The "Catholic" view of Church history. Is there any other?

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I have been to numerous Bible Colleges just to see what is being taught about “Early Church Fathers”.

There are varying degrees of selectiveness in what is put into the text books. One bible college was so selective that the only “Early Church Fathers” they recognize are Martin Luther and others that came after him, and even then they omit the beliefs that these held that were common to the Catholic faith such as Infant Baptism and most Marian Doctrines.

This selectiveness is more widespread and abundant here in the deep south. I spent a couple of years in Connecticut and Maine and took some classes there and I can say the selectiveness was in the opposited direction of that of the Deep South.

I was born and raised in the deep south, so I am not being prejudical toward southerners, I am just pointing out my observations.

After I retire I would like to visit some of the Seminarys and Bible Colleges in the West and determine the Selectiveness of their teachings.

Here is quote from Fr J. on OT canon.

Q: Why are there books in my Bible that aren’t in my friend’s Bible? Did we ‘add’ them or make them up?
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful book that everyone loved and wanted to know more about. Then there came a time when some people came along and said, “That part of the book doesn’t go with what I’m trying to teach people, so I’m taking it out.” Then some others came and did the same… in fact they took seven parts of the book out. Well, some of the people who still loved of the whole book said, “Let’s try to keep all the rest of the book together.”

Okay, so that’s a little more the fairy tale version of the story, but it’s not far from the truth. You see, in the early days of the Church the Bible was still pretty much the way you see it in a Catholic version of the Bible today. However, in the Reformation some of their leaders took books and passages out of the Bible that didn’t go along with the teachings they were trying to put across. By the end of it there were seven books taken out in total. If you can get your hands on a copy of the St. Joseph’s edition of the New American Bible in the front is a copy of the “Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation” and there you will see the Church’s wisdom in selecting what we have in the Bible.

Fr. J.
 
Edwin hits on some good points, particularly concerning the later rise of the position of the Bishop of Rome vis-a-vis the other four historic patriarchates of the ancient world. So do you, Joey Warren, when you speak of the early church fathers. Far too few “pontificating” evangelicals and fundamentalists have no idea (let alone care) about what the earliest church really taught, believed and practiced–at least that is my experience. For them it is all about what they feel and believe to gain personal salvation. Nevertheless, I have heard it said that the Roman Catholic Church is the largest of the Protestant churches because she reacted so quickly and vehemently to the Protestant “Revolution” by overdoing it the other way–and there may be a valid point there. I don’t think most Protestants realize they are not the product of a “reformation” of the historic catholic faith and her church, but the inheritors of revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow the known faith, and even more so the existing church! The Catholic Church could have (and for the most part did) “reformed itself” by properly teaching and practicing what had always been taught and should have been practiced in the lives of the clergy, but then stepped out and, for the first time, threw out papal supremacy as a necessary belief of the faith. It matters not that the pope had, by that time, been generally accepted as infallible in matters of faith and morals, it matters that it had not been pronounced and nothing had been definitively stated under that doctrine, if I understand correctly. Shalom.
 
It’s my understanding that the catholic only makes an official stand on an issue when it is being seriously questioned. My understanding is that the church recognition of infallability goes back to the actual writing of the books that comprise the New Testament. Meaning that the writers had to be infallible in the matters of faith and morals before they sat down to write.
 
I comprehend what you say. But the NT canon was discussed and approved by a synod of all of those in apostolic succession, no? It was decreed by the pontiff sitting ex catedra, correct? Hence, is that not a very good historical fact that underscores that papal infallibility was not an “official dogma” of the early, undivided, catholic and apostolic church? It is a classic example of ecunimical counsels working with the Pope and other patriarchs of the great five churches (Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Alexandria),in addition to the Roman See which, I do firmly believe as true, was given primacy of honor amongst the five due to Saints Peter and Paul being martyred there.
 
Can you express that in more of layman’s terms?

