Why follow a religion made up by Martin Luther in 1500 and not Christ himself?

[sandmountainsli]

I said it before and shall say it again.
My church was not “Made up” by some German!
It was founded at the Christmas Conference in the late 18th Century when it broke from the Church of England.
the Church of England broke from the Catholics during the reign of the tyrant Henry Tudor Jr.
Up until the reign of Tudor the history of my church and the history of your church were the same as they were one in the same organization.
All of the early saints and the pre-Tudor history belongs to us also.
WP

 

[jmcrae]

I said it before and shall say it again.
My church was not “Made up” by some German!
It was founded at the Christmas Conference in the late 18th Century when it broke from the Church of England.
the Church of England broke from the Catholics during the reign of the tyrant Henry Tudor Jr.
Up until the reign of Tudor the history of my church and the history of your church were the same as they were one in the same organization.
All of the early saints and the pre-Tudor history belongs to us also.
WP

There were five distinct branches of Protestantism: Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Calvinism, Mennonite, and Zwinglian. Four of the five still exist today, and there are dozens if not hundreds more (some say tens of thousands; I consider that number highly suspicious, though) that branched off from these original five.

The latter four were inspired by Luther, though certainly not taught by him - they believed and taught entirely different heresies, and the majority of Protestants who died of being burned at the stake in those early years were being burned there by other Protestants; not by Catholics. (There were also a lot of Catholics being burned at Protestant stakes, particularly in England.)

 

[Steadfast]

Could you, merely for the sake of charity, use a word other than “heresy” to mark our beliefs?

I understand that you think our beliefs are heretical but it’s a little inflammatory and certainly provocative to just throw it out there like that.

Think how irritated you would get if I blithely referred to you as “a Romanist”.

 

[sandmountainsli]

Could you, merely for the sake of charity, use a word other than “heresy” to mark our beliefs?

I understand that you think our beliefs are heretical but it’s a little inflammatory and certainly provocative to just throw it out there like that.

Think how irritated you would get if I blithely referred to you as “a Romanist”.

I used the word “Romists” on here earlier tonight and was chastised for it! I promised not to say it again on this forum
WP

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Who cares? There weren’t any Thomists before Aquinas either.

Edwin

And Friar Thomas was not uncontroversial - 20 theses of his (or ascribed to him - the details vary according as the source is Franciscan or Dominican ) were condemned by the Archbishop of Paris in 1277, and there was opposition to some of his ideas in Oxford as well, until after his canonisation.​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Yes, they certainly should. (One fool-proof way to do that would be for them to return to the Catholic Church - that way, they would be sure to be rid of every novelty of Protesantism, and also be restored to the fullness of the Christian faith, regaining every good thing that Luther and his successors threw away.)

Why is it bad for them to have novelties, & more than OK for us to have novelties ?​

What have Lutherans “thrown away”, that they need ? Nothing. No one needs indulgences, pilgrimages, images, or such things - they may be good to have or do, but they are far from necessary. Justification by the grace of Christ is so necessary, that without it no one is in Christ - and they have that, & baptism, & all else that they need.

What is wrong with novelty, if only it be authentically Christian, & glorifying to Christ ? St. Thomas Aquinas is full of novelties - as was Augustine: that doresn’t make either of them wrong. So why should it make Luther wrong ? Christianity began as a sect within Judaism. It was a novelty for Abram to leave Ur when he obeyed God by faith and left it. Rejection of novelty of all kinds simply for being novel is a recipe for rejecting Christ, for He was novel.

It is not novelty that is the bad thing, but error - and Rome was in serious error in 1517 in its conduct. But for Luther, we might still be trafficking in indulgences.

The “novelty” of faith alone is at least firmly scriptural - but what Father or Apostle ever preached on the co-redemption of Mary ? Not a one. Yet we keep on all the time about Fatima this, Lourdes that, Guadelupe the other - the Church would still be Catholic if none of these had ever been mentioned, because it is Jesus Christ we need - not Mary. But without Jesus Christ neither Church nor Christian can survive for one moment. As Luther knew.

