Episcopal Church

[SpiritMeadow]

Perhaps you can point out where I have generalized about an entire group of people without justification. I will gladly apologize when shown that I’m wrong.

Edwin

I believe the gentleman suggested that a certain practice occurred in a church he attended. You claimed that this “silly” practice was not yours and others like you. By terming the practice silly, you did in fact generalize about a group of people and their practice of their faith. You may feel it is silly based on what is acceptable to you, but I question your right to call it that. You apparently suggest that a group of people practice their faith in a manner you find silly.

There is no justification as I can see. The problem here is largely that people choose to call other faith traditions and practices as wrong or silly because they don’t adhere to them. And that is wrong as I see it. I may not practice it, may not agree with it, but I cannot call people’s beliefs silly whatever the case. Most assuredly when those beliefs and practices cause no apparent harm to anyone else.

If people are pushed away or denied something by actions, I think it proper to say you don’t agree, because those practices cause objective harm. I think it is fine to say it doesn’t comport with your beliefs. But to call it silly is pejorative and I think unnecessary.

But that is of course my opinion.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

I see.

Value it for what?

Important how? Important for what?

What specifically do they add?

Now to answer my own questions: I find a great deal of beauty in some Gnostic texts, such as “Thunder, Perfect Mind,” the “Hymn of the Pearl,” and (if you count it as Gnostic) the Gospel of Thomas. I value the “Hymn of the Pearl’s” poetic narrative of the human person as a prince in exile. I value the Gospel of Thomas’s cryptic evocation of Christ’s presence within us and indeed within all reality. But important aspects of their understanding of human nature, salvation, and the person and work of Jesus is not something I can recognize (or that Christians have historically recognized) as within the boundaries of the faith I have received. That doesn’t mean that they are without value–I value texts from many different religions. But they don’t flesh out the diversity of Christianity (if Christianity is understood as one faith making truth claims–if Christianity is just a grab bag of different traditions, then it’s a different story).

That’s a vague statement, but as far as it goes I agree with it.

The total picture of Greco-Roman religion, yes. The total picture of human expressions of religious values, yes. The total picture of religious movements inspired in some way by Jesus of Nazareth, yes. But not the total picture of the religion which I profess and practice and refer to conveniently as “Christianity.”

This is loaded language. If what you are saying is that Gnosticism should not be considered heretical, then I disagree. The real incarnation of Christ as a historical human being is central to my faith. The belief that this world is the good creation of the true God is central to my faith. The belief that the human body is God’s good creation and will be raised again is central to my faith. And when I say “my faith,” I don’t just mean the personal beliefs that are important to me. I mean the faith that I was taught as a child, and which is the common heritage of Christians going back 2000 years. I mean the faith that the Christian communion to which we both belong publicly professes.

The Gnostics weren’t just “dismissed.” They were condemned as heretics for perfectly good reasons. That doesn’t mean that their orthodox antagonists were always fair, or that the means used to defeat Gnosticism were always good ones (though I am not aware of a lot of evidence of Gnostics actually being persecuted by orthodox Christians). But when you look at Gnostic texts and you look at the writings of Irenaeus and other opponents of Gnosticism, the descriptions by the “orthodox” match up fairly well for the most part, and their arguments are (in my opinion) generally sound.

You have an overly suspicious mind. Try to understand that I’m actually interested in a substantive discussion of truth. I asked a reasonable question, willing to follow the argument wherever it led. It’s true that (given your previous posts) I have not so far been surprised as to where it led.

I’m still rather puzzled by what you wish of me. You seem determined in some manner to argue. Obviously we don’t agree. I suspect we don’t view faith in the same manner at all, but perhaps I am wrong.

I see non-canonical works as valuable on many levels. It is because these were voices that were speaking in the time I consider most relevant. I think they add to our total picture of the world in which Jesus lived and died and was resurrected.

The mere fact that such voices were suppressed is nothing to me. Perhaps they might not be today, much like hebrews might not be in the canon today or Timothy, or others. I attempt to deconstruct scripture to read into it what was going on. This is often done in Paul for instance, for his letters were hardly meant as “scripture” but were specific to specific churches and their issues. It is doubtful that some things he addressed have much to do with today’s very different issues.

