Ideas for explaining the 'visible church' to non-Catholics?

[Cat_Herder]

Please describe where in the writings of the apostles they give the bishops the authority to depose anyone from a political office? Speaking out on a social evil or advising the flock how to redress such grievances is a far cry from the ability to depose or elect an official.

They had authority to excommunicate Ananias and Sapphira. They also have authority to declare that Officeholder X or Law Y must be opposed at the ballot box on pain of sin; in other words, to order that a person be deposed.

Of course, the European monarchies had no democratic element back then. The way you deposed a monarch was through disobedience, which inevitably resulted in the monarch committing the kind of crimes against humanity described in the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

Is the American government a theological office?

It isn’t supposed to be, but when HHS is telling people how to worship God, that is what it has become.

 

[IggyAntiochus]

They had authority to excommunicate Ananias and Sapphira. They also have authority to declare that Officeholder X or Law Y must be opposed at the ballot box on pain of sin; in other words, to order that a person be deposed.

Excommunication is a function of the right hand kingdom, that is, the church. Of course the church has the authority of removing members from communion with it. That is not the same as claiming the divine right to place political figures into office.

Of course, the European monarchies had no democratic element back then. The way you deposed a monarch was through disobedience, which inevitably resulted in the monarch committing the kind of crimes against humanity described in the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

I agree with you about HHS, but I was addressing your point that the Americans had no right to depose Britain using the logic of the Lutheran Confessions. My point was that the American revolution was not the Church deposing Britain. America is a secular authority. Bishops have no secular or divine authority to meddle in the affairs of government.

 

[Cat_Herder]

Excommunication is a function of the right hand kingdom, that is, the church. Of course the church has the authority of removing members from communion with it. That is not the same as claiming the divine right to place political figures into office.

Identify any time in history where the Pope ever put anyone into office. Even the Holy Roman Emperor had to be elected before being coronated by the Pope. Indeed, Emperor Henry IV even tried to excommunicate the Pope!

I agree with you about HHS, but I was addressing your point that the Americans had no right to depose Britain using the logic of the Lutheran Confessions. My point was that the American revolution was not the Church deposing Britain.

Last I checked, the Declaration of Independence was premised on the notion that it was the will of God that the king be deposed. Fundamentally, it was a bunch of Protestants and Deists using ecclesiastical authority to depose the king. The fact that none of them wore a papal tiara while doing so is irrelevant: they were acting on behalf of all of the American faithful as the Pope does for the Catholic faithful.

America is a secular authority. Bishops have no secular or divine authority to meddle in the affairs of government.

Then what is this?

 

[JonNC]

=Cat Herder;9004811]Identify any time in history where the Pope ever put anyone into office. Even the Holy Roman Emperor had to be elected before being coronated by the Pope. Indeed, Emperor Henry IV even tried to excommunicate the Pope!

Why was it called the “Holy” Roman Empire?

Last I checked, the Declaration of Independence was premised on the notion that it was the will of God that the king be deposed. Fundamentally, it was a bunch of Protestants and Deists using ecclesiastical authority to depose the king. The fact that none of them wore a papal tiara while doing so is irrelevant: they were acting on behalf of all of the American faithful as the Pope does for the Catholic faithful.

No. It is based on the premise that individuals receive their rights, not from rulers who claim their power by divine right, but from God himself. It was not ecclesiastical authority. In fact, it was in opposition to the premise that God gives power to rulers, who in turn grant rights to the people. The ecclesiastical authority was the king, himself.

And what was happening in central Europe at the time of the Reformation was quite different that what is happening today. So different, in fact, that the president of the Missouri Synod sat on a congressional panel and blasted the attack by the current administration not only on the Catholic Church, but on us as well. There is no comparison at all.

Jon

 

[Cat_Herder]

Why was it called the “Holy” Roman Empire?

Because it was Catholic.

No. It is based on the premise that individuals receive their rights, not from rulers who claim their power by divine right, but from God himself.

The Catholic Church also receives her authority from God himself.

It was not ecclesiastical authority. In fact, it was in opposition to the premise that God gives power to rulers, who in turn grant rights to the people. The ecclesiastical authority was the king, himself.

And so a higher ecclesiastical authority was invoked to remove the king. Or are you asserting that the secular authority is higher than the ecclesiastical?

