Ah, rwoehmke, using your analogy, which of us is being the more slippery: the proesecution or the attorney for the defense? You have accused me of using "the Classical When did you stop beating your wife? question and that there is no good way to answer it. I think you have mistaken the nature of my question for what is known as the logical fallacy of a “complex question,” which involves more than one question hidden within the overt inquiry. I am not doing this or, if you prefer, I certainly do not think that I am.
Nevertheless, there is a very easy way to resolve a complex question. You simply deny the implicit and faulty assumption first. For instance, let’s take your example. “When did you stop beating your wife?” You would simply respond, “I never have beaten my wife.” Problem solved. Now, if I am wrong and I’ve asked something that could be classified as this type of logical fallacy, then where is my faulty implicit notion?
When it comes to killing each other because of differences in belief, we all are guilty.
Please, be patient and fair with me and allow me to explain myself. To use an example, the Roman Catholic church could never be accused of having done wrong or of being corrupt
in itself because some renegade priest or monk or Pope or cardinal did or said something particularly corrupt. We don’t feel, for instance, particularly tainted by the actions of King David (when he committed adultery and murdered). Why not? Because we’ve never personally advocated his practice, nor does the Bible advocate it.
If I were here pointing to the foul life of some false Roman Catholic, you would be able to make just the sort of straightforward defense you are making. The very fact that such immoral people are false in their actions is precisely what keeps the Church free of that association.
But these are not at all the grounds I’m arguing. I am suggesting that these men who burned the people of GOD were not false Roman Catholics but were very good Roman Catholics, acting with a nod of approval from Rome itself. In other words, I am concerned with
any church wherein a person who participates in the torture and death of a Christian brother is seen as a member in good standing who is carrying out that church’s policy.
Should we not be concerned about such a church? Should we not deny such a church?
I assume you think that, on some level, the Roman Catholic church is guilty because you have admitted as much… about all of this being indefensible and we’re all guilty of the same (which
is actually a fallacy, called the tu qoque or “You do it, too” fallacy), etc. But, after all, the attempt at aiming the accusation back at Protestants of all stripes simply doesn’t work for one very important reason. If it did, I would be right there with you asking whether certain Protestant churches could be rightly deemed Christ’s church (something I’ve done with the Anglican churches and their present corruption and liberalism). I’m willing to be fair because I serve Christ first.
But, your argument continues to suffer from the lack of any precise target. You want to point to Luther or Calvin or to the insufferable wrongs perpetuated in England, which I agree falls under the same rightful censure. None of this, however, even remotely affects a number of remaining churches which have not been involved in those practices.
No matter how strange it may seem to you, personally, there is a possiblity (no matter how slight) that Rome may not be the Church established by Christ. And, if it is legitimate and reasonable to expect that the Church established by Christ will not
itself sanction the murder and torture of those in the household of GOD, among the brethren of Christ, then it would follow (so far) that Rome cannot be THAT Church.
There is only one question for us, then. Is it legitimate and reasonable to assume that the Church established by Christ will not
itself sanction the murder and torture of those in the household of GOD, among the brethren of Christ? If the verse I provided (which is only one of many, as I think we all know) is nothing more than a “prooftext,” then we should now repudiate the conclusion immediately above and, instead, teach that the Church established by Christ can and, indeed, rightly has sanctioned and practiced the murder and torture of her own. But, if you do agree to that and continue to say that I am using some “prooftext” about how the people of GOD will act, then I would like to see how many Roman Catholics will join you in this.
I certainly do want to remain and hear what everyone has to say on this. All are welcome and, again, I don’t think I’ve heard the last word… but I would appreciate it if concerns which are so deep for me were not simply pushed aside as though they were simple word games I’m playing.
