Why I Can't Be Catholic

[guanophore]

Historical fact according to ALL historians? Yet you haven’t given a single reference. The NT writers were Jews. Believers in Jesus Christ were first called “Christians.” The church was in Jerusalem, not Rome. James was its leader, not Peter. This is all in the Scriptures, therefore not disputable. The first council in Jerusalem (Acts) involved the whole church, not just leaders. No cardinals were present. It was not held in Rome. It was a local church council. No pope presided, and no appeal was made to infallibility. Appeal was made to Scripture alone. James, not Peter, gave judgment. The final decision was made by all the apostles, elders and the whole church. A joint letter was issued giving the result of the council, but it was not a papal encyclical.

No church gave us the NT, the apostles did, and they began the church that Jesus founded. The Bible can exist where there is no church building or assembly but the church cannot exist where there is no Bible.

The NT books were read and distributed as Scripture for over 300 years by individual Christians and church’s long before church councils claimed to give us the Bible. Athanasius, who fought to preserve the Trinity in the council of Nicea in 325 Ad. when the Church was being challenged had all 27 books of the New Testament. When Athanasius argued in his debate against Arius he used much of the NT and quoted from nearly every book. He said they were the springs of salvation; do not add nor take away.

Almost 40 years later the council of Laodicea in 363 A.D. decreed that only canonized books of the old and new Testament were to be read in the Churches. None of the councils made any list of what is in or out, the reason being that the majority of the church had accepted and used these books for many years before them.

Joe, are we to accept the premise that 300 years passed with confusion and we waited for the RCC to decide in 397 A.D. what was to be our Scripture? Generations would have come and gone not having the Bible. The truth is that we can produce almost the entire Bible we have today from the early church writings in the mid 100’s to 200’s.

In 397 Ad. the council of Carthage put their approval on the canon that was already read by and throughout the church. It then became a fixed canon for the western church as it was for the eastern.

It was the people in the church, not a council who determined whether it was authoritative- did it come as thus saith the Lord? Did they recognize God’s voice in it? Did it have the life transforming power of God when it was applied?

 

[yankee_drifter]

Regardless of the persecutions, my analysis is still correct. There is no direct linkage between those old heretical groups and todays Baptist, either doctrinally or organizationally. And the statement about Constantine creating the Catholic Church is without foundation. And why do you insist on refering to the Catholic Church as Roman Catholic, thus limiting its universality?

The heritage of unaffiliated Baptists which reaches back to the days of Christ is found also in the historical record. There is a trail of blood, eighteen hundred years long, shed by myriads of martyrs who believed the very things the Unaffiliated Baptists hold as truth today. Their suffering of torturous deaths were recorded by their murderers to be used as evidence against them. There exists several works describing the martyrdom of Baptists. The following excerpts were taken from The House of God by Frank A. Godsoe, copyright 1973. They are taken from the works of non-Baptist historians, who recorded these things written by persecutors of Baptists.

CARDINAL HOSIUS, A Catholic dignitary, spoke these words in the Council of Trent, A.D. 1554: “If the truth of a religion were to be judged by the readiness and cheerfulness which a man of any sect shows in suffering, then the opinions and persuasions of no sect can be truer or surer than those of the Ana-Baptists; since there have been none for these twelve hundred years that have been more grievously punished.” - Orchard’s History, p. 364

CARDINAL GIGGONS AND PATRICK J. HEALEY. In a work entitled “Crossing the Centuries,” published in 1912 by the ”Educational Association,” edited by William King, two Catholic dignitaries and with them former Presidents of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson: “Of the Baptists it may be said that they are no Reformers. These people compromising bodies of Christian believers known under various names in different countries, entirely distinct and independent of the Roman and Greek ‘churches,’ have had an unbroken continuity of existence from apostolic days down through the centuries. Throughout this long period they were bitterly persecuted for heresy, driven from country to country, disfranchised, deprived of their property, imprisoned, tortured and slain by the thousands, yet they swerved not from their New Testament faith, doctrine and adherence.”

