Christian Unity

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guanophore said:
Not at all. Fortunately for the benefit of unity, the Lutheran faith is not based upon Luther as a person, or even most of his writings. That means that Luther does not play a part in the efforts toward unity.
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Precisely. Thanks, Guano.
guanophore said:
I say this is fortunate because it is not possible for the Church to “undo” what has happened… Since he went to his grave in a continual state of rebellion against the Church, he cannot be restored to communion.
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As you noted above, it doesn’t really matter to Lutherans, but I’m curious. Why not? If the pope has the power to bind and loose, why couldn’t the current man in that office (who is an infinitely better theologian and person than Leo X was) undo the excommunication?
 
steido01 said:
If the pope has the power to bind and loose, why couldn’t the current man in that office (who is an infinitely better theologian and person than Leo X was) undo the excommunication?
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Perhaps because Luther can no longer undo his actions which led to his excommunication in the first place?🤷
 
steido01 said:
No? So prayer for a dead excommunicate isn’t efficacious? Not even from the Pope in Rome?
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This is above my pay grade. 😉

Seriously, I dunno the answer. When someone dies, they are judged and bound for heaven, purgatory or hell.

If hell, no amount of prayer will make a difference. If heaven, no amount of prayer is needed. If purgatory, sure, the treasury of merit applies.

But if Luther was damned… :nope:
 
guanophore said:
We cannot allow small minded and bigoted people to interfere with the work toward unity.
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I thought it was against the canons of the Catholic Church to pray with heretics or schismatics?
According to the Synod of Laodicea
Canon 33
No one shall join in prayers with heretics or schismatics.
newadvent.org/fathers/3806.htm
According to canon 65 of the canons of the Ap;ostles
65. If any Clergyman, or Layman, enter a synagogue of Jews, or of heretics, to pray, let him be both deposed and excommunicated.
holytrinitymission.org/books/english/cannons_apostles_rudder.htm

newadvent.org/cathen/03279a.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canons_of_the_Apostles
 
guanophore said:
You are right, Peter. We cannot allow small minded and bigoted people to interfere with the work toward unity.
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The way that you caracterise me as a person and my views by calling me names makes any further correnspondance meaningless to be honest.

I dont see how calling people “small minded and bigoted” are helpful or even fulfilling the purpose of this site as its strickly written in the rules of this forum that we are to discuss with Charity.
 
Lek said:
You’re right. I am qualifying the verse. The JWs say they believe in Jesus, but they don’t because they don’t accept who he really is. If someone says: “I know Lek. He’s that guy who is a staunch democrat”, then he doesn’t know Lek. Of course, we could go on and on and further qualify the verse, but the point is that even the catholic church accepts baptized protestants as part of the church. So there must be a reasonable point at which a person is a follower of Christ short of being fully brought into the catholic church. Maybe we can’t be sure, but God knows the heart. Because we don’t know, we accept people as fellow christians, who look the part, but are not christians in the heart. But I still contend that all “followers of Christ” are part of his church–and they’re not all catholics. That’s not saying that those who know a truth about him and refuse to accept that truth are his followers. I’ll go as far as to say that if I was fully convinced that the doctrines of the catholic church were true and refused to accept them, then I would not be a follower of Christ or vice versa for the catholics.

I guess I rambled a bit here, but sometimes one thought leads to another.
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Greetings Lek, In another thread I noticed a non-Catholic post something relevant to this thread. Can you tell us which of these are fellow Christians, the ones who are denouncing or the ones who are being denounced?

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=12393181#post12393181

Is the “we” in the bold statement above not inclusive of all protestants? Can you denounce the gospel of another Christian church and still consider them as our brother in Christ?

Peace!!!
 
Code:
Tomdstone said:
I thought it was against the canons of the Catholic Church to pray with heretics or schismatics?
According to the Synod of Laodicea
Canon 33
No one shall join in prayers with heretics or schismatics.
newadvent.org/fathers/3806.htm
According to canon 65 of the canons of the Ap;ostles
65. If any Clergyman, or Layman, enter a synagogue of Jews, or of heretics, to pray, let him be both deposed and excommunicated.
holytrinitymission.org/books/english/cannons_apostles_rudder.htm

newadvent.org/cathen/03279a.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canons_of_the_Apostles
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A little off topic, but you have a point. In particular, I know that some, at least, of the Orthodox won’t pray with me because I’m a non-Orthodox. Which seems very strange to me, since they do not have a problem praying to me.
 
adf417 said:
Greetings Lek, In another thread I noticed a non-Catholic post something relevant to this thread. Can you tell us which of these are fellow Christians, the ones who are denouncing or the ones who are being denounced?

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=12393181#post12393181

Is the “we” in the bold statement above not inclusive of all protestants? Can you denounce the gospel of another Christian church and still consider them as our brother in Christ?

Peace!!!
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Adf417—I haven’t been following this thread, but I just came across this. You’re reading too much into my post on that other thread, I believe. The prosperity “gospel” is a sort of nickname for a portion of what its adherents believe; conceivably, an adherent could profess, for example, the Nicene Creed while at the same time believing in “name it, claim it”. So, other Christians certainly could denounce the “name it, claim it” stuff while still considering those name it claim it adherents fellow Christians.
 