As to my “overly” suspcious mind. First you are again making a personal conclusion that it is somehow more than it should be. I don’t think that is fair. Secondly, you have been here longer than I and no doubt have be subjected to the request for information. After spending sometimes hours researching and writing a reply to what is thought to be a serious inquiry, one finds either no response, or all your sources are worthless, or what is said is dismissed as being not understood properly in view of their must better understanding of everything. (Especially true on matters of primacy of conscience, which some RCC here have gutted to be non-existent.)

In any event, I have learned to not waste time but to let the serious inquirer do the work themselves. It in the end will prove much more valuable in any case.

I in the end don’t like hurling heretic at everything I conclude is wrong. Since I’m not burdened with a Church that requires that I hadhere to its opinions on these matters, I have concluded on my own that it is profitable in many respects to learn of what others have to say, even when I in the end don’t agree with them or their teaching. I try to refrain from publically announcing their “wrongness” however, as best I can. In that I surely fail.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

I am a member of the Episcopal Church and have been since 1998. I currently attend the Church of Christ the King in the Diocese of Northern Indiana.

I don’t agree with everything TEC does, true. I don’t particularly like the general way that the Episcopal Church seems to construct its identity these days. I find it triumphalistic and smug, when Anglican history gives us little basis for such attitudes (I don’t like Catholic triumphalism either, but I find it more understandable and tolerable, partly because I think it has more of a basis, and partly because the triumphalism of one’s own is a lot harder to put up with). But at the end of the day I recognize that all churches are filled with sinful human beings, including myself, and that the church has been goofing up in pretty spectacular ways for 2000 years. So I don’t share the attitude of some conservative Anglicans that the Episcopal Church is somehow uniquely evil or corrupt.

I presume you mean “the ordination of women,” though given some of your posts I suppose it’s not totally uncharitable to fear that you might actually confuse disfavoring women’s ordination with disfavoring women. As a matter of fact I don’t disfavor women at all (!), and I find the theological arguments for the ordination of women convincing. I gladly accept women as priests and bishops. I think that the ordination of women was not done in a manner that showed respect for Christian tradition and for the universal Church. But perhaps this is how the universal Church discerns these things–by some parts of the Church rushing ahead and testing the waters.

I think that in principle candidates for ordination should be required either to be celibate or to have only one living spouse (who by definition must be of the opposite sex). However, I don’t think the Church stands or falls on this, and since we don’t seem to have a problem with divorced and remarried clergy it’s probably unfair to impose a harsher standard on gay people.

Certainly a person’s sexual orientation should not in itself be a barrier to ordination.

Edwin

Thanks. And you need not speculate about the “disfavor women”. YOu pulled it out of its sentence. Ordination was the noun, women and gay were the adjectives. I don’t quite understand the slam about my other posts, but no matter. You do continue to speak arrogantly. I’m not confused about “disfavoring women and women’s ordination.” You apparently misread the sentence.

I really have no better clue as to where we differ then. Perhaps its your position as professor versus mine as lawyer? I certainly don’t claim your learning in theology. I have nothing like that, just some general theology and biblical study in a Master’s program. But I think we can speak a bit more evenly?

 

[SpiritMeadow]

I started a response to this yesterday and it got lost. Since I responded to your more recent post I thought I should respond to this. And hopefully I can do so more charitably than I did the first time!

Note: I don’t think that labeling something “your personal opinion” makes it irrelevant to me, and I don’t think that labeling it “my personal opinion” makes it immune from criticism. Don’t you want to have opinions that are sound and well-grounded? Don’t you want your opinions to be challenged when they are unsound?

My rhetoric was over the top, but what I meant was that being “useful” shouldn’t be the primary criterion. We might decide that something was “useful” that was false or evil, or that something wasn’t “useful” even though it was true and good. In fact, I think that’s exactly what happened at the Reformation, but at least the Reformers weren’t *deliberately *using “usefulness” as their main criterion. We are prone enough to distort things based on what we find convenient without doing so on purpose.

Perhaps the best response would have been to ask “useful for what”?

Well, that doesn’t really work. Not only do we both belong to the Episcopal Church, but more importantly we both belong to the Universal Church, the Body of Christ. That makes us accountable for each other, whether we like it or not.

How do you know this? What if we were right the first time, and the Africans just aren’t as swept away by certain currents of modern culture as we are?

Do we “own” their Christian faith just because we taught it to them originally? If we don’t, then we need to be open to the possibility that they are right, don’t we?

