Catholicism or spiritual Anarchy?

[MainBrain]

Tell me if this make sense.
Without the spiritual authority and magisterium of the Catholic Church, which goes back 2000 years, a Christian religious order, (such as Protestantism), is subject to spiritual anarchy. Does this make sense to you? In other words, every denomination, or individual, is his or her own authority to scripture, and that scriptural interpretation answerable to his or her own interpretation.

People put down “organized religion.” But isn’t organized religion exactly what we need in order to walk a sound walk of faith? What successful company exists if there is not an organized hierarchy of authority? Just imagine how fast a company would fail if every employer was subordinate to no one other than their own interpretation on how to do things in the organizations’ structure. Does not the same reality go for our Christian faith? Thus, the importance of the authority of the Catholic Church!

 

[Scottgun]

I’ve heard the analogy that Scripture is like a fire and the Church is the fireplace. Without Scripture the Church is cold, but without a Church, the fire burns the house down.

 

[ChurchSoldier]

Tell me if this make sense.
Without the spiritual authority and magisterium of the Catholic Church, which goes back 2000 years, a Christian religious order, (such as Protestantism), is subject to spiritual anarchy. Does this make sense to you? In other words, every denomination, or individual, is his or her own authority to scripture, and that scriptural interpretation answerable to his or her own interpretation.

People put down “organized religion.” But isn’t organized religion exactly what we need in order to walk a sound walk of faith? What successful company exists if there is not an organized hierarchy of authority? Just imagine how fast a company would fail if every employer was subordinate to no one other than their own interpretation on how to do things in the organizations’ structure. Does not the same reality go for our Christian faith? Thus, the importance of the authority of the Catholic Church!

How would you apply this to Orthodoxy?

 

[Cone]

I’ve heard the analogy that Scripture is like a fire and the Church is the fireplace. Without Scripture the Church is cold, but without a Church, the fire burns the house down.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

How would you apply this to Orthodoxy?

You can’t really apply it to Orthodoxy because they lack a centralized authority… which sort of the point of the analogy.

 

[HowkeCotchmeEye]

Tell me if this make sense.
Without the spiritual authority and magisterium of the Catholic Church, which goes back 2000 years, a Christian religious order, (such as Protestantism), is subject to spiritual anarchy. Does this make sense to you? In other words, every denomination, or individual, is his or her own authority to scripture, and that scriptural interpretation answerable to his or her own interpretation.

People put down “organized religion.” But isn’t organized religion exactly what we need in order to walk a sound walk of faith? What successful company exists if there is not an organized hierarchy of authority? Just imagine how fast a company would fail if every employer was subordinate to no one other than their own interpretation on how to do things in the organizations’ structure. Does not the same reality go for our Christian faith? Thus, the importance of the authority of the Catholic Church!

I think you have to be careful when using the term Anarchy when talking about this.

Anarchism is a specific political philosophy. If we are going to talk about hierarchy’s and how it relates specifically to spirituality and the authority of the Church, we shouldn’t use the term Anarchy.

You could argue that Dorothy Day was an Catholic Anarchist. After all, she learned a lot from Peter Kropotkin, one of the foremost Anarchists in Europe in the 19th century.

 

[JRKH]

I’ve heard the analogy that Scripture is like a fire and the Church is the fireplace. Without Scripture the Church is cold, but without a Church, the fire burns the house down.

I Love this!!!

 

[JRKH]

Tell me if this make sense.
Without the spiritual authority and magisterium of the Catholic Church, which goes back 2000 years, a Christian religious order, (such as Protestantism), is subject to spiritual anarchy. Does this make sense to you? In other words, every denomination, or individual, is his or her own authority to scripture, and that scriptural interpretation answerable to his or her own interpretation.

1. Protestantism is not a religious order…it is a religious “dis-order”. Certainly each protestant group has some sort of order to it, but “Protestantism” per-se does not.
2. I would not go so far as to say the “authority and magisterium of the Catholic Church”, but there does need to be SOMETHING and it needs to be authoritative and universal. Otherwise it is not biblical.
3. This is a point I try to bring up to protestants often…that without this, they are not truly a biblical church.

People put down “organized religion.” But isn’t organized religion exactly what we need in order to walk a sound walk of faith? What successful company exists if there is not an organized hierarchy of authority? Just imagine how fast a company would fail if every employer was subordinate to no one other than their own interpretation on how to do things in the organizations’ structure. Does not the same reality go for our Christian faith? Thus, the importance of the authority of the Catholic Church!

