Other Early Churches? I think not!

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Hey everyone, I need some help here…

I’ve been in two different discussions with some Protestant friends of mine this week, and both of them were talking about some “other early churches” that existed besides the Catholic Church.
The story goes something like, "there were other (Protestant) churches in the times of the apostles and within the first hundred years or so after Christ, then the big, bad, evil Catholic Church came along and snuffed out all those who opposed it. So Protestant-like churches disappeared until the Reformation…
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When I mention the fact that there is simply no evidence that these ‘churches’ existed… their response is “well, that’s because the Catholic Church destroyed all the facts of their existence”.

It seems as if I am in a lose-lose situation here. Any ideas??
 
Boomer Sooner:
…I’ve been in two different discussions with some Protestant friends of mine this week, and both of them were talking about some “other early churches” that existed besides the Catholic Church.

When I mention the fact that there is simply no evidence that these ‘churches’ existed… their response is “well, that’s because the Catholic Church destroyed all the facts of their existence”…
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I would ask them that if the “Catholic Church destroyed ALL the facts of their existance,” then how do they know about them? This is a rediculous assertion. It sounds like some fable a 6 year old would make up. The claims they make don’t connect. If there is no evidence that something existed, then how do you know it existed? And even if you know they did exist, how would you know what they believed with so little information available about them?
 
Boomer Sooner:
Hey everyone, I need some help here…

I’ve been in two different discussions with some Protestant friends of mine this week, and both of them were talking about some “other early churches” that existed besides the Catholic Church.

When I mention the fact that there is simply no evidence that these ‘churches’ existed… their response is “well, that’s because the Catholic Church destroyed all the facts of their existence”.

It seems as if I am in a lose-lose situation here. Any ideas??
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If that were the case then we should have no record of any heresy’s either such as Arianism etc. because the Church would have wiped any record of them out, but in fact we know exactly which heresy’s came up, what they believed, and what was done.

Also it must be pointed out that the Christian Church was being persecuted until the 300’s so there is no possible way for the Church to persecute other Church’s (that didn’t exist in the first place) while being in fear for their own lives and often times martyred.

I guess my main point is if your Protestant friends are correct and the early Church did destroy any competing factions then we would definately not have any records of any of the heresy’s because they would have got rid of any of those records also.
 
I, myself, wouldn’t even enter into those kinds of discussions any further than you have.

It’s one of those “did not!” – “did TOO!” – “did NOT!” – “DID TOO!!” things.

There’s no way to prove either side of this discussion simply because the person with whom you’re speaking would not choose to consider ANYthing you said to prove your point to be credible.

Mainly because they just have to, for some reason that maybe even they don’t know :o , stick to their own guns no matter what.
 
Boomer Sooner:
So Protestant-like churches disappeared until the Reformation…
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Heh. So the gates of hell prevailed until the Rebellion, err, Reformation.

So this means that Christ lied in Matthew 16. Oh well 🙂

Typical Mormon and JW “apostasy” conspiracy theory.

Yarmulkes for sale, getcher Yarmukles here 🙂
 
Boomer Sooner:
Hey everyone, I need some help here…

I’ve been in two different discussions with some Protestant friends of mine this week, and both of them were talking about some “other early churches” that existed besides the Catholic Church.

When I mention the fact that there is simply no evidence that these ‘churches’ existed… their response is “well, that’s because the Catholic Church destroyed all the facts of their existence”.

It seems as if I am in a lose-lose situation here. Any ideas??
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If they admit there is no evidence, then ask them what they base this belief upon?
 
_Christopher_:
If they admit there is no evidence, then ask them what they base this belief upon?
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In my experience they base it on their pastor or another family member. :confused:
 
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RJS:
In my experience they base it on their pastor or another family member. :confused:
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Yes. At which point you ask them where this pastor or family member got the information, given that no such evidence exists in the first place.
 
Thanks guys! I totally agree. This was one of those conversations where I was literally about to pull all my hair out! 🙂

Thanks again for the backup!
 
Their ‘winners write history’ approach is the same one that Dan Brown pushed in The Da Vinci Code.
 
There were other Churches doing as Christ commanded go spread the good news and baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Oh wait the only one we see following this command from Jesus is the Catholic Church, so even if there were others they were not doing what was commanded by God Himself.
 
And remember, Jesus said, “Upon this Rock, I will build my Church (singular, not plural).” In this debate, it doesn’t matter wheter you believe Jesus is refering to Peter (the person) as the Rock or Perer’s confession as the Rock, the fact remains that Jesus only founded one Church…the Catholic Church, namely. Any other church in existance from that time after would not have been apart of the Church that Jesus founded.
 
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The only other early churches I can think of were to Dionysus, Apollo, Zeus, etc.
 
Boomer Sooner:
When I mention the fact that there is simply no evidence that these ‘churches’ existed… their response is “well, that’s because the Catholic Church destroyed all the facts of their existence”.