And what was happening in central Europe at the time of the Reformation was quite different that what is happening today.

What was happening in the Holy Roman Empire at the time of the Reformation was that the secular wing of the Demo–uh, the Lutheran Party was trying to get the Catholic Church out of secular affairs. It would be much easier to push the peasants around if that pesky pope would get out of the way.

 

[onemangang]

I don’t read the writings of professional sophists. Catholic or Protestant.

You say that, then post be this bookofconcord.org/smalcald.php Which is a work of professional sophists

Except for the nothing about salvation in that passage part!

According to you, not according to the Catholic Church. To whom shall I Go? To Jesus Going to the Catholic Church, IS going to Jesus

 

[Cat_Herder]

I don’t see how this is the case being that the authority of the apostles was passed on to the church through the sacred writings.

The sacred writings weren’t compiled until the Council of Hippo in 430 so you’d better hope that one of the original Apostles lived that long, or else you have a bunch of garden variety pastors rather than an infallible authority telling you what is in the Bible.

It does not require individuals to possess apostolic authority in order for them to examine the writings of the apostles and to base their theological conclusions upon those. We know that combining faith with the works of the law will lead to damnation because Paul has told us it will.

Really?

[BIBLEDRB]Romans 2:05-20[/BIBLEDRB]

And being that the teachings of Paul and Peter are available to me, I can discern from that what is and is not a false gospel.

Problem is you have other people reading the same Scriptures and coming to different conclusions, even about salvation:

[BIBLEDRB]1 Pet 3:21[/BIBLEDRB]

The Catholic Church says this means what it says. The Baptists say it doesn’t, and that anyone who is baptized as an infant isn’t properly baptized and will not be saved. Since you are with the Baptists on this, and no one taught the Baptist position before the Reformation, you are betting your salvation on one thing: whether or not God allowed the Catholic Church to go into apostasy, which, as I have already demonstrated, cannot happen.

Come home please.

 

[onemangang]

They are not my words, but a compiling of some past Catholic Apologetic writtings from the 1800’s. Guys like Orestes Brownson, Martin John Spalding, Francis Kenrick, Isaac Hecker, John Hughes, and Peter R. Kenrick

Over the last two decades, common-sense approaches to religious epistemology have taken center stage in Anglo-American philosophy of religion.

The issue between the Protestants and Catholics is not infallibility, not the nature of faith, not common-sense realist epistemology, not mediated vs. immediate perception, and not the moral component of assent to truth. **The issue is the primary locus of authority, in the individual’s perception of the truth in the Scriptures, or the unfractured community’s constancy in making Christ really present. **

I begin from the broad intellectual context that led to a widespread assumption among orthodox Christians that **an infallible religious authority must exist in the world **

**An infallible religious authority,like all authority operating in the human sphere, had to manifest itself through a visible social order to be effective in the world. Christ intentionally chose a visible social order rather than a text to mediate His infallible authority to the world. **

The Savior’s grand idea, to unite all mankind in one brotherhood of a common faith, hope, and a common charity. The fleshly life of God’s Word appears in the “social life” of the complex religious body of the Church.

The social dimension of the Catholics’ infallible authority manifests itself not only in its form but also in its effects. The infallible Church promotes “the common good” because it embodies the divine social order of the Incarnate Word

Men are brought into the light of faith, the community of discipleship, and the unity of the Church, where they learn the doctrines, they ascertain the true Scriptures, and their true meanings," where they are taught in the language of our Savior Himself. Common sense is the decision of un-perverted reason, and its voice has been given counting Twenty One centuries in favor of the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is the Savior’s choice for continuing the work of His glorious regeneration. His Church is to be a visible social order that affirms the reality of the Incarnation. It is "the impregnable fortress of His truth on earth the school of heavenly liberty, an organic body, existing in time and space."

There is no real vital communion with Christ except in connection with his body, the Church. The Church is His visible society of all believers, united by the profession of the same faith, the participation of the same sacraments, and the submission to the same legitimate pastors.

Church is the logical sequence of the Incarnation, and not an accident or after-thought," with the power to transmit "Divine Life in its purity from one generation to another, until the end of time, I pray that all may bow down to the Infallible authority, conferred on her by the solemn promises of Christ, hear her voice and become her dutiful children.

