The Catholic Church is just another denomination

[mike3334]

Roman Catholic Church, as I said, is a title used by those Christians who wish to deny the authority of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church prime ministered by the Pope in Rome.

The RCC church by my home has “Roman Catholic” on their sign. The website of the Diocese of Tulsa “welcomes you to the virtual home of the Roman Catholic Church in…”

It seems many Catholics don’t have an issue with this term.

 

[jmcrae]

It seems many Catholics don’t have an issue with this term.

I certainly don’t. I don’t really understand the fuss - after all, whether we are of the Eastern Rite or the Western Rite, our headquarters are, in fact, in Rome.

 

[guanophore]

I certainly don’t. I don’t really understand the fuss - after all, whether we are of the Eastern Rite or the Western Rite, our headquarters are, in fact, in Rome.

I have an issue with it when it is used as an invective, in an insulting manner, similar to saying “papists”.

 

[jmcrae]

I have an issue with it when it is used as an invective, in an insulting manner, similar to saying “papists”.

I guess anything sounds insulting, in that tone of voice. My attitude when someone calls me a “Papist” is that I just say, “Yep, I’m a Mary-lovin’ Rosary-bead countin’ Papist Mick. Like it, or lump it.”

 

[Grace_Seeker]

My apologies for the length, but I did not know a way to reduce this post without slighting the issues under discussion.

The problem with this is that the definition of true church is apostolic succession and unity with the bishop of Rome. I think that most of these groups of christuans would not accept either of those definitions.

I could not disagree more strongly. The definition of true church does not get to be determined by The Catholic Church, any other church, or evern the Church which Jesus established. Jesus used the term ekklesia, that word already had a definition when he chose it.

In classical Greek it was used to refer to the popular assembly of the full citizenry of a city, the other word used which paralleled this in classical Greek is synagoge, better understood in English not as synagouge, but as congregation.

The Jews of the Hellenistic diaspora appropriated this term to refer to their community when they gathered as the total community of faith. It did not refer to a place of gathering, like a building, and it did not refer to a partial gathering of some believer, but lacking others. The synagoge is the full complement of believers gathered.

Where ekklesia is used in the LXX it again indicates a judicial assembly, an assemply of the people as a political body, or the assembly of the people for worship. Always it is an assembly of the people.

Eventually, by the time of Jesus, synagoge had come to be identified with the physical place as much as with the assembly. And originally ekklesia and synagoge had been synonymns, interestingly Jesus’ followers do not describe their meetings and the community represented by them as synagoge (with the single exception of James 2:2). The word had become too rigid, too closely associated with Jewish worship, with a building, with a community that was not inclusive of all that was part of the Christian community.

On the other hand ekklesia is used only twice in the Gospels, but Luke alone uses it 23 times in Acts. Another 20 times in Revelation. But it is Paul who really turns to this word in his letters some 46 times.

The absence of the word ekklesia from the Gospels cannot be explained by saying that the word was not in common usage. It obvioulsy was, since the gospels were written either contemporaneously with or later than the writing of Paul’s letters. Thus it appears intentional that the early Christians chose to use the term ekklesia to refer to the community that came into existence after the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus, because it does not refer to those who assembled to listen to Jesus preach nor even to those he gathered to himself as disciples.

Luke’s first use of the term ekklesia is not even at Pentecost but later in Acts 5:11 when Ananias and Sapphira are struck dead and have to be carried out, Luke writes: "Great fear seized the whole church * and all who heard about these events. It is in reference to the community of believers, and this is how Luke uses it throughout Acts whether it is Paul coming against it the community or Paul later establishing new assemblies of believers. Always, always, always it refers to the people formed into a faith community.

When Paul speaks of the ekklesia he uses it both in this meaning and in another sense. He uses ekklesia in the same sense as Luke when he addresses a letter to the church, the assembly of the faith community gathered in (insert name of city) or that the ekklesia of a particular region sent greetings to another region where there were other Christians gathered.

In this sense both Luke and Paul agree that there is the concept of individual gatherings called ekklesias as in “The churches of Asia salute you” (1 Corinthians 16:19a).

continued in next post…*

 

[Grace_Seeker]

…continued from previous post…

But Paul also has another emphasis. For Paul, the ekklesia appears as the event in which God fulfills his election through his personal call. For this reason Paul will speak of the kletoi, the called, when he means the Christian community. And thus we see Paul link the ekklesia to God’s work in forming a new and unique community of people that he has gathered/assembled for himself. Even Luke picks up on this as he quotes Paul’s message: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood” (Acts 20:29).

