C
Convert66
Guest
This was the proverbial straw that broke my back. Christ promised that the Church would not wilt even in the fiercest storms of hell against it, but there were no official Scriptures guiding Her, only the Spirit of Truth (as Christ promised) and the Traditions and letters or “memoirs” of the Apostles. There was wide opinion on which writings were worthy to be read in the Tradition, but not about the valid Apostolic Tradition itself. You tell me . . .where is the first emphasis placed?
In order to hold the position that the Church somehow got off track at any point after the Apostles died, to one degree or another, means that by the time the Scriptures were Canonized the Church was already off the rails. This destroys the credibility of the Scriptures, while denying the efficacy and Divine Promise of the Tradition of the Apostles’ Teachings that was the original “Sola Fide” and—without a shred of historical doubt— minus “Sola Scriptura”, by virtue of being promised by Our Lord, Himself according to those same Scriptures!
If the Church got wrong soon after the Apostles died, then the Tradition that birthed the Scriptures was wrong- plus 300 years, and, Christianity was officially recognized as the Religion of the Empire by the time of the Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) which list the same books of the Roman Church to this day. If the Church founded upon St. Peter by Jesus Christ Himself and that wrote and discerned the Sacred Scriptures is not Roman and Catholic, then the only possible contrary position is Eastern Orthodoxy which means THE Church is Eastern and Catholic (I wish both East and West were united under the Bishop of Rome, obviously).
As a Protestant, I assumed that at some unknown ancient time, the True Church had been corrupted without remedy by the pagan influences and doctrines of devils and that the “Falling Away” had been in progress from the time Christ died or soon after (or at the Last Supper with Judas). But true as that is (there were already many antichrists in the world, beginning with Judas, right?), what guaranteed that we could know the authentic and Orthodox Canon of Faith? Never did I question how it came to be that I knew about Jesus Christ through trustworthy documents at all. It was Apostolic Succession, and the Traditions of the Apostles first and foremost.
If you trust Christ and the Scriptures then you must submit to His Authority to safeguard His Church through His Spirit. If not, you have already granted yourself to skepticism. It is a short step to Higher Criticism and shorter again after to Deism and agnosticism.
Rome has fallen. Byzantium has fallen. The Ottomans, the British, the Austrian, Russian, Soviet and every empire or attempted coupist revolution has come and gone (or will go shortly). There is One institution that has survived antiquity, just as Her Founder promised. All else is subsidiary (even if prior) in the History of the West and to varying degrees in the East, as well. Protestantism is a derivitive religion (be it Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, LDS, Jehovah’s Witnesses or Christian Identity whackos), and its makers are the men and women who discern the scriptures outside of the Apostolic Traditions for themselves, which necessarily places them outside of the Church that handed those very Scriptures down. It is the equivalent of denouncing your parents to the House Committee on Un-American Activities as communist spies in order to get your inheritance into your own hands to do as you will instead of spending it on college (or the Catechism, as it were).
It is awkward that so many evangelicals are conservatives or traditionalists while holding the doctrine that spawned moder secular humanism and the political history of the left in the first place (I define what is true or not for myself in all matters of faith, science, reason, morals, ethics, politics, etc; etc; i.e., postmodern, progressive democracy).
If there was a time when the Church fell away, it was when Luther, Calvin and Zwingli set Europe on fire with the doctrine of the autonomy of the self, despite their individual intents.
The saddest thing is that Luther was right about the wilderness the Church of his day had drifted into, because how different would the West look had there been the necessary corrections before Luther’s doctrine slipped out for popular consumption and the Church was divided again? But old political rivalries were exploited by the Nobles of Europe to fan a flame in the commons that would wrench control of the Religion and Wealth from the Church and into their hands alone (Sola Manus Meas?). With a largely illiterate populace who was to know what the scriptures really meant anyway. They could make their own State religions— these kings and princes, be they brilliant, Illiterates, plaigarists or novices. Zwingli, Marx, Neitzche, Heidegger, Sartre, Rorty, or Benny Hinn, they all have one thing in common . . . They are all in the Protestant tradition.
All my best . . .