The Church is defined by being Christian, not by using the rosary, praying to Mary, or the like.

We can know, that many disliked intensely the novelties of St.Paul - he often complains of those who wanted Christians to submit to the Law. He was at least as revolutionary, unsettling, & novel, as Luther. ##

 

[stefany379]

No, the Roman church chose to leave the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic church by its own volition in 1054. Eastern Catholic Orthodoxy is the same as it was and never left the Catholic church, but the Roman west did.

No, The Eastern Orthodox Church broke off from unity with The Pope in 1054…do your research.

 

[stefany379]

Why is it bad for them to have novelties, & more than OK for us to have novelties ?​

What have Lutherans “thrown away”, that they need ? Nothing. No one needs indulgences, pilgrimages, images, or such things - they may be good to have or do, but they are far from necessary. Justification by the grace of Christ is so necessary, that without it no one is in Christ - and they have that, & baptism, & all else that they need.

What is wrong with novelty, if only it be authentically Christian, & glorifying to Christ ? St. Thomas Aquinas is full of novelties - as was Augustine: that doresn’t make either of them wrong. So why should it make Luther wrong ? Christianity began as a sect within Judaism. It was a novelty for Abram to leave Ur when he obeyed God by faith and left it. Rejection of novelty of all kinds simply for being novel is a recipe for rejecting Christ, for He was novel.

It is not novelty that is the bad thing, but error - and Rome was in serious error in 1517 in its conduct. But for Luther, we might still be trafficking in indulgences.

The “novelty” of faith alone is at least firmly scriptural - but what Father or Apostle ever preached on the co-redemption of Mary ? Not a one. Yet we keep on all the time about Fatima this, Lourdes that, Guadelupe the other - the Church would still be Catholic if none of these had ever been mentioned, because it is Jesus Christ we need - not Mary. But without Jesus Christ neither Church nor Christian can survive for one moment. As Luther knew.

The Church is defined by being Christian, not by using the rosary, praying to Mary, or the like.

We can know, that many disliked intensely the novelties of St.Paul - he often complains of those who wanted Christians to submit to the Law. He was at least as revolutionary, unsettling, & novel, as Luther. ##

I am sorry to inform you that Lourdes this and Fatima that and Guadalupe this certainly sounds a bit lame to me as you put it. I bet you never even read or researched these magnificent apparitions of Our Blessed Mother. 80,000 people witnessed the miracle of Fatima. Are you saying 80,000 people are wrong? There are numerous documentations and facts from centuries ago of these apparitions. They are occurring today in Medjugorgie, Yugoslavia. I was there. There have been millions of converts that came back. Read Our Lady of Guadalupe, how the man she appeared to, Juan Diego, and left a sign in his cloak that hangs today there from centuries ago. the The Aztec Indians converted, 3 million of them. I just started a thread about The Rosary. The Rosary is the most powerful weapon we have against Satan and sin. The Rosary is taken from The Bible itself.
you say nobody needs pilgramages? My friend was taken to Lourdes where he was cured from terminal cancer. Correct, we do not need to go find Jesus b/c He is right here, but you cannot explain all the miracles where Our Lady has appeared.

 

[HailMary]

The Rosary is the most powerful weapon we have against Satan and sin.

Lets be more clear: The prayer of the Rosary is the most powerful Sacramental against the Miserable One.

The most powerful weapon is the Divine Liturgy (mass).

Sacramentals, of course, are not Sacraments but rather they point to the real thing.

And just another point about this conversation, we (catholics) are not required to give theological accent to private apparitions. We take it on pious faith as St. Louis de Montfort teaches in a wonderful book called The Secret of the Rosary.

 

[stefany379]

Lets be more clear: The prayer of the Rosary is the most powerful Sacramental against the Miserable One.

The most powerful weapon is the Divine Liturgy (mass).

Sacramentals, of course, are not Sacraments but rather they point to the real thing.

And just another point about this conversation, we (catholics) are not required to give theological accent to private apparitions. We take it on pious faith as St. Louis de Montfort teaches in a wonderful book called The Secret of the Rosary.