[Note, too, that those that are set apart as “overseers” (the Greek is *“episkopous”) are given that role by the Holy Spirit and those to whom Paul is speaking are the “elders” (presbuterous) whom Paul had sent for (see vs. 17). Thus there is no differentation in the church of God at Ephesus between presbuterous (i.e., elder) and episkopous (i.e. bishop), the two groups are in fact one in the same, for one term refers to their position and the other to their function.]

The ekklesia has its location, existence and being within definable geographical limits. (Paul has not yet spiritualized the concept into an invisible church; Augustine does that in City of God.) Paul thus writes of the ekklesia te ouse en Korintho, the church which is in Corinth, indicating that it belongs to the people of the place and that it has a new and different quality. Whoever is drawn into the ekklesia and belongs to it, lives in the sphere of power of the new creation by virute of belonging to Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:17). But this does not remove an individual from his position in the social order. He remains a Corinthian, a Thessalonian, a Roman, a slave, a freeman, a Jew, or a Gentile. The new citizenship creates a new relationship alongside the old, opening up a new dimension in the world. The old differences may exist, but they are passing away because they lose their divisive power in Christ who is equally Lord and Savior of all. Thus in Christ there is fellowship and unity because we have all been baptized in his name and none other. And so Paul reminds us that there is only one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. This unity comes not from some outward affiliation, but from God working on the inside – “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6).

Paul expresses this understanding of the Christian community in a single word which best characterizes his concept of the church. He speaks of ekklesia as body. The Christian community is the body, not just any body, but the very body of Christ. Thus belonging to Christ is analogous to becoming like a limb, part of the organism (see 1 Corinthians 12). Among these parts there is no gradation of importance. Each part of the body has its function, its gift, that it brings to the whole of the body. And no one part of the body can say to another that “I am not” nor that “you are not” a part of the body. All are part of the body because that is the way Christ has arranged it.

And it is for this very reason that statements like

Sorry, no. They separated. They knew at the time that they were separating.

are completely irrelevant. So it was wrong to separate, “it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.”

And one does not have to accept a definition of what it means to be in the body (e.g. unity with Rome) that is used by only one part of the body to be part of the body. This is so because Paul is speaking not only to "the ekklesia of God in Corinth, but also to “all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ–their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2).

As Christ has called people to be part of the The Catholic Church, so the Holy Spirit makes others to belong to Christ in and through the ministries of gatherings of other faith communities, these called out assemblies too, according to the scripture, are likewise to be called ekklesias (i.e. churches) whereever it is that they gather as an assembly of people belonging to Christ.

They are the true church because they truly belong to the body of Christ. They are part of the one church, because there is only one body of Christ.

Wherever two or three gather in Christ’s name, Christ is there. And where there is the body and the spirit, there exists the church. No other name is needed to make it the church, and no matter where it is gathered and no matter under what administration of gifts, they have all been given by the spirit who makes each member a part of the body, the church. Those who reject this teaching reject the teaching of the 1st generation of the one true church.

 

[jmcrae]

Grace;

The Catholic Church is not a building, or a local fellowship.

It is, in fact, akin to a nation - we even have a capital city (Vatican City), and envoys (Cardinals), and even a kind of army (the Swiss Guard).

Indeed, in the United States, when President Kennedy was running for office, the question was asked of him, “To which nation (ekklesia) are you loyal - the United States, or the Catholic Church?”

So it was wrong to separate, “it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.”

St. Paul doesn’t ever say that a part of the body can fall off, and not be separated. What he said was that an eye in its seeing does not, (because it does not hear) therefore become separated from the body. He was saying that the differentiation in functions does not cause parts of the body to fall off and become separated.

But if the eye were to fall out of the body because it felt rejected, or because it didn’t want to do what the brain commanded it to do, then it would certainly, then, be separated from the body.

 

[Grace_Seeker]

The problem is that we have not fallen off of the body, yet you insiste in seeing us that way. We seperated ourselves from the fellowship with other believers, and that was wrong, but we did not separate ourselves from Christ himself.

 

[jmcrae]

The problem is that we have not fallen off of the body, yet you insiste in seeing us that way. We seperated ourselves from the fellowship with other believers, and that was wrong, but we did not separate ourselves from Christ himself.

It is “the fellowship with other believers” that is the Church, which is Christ’s Body.

There was and still is only one “fellowship with other believers” (Church) that was founded by Christ and headed by the Apostles and their successors.