I have only started studying scripture and early church fathers. Some of what you are saying is above my head, please remember I am humble 2 college graduate, very, very, very far from being a theologian 😦

Thank you 🙂
 
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JoeyWarren:
It’s my understanding that the catholic only makes an official stand on an issue when it is being seriously questioned. My understanding is that the church recognition of infallability goes back to the actual writing of the books that comprise the New Testament. Meaning that the writers had to be infallible in the matters of faith and morals before they sat down to write.
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I understand the same as you do with respect to your first sentence and that is what all catholic apologists I have engaged in discussion with mention to me when an issue comes up. I do not doubt that many in the ancient church viewed the pope as infallible in certain limited circumstances, but the Great Schism from so long ago aslo presents an obviously widely held view in the eastern churches that the pope did not historically have such a personal gift over and above the other patriarchates or central, ancient churches of the original Christian church. There is support for both positions from what I can tell. It seems that the use of councils and synods was the preferred method of dealing with matters of faith and morals for the first seven centuries and that there were no ex catedra (or “from the chair”–of Saint Peter) pronouncements binding on the faithful during this era. It should matter not that the pontiff during these counciliar decrees was in complete agreement, blessed them and authorized them as bishop of Rome, since the other four head bishops of the eastern churches did so as well. Did any of them make the claim of infallibiilty in such instances? Not that I know of. A return to primacy, rather than obligatory supremacy, as a means of achievin union of the churches seems like a reasonable way to go, no?
 
Joey,

If you’re basing your views of Protestants on Southern Bible colleges, then I don’t blame you. I apologize for the tone of some of my replies. I grew up in East Tennessee (though my family came from elsewhere), so I know what that environment is like, and I understand how hard it is to be a Catholic in that culture. One of the reasons I get so vehement is that I’ve been privileged to experience very different forms of Protestantism than Southern fundamentalism (the folks at Duke Divinity School, for instance, take the Church Fathers very seriously indeed–one of my colleagues, a Methodist minister, wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on patristic interpretation of the Psalms). And I get frustrated when Catholics on this board act as if fundamentalism is the only thing out there (or as if the only other brand of Protestantism is ultra-liberal). We Protestants really are all over the map, as you accuse us of being. Do us the credit of recognizing that what you encounter in your part of the country may not be typical of all Protestants everywhere.

If you tell me where you live I can tell you if I know of a more reputable Protestant theological institution near you that might give you a different picture. A friend of mine, Scott McGinnis, for instance, teaches at Samford in Birmingham AL. He’s a Baptist, but he takes the historic tradition of the Church very seriously. The dean of the divinity school there, Timothy George, is also a Baptist, but he writes for First Things (whose editorial board is largely Catholic) and has written one recent article about the authority of the early Church and another about changes in evangelical attitudes to other Christians. Baylor in Waco TX is another school (also Baptist) that I’d expect to be quite fair and open in its attitude to these things.Most of their theology professors are Baptists, I believe, but I know one recently hired professor in their undergraduate “Great Books” program who just converted to Catholicism (from Episcopalianism). Moderate, ecumenical, historically conscious Protestants are out there. The problem is that often we have trouble getting our views down to the grass roots. I’ve just agreed to write a book on early Christianity for my parents’ small evangelical publishing company as a way of trying to reach this audience. (Obviously not everything I say is going to be stuff Catholics would agree with, but I’m going to try simply to portray the nature of early Christian piety without either whitewashing it for Protestants or getting too many backs up. This is going to be tough, but it should be fun as well.

Edwin
 
Claim of Infallibility? Was Jesus infallible? If so, is it possible that he handed down this infallibility down to Peter as well when he proclaim his church would start with Peter?

Regards to the Eastern Churches they have their own psuedo pope, just as in a sense each pastor of a protestant church is his/her own pope.

As far as the proclamation of Infallibiity, No pope since has made a statement of Faith or Morals alone. He has had the council of his Bishops to advise him in every case. And no doctrine that has been ever issued by other popes that was in contradiction to to scripture according to my understanding.
 