Peace
James

 

[johnnyc176]

Tell me if this make sense.
Without the spiritual authority and magisterium of the Catholic Church, which goes back 2000 years, a Christian religious order, (such as Protestantism), is subject to spiritual anarchy. Does this make sense to you? In other words, every denomination, or individual, is his or her own authority to scripture, and that scriptural interpretation answerable to his or her own interpretation.

People put down “organized religion.” But isn’t organized religion exactly what we need in order to walk a sound walk of faith? What successful company exists if there is not an organized hierarchy of authority? Just imagine how fast a company would fail if every employer was subordinate to no one other than their own interpretation on how to do things in the organizations’ structure. Does not the same reality go for our Christian faith? Thus, the importance of the authority of the Catholic Church!

Sacred Scriptual, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium (teaching authority). Often likened to a three legged stool. Take one away and it falls.

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

The Church is the organization whose word is “official” w.r.t. the Bible, being its author and guardian.

Protestants may have their own way of looking at things, but their beliefs do intersect ours more than they differ, in substantive ways. IMO most of the things we argue about are not relevant to anything in terms of how we live our lives and love each other – except to the extent we argue about it. Besides the Protestants that believe in “sola scriptura” are basing their entire faith on their version of a product they got from us, hundreds of years closer to our time than to Jesus’s time. So they are “unofficial spinoffs” of the Catholic Church, whether its members realize and/or like it, or not.

But as far as every person being his/her own authority, I have a new way to look at this compared to the ways I’ve usually heard it framed.

I am responsible for my willful thoughts and words, and the things I’ve done and failed to do. Like the Church/Christian v. Garage/Car meme, it really doesn’t matter how pure the theological teachings are, if I have not love. So we may chide Protestants for not getting full value out of Jesus’s legacy because we say we are right and they are wrong and if they reject anything they reject the full authority and therefore basically they have nothing, but I see this as very much different than a view St. Paul, for example, might have had.

So in a way yes. I am a “temple” so how does that differ from a mini-church – housing a tabernacle of the Living God? I am responsible for being this temple, and where I go I take Jesus with me. So yes I belong to and feed off the Catholic Church, but I must be responsible for my part and thus my own morality has to be greater even than what the church requires by precepts. It isn’t about satisfying the church, but using the Church’s way to find closer union with Jesus. Jesus is the goal, our faith is the process – whether we are formal members of the RCC or not. If our faith is misguided, it is still our faith but just may us the wrong way and we end up doing things we should not – and Protestants don’t have the corner on the market for that outcome.

Frankly, if I think I have a better chance of going to heaven than some other poor schmuck who got sold into, God forbid, a group of people who aren’t Catholic but claim to be Christians, for the simple reason I am Catholic, then I am in Deep Trouble because Jesus made it clear that a) it isn’t about in-group and out-group identification (one story after another verifies this) and that b) if I think that I have some particular advantage with God that another soul does not, then I’m also in Big Trouble.

How about a secular analogy? What widely advertised product is the “Real Thing?” If you’re within a few decades of my age, you’ll answer “Coke is.”

Well not everybody seems to want a Coke. Some of them got switched into Lesser Forms of drink such as Pepsi, Mt. Dew, and Orange Crush. So Coke does not control the soft drink industry or consumption, but it supplies a lot of it and consumers will still associate “the real thing” with their marketing campaign. Of course we also know that Coke is no longer “the Real Thing” ever since the signature ingredient became illegal, but the point is that nutritionally – except for one ingredient (the True Presence) – most are at the same place. They are basically colored, flavored water with or without sugar. The people who knew the recipe to “The Real Thing” could never go anywhere together lest they die in a single related event, but the others were a pretty good knockoff as far as amateurs could tell or ignorant people cared. Our family doctors usually don’t care which brands we do or don’t drink but treat them all pretty much alike. Well, diet and non-diet have one salient difference anyway. Not all professionals don’t care. Our orthodontist says only to drink root beer because Dr. Pepper and Coke and others attack braces. So there are individual variations.

The real difference is the True Presence. IMO the theological differences are less salient in terms of salvation – though others may want to argue I don’t care to defend my position because it’s just my opinion.

I reserve the right to change my opinion over time periods, especially if someone shows me a better way to look at it.

MS