To use an analogy:

Imagine that I work for ABC company. I have a particular function at that company. As a member of that company, I’m a part of the whole, and my role is important to the success of that company.

One day, something happens - I reject my boss’s authority, and either he fires me, or I quit - either way, I’m gone.

If I then go out and start up my own company, and even if I call it ABC Company the Second, and even if I use the same rule book, etc., am I, or am I not, still a member of ABC Company?

What do you think? Would the bosses at ABC company, when asked about my status, say, “Oh, yes, she is a great worker, working for us,” if I have left them and gone out and started up my own company?

 

[Grace_Seeker]

It is “the fellowship with other believers” that is the Church, which is Christ’s Body.

There was and still is only one “fellowship with other believers” (Church) that was founded by Christ and headed by the Apostles and their successors.

I have not problem with that, if by “the Church, which is Christ’s Body” you don’t mean the Catholic Church exclusively. But if you do, then I think you are not thinking biblically anymore, but thinking based on what you have interpreted and read into the Bible out of your own particular tradition.

To use an analogy:

Imagine that I work for ABC company. I have a particular function at that company. As a member of that company, I’m a part of the whole, and my role is important to the success of that company.

One day, something happens - I reject my boss’s authority, and either he fires me, or I quit - either way, I’m gone.

If I then go out and start up my own company, and even if I call it ABC Company the Second, and even if I use the same rule book, etc., am I, or am I not, still a member of ABC Company?

What do you think? Would the bosses at ABC company, when asked about my status, say, “Oh, yes, she is a great worker, working for us,” if I have left them and gone out and started up my own company?

If we were talking about someone who quit company ABC to work at another company your point would be well taken. But the scenario you describe is not what happened.

We still work for the same boss as always. We still work for Jesus Christ. He owns the company we work for. But we have transferred to a different department than before and thus have a different department head who oversees our work on behalf of the owner. If your manager is telling everyone in the old department that we don’t work for the owner any more, I can only guess that it is because he is more out of the loop than I thought. I spoke with the owner earlier today myself and he even had a few suggestions for me as to how I could do my work better, but not one of them included going back to the old department. He thinks he has me in the department he most needs me in.

 

[guanophore]

The problem is that we have not fallen off of the body, yet you insiste in seeing us that way. We seperated ourselves from the fellowship with other believers, and that was wrong, but we did not separate ourselves from Christ himself.

Since we agree that Christ want us to be one, what can be done to fix this?

 

[guanophore]

but thinking based on what you have interpreted and read into the Bible out of your own particular tradition.

The Catholic Church wrote and preserved the Bible. It is most qualified to interpret it. Interpretations are not “read in” but “read out”. Do you recognize any Sacred Tradition, or do you think all Tradition is “of man”?

But we have transferred to a different department than before and thus have a different department head who oversees our work on behalf of the owner.

Why?

 I spoke with the owner earlier today myself and he even had a few suggestions for me as to how I could do my work better, but not one of them included going back to the old department.  He thinks he has me in the department he most needs me in.

If that is the case, why are you on the Catholic forum?

 

[Grace_Seeker]

The Catholic Church wrote and preserved the Bible. It is most qualified to interpret it. Interpretations are not “read in” but “read out”. Do you recognize any Sacred Tradition, or do you think all Tradition is “of man”?

I don’t see it as the Catholic Church which wrote and preserved the Bible. I see it as the Church which wrote the Bible and God who preserved it.

If that is the case, why are you on the Catholic forum?

I came here to ask one very specific question, because I was asked a question with regard to what Catholics believed. I thought that rather than give my own answer, that it was better to get that answer from the “horses mouth”, so to speak.

 

[Grace_Seeker]

Since we agree that Christ want us to be one, what can be done to fix this?

In my experience this is not a problem in real life. I have always had good working, supportive, and nuturing relationships with the fathers and sisters in my local community. We have held joint worship services. We meet regularly, sometimes for study, sometimes for planning community events, sometimes for simple fellowship. The degree to which we connect with one has varied somewhat from community to community, but it has always been one where we valued each others contribution to the cause of Christ. In some cases we have even celebrated the eucharist together.

So, in real life I don’t find the problem that this board exposes. There is not sense of not being one in Christ in the community in which I live my real life. It is only here in the virtual world that I encounter those who would deny our oneness. Perhaps the difference is that in real life, all those who I relate to so closely are operating in some sort of pastoral role. Whereas here, one feels the need to be an apologist.

The good news, as you have already pointed out, Christ ordained Peter to be a shepherd, a pastor, not an apologist.

