Here I Stand, I Can Do No Other

[JSmitty2005]

The Iambic Pen:

the main thing that struck me was when he mentioned how I would be cutting myself off from my religious heritage if I left my church and became a Catholic. I must stress that he is a very kind man, and he did not say this in a mean way, but it was a difficult thing to read. I am going to try and talk about how there were fifteen hundred years of religious heritage before the Anglicans broke off from the Catholics, the Methodists broke off from the Anglicans, and the Free Methodists broke off from the Methodists.

Marcus Grodi addresses this same topic in his conversion story found here:

chnetwork.org/marcusconv.htm

He says this:

Around this time a friend from Illinois called me on the phone. He, too, was a Presbyterian pastor and had heard through the grapevine that I was planning to leave the Presbyterian denomination.

“Marc, you can’t leave the church!” he scolded. “You must never leave the church. You’re committed to the church. It shouldn’t matter that some theologians and pastors are off the wall. We’ve got to stick with the church, and work for renewal from within! We must preserve unity at all costs!”

“If that’s true,“ I replied testily, “why did we Protestants break away from the church in the first place?”

I don’t know where those words came from. I had never in my life given even a passing thought as to whether or not the Reformers were right to break away from the Catholic Church. It was the essential nature of Protestantism to attempt to bring renewal through division and fragmentation. The motto of the Presbyterian Church is “reformed, and always reforming.” (It should add: “and reforming, and reforming, and reforming, and reforming, etc.”)

 

[RobNY]

A Catholic Response to the Movie Luther. Read it, it’s good! It discusses most aspects, and the website author is good, Dave Armstrong.

All of this posed a question. If an authority (such as the Catholic Church) condones sin (even by turning a blind eye to it) and then refuses to condemn the sin when some within it (such as Luther) point out the sin, can the authority still be said to be a valid authority? In matters of government, the U.S. Declaration of Independence says that when government becomes destructive of the ends it must fulfill, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. Could this (admittedly manmade) principle apply to a corrupt church?

In a political government the power resides in the people. According to Lockean theories of government, people possess their rights in their natural state, and contract to enter a government in order to preserve those natural rights. I’m sure this is familiar stuff to a patriot like yourself.

Where does power and authority lie in the Catholic church? Not in the laypeople.

The power and authority lies in the apostolic succession-- the power granted to the apostles by Christ and handed down by the apostles through the bishops. The laypeople do not have this power and can’t simply change the Church because they don’t have the God-given authority to.

This is why Luther’s reformation is problematic. Surely he wanted to reform corruption and abuses, but he also cut himself off from the apostolic church. Lutherans believe in the real presence, but don’t have validly ordained pastors (which is a non-issue for them, of course, they reject Holy Orders). Yes, Lutherans justify the authority of consecration through the ‘universal priesthood of all believers,’ yet I find this justification far from convincing.

Authority is simply not distributed democratically in the Body of Christ.

 

[The_Iambic_Pen]

Thank you for all the answers! Thank you also for the welcome back! It’s good to be here again.

Your explanations have all been very helpful, and they all seem to say basically the same thing. A person in a divinely instituted position does not invalidate the office by his actions. When Jesus spoke of the Jewish leaders, saying “do as they say, not as they do,” he was speaking against their sin, while at the same time upholding the authority of their position. Luther did the former, but completely failed at the latter.

LSK:

Have you thought about contacting the Coming Home Network or Dr. Scott Hahn with any of your questions?

I will have to look into that. I have to been the website and read some of the stories.

Aaron I.:

Perhaps some research on the Counter Reformation would help.

Definitely. I must admit I know very little about it. All I know is it was a movement to bring Protestants back to the Church, and it had something to do with Ignatius de Loyola and the Jesuits.

RobNY:

A Catholic Response to the Movie Luther. Read it, it’s good! It discusses most aspects, and the website author is good, Dave Armstrong.

Checking it.

 

[JSmitty2005]

Sugar Ray:

I read somewhere once if the entire College of Cardinals was made up of madmen it shouldn’t drive even one Catholic from the church because the holy spirit would still be protecting the truth of the doctrine.

This is absolutely true. In fact, all the bad popes we’ve had actually give witness to their infallibility. Despite the fact that they were bad men did not prevent the Holy Spirit from protecting the Church. I say this because not one of them changed Church doctrine or made any erroneous pronouncements on Faith & Morals.

 

[JSmitty2005]

JSmitty2005:

Luther recognized the sin of causing a schism. Steve Ray has a quote of Luther’s in his book Crossing the Tiber in which he says something to the affect of: “I do not want a schism. The Church of Rome is the most beautiful of all things.” (If any of you know the exact wording or the source, I would appreciate it because I don’t have my copy of the book with me.)

I found that quote (or one very similar to it) that I was looking for right here in these forums!

“I never approved of a schism, nor will I approve of it for all eternity…It is not by separating from the Church that we can make her better.” -Martin Luther