I have read that book from St. Louis De Montfort and loved it. Padre Pio once said “The Rosary is the weapon against Satan.” Other Saints have said the same. Padre Pio who had The Stigmata of Our Lord and who loved The Blessed Mother.

 

[MrS]

Could you, merely for the sake of charity, use a word other than “heresy” to mark our beliefs?

I understand that you think our beliefs are heretical but it’s a little inflammatory and certainly provocative to just throw it out there like that.

Think how irritated you would get if I blithely referred to you as “a Romanist”.

The “heresy” exists because it is taught in opposition to the Truth. That does not make you a heretic if you actually do not know the truth. No problem there

Luther was a heretic, and all indication is that he died a heretic. But only God really knows his heart.

But you should not object if a Catholic referes to any heretical teachings as heresy. They are what they are.

As for Romanist… so what.? The Church of England did use the name to insult the Catholic Church. Even they knew that the Catholic Church had its head in Rome, and was distinct from the Orthodox. The Church of England wanted the name Catholic (Universal) for their own use, thus their attempt to rename the True Church. It developed into a simple Roman adjective, and it stuck.

I am Catholic, Roman Rite… and you can call me Roman Catholic if you like.

.

 

[Contarini]

There were five distinct branches of Protestantism: Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Calvinism, Mennonite, and Zwinglian.

No, that’s misleading. Calvinism, Zwinglianism, and Anglicanism were not distinct confessions; they did not anathematize each other or construct confessions designed to exclude each other. Calvinism and Zwinglianism were distinct theological positions within a broad coalition of Reformed churches, of which early “Anglicanism” was simply the English expression. By the end of the century Calvinism and Zwinglianism had clearly merged, while Anglicanism was developing a separate identity through its rejection of the radical “Calvinism” fo the Puritans. But there was never a time when Calvinism, Zwinglianism, and Anglicanism existed as separate entities over against each other.

One of the things Catholics often fail to understand about early Protestantism is that it was regional and (except for the “radicals”) largely dependent on government action (Catholics are of course quick to cite this latter point to discredit Protestantism, but they don’t think through the implications of this as opposed to modern “denominationalism”). Most Protestant churches were simply the state church in a particular area, which had undertaken certain reforms based on one or another school of Protestant theology. It took a while for these various regional churches to sort themselves out into distinct confessions, by which time you had two main groups–Lutherans and Reformed–with Anglicanism more and more distinguishing itself from both as a “via media” (originally a via media between the Lutherans and Reformed, later on, at least according to some, a via media between Protestantism as a whole and Catholicism).

The Mennonites were the major organized expression of the Anabaptist movement by the later part of the century, but there were always multiple radical groups running around. It’s interesting that you exaggerate the disunity of the state-church Protestants and vastly underestimate the disunity of the radicals. The proliferation of sects has always been a function of the radical wing of Protestantism–it’s just that this “free church” wing has become bigger and more important with each century, so that now it’s no longer a radical wing but the dominant expression of Protestantism. And, of course, with the lack of a state church in the U.S. even the formerly state-church traditions have tended to imitate the free churches, including their tendency to splinter.

 

[Contarini]

the majority of Protestants who died of being burned at the stake in those early years were being burned there by other Protestants; not by Catholics.

No. That’s completely wrong. Most of the “Protestants” executed by other Protestants were “radicals” (Anabaptists and other miscellaneous groups/individuals who rejected mainstream Protestantism as well as Catholicism). And even there I’m pretty confident that more radicals were killed by Catholics than by Protestants. (The quickest way to check this is to consult the Mennonite martyrology The Martyrs’ Mirror and see how many of the stories are about Catholic vs. Protestant persecution. Of course one could come up with reasons why the MM might exaggerate Catholic persecution and downplay that engaged in by Protestants, and I’m not basing my contention primarily on that–simply pointing out that this is one quick way to get a sense of how the land lay.) Zurich drowned a number of Anabaptists, but most Protestant governments were more likely to imprison or exile them. Burning was rarely used as a punishment for heresy by Continental Protestants–Geneva burned Servetus, and I’m not claiming there were no other instances, but I can’t think of any off-hand. Beheading or drowning was more common, and blasphemy or sedition were more common charges than heresy (one can argue whether there’s any meaningful difference between blasphemy and heresy, but there was a difference in how they were punished).