I was too harsh, and I’m sorry. But I don’t think I misunderstood you completely, because you appear to think that you can dismiss certain African ideas as being irrelevant because they were originally learned from Western missionaries. This implies that Africans are too stupid to think critically about the faith they have received, while we have seen through our own past errors. It may of course be true that we have come to see some things more clearly while they remain overly attached to what they were one taught. But we can’t assume this (the reverse could just as easily be true). The ideas have to be examined on their own merits, so the issue of their origin in missionary teaching is irrelevant–and because irrelevant, it remains patronizing if not racist.

Thanks for your reply. I don’t have much to add, but this thing on the African church:

Clergy there explained to us, that they are a culture, wherein multiple wives was common. (I’m told that one clergy at least brought two wives to the Lambeth conference this past summer). In order to stop this practice, they were told again and again that marriage was between One woman and One man. They were told that this came directly from the bible. For that reason they cannot and will not (so far) accept unions between same-sex persons.

You are right, I do just our intial teaching as wrong. That is no doubt based on my conclusion that that is not the teaching in the bible, where there is no discussion anywhere to my mind of same sex marriage. I am loath to assume that we can assume anything about absence either.

I respect the African’s church’s right to conclude differently on this matter. I do not agree with it, but I think there is room for discussion, and difference here. Hopefully, time will change minds, but if not, then I don’t have a problem with co-existence. I just think that we created a problem where one might not have existed otherwise. Perhaps not. Cultural norms of course often have a greater impact on these things than do doctrine.

 

[josie_L]

But doctrinally, during his lifetime, he left the Church pretty much the same, other than making himself head. Not completely the same, but close.

Henry was a fascinating train wreck. I always suggest reading Scarisbrick’s bio, HENRY VIII, for an understanding of the man and the times. History is complicated, but interesting.

GKC

Greed is never complicated, I will however consider reading Scarisbrick’s bio of Henry XIII. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Soler]

I am just sickened that some few RCC and non RCC find it necessary to belittle other faith traditions and literally make fun of them for sport it seems. If it is not what you wish, look elsewhere, but on what grounds do you belittle those who find happiness where they are? I find this so very against Jesus’ teaching that I am shocked beyond belief actually. Do you not see the pharasidic tone? All people talk about is form here. Almost never substance. Its quite revealing.

How on earth is believing that something is ridiculous sickening?

People may have found happiness, and yet be in the process of being incorrect

Form reveals substance. If a priest was to say at Mass “through Christ, with Christ, in Christ” instead of “through Him, with Him, in Him” it would reveal that he is probably unhappy with affirming that Christ is masculine.

Finally, I will conclude with some words of Jesus Himself:

Luke 12:51 (CTS New Catholic Bible)

Do you suppose that I am here to biring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

So do we all. No disagreement there. Just how these are to be applied is a different matter. I adhere to the teaching of historic Anglicanism that Scripture is primary and of absolute and final authority in matters of faith and morals, but must of course be *interpreted *by the rules of right reason through the lens of historic Christian tradition (which also has a lot to say on nonessential matters where Scripture is silent or unclear).

I would think we would be in agreement here. Interpretation of course would be the key word.

Perhaps I should ask you to define “dogma”? I have encountered this idea that Anglicans don’t have dogma before. As I understand it, dogma is the unchangeable, essential body of teaching on which the Christian faith rests, best summarized in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. Is this the dogma you don’t believe in?

I agree that the creeds are essential to Anglican faith. I referred to a long compendium of teaching over the course of 2000 as is usually expressed in the RCC. Your definition is correct as far as I know. Remember I am a former RCC so I tend to think of dogma as what it is in the RCC.

Presumably you should. Take for instance the matter of homosexuality. I suspect that people in my parish have different views on this (as in most Episcopal parishes), but the priest expresses a generally conservative view (i.e., he doesn’t think Gene Robinson should have been consecrated, and doesn’t think that homosexual unions can simply be recognized as just as natural and legitimate as heterosexual marriage), and probably most of us agree with him (we don’t interrogate people on the subject, but we’re in a small Midwestern town and are a generally conservative bunch–usually when people criticize the priest it’s because he doesn’t fit their political/social conservatism, as when he criticizes the Iraq war or refuses to join the outcry in support of teaching the Bible to the local public school children in school hours). Now you said above that the teaching European missionaries gave the Africans was incorrect. If a parish still holds to this teaching, you must think that this parish is wrong, surely? And furthermore you ought to want us to think differently. If a gay person comes to my church and hears my priest state his position on these matters (though this doesn’t happen too often, I should say), won’t this harm the gay person in your opinion? (Shucks, the main reason I have doubts about my own views on this issue is for fear that it harms gay people by contributing to their self-loathing and alienating them from the Christian faith. Surely you should care at least as much about this as I do.)

