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GatorMommy
Guest
So, then you DO believe that the church holds authority?
LOL … I remember those days of confusion as a Protestant … Thank God I followed him across the Tiber.
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LOL … I remember those days of confusion as a Protestant … Thank God I followed him across the Tiber.
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jmcrae
Guest
This works if you’re both members of the same congregation, but where do (just for example) a Lutheran and a Mormon go, to settle their differences? Both of them are members of the “invisible church” - who is the authority to whom they can go, who would have authority over both of them?
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GatorMommy
Guest
jmcrae,
That’s the flaw with Protestantism as a whole, Fundamentalist or not. They preach Sola Scriptura even though they don’t live by it. It would be complete anarchy to attempt to have a church without any rules other than the Bible which is free to be interpreted by every single member.
It didn’t make sense to me as a Baptist and makes even less sense to me now that I’ve swum the Tiber.
Oh well …
That’s the flaw with Protestantism as a whole, Fundamentalist or not. They preach Sola Scriptura even though they don’t live by it. It would be complete anarchy to attempt to have a church without any rules other than the Bible which is free to be interpreted by every single member.
It didn’t make sense to me as a Baptist and makes even less sense to me now that I’ve swum the Tiber.
Oh well …
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FAB
Guest
Brian:
I had to go back to your original question since this thread seemed to have gotton off the mark.
Your question adds an “or” as though the authority of the Church doesn’t come or is not inspired by God through the Spirit. That could be the basis of your misunderstanding. Fundamentalist believe that once the cannon was closed that there is nothing more to be said, it is taken as fact without interpetation. Yet this belief is flawed since the gospel writers were the first fathers of the church to give a certain theological bent to their communities as to the teachings of Jesus the Messiah. The Gospels themselves are the first spirit inspired traditions of the Church. Then add on Acts and certainly the letters of Paul which continued the tradition. Acts even recounts the meeting with Paul and Peter at Jerusalem which is known as the first Council of the Church. The very first roots of the Magisterium and the authority of men through the Holy Spirit to be the final Authority. If one rejects the tradition of the Church, then one has to believe that God stopped working to direct man’s affairs 2000 years ago. We as Catholics know this is not true since Jesus promised and sent his Spirit to guide the Church. Fundamentalist may believe this guidance goes to anyone who may open the doors at shopping center and call it a church, but once again our Catholic belief is that the authority is the chair of the bishops and the pope as passed down through Peter. By the way, the fundametalist who said there is no mention of pope in the bible is mistaken. Pope is Greek for for rock, the original language of the Gospel, so Jesus giving authority to Peter as the rock means that Peter is the foundation or even cornerstone for which upon the Church was to built. The authority and decisons of the Church was placed in the hands of Peter and his successors at that monent.
Peace,
FAB
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ibkc
Guest
Actually, the word “pope” means something closer to “father” or “papa.” It is an affectionate honorific which developed later on, but the fact that the honorific developed later on doesn’t mean that the office itself didn’t exist from earliest times. What we call “The Pope” is simply the bishop of Rome so the fundamentalist argument is meaningless.
The word for “rock” which was applied to Peter was Kephas in Aramaic, which is what Jesus would have actually spoken; rendered by Matthew as Petros in Greek.
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