Christ’s personal appearance on earth as Supreme teacher, with all power and authority indicates that one should hold his place. That social form, is best adapted
to the great ends of revelation, reason itself must convince us. The existence of a chief depositary and supreme guardian" provides “the chair of instruction” from which "the voice of truth may issue to the farthest extremities of the earth
**
If Christ appointed a Church to preserve and communicate His revelation, that Church must be infallible. Catholics who "do but honor Christ in recognizing the infallibility of His Church. Did Christ wish his Church to be ONE?" If the answer is “yes,” then "He must have established but one center of Unity, but one Primate and visible head for the whole Church.**

The Lord commissioned a visible head to preserve the faithful from being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, as … . Protestants have been, ever since their first separation from the centre of unity.

The Protestants’ invisible unity is inadequate. Christ ensured the continuance of his infallible Church as a social order effective in the world.

Was not Christ’s mission one of universality?. Take away the [papal] foundation thus provided [by Christ], and universality, community, cannot by any possibility exist. Both unity and universality require one root and one alone.

The pope exhibited to the world the visible existence of that unified and universal society which embodies the infallible authority of its invisible head. The papacy served as the logical context for the Church’s infallibility, rather than the Church’s infallibility serving as the context of the papacy’s authority.

The papacy, as the “visible head” of this realm, has authority over every spiritual matter whether it involves a nation or an individual, whether it judges a theological principle.

The papacy is the key-stone of the arch … a centre of unity and authority, essential to the very idea of catholicity, for catholicity without unity is a metaphysical impossibility.

Can we logically conceive of an infallible and undestructable edifice built upon a fallible and tottering foundation? Evidently, in conformity with His [Christ’s] plan and promise, the infallibility of the Church and that of its visible head are indissolubly associated; they stand and fall together, they are one.

 

[IggyAntiochus]

The sacred writings weren’t compiled until the Council of Hippo in 430 so you’d better hope that one of the original Apostles lived that long, or else you have a bunch of garden variety pastors rather than an infallible authority telling you what is in the Bible.

So because it wasn’t compiled until the Latin Vulgate translation, that equates to the fact that no one considered them Scripture? The Bible didn’t get its authority from being placed in a one volume collection. It received its authority the moment it was written and the churches received them as such.

[BIBLEDRB]Romans 2:05-20[/BIBLEDRB]

You are quite right to point out that Paul writes in this chapter that obedience to the law will result in justification. Complete and perfect obedience to the law. And how does Paul end his discussion about the law in Romans?

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

So, therefore, all of the law requirements Paul points out in chapter 2? No one has done it.

Problem is you have other people reading the same Scriptures and coming to different conclusions, even about salvation:

That may be true. It is, however, equatable to only one group of individuals coming to a conclusion about salvation that is false. Or, more accurately, two supposedly infallible institutions that come to different conclusions about salvation that are false.

The Catholic Church says this means what it says. The Baptists say it doesn’t, and that anyone who is baptized as an infant isn’t properly baptized and will not be saved. Since you are with the Baptists on this, and no one taught the Baptist position before the Reformation, you are betting your salvation on one thing: whether or not God allowed the Catholic Church to go into apostasy, which, as I have already demonstrated

I am not with the Baptists on that question. Nor do I believe that the Roman Catholic Church fell into apostasy. Error, yes. Apostasy, no.

 

[JonNC]

=Cat Herder;9004871]Because it was Catholic.

A theocracy. This is exactly what the confessions disagreed with. Moreso, however, was their experience at the Second Diet of Speyer in 1529, where religious practice was restricted by government. This, btw, is the origin of the term protestant - they were protesting against this diet, not against Catholic teaching.

The Catholic Church also receives her authority from God himself.

Sure, but for what purpose? Christ tells us to render unto Caesar. He tells Pilate (or was it Herod?) that His kingdom is not of this world. The Kingdom of the Church is that of Salvation in Jesus Christ. The job of the Church is preach the word and administer the sacraments, to go into the world and baptize, not rule in a civic sense. Now, of course, that doesn’t exclude the role of the Church to speak out and defend the faith, which is what most notably Catholics and Lutherans, but also others, are doing in the HHS issue.

And so a higher ecclesiastical authority was invoked to remove the king. Or are you asserting that the secular authority is higher than the ecclesiastical?