One Protestant government–and only one to my knowledge–burned a *number *of people for heresy, and that was England. Henry VIII (we could argue as to whether he was a Protestant in any meaningful sense, but I’ll accept the label for the sake of argument) burned several overly radical Protestants in the 1530s and 1540s by way of demonstrating the orthodoxy of the newly independent Church of England (by “overly radical” I mean people that denied the Real Presence, for instance; some Anabaptists were also burned, I believe). Some Anabaptists were executed (I’m not sure if they were beheaded or burned) under Edward VI, at least one Separatist leader under Elizabeth if I remember rightly, and I think also some Baptists under James I. I believe some anti-Trinitarians were also executed.

However, as far as I know *no Catholic *was *ever *burned at the stake by a Protestant government. Catholics were of course executed by Protestant governments, and in England many of these executions, while officially for treason, were in effect for loyalty to the Catholic Church (More, Fisher, the Carthusians, and the several hundred martyrs under Elizabeth). I have heard that there were a couple such executions in Scotland, but I don’t know the circumstances, the exact charges, or the mode of death. I do not know of any Catholic ever being executed by a *Continental *Protestant government for reasons that could plausibly be interpreted as religious martyrdom (i.e., obviously someone who tried to assassinate a Protestant ruler or something like that would be executed as a traitor, but that surely doesn’t count). There was a massacre of Carmelites (I believe) in the Netherlands as part of the war for independence, and there were a number of acts of violence, some of them lethal, against Catholic clergy/religious (and less often laypeople who were defending the Host from desecration or something) in France and elsewhere. So I am not denying for an instant that Protestants engaged in religious violence on a regular basis. But you specifically said burned, and as far as I know you are wrong.

If you have specifics that contradict this, please produce them. We are not talking about generic religious violence. We are talking about burning at the stake and/or a judicial execution where the formal charge was heresy, and/or a judicial execution where the charge was explicitly or implicitly that of being loyal to Catholicism. (In other words, there are three different categories of executions here–I’m saying that the first two were never inflicted on Catholics by Protestants, and I think–though I’m not sure–that the last was only inflicted on Catholics in Britain.)

Edwin

 

[sandmountainsli]

Please do not say “Henry VIII” as there was no such person.
The man you speak of was Henry Tudor Jr. who was the son of a man guilty of Regicide.
Henry was a disgusting wretch of a man guilty of both murder (including the death of James IV of Scots), adultery and Heresy. He died of some form of blistering crotch-rot which was most befitting for a man of his character.
Thank you.
WP

 

[Contarini]

Please do not say “Henry VIII” as there was no such person.
The man you speak of was Henry Tudor Jr. who was the son of a man guilty of Regicide.
Henry was a disgusting wretch of a man guilty of both murder (including the death of James IV of Scots), adultery and Heresy. He died of some form of blistering crotch-rot which was most befitting for a man of his character.
Thank you.
WP

If we denied the title king to every monarch of bad character, the lists would be quite sparse.

Henry VIII reigned as king of England, so of course I’m going to refer to him as such, as all historians do. I have no particular interest at this distance of time in the question whether he was the legitimate monarch or not. But just for the fun of it, if Henry VII was not the true king, who was? Are you one of those people who thinks that Henry Tudor murdered the Princes in the Tower? If so, who was the rightful king *after *the death of Edward V?

Edwin

P.S. Interesting discussion board you link to. Is “Bretwalda” the term you guys use for the P.M.? Is “the Saxon kingdom” England, or the U.K. generally? Are you claiming that Scotland was not dominated by Saxons before the Union of 1707?