Well it remains my belief that I can believe that perhaps I could be wrong as well. So I prefer not to judge. I believe that if we properly understand what is said in scripture about homosexuality (the word not occuring until the 18th century or so) we can see that it does not apply to today’s behaviors in large part. My parish is perhaps a good deal more liberal in that regard, since I don’t find a lot of disagreement when we discuss in in class. Of course that does not mean that other views aren’t present. We do have two services, one Rite I which, as you know is much more conservative in it’s outlook that Rite II.

I would not want to attend a parish where gay rights (marriage or otherwise) were denounced. I believe they are wrong, but I have no infallible proof they are, so thus I am prepared to accept that some thing differently. I would be supportive of any gay person who challeged this, and would expect they would gravitate to a parish that was more welcoming.

This is the problem I have with your views. You don’t seem to think them through logically. You say things that sound compassionate and tolerant, but they don’t make sense, and you don’t seem to care about this. I’m a lot more bothered by this than by the fact that substantively I disagree with you. If we both seek truth with all our might, no doubt we can help each other even in our disagreements. But if you don’t even care about truth, then we really have a problem.

I guess this is where I get angry with your reponses. You can well say, that I don’t articulate my views in a manner that is convincing to you. But you have little right to say that I dont’ think through logically. It seems you are trying to teach, perhaps that is the problem. I have no idea what you view as my lack of interest in truth. You’re back to that high minded preachy type of thing. YOu say I don’t make sense, and apparently don’t care. I’m not a child, and have no need for a parent.

I was about to try to bury the hatchet, but you keep on with this over the top superior attitude. I’ve known a few dozen professors in my life, some are like you, but most are not. Again, I look to Jesus as the best teacher on this subject. There is simply no basis for claiming or accusing me of not caring about truth. Sigh…enough already.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

If it was the same Catholic Church (and nothing had changed as you suggest) King Henry had an odd way of showing it. He persecuted and martyred many Catholics, he stripped and gutted Monasteries/Abbeys of all their possessions and took away Church lands, he left countless of the Religious homeless, and left many others (the poor who depended on the services of the religious orders, and the tenants who lived on Church lands) without recourse. I would suggest a lot had changed once King Henry XIII made himself “Pope”. And he was a flawed Monarch, he was selfish and tyrannical.

And Henry has been dead for hundreds of years, and the church remains. No doubt injustice occurred to those who professed Rome and refused to comply. I am not interested in Henry, for on balance I don’t see him as at all relevant to any discussion before us today. It is just used as some kind of hammer. I continue to wonder at this group here whose sole purpose in “defending the faith” seems to be about the business of trashing other faiths. That is not the teaching of the RCC as I well know. I think such behavior does a huge disservice to the RCC. In fact it seems mostly self serving in a determination to construct a small very tightly held “orthodox” Church. It is becoming well know that the group here is much more conservative than the Vatican and you can see it in tons of threads and responses.

To see members of the TEC falling into the same unsavory trap is well distressing.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

How on earth is believing that something is ridiculous sickening?

People may have found happiness, and yet be in the process of being incorrect

Form reveals substance. If a priest was to say at Mass “through Christ, with Christ, in Christ” instead of “through Him, with Him, in Him” it would reveal that he is probably unhappy with affirming that Christ is masculine.

Finally, I will conclude with some words of Jesus Himself:

Luke 12:51 (CTS New Catholic Bible)

Believing is not sickening. What is unacceptable and not appropriate is gleefully telling others that their faith tradition is wrong and worthless. Your opinion is your own, but you cannot prove this by any objective standard. You believe you are right. You might be. But there is an equal chance you aren’t. The arrogance of preaching to others that you have everything right and we need to come “home” is simply rude. If it were obvious to any rational person, there would not be an atheist or a protestant, since surely most people are rational.

Form may reveal many things. Sometimes it reveals belief, at other times it may reveal something else. Better to ask than assume. Your assumption of course might be right 99 times out of a 100, but to the one you have done grave injustice.

