the Pope commissioning Jerome to translate certain texts. This was not a comment about how things get done in the Roman Church, but rather a description about this particular circumstance.
No. The Roman Emperor did not ask the Bishop of Rome to call together the other Bishops. The Emperor himself called bishops directly for the councils to which I refer. This was part of why the early councils were so incomprehensibly awesome:thumbsup: for much of the Early Church. Bishops who still bore the wounds of persecution in their flesh were called by the Emperor himself, escorted under imperial guard and kept at the hospitality of the Emperor who within their lifetime was once the office which tried to kill them all.
You failed to address the Council of Rome, and still use the Council of Rome as a reference when there are no records of it’s contents, save speculation. You ignore the East like they aren’t even Christian when you talk about tradition, canon and Trent. Remember, they had not officially set a canon until 1672 at the Synod of Jerusalem something you also didn’t address. You misrepresent my words and you quote me out of context. You have not made a single defense of your claims nor added anything new.
Alsew UR still nut nyce pursen wun U tiep 2 meh
R
rcscwc
Guest
Why are you not Jews today while at the same time you accept her Authority in that you use the 39 books of the Old Testament which were written, compiled, preserved and hand-down by the Jews?
N
Nominefili
Guest
lol
S
SingleMomMonica
Guest
I’ll check them out. thanks.
Welcome!
Doubt it, but I think it is safe to say that this is, at foundation, our disagreement on the nature of the authority of the Bishop of Rome.
True. I recommend that you read St. John Chrysostom’s writings. He was the Patriarch and Bishop of Antioch - so his point of view of the role / jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome is important considering after the split of Churches - Catholic & Orthodox, after the Council of Florence, the Orthodox Church in Antioch did reunite with Rome and have been called Melkite Greek Catholics - their patriarchate’s website: pgc-lb.org/english/index.shtml , but some of the Orthodox Christians of Antioch rebelled after the reunification and split again from Rome and are now called Antiochian Orthodox Christians - their patriarchate’s website: antiochpat.org/english/sitefiles/
yes, I am familiar with the POV of Rome on this issue.
It’s also the point of view of the Orthodox - a valid priesthood is required to affect the Mysteries, expect Baptism and Marriage as those Mysteries can be done by laity - although if an Orthodox Priest is available, of course, he would confer those Mysteries to the Faithful.
I hadn’t heard the schism had ended.
The right invitation, yes. Where our Churches are reconciled.
Like I said before, some of the Orthodox Churches have for 6 centuries already been reconciled: Like the Coptics Catholics (Patriarchate of Alexandria) and Melkite Greek (Patriarchate of Antioch), etc. After the reconcillation with Rome, some within those Churches rebelled against the reconcilliation and have again separated themselves not only from union with Rome, but union with their own Churches and created separate Churches - Coptic Orthodox and Antiochian Orthodox.
In the case of the Greek Orthodox Church - the official “ex-communications” were lifted in the middle of the last century although they are not fully reconciled as of yet although some of the reasons for the schism have already been resolved - such as the issue of the Filioque.
I’ll further that comment by saying that that issue was resolved between the Catholic and the Greek Orthodox Churches, but other Orthodox Churches like the Russian Orthodox or Antiochian Orthodox, etc. are separate Churches which may not consider the issue resolved as although the Greek Orthodox Patriarch is the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Patriarch does not have jurisdiction outside of his Church’s boundries.
In Orthodoxy (& the Catholic Church) each Church is a distinct Church which may or may not be in union with the other Orthodox Churches. For example, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia aka ROCOR russianorthodoxchurch.ws/synod/indexeng.htm has chosen not to be a part of SCOBA www.scoba.us/ , but one of the splinter Churches from the Russian Orthodox Church have: Orthodox Church in America oca.org/ .
Unlike some others here, I appreciate sincerely the invitation. Perhaps the day will come soon when our communions share the altar together.
Looking forward to it!
Jon
S
SingleMomMonica
Guest
James, Thanks for the clarification! 
S
SingleMomMonica
Guest
Because Jesus read and taught from all **46 **books of the Old Testament which were written, compiled, preseved and handed down by the Jews and Jesus, although born into the Jewish Faith, actually established the Catholic Church. I am a Christian, a follower of Christ Jesus, so naturally I’m a part of the Church He established, the Catholic Church.
K
Kristopher
Guest
The logic is simple: the Roman Rite excommunicated many and therefore, many exist as heretics, schismatics, both in the Catholic Church, and outside it. You think, that the history of the Bible is of the Roman Rite alone. A number of apostles formed their own churches, St. Andrew and others: they are regarded to be Coptic, or Orthodox, etc., the Roman Rite probably did not exist until Constantine, but other churches did exist. The Bible was written well over two hundred yrs. before the Roman Rite became recognizable, because it took this long before the persecution of the Roman Empire against “Christians” settled down long enough to be safe for Christians to come into power. Being Catholic has nothing at all to do with being of the Roman Rite. You sound ignorant and confused.
- Status