No, I’m asserting that ecclesiastical authority is about the Church, as I state above.

What was happening in the Holy Roman Empire at the time of the Reformation was that the secular wing of the Demo–uh, the Lutheran Party was trying to get the Catholic Church out of secular affairs.

Well, yes, in the sense that the Catholic Church was trying to use government to suppress religious practice. Today, Lutherans and Catholics are working together to fight against the Demo–uh, administration wich is doing exactly that - suppress religious practice and liberty.

Jon

 

[IggyAntiochus]

All Protestants? Apostasized means to reject the faith entirely. Lutherans certainly to not believe that about Catholics. We believe you are Christians. We do think there are some errors in your teachings, but I don’t think you’ll find “the great apostasy” aaplied to the Catholic Church in our confessions.

Jon

I find it to be an interesting thing that for apologetic purposes, Protestants will be lumped into one group of thought on any given topic, in order to demonstrate that Protestantism is false, and then in the very next sentence, we will be said to have 40,000 different viewpoints on every aspect of Christian doctrine, in order to demonstrate that Protestantism is false

 

[Cat_Herder]

A theocracy.

The Pope did not rule the empire, so your label of it as such is based solely on the Pope’s role in crowning the empire and Catholicism being the state religion. By your definition Mexico and Belgium would be theocratic regimes because Catholicism is their state religion. For that matter, the United States of America would also be a theocracy because presidents take their oath on the Bible.

This is exactly what the confessions disagreed with. Moreso, however, was their experience at the Second Diet of Speyer in 1529, where religious practice was restricted by government. This, btw, is the origin of the term protestant - they were protesting against this diet, not against Catholic teaching.

The government has the right to forbid ostensibly religious practice that advocates evil. We have the right to outlaw the Ku Klux Klan. We also have the right to outlaw al-Qaeda who want to force their jihad (ritual suicide) on people just as we have the right to outlaw the Cathars who desired to force the Endura (ritual suicide) on people. We have the right to outlaw them precisely because they tread on the inalienable rights that man has on account of being made in the image of God, as stated in the Declaration.

Sure, but for what purpose? Christ tells us to render unto Caesar. He tells Pilate (or was it Herod?) that His kingdom is not of this world. The Kingdom of the Church is that of Salvation in Jesus Christ. The job of the Church is preach the word and administer the sacraments, to go into the world and baptize, not rule in a civic sense. Now, of course, that doesn’t exclude the role of the Church to speak out and defend the faith, which is what most notably Catholics and Lutherans, but also others, are doing in the HHS issue.

Your split of the Chrisitan life into “preach[ing] the word” and “defend[ing] the faith” is completely arbitrary and is the same logic that Pelosi uses to try to confine Christian life into “freedom of worship.”

No, I’m asserting that ecclesiastical authority is about the Church, as I state above.

Again, what authority was used in the Declaration of Independence to remove the king?

 

[Cat_Herder]

I find it to be an interesting thing that for apologetic purposes, Protestants will be lumped into one group of thought on any given topic, in order to demonstrate that Protestantism is false, and then in the very next sentence, we will be said to have 40,000 different viewpoints on every aspect of Christian doctrine, in order to demonstrate that Protestantism is false

That’s a natural consequence of Protestants agreeing on only one thing, that the Catholic Church is wrong. Seriously, there is no agreement about anything else, even the divinity of Christ.

 

[JonNC]

=Cat Herder;9007196] The Pope did not rule the empire, so your label of it as such is based solely on the Pope’s role in crowning the empire and Catholicism being the state religion. By your definition Mexico and Belgium would be theocratic regimes because Catholicism is their state religion. For that matter, the United States of America would also be a theocracy because presidents take their oath on the Bible.

Not directly, that is true.

The government has the right to forbid ostensibly religious practice that advocates evil. We have the right to outlaw the Ku Klux Klan. We also have the right to outlaw al-Qaeda who want to force their jihad (ritual suicide) on people just as we have the right to outlaw the Cathars who desired to force the Endura (ritual suicide) on people. We have the right to outlaw them precisely because they tread on the inalienable rights that man has on account of being made in the image of God, as stated in the Declaration.

Oh, clearly not! Government has no power to outlaw an organization such as the KKK. We can, however, prosecute actions they take which violate the law. There is a difference.
The KKK has the right to spew their bilge, and we have the right to say that theirwords are bilge.