You perhaps should study the context of your quote.

 

[josie_L]

And Henry has been dead for hundreds of years, and the church remains. No doubt injustice occurred to those who professed Rome and refused to comply. I am not interested in Henry, for on balance I don’t see him as at all relevant to any discussion before us today. It is just used as some kind of hammer. I continue to wonder at this group here whose sole purpose in “defending the faith” seems to be about the business of trashing other faiths. That is not the teaching of the RCC as I well know. I think such behavior does a huge disservice to the RCC. In fact it seems mostly self serving in a determination to construct a small very tightly held “orthodox” Church. It is becoming well know that the group here is much more conservative than the Vatican and you can see it in tons of threads and responses.

To see members of the TEC falling into the same unsavory trap is well distressing.

I took umbrage to your whitewashing of history. It seemed as if you wanted to sweep all unsavory details under the rug, while at the same time accusing Catholics of exaggeration. God Bless!

 

[SpiritMeadow]

I took umbrage to your whitewashing of history. It seemed as if you wanted to sweep all unsavory details under the rug, while at the same time accusing Catholics of exaggeration. God Bless!

I can hardly whitewash history, since frankly henry has never been central to my faith or thinking about the church. I simply am really tired of this Henry thing everytime any RCC wishes to denigrate TEC. It seems rather old and tired, and has little to do with the church today. I don’t know what exaggeration you think I have done to Roman Catholics. You would have to give me an example.

 

[Soler]

Believing is not sickening. What is unacceptable and not appropriate is gleefully telling others that their faith tradition is wrong and worthless. Your opinion is your own, but you cannot prove this by any objective standard. You believe you are right. You might be. But there is an equal chance you aren’t. The arrogance of preaching to others that you have everything right and we need to come “home” is simply rude. If it were obvious to any rational person, there would not be an atheist or a protestant, since surely most people are rational.

Form may reveal many things. Sometimes it reveals belief, at other times it may reveal something else. Better to ask than assume. Your assumption of course might be right 99 times out of a 100, but to the one you have done grave injustice.

You perhaps should study the context of your quote.

If you believe there is an equal chance that one’s opinion on any given issue is incorrect or correct (which I think is what you mean) then why on earth aren’t you an agnostic? In all seriousness.

Holy Mother Church is not arrogant in believing that she has everything right (with regard to infallible dogma). She has good reasons for this belief. Please do not claim that preaching this belief is a rude action. That is supremely intolerant. Of course it isn’t rude. I could just as easily claim that by putting forward your apparent live-and-let-live agendum you are trying to futher tear apart the fabric of society and help in the creating of a relativistic world where morality is irrelevant. This would be illogical, since you, as a form of Christian, seek to follow the moral example of Our Lord, even though your ideology could be said to actually lead in practice to the “irrelevance” of morality. Likewise, we orthodox Catholics do not try to claim that we are superior to other peoples, merely that we have the Truth, even though in some cases some of us may begin to become too proud. Our aim is only to lead souls to God and Truth.

My quote from Scripture is in the context of a family being divided against itself, presumably because some are for Christ and some against Him. You, while believing yourself to be for Christ (which I am sure that you are in many respects), are unwittingly against him in a considerable number of ways, due to your being a heretic. However, what you think, as far as I know, is that Catholicism is against Christ in many ways, because, according to you, it is overly legalistic, arrogant and ultraconservative. Thereby, let us be divided, and opposed, and let us FIGHT (using reason and evidence) in an attempt to make the opponent give in, thus resolving the division! :extrahappy:

—Soler.

EDIT: Notwithstanding the preceding sentence, I can’t stay long. I’m off to bed shortly.

 

[josie_L]

First of all providing scrpitural evidence of purgatory from only the book of Wisdom is a pretty unstable scriptural foundation to begin with. The canonicity of the book of not accepted by many of the Fathers and the Roman church did not formalize its canonicity until after the Reformation.

Secondly, nowhere in the citation speaks of a holding place where souls have pay the temporal price for theirs sins after death. One needs to be coached by the pope to reach that conclusion.

Finally, you are ignoring the context of the passage which refers to the suffering of the just durings their lives and deaths not some in between place after death.