 

[happygal]

One Protestant government–and only one to my knowledge–burned a *number *of people for heresy, and that was England. Henry VIII (we could argue as to whether he was a Protestant in any meaningful sense, but I’ll accept the label for the sake of argument) burned several overly radical Protestants in the 1530s and 1540s by way of demonstrating the orthodoxy of the newly independent Church of England (by “overly radical” I mean people that denied the Real Presence, for instance; some Anabaptists were also burned, I believe). Some Anabaptists were executed (I’m not sure if they were beheaded or burned) under Edward VI, at least one Separatist leader under Elizabeth if I remember rightly, and I think also some Baptists under James I. I believe some anti-Trinitarians were also executed.

**What about Queen Mary, she was a devoted Catholic and cannot stand protestant at all, she was called bloody Mary because of her cruelty, for she wanted England to be a Catholic Empire thus she ordered the execution of protestant. She even wanted to kill her cousin Queen Elizerbeth I. If not because of Mary intolerance against the protestant , the royal Kings/Queen of England till date would simply free to marry a Catholic and not the other way round, who ever next in line to the throne are not allow to marry a Catholic else you shall be taken off from the accession. **
Edwin

 

[sandmountainsli]

If we denied the title king to every monarch of bad character, the lists would be quite sparse.

Henry VIII reigned as king of England, so of course I’m going to refer to him as such, as all historians do. I have no particular interest at this distance of time in the question whether he was the legitimate monarch or not. But just for the fun of it, if Henry VII was not the true king, who was? Are you one of those people who thinks that Henry Tudor murdered the Princes in the Tower? If so, who was the rightful king *after *the death of Edward V?

Edwin

You have things mixed up a little, no one believes Henry Sr. murdered the princes. Henry murdered the last true English King, Richard III. Henry and his offspring were no more legitimate than Cromwell.
WP

 

[sandmountainsli]

Not that you are interested (I am not particularly) but if you are looking for the legitimate English Monarch it is a fellow in Australia.
I believe his name is Michael Hastings somethingorother.
WP

 

[Contarini]

You have things mixed up a little, no one believes Henry Sr. murdered the princes. Henry murdered the last true English King, Richard III. Henry and his offspring were no more legitimate than Cromwell.
WP

No, I’m not mixed up. There is a popular conspiracy theory to the effect that the princes were still alive when Henry VII took over and that he murdered them.

If Henry didn’t murder Edward V, then presumably Richard did. Which would mean, logically, that if Henry’s reign was illegitimate (because he killed Richard in battle) then Richard’s was illegitimate because he killed Edward V (treacherously, being sworn to protect him). Or are you claiming that Edward V died a natural death?

It seems to me that this kind of extreme legitimism would, in the end, undermine any monarchy whatsoever. Of course if there are two rivals, one supports the more legitimate one. But are you seriously maintaining that for a monarch’s reign to be legitimate all his predecessors must have come to power in a legitimate way? Or is there a statute of limitations?

I suppose you would say that Henry IV wasn’t the legitimate monarch either (I forget the exact chain of descent from Richard II to Richard of York [Sr.], but I know there was a connection). But what about William I? Do you buy that whole “Edward promised me the throne” business as a foundation for legitimacy?

And you still haven’t told me who the legitimate heir was after the death of Richard III.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Not that you are interested (I am not particularly) but if you are looking for the legitimate English Monarch it is a fellow in Australia.
I believe his name is Michael Hastings somethingorother.
WP

Actually I’m mildly interested in this sort of thing. I have a book called *The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland *by the self-styled Prince Michael of Albany (Michael LaFosse). Apparently he’s a crackpot and/or a fraud, but the book is fun in a nutty sort of way.

On what does Michael Hastings’s claim rest? My question, remember, was who was the legitimate heir in the Tudor era, not who is the legitimate heir now.

And what about Scotland? Who, in your view, is the legitimate king of Scotland? (Or is it Michael LaFosse after all?)

I’m supposed to be descended from Robert the Bruce myself. I doubt this, and if it’s true it’s certainly via some royal misbehavior somewhere so I have no claim to anything.

Edwin