It seems as if I am in a lose-lose situation here. Any ideas??
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No ideas, but I love their argument. It’s like the argument that there is an invisible cat in that chair over there and the proof is that you can’t see him.

I don’t know how you have any meaningful discussion with that kind of thinking.
 
I’ve had these same discussions with my family(Mormon). It really stretches the boundaries of plausibility to suggest that the true Christians(which must have been a significant group even by their estimates) were killed or died off with no record of such groups when there are many records of far less significant “heretical” groups.

The fact is even though we’re right it’s hard to convince others through arguing because their minds are closed to all evidence but that which supports their own beliefs.
 
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SeanG:
Their ‘winners write history’ approach is the same one that Dan Brown pushed in The Da Vinci Code.
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:mad: I hate that expession–it’s usually thrown out there as a converstation stopper. The best response I’ve heard to that is, “That may be true, but it doesn’t follow that the historians on the winning side are inept or lying. If the losers should be allowed to write history, maybe we should find some Nazi historians and let them write the REAL history of WWII.” 😛

The easiest belief to hold is one of a secret conspiracy–you don’t need any hard evidence because, well, it’s all been destroyed or suppressed.Conspiracy theories in general are the province of small and sensationalistic minds that pride themselves on having some “secret” or "higher " knowledge that us lesser forms of life have no access to, mired as we are in “conventional” thinking. 😉
 
However I doubt they would support them.

We have the church of the Ebionites who considered Christ a plain and common man, who was justified only because of his superior virtue, and who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary. In their opinion the observance of the ceremonial law was altogether necessary, on the ground that they could not be saved by faith in Christ alone and by a corresponding life.

The Cerinthian church believed that the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one. They devoted themselves to the pleasures of the body and held that kingdom would consist in eating and drinking and marrying, and in festivals and sacrifices and the slaying of victims, under the guise of which they thought they could indulge their appetites with a better grace. From St. Dionysius bishop of Alexandria by Eusebius of Caesarea book 3 church history.

There’s the montanist, the marcions who rejected the old testament. There are any number of denominations that established themselves for a generation or two in the first 300 years which we have records.

History records those who disagreed with the Catholic church there is not need to record those who agree.

Blessings

Tom
 
The truth is that Roman Catholicism did not represent Christ and was not His Church. For at least a thousand years before the Reformation the true church was composed of multitudes of simple Christians who were not part of the Roman system. That such believers existed, refused to be called ‘Catholics,’ and worshiped independently of the Roman hierarchy is history. It is a fact that they were pursued to imprisonment and death since at least the end of the fourth century…

These non-Catholic Christians had, out of conscience before God and in obedience to His Word, separated themselves from what they sincerely called even in that day ‘the whore of Babylon’…

These simple believers were burned at the stake or slain with the sword (and most of their records were destroyed) when their towns and villages were razed by papal armies. Catholic apologists falsely accuse them of heresies and abominable practices which they denied. The accounts we have of their trials reveal that they held beliefs similar to evangelicals of today.

We have already noted that for centuries before the Reformation simple Christian fellowships existed outside the Catholic Church. These believers abhorred the heresies and hypocrisy of Rome and refused to honor the pope. For this they were hounded to terrible deaths by the hundreds of thousands.

Eventually you would confess to anything to end the torment, but no matter what you confess it never fits the secret accusation, so the torture continues until at last you expire from the unbearable trauma. Such was the fate of millions.

And now you know the rest of the story…
 
Haha – sounds like my friends are regular subscribers to ‘The Berean Call’ – because that was basically their argument word-for-word! Once again… you just have to ask, “and where is this proof??”

It’s like Tirian said earlier:
It’s like the argument that there is an invisible cat in that chair over there and the proof is that you can’t see him.
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PhilVaz:
The truth is that Roman Catholicism did not represent Christ and was not His Church. For at least a thousand years before the Reformation the true church was composed of multitudes of simple Christians who were not part of the Roman system. That such believers existed, refused to be called ‘Catholics,’ and worshiped independently of the Roman hierarchy is history. It is a fact that they were pursued to imprisonment and death since at least the end of the fourth century…

These non-Catholic Christians had, out of conscience before God and in obedience to His Word, separated themselves from what they sincerely called even in that day ‘the whore of Babylon’…

These simple believers were burned at the stake or slain with the sword (and most of their records were destroyed) when their towns and villages were razed by papal armies. Catholic apologists falsely accuse them of heresies and abominable practices which they denied. The accounts we have of their trials reveal that they held beliefs similar to evangelicals of today.

We have already noted that for centuries before the Reformation simple Christian fellowships existed outside the Catholic Church. These believers abhorred the heresies and hypocrisy of Rome and refused to honor the pope. For this they were hounded to terrible deaths by the hundreds of thousands.

Eventually you would confess to anything to end the torment, but no matter what you confess it never fits the secret accusation, so the torture continues until at last you expire from the unbearable trauma. Such was the fate of millions.

And now you know the rest of the story…
Click to expand...
Phil where did you get this from I would like to use it in the future.

thanks and God Bless
Scott
 
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