Varc, I believe that these scriptures may help in understanding why the Catholic Church has believed in purgatory for 2 millenia:

2 Maccabees 12:38-46
Matthew 5:21-26
Mathhew 12:32
Matthew 18:21-35
Luke 12:58
Luke 16:19-31
1 Corinthians 3:10-16
1 Peter 3:19; 4:6

This is just part of Matthew 5:21-26:

     "Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking 
      you to court.  Do it while you are still with him on the way
      or he may hand you over to the Judge, and the Judge may  
      hand you over to the Officer, and you may be thrown into
      prison.  I TELL YOU THE TRUTH, YOU WILL NOT GET 
      OUT OF PRISON UNTIL YOU HAVE PAID OFF THE LAST
      PENNY."

The Catholic Church teaches that Purgatory is a temporary state of purification that takes place after death.

I will send you another post of the early Church Fathers professing that same belief (Sacred Traditions). God Bless.

 

[GKC]

Greed is never complicated, I will however consider reading Scarisbrick’s bio of Henry XIII. Thanks for the suggestion.

Greed had precisely nothing to do with Hank’s original motivation to seek a decree of nullity. That idea came from Cromwell. Henry himself and his period of history are both complicated, whether considering the canonical law involved, or how it was applied generally at the time, or Henry’s dynastic issues, and, in addition, are hobby areas of mine.

I do most sincerely recommend reading Scarisbrick. He’s RC, himself. And it remains the standard bio on Henry, as of now.

And if you get interested in the subject, I can suggest others. Books are my hobby. Dangerously so.

GKC

 

[josie_L]

Greed had precisely nothing to do with Hank’s original motivation to seek a decree of nullity. That idea came from Cromwell. Henry himself and his period of history are both complicated, whether considering the canonical law involved, or how it was applied generally at the time, or Henry’s dynastic issues, and, in addition, are hobby areas of mine.

I do most sincerely recommend reading Scarisbrick. He’s RC, himself. And it remains the standard bio on Henry, as of now.

And if you get interested in the subject, I can suggest others. Books are my hobby. Dangerously so.

I did not suggest that greed was Hank’s original motivation, and I’m well aware he sought a decree of nullity. You are correct that it was Cromwell’s idea but Henry sanctioned it. And He as well as others reaped the benefits. I just really don’t like King Henry VIII. Would you wish to have someone like him has a friend.

GKC

 

[SpiritMeadow]

If you believe there is an equal chance that one’s opinion on any given issue is incorrect or correct (which I think is what you mean) then why on earth aren’t you an agnostic? In all seriousness.

I hardly said that, and I was trying to be generous to you. If one were to address the issue of God, there is an equal chance of either side being right. That is what faith is, BELIEF not proof. I find the arguments for belief compelling, but I can in no way prove they are true. I continue to fail to understand the need on some people’s part to continually argue about every tiny thing as if this is some contest.

Holy Mother Church is not arrogant in believing that she has everything right (with regard to infallible dogma). She has good reasons for this belief. Please do not claim that preaching this belief is a rude action. That is supremely intolerant. Of course it isn’t rude. I could just as easily claim that by putting forward your apparent live-and-let-live agendum you are trying to futher tear apart the fabric of society and help in the creating of a relativistic world where morality is irrelevant. This would be illogical, since you, as a form of Christian, seek to follow the moral example of Our Lord, even though your ideology could be said to actually lead in practice to the “irrelevance” of morality. Likewise, we orthodox Catholics do not try to claim that we are superior to other peoples, merely that we have the Truth, even though in some cases some of us may begin to become too proud. Our aim is only to lead souls to God and Truth.

I have no doubt that the RCC has some good reasons for believing many of the things she teaches. And there are many things she teaches that I fully agree with. However, I know the differnce between what she teaches and what is objectively true. She teaches what she believes, and you believe what she teaches. The point it, you can preach what she teaches and say that you too believe that it is true, but you cannot preach it as THE truth, unless you can prove that truth objectively without reference to the the Church. It is alway permissible to state what one believes. When it crosses over to telling others that they are wrong, and something less than you are by virtual of the chruch they attend, you have strayed into opinion not fortified with fact other than the Church telling you that this is true and your acceptance of that. The attempt to paint other traditions as straying into that favorite of all places “moral relativism” answers nothing of course. It is the favorite phrase adopted by the right.