“As a committed evangelical Protestant with a great respect for the history of Christian doctrine, I subscribed to a fairly widespread non-Catholic view of Church history: a vague, ethereal, semi-legendary conception of the early Church as quasi-Protestant, and lacking those elements which are now termed “Catholic distinctives.” If the early Christians weren’t technically & exhaustively Protestant (as defined theologically and ecclesiologically by the revolutionary movement in the 16th century), they certainly (in the main, anyway) weren’t Catholic - or so I had casually assumed …”

**Dave Armstrong’s Conversion Testimony **
 
All I will say is that my priest was ordained by a priest that was ordained by a priest that was ordained by a priest…etc… that was ordained by a priest that was ordained by Peter whom was ordained by Jesus. And it is my understanding that there is a paper trail in some form or another that can prove this…

No protestant I believe can make such a claim.
 
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JoeyWarren:
All I will say is that my priest was ordained by a priest that was ordained by a priest that was ordained by a priest…etc… that was ordained by a priest that was ordained by Peter whom was ordained by Jesus. And it is my understanding that there is a paper trail in some form or another that can prove this…

No protestant I believe can make such a claim.
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Actually if you’re talking purely about succession of presbyters, then Anglicans and Methodists can definitely make this claim, and I think Lutherans and many Reformed can as well. Anglicans of course also have a succession of bishops. Except for high-church Anglicans (who may not want to call themselves Protestants), Protestants don’t put the same importance on this succession that Catholics do, and even in the case of Anglicans Catholics think they have good reason for denying us valid succession. But the fact is that the historic Protestant churches generally ordain clergy by other clergy, and we all stand in continuity with the pre-Reformation Church. Baptists and other more radical Protestants are another matter, of course.

Edwin
 
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JoeyWarren:
My profile says Millbrook. It is 10 miles north of Montgomery.
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Well, if you have the time you might want to go visit Samford some day and check them out the way you have checked out the Bible colleges closer to you.

Edwin
 
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Contarini:
Actually if you’re talking purely about succession of presbyters, then Anglicans and Methodists can definitely make this claim, and I think Lutherans and many Reformed can as well. Anglicans of course also have a succession of bishops. Except for high-church Anglicans (who may not want to call themselves Protestants), Protestants don’t put the same importance on this succession that Catholics do, and even in the case of Anglicans Catholics think they have good reason for denying us valid succession. But the fact is that the historic Protestant churches generally ordain clergy by other clergy, and we all stand in continuity with the pre-Reformation Church. Baptists and other more radical Protestants are another matter, of course.

Edwin
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You are right in a sense. And that is one of the reasons why we will accept an Episcopal pastor as a Priest.

Edwin, have you read any of the “Surprised By Truth” books by Patrick Madrid? Some of the stories of conversion are by ex-Anglicans.
 
With regard to the last two posts by Edwin and Joey Warren, I think that the issue of apostolic succession is very key to the Anglican tradition, as much as it is to the Catholic Church (which I personally define as the Latin, Byzantine and various Orthodox branches, along with the Anglican Communion–at least most of it). To be part of the historic holy, catholic and apostolic church, there must be continuity as that is what the historic catholic faith has always taught. In other words, it is more than an invisible body of “believers” throughout the world, although they would, for the most part, be part of the corporate body of Christ. The catholic church, to be catholic, must be an actual body here amongst us or, as Professor Peter Kreept has put it, the catholic faith is found in the catholic church–an actual living organism through which God’s graces are transmitted to the faithful. Many Protestants outside the Anglican tradition (for the most part), in my experience, do not understand this and how it flows from the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. It is so key to the historic faith, though, as this is central to the grace dispensed through the Holy Sacraments instituted by our Lord and his apostles for the world’s benefit. Apostolicity is likewise central, as this was what our Lord and apostles instituted for the salvation of the world. Who are we to undermine it? God is love (agape).
 
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