Your split of the Chrisitan life into “preach[ing] the word” and “defend[ing] the faith” is completely arbitrary and is the same logic that Pelosi uses to try to confine Christian life into “freedom of worship.”

I didn’t split it that way. I said that the Church has been given no authority to dictate civil government.

Again, what authority was used in the Declaration of Independence to remove the king?

Well, first they made no effort to remove the king. The effort was to separate. The founders spoke of nature and nature’s God. That is not ecclesiology.

Jon

 

[onemangang]

Truths are not the peculiar possessions of the philosopher. They are the truths of the universal reason and are the property alike of all men.

Human beings "from the constitution of our nature, are under the necessity of believing, as soon as they are presented to the mind self-evident truths."

Truth, for all these persons, is bound to facts which lend themselves to presentation in indisputable propositions. the doctrines of the Church in civil matters, are facts, and not opinions What he [God] says is a fact, a truth to be believed, not an opinion to be tried at the bar of man’s feeble reason.

Catholic ecclesiology could be described as a sociology of the Incarnate Word.

Christ the Savior, who is “God with us,” must be really present "in this age of ours also

The social dimension of the Catholics’ infallible authority manifests itself not only in its form but also in its effects. The infallible Church promotes “the common good” because it embodies the divine social order of the Incarnate Word. “with this essential of His own nature” was "not for the exaltation of her ministry, but for the good of her members, for the security of all society.

We should not place artificial bounds to a power which Christ Himself had not limited, but had made ample enough to meet every want and emergency of the Church.

The Church’s infallible teaching authority in **"defining the revealed truths must necessarily extend to "the principles on which the revealed truth is founded. Because all real principles [are] catholic, the same in all orders , the papal infallibility must extend to the principles of all, not just to religious dogma."The pope’s duty, accordingly, is to judge the truth of the principles that guide science, politics, and social reforms

Peter’s successor is Christ’s legitimate representative, "his voice is Christ’s voice. His voice is not only Christ’s voice to others, but also to himself. The Pope, as a man and as a Catholic, is bound, first of all, to obey the authority of Christ, of which he is the representative, central organ, and mouthpiece.The person of Christ teaches through the Church, his Body, in a singular voice rather than through a text whose meaning is heard in the cacophony of individual Protestant voices.

The Protestants’ invisible unity is inadequate. Christ ensured the continuance of his infallible Church as a social order effective in the world. He established a very specific form of government whose "organization in all its details depends wholly and solely on the will of Christ.

The Church’s centralized government is a perfection of unity. God had made known His will to His rational creatures through the Church.

Protestantism fails to represent Him, in its authority, as the unerring and divine Teacher and Saviour of mankind."

Peter’s successors “receive those same powers” given by Christ to our first pontiff. The pope, by the very fact that he is an individual acting in history, crystalizes Christ’s personal commitment to the Catholic Church

Christ had revealed himself as the Word made flesh. Man had long panted for freedom: his Liberator was to be the Truth taught by the infallible lips of Truth Himself incarnate." The Catholic Church is the Savior’s choice for continuing the work of “this glorious regeneration.” His Church is to be a visible social order that affirms the reality of the Incarnation. It is "the impregnable fortress of His truth on earth, the school of heavenly
liberty. Nay, more: it was a kind of second incarnation of the Word.

The Church is catholic, because she is the organ of the whole spiritual order, truth, or reality, and that order in its own intrinsic nature is one and universal. The papacy, as the “visible head” of this realm, has authority over every spiritual matter whether it involves a nation or an individual, whether it judges a theological or scientific principle

Who, then, is it that thus teaches doctrine?" He answers, "It is the Son of God. The pontiff clearly serves as the mouthpiece of the infainfallible Church.

The Church “a monarchy” because “she has one supreme ruler, representing Christ, her Divine Founder.” Of course, this particular monarch wields “the sceptre of justice” with the “common good” as his "great object. The pontiff appears to be the point at which the Church’s human and divine elements converge to manifest to the world its authority to teach supernatural truths. "The Church is about to pronounce, and Peter, in the name of the Church, utters the decision also in a human manner, but, at the same time, with a direct leaning on the Divine and invisible element which constitutes the source of her inerrancy

"It is the faith of the people, the faith of the clergy, the faith of the Church, that lords it over the pastors as well as the flocks.It is not, then, a hierarchy inspired by God to whom the flock must bow. Rather, all are dominated by the faith of the Church. And faith is the certitude one has of the truth of the proposition, that Christ is the Incarnate Word, proclaimed and manifested in the perfect society which he instituted. The social structure of Christ authority’s is regenerative, and impacts the world’s order.