My quote from Scripture is in the context of a family being divided against itself, presumably because some are for Christ and some against Him. You, while believing yourself to be for Christ (which I am sure that you are in many respects), are unwittingly against him in a considerable number of ways, due to your being a heretic. However, what you think, as far as I know, is that Catholicism is against Christ in many ways, because, according to you, it is overly legalistic, arrogant and ultraconservative. Thereby, let us be divided, and opposed, and let us FIGHT (using reason and evidence) in an attempt to make the opponent give in, thus resolving the division! :extrahappy:

Again, you slap me. Poor me, I think I am doing God’s will, but of course I am not, because you know what is God will, because the RCC tells you that they do, and you believe what they tell you to, and there, that makes sense! Fraid not. I did not say that catholicism is against Christ, anywhere. I am not a heretic and you are disgusting for saying such a thing. Who do you think you are after all? I think perhaps some people are more conservative than the church, and most certainly you are way beyond that pale now. Your church Sir would never say such a heinous thing about the Episcopal faith. I invite you to send your sentiments to your bishop and see if he thinks you are being a good representative of the faith. I don’t think this is what Timothy had in mind when he advised how to teach.

 

[josie_L]

I can hardly whitewash history, since frankly henry has never been central to my faith or thinking about the church. I simply am really tired of this Henry thing everytime any RCC wishes to denigrate TEC. It seems rather old and tired, and has little to do with the church today. I don’t know what exaggeration you think I have done to Roman Catholics. You would have to give me an example.

It was in the first two lines you wrote (look at my first response to you), wherein you stated that some Catholics try to find fault with King Henry VIII as if no good reasons existed for thinking him flawed, very flawed. He was a man who stopped at nothing to get what he wanted, destroying countless lives in the process. I detest what he has done. I mean no disrespect to you but I could not be part of a church wherein he was once supreme head. This has nothing to do with the members of that church. Although I do not agree with the totality of your remarks concerning Truth. God Bless you.

 

[SteveLy]

I don’t know if the OP is still viewing this thread. If you are, I would like to recommend you research the theology of the RC church again, then look at TEC. The grass is not greener.

As it stands, TEC is actively heretical and persecutes those standing fast to Biblical truth. If you really find a valid reason to switch churches, check out one of the other Anglican churches. I would also recommend attending living as an Anglican for a year before formally leaving the RCC.

Peace.

 

[josie_L]

Varc, I believe that these scriptures may help in understanding why the Catholic Church has believed in purgatory for 2 millenia:

2 Maccabees 12:38-46
Matthew 5:21-26
Mathhew 12:32
Matthew 18:21-35
Luke 12:58
Luke 16:19-31
1 Corinthians 3:10-16
1 Peter 3:19; 4:6

This is just part of Matthew 5:21-26:

     "Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking 
      you to court.  Do it while you are still with him on the way
      or he may hand you over to the Judge, and the Judge may  
      hand you over to the Officer, and you may be thrown into
      prison.  I TELL YOU THE TRUTH, YOU WILL NOT GET 
      OUT OF PRISON UNTIL YOU HAVE PAID OFF THE LAST
      PENNY."

The Catholic Church teaches that Purgatory is a temporary state of purification that takes place after death.

I will send you another post of the early Church Fathers professing that same belief (Sacred Traditions). God Bless.

Varc, here are some ECF who wrote about Purgatory:

Tertullian
Cyprian of Carthage
Cyril of Jerusalem
Gregory Of Nyssa (Sermon of the Dead)
John Chrysostom
St. Augustine

“If a man distinguish in himself what is peculiarly human from that which is irrational, and if he be on the watch for a life of greater urbanity for himself, in this present life he will purify himself of any evil contracted, overcoming the irrational by reason. If he has inclined to the irrational pressure of the passions, using for the passions the cooperating hide of things irrational, he may afterward in a quite different manner be very much interested in what is better, when, after his departure out of the body, he gains knowledge of the difference between virtue and vice and finds that he is not able to partake of divinity until he has been purged of the filthy contagion in his soul by the purifying fire” (Sermon on the Dead [A.D. 382]).

I hope you get to read what they have to say. God Bless.

 

[GKC]

josie_L:
Sanctioned it? He leapt at the opportunity. Henry knew money when he saw it.

I wouldn’t want Henry in the same county as myself (nor Mary Tudor, either, for that matter. But, for all that, he started out with great promise. And the story of what happened is fascinating and complex. History is often like that.

GKC