 

[guanophore]

I don’t see it as the Catholic Church which wrote and preserved the Bible. I see it as the Church which wrote the Bible and God who preserved it.

Great! then we are in agreement about something. The Holy Spirit inspired the apostles to write some of the teachings, and they did so, then that Spirit protected and preserved those texts that are now in our modern bibles (except protestant bibles, because the reformers took out books they didnt like). Are you aware that there was no other “church” at the time?

I came here to ask one very specific question, because I was asked a question with regard to what Catholics believed.  I thought that rather than give my own answer, that it was better to get that answer from the "horses mouth", so to speak.

Right. So, did you get what you needed?

 

[jmcrae]

If we were talking about someone who quit company ABC to work at another company your point would be well taken. But the scenario you describe is not what happened.

We disagree.

We still work for the same boss as always. We still work for Jesus Christ. He owns the company we work for. But we have transferred to a different department than before and thus have a different department head who oversees our work on behalf of the owner.

Except that the owner Himself never established any new departments, and never hired any of these new department heads. They appointed themselves, after disagreeing with the person that the owner did actually hire, and they set up these new departments on their own, without authorization from anyone in the company, least of all the owner, who explicitly forbade the setting up of new departments, in the Company Manual (see John 17).

If your manager is telling everyone in the old department that we don’t work for the owner any more, I can only guess that it is because he is more out of the loop than I thought. I spoke with the owner earlier today myself and he even had a few suggestions for me as to how I could do my work better, but not one of them included going back to the old department. He thinks he has me in the department he most needs me in.

You know, of course, that we have an enemy who disguises himself as the owner, who would love nothing more than to have millions of “departments” in the “company,” and even to have every individual on earth to be the “head” of his very own “department” without ever listening to the ones hired by the real owner, so as to destroy the company from the inside.

 

[Grace_Seeker]

You know, of course, that we have an enemy who disguises himself as the owner, who would love nothing more than to have millions of “departments” in the “company,” and even to have every individual on earth to be the “head” of his very own “department” without ever listening to the ones hired by the real owner, so as to destroy the company from the inside.

Thank-you for using the term “we”, I’m hoping by that you meant that you and I, as fellow Christians, have a common enemy. And that the “we” was not referring just to you and other Catholics.

 

[Grace_Seeker]

Great! then we are in agreement about something. The Holy Spirit inspired the apostles to write some of the teachings, and they did so, then that Spirit protected and preserved those texts that are now in our modern bibles (except protestant bibles, because the reformers took out books they didnt like). Are you aware that there was no other “church” at the time?

Which is why I agree that there is one Church still today. But I believe that it is the Spirit which makes us one, not the seat of Peter. Thus Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, all who confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior belong to Jesus Christa are part of his one Church that is spread across multiple denominations, fellowships, and communions.

Right. So, did you get what you needed?

Not yet. I put the question to “Ask An Apologist”, but I am still waiting to see if it will be one they take up or not. However… in your post here you actually raised the same issue I came here to learn regarding. It is with respect to the Deutercanon. May I ask it of you?

(He says and then doesn’t wait for an answer but just goes ahead and asks, anyway.)

I know the history of how the books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees were included in the Catholic Bible and left out of the Protestant Bible. My quesiton has to do with the weight given them. Is Tobit understood as being on par with Genesis? Or are they seen has books that have historical relevance and are valued, but not in the same way as the writings of Paul are valued?

It is a question about (1) use as much as it is about (2) authority.

(except protestant bibles, because the reformers took out books they didnt like).

I’m assuming you know why the reformers didn’t like them.

 

[guanophore]

Thank-you for using the term “we”, I’m hoping by that you meant that you and I, as fellow Christians, have a common enemy. And that the “we” was not referring just to you and other Catholics.

Absolutely, Grace Seeker. The enemy prowls about looking for someone to devour. He most earnestly wishes to separate and divide Christ’s Body, so that we can be destroyed. Unity is our strength, which is why Jesus prayed that unity may be maintained.

Matt 12:25-27
“Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand”

 

[guanophore]

Which is why I agree that there is one Church still today. But I believe that it is the Spirit which makes us one, not the seat of Peter. Thus Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, all who confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior belong to Jesus Christa are part of his one Church that is spread across multiple denominations, fellowships, and communions.

This is good Catholic teaching. The seat of Peter is just the visible sign on earth of the unity of the Spirit.

Is Tobit understood as being on par with Genesis?  Or are they seen has books that have historical relevance and are valued, but not in the same way as the writings of Paul are valued?

I think this is off topic, and belongs in another thread.