Earnest seeker had demanded just such "a visible and divine authority to unite and direct the aspirations and energies of individuals and nations to great enterprises for the common welfare of men upon earth.**

 

[Cat_Herder]

Oh, clearly not! Government has no power to outlaw an organization such as the KKK. We can, however, prosecute actions they take which violate the law. There is a difference.
The KKK has the right to spew their bilge, and we have the right to say that theirwords are bilge.

The First Amendment doesn’t protect against incitement to violence. You cannot claim free speech for your shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater which results in a stampede and people dying. Much less the KKK and their hate rally which calls for lynchings and cross burnings or al-Qaeda and their so called jihad.

I didn’t split it that way. I said that the Church has been given no authority to dictate civil government.

That’s what the Commies said.

Well, first they made no effort to remove the king. The effort was to separate. The founders spoke of nature and nature’s God. That is not ecclesiology.

Uh, yes they did. The point of the Revolution was to abolish the monarchy in the colonies. The relationship between man and God is precisely ecclesiology. The Church is the Body of Christ.

In the end this is just arbitrary hair splitting. We invoked God to ditch the king which necessarily required a dogmatic statement on ecclesiology: that men are created equal and endowed by God with inalienable rights. Only Catholicism and Orthodoxy teaches that, by the way.

 

[JonNC]

=Cat Herder;9007731]The First Amendment doesn’t protect against incitement to violence. You cannot claim free speech for your shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater which results in a stampede and people dying. Much less the KKK and their hate rally which calls for lynchings and cross burnings or al-Qaeda and their so called jihad.

Enciting violence is not protected speech. Read all that I wrote, Cat.

That’s what the Commies said.

Come now.

Uh, yes they did. The point of the Revolution was to abolish the monarchy in the colonies. The relationship between man and God is precisely ecclesiology. The Church is the Body of Christ.

From the Answers.com dictionary: ecclesiology - The branch of theology that is concerned with the nature, constitution, and functions of a church. The founders were not acting as a function of the Church.

In the end this is just arbitrary hair splitting. We invoked God to ditch the king which necessarily required a dogmatic statement on ecclesiology: that men are created equal and endowed by God with inalienable rights.

You are right, its hairsplitting and really off topic, though I still disagree with you regarding whether or not this is eccesiology.

Only Catholicism and Orthodoxy teaches that, by the way.

huh?

Jon

 

[onemangang]

To say that the Church has no authority to dictate civil government, is to say Christ has no authority to dictate civl government!

The radical individualism in Protestantism is a product of Humanism, and the Reformation was birthed out of Renaissance Humanist Philosophy!

All Protestantism is in need of assimilation! I AM BORG.

youtu.be/SmRuLI6QQiY

 

[JonNC]

=onemangang;9007964]To say that the Church has no authority to dictate civil government, is to say Christ has no authority to dictate civl government!

Where in scripture are the apostles given authority over “Caesar”? Where in Tradition is the Church given authority to rule as a theocracy? Are we in this world, or are we of it?
If you want the Church to dictate civil government (theocracy), which Church gets the power?

The radical individualism in Protestantism is a product of Humanism, and the Reformation was birthed out of Renaissance Humanist Philosophy!

Define “radical individualism”.

All Protestantism is in need of assimilation! I AM BORG.

And I thught the Borg were Calvinist - you know, “Resistance is futile” (irresistable grace)



Jon

 

[Cat_Herder]

Where in scripture are the apostles given authority over “Caesar”? Where in Tradition is the Church given authority to rule as a theocracy? Are we in this world, or are we of it?
If you want the Church to dictate civil government (theocracy), which Church gets the power?

Nobody is claiming that the Church would dictate the government. What we are saying is that the Church has a right to hold Caesar accountable when Caesar does something evil. Caesar is a man and Jesus is Lord over him as much as anyone else. The babies who die due to abortion have no one to represent them against Caesar but the Church.