AbideWithMe said:
Adf417—I haven’t been following this thread, but I just came across this. You’re reading too much into my post on that other thread, I believe. The prosperity “gospel” is a sort of nickname for a portion of what its adherents believe; conceivably, an adherent could profess, for example, the Nicene Creed while at the same time believing in “name it, claim it”. So, other Christians certainly could denounce the “name it, claim it” stuff while still considering those name it claim it adherents fellow Christians.
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Greetings and with all due respect AbideWithMe, I don’t know how else to read it and it seems other non-Catholics read it the same way which is why this whole Christian unity is becoming so convoluted.
Lek said:
If every christian complies with the above verse, then there is “perfect unity” within Christ’s church in that we’re all united as his followers. That’s were the unity comes from, not from whether we all agree that Mary was born without original sin or some other doctrine.
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“verse above” referring to Romans 10:9-10
Lek said:
…Maybe we can’t be sure, but God knows the heart. Because we don’t know, we accept people as fellow christians, who look the part, but are not christians in the heart.
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ltwin said:
Furthermore, there are many Pentecostals who object to the prosperity gospel and consider it a heresy. As Abidewithme has pointed out, the Assemblies of God has condemned it in its position paper “The Believer and Positive Confession.”
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I am not asking you to speak for Lek or Itwin but do you not see the irony here in this “Christian unity” as you and Lek are describing in this thread? How can a fellow Christian condemn or spout heresy of another Christian group in the name of unity as spelled out above?

In trying to consider that Catholicism may not have the fullness of truth, these above statements, which are prevalent throughout Christianity, chill me to the bone and make me wonder where would I go if it were not for the Catholic Church.

Peace!!!
 
ltwin said:
Furthermore, there are many Pentecostals who object to the prosperity gospel and consider it a heresy. As Abidewithme has pointed out, the Assemblies of God has condemned it in its position paper “The Believer and Positive Confession.”
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adf417 said:
I am not asking you to speak for Lek or Itwin but do you not see the irony here in this “Christian unity” as you and Lek are describing in this thread? How can a fellow Christian condemn or spout heresy of another Christian group in the name of unity as spelled out above?
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I’ll speak for myself, thank you.

You have taken my comments out of context. I never said that belief in the prosperity gospel put one outside Christianity. My father and mother believe in many elements of the prosperity gospel, and they are the most faithful Christians I know.

Heresy is not the same thing as apostasy. The apostate abandons faith in Christ, but the heretic retains faith in Christ. Also, there are degrees of heresy, and there are degrees of prosperity theology. Many people emphasize the prosperity gospel to such an extent that the message of Jesus Christ is overshadowed nearly completely. Others incorporate tenants of the prosperity gospel into a generally orthodox Christian religious system.

Just because someone believes a heretical doctrine does not make them a non-Christian. Even Catholics consider Protestants material heretics (though not formal heretics) and yet they still claim Protestants as brothers and sisters in imperfect communion.
 
ltwin said:
I’ll speak for myself, thank you.

You have taken my comments out of context. I never said that belief in the prosperity gospel put one outside Christianity. My father and mother believe in many elements of the prosperity gospel, and they are the most faithful Christians I know.
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Never said you did Itwin, quite the opposite. This thread is about Christian Unity and you showed where there are some Christians, and I agree they are Christians, consider other Christians to be teaching heresy, which is quite contrary to the Christian Unity as purported earlier in the thread within the non-Catholic realm of Christianity. Just using your example to prove my point. I don’t think you could ever show where using the word “heresy” to describe someone or a group, and at the same be convincing that the someone is in total unity with you in Christ.
Heresy is not the same thing as apostasy. The apostate abandons faith in Christ, but the heretic retains faith in Christ. Also, there are degrees of heresy, and there are degrees of prosperity theology. Many people emphasize the prosperity gospel to such an extent that the message of Jesus Christ is overshadowed nearly completely. Others incorporate tenants of the prosperity gospel into a generally orthodox Christian religious system.
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Just because someone believes a heretical doctrine does not make them a non-Christian. Even Catholics consider Protestants material heretics (though not formal heretics) and yet they still claim Protestants as brothers and sisters in imperfect communion.
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I respect your point and for the sake of this thread there is no need to dwell. However, I will say your example use of heresy is only an example and was not intended to give the full picture. There are those “Christians” out there who do not hesitate to use the word “apostate” in describing what you and I know to be fellow Christians.

Peace!!!
 
Adf417—

Itwin wrote clearly and I don’t have much to add myself. The people I know well personally who believe some degree of the “prosperity/health and wealth gospel” are certainly Christians and we are members of one family in that, though we have discussions and disagreements amongst ourselves within that singular family.

As I said, I haven’t read all this thread and I don’t have time to do so so. I responded because I saw you misunderstanding my post from another thread. It seems to me, too, that you’re misunderstanding Lek’s post. But, again, I don’t have time to participate in further discussion…my apologies on that.
 
AbideWithMe said:
Adf417—

Itwin wrote clearly and I don’t have much to add myself. The people I know well personally who believe some degree of the “prosperity/health and wealth gospel” are certainly Christians and we are members of one family in that, though we have discussions and disagreements amongst ourselves within that singular family.

As I said, I haven’t read all this thread and I don’t have time to do so so. I responded because I saw you misunderstanding my post from another thread. It seems to me, too, that you’re misunderstanding Lek’s post. But, again, I don’t have time to participate in further discussion…my apologies on that.
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Good day AbideWithMe,

No apologies needed. I do not think you have overstepped with you interjection and it is welcome. I would, however, hope you would read the complete thread and then let me know at that time if you still think I am misunderstanding within the context of this thread. If Itwin thinks I am then I must be. If you think I am then it must be true. If Lek also thinks I am then it would be unanimous. Then I will refer you back to my original post (#44) where I attempted to define/clarify what IS “Christian Unity” and WHO gets to decide?

I would also like to acknowledge that I understand this thread was intended to focus on Catholic-Lutheran unity as opposed to “Christian” unity. Maybe it is me who is overstepping the bounds of this thread and for that I apologize. :o

Peace!!!
 
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