MOSHEIM, a great Lutheran Historian, [and hater of the Ana-Baptists]
writes: “The First Century was a history of the Baptists. Before the rise of Luther and Calvin there lay concealed in almost all countries of Europe persons who adhered tenaciously to the principles of the Dutch Baptists,” - Century Sixteen, part 2, chapter 30. “The true origin of that sect which acquired the name ’Ana-Baptist,’ is hid in the remote depths on antiquity, and is consequently difficult to be ascertained.”

Other Protestant reformers write:

JOHN O. RIDPATH, METHODIST HISTORIAN: “I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist ‘church’ [Assembly] as far back as A.D. 100, though without doubt there were Baptists then, as all Christians were then Baptists.”- Jarrell’s “Church Perpetuity,” p. 69.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, History of Dutch Reformed ‘Church’, Vol. 1 page 148: Dr. Dermont, chaplain to the king of Holland, and Dr. Ypeij, professor of theology at Gronigen, in 1819, were commissioned by the King’s order to prepare a history of the Dutch Reformed Church, which was the State Church of Holland. The history was prepared under royal sanction and published officially. It witnesses the antiquity and orthodoxy, not of the Dutch Reformed Establishment, but of the Dutch Baptists. Here is what they reported to the king: “We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Ana-Baptists, . . . were the original Waldenses, and have long in history received the honor of that origin. On this account the Baptists may be considered the only Christian community which has stood since the Apostles, and as a Christian Society which has preserved pure the doctrines of the Gospel through the ages. The perfectly correct external economy of the [Baptists] tends to confirm the truth, disputed by the Romish Church, that the Reformation brought about in the Sixteenth Century was in the highest degree necessary; and at the same time it goes to refute the erroneous notion of the Catholics that their communion is the most ancient.”

 

[paul_c]

The heritage of unaffiliated Baptists which reaches back to the days of Christ is found also in the historical record. There is a trail of blood, eighteen hundred years long, shed by myriads of martyrs who believed the very things the Unaffiliated Baptists hold as truth today. Their suffering of torturous deaths were recorded by their murderers to be used as evidence against them. There exists several works describing the martyrdom of Baptists. The following excerpts were taken from The House of God by Frank A. Godsoe, copyright 1973. They are taken from the works of non-Baptist historians, who recorded these things written by persecutors of Baptists.

CARDINAL HOSIUS, A Catholic dignitary, spoke these words in the Council of Trent, A.D. 1554: “If the truth of a religion were to be judged by the readiness and cheerfulness which a man of any sect shows in suffering, then the opinions and persuasions of no sect can be truer or surer than those of the Ana-Baptists; since there have been none for these twelve hundred years that have been more grievously punished.” - Orchard’s History, p. 364

CARDINAL GIGGONS AND PATRICK J. HEALEY. In a work entitled “Crossing the Centuries,” published in 1912 by the ”Educational Association,” edited by William King, two Catholic dignitaries and with them former Presidents of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson: “Of the Baptists it may be said that they are no Reformers. These people compromising bodies of Christian believers known under various names in different countries, entirely distinct and independent of the Roman and Greek ‘churches,’ have had an unbroken continuity of existence from apostolic days down through the centuries. Throughout this long period they were bitterly persecuted for heresy, driven from country to country, disfranchised, deprived of their property, imprisoned, tortured and slain by the thousands, yet they swerved not from their New Testament faith, doctrine and adherence.”

MOSHEIM, a great Lutheran Historian, [and hater of the Ana-Baptists]
writes: “The First Century was a history of the Baptists. Before the rise of Luther and Calvin there lay concealed in almost all countries of Europe persons who adhered tenaciously to the principles of the Dutch Baptists,” - Century Sixteen, part 2, chapter 30. “The true origin of that sect which acquired the name ’Ana-Baptist,’ is hid in the remote depths on antiquity, and is consequently difficult to be ascertained.”

Other Protestant reformers write:

JOHN O. RIDPATH, METHODIST HISTORIAN: “I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist ‘church’ [Assembly] as far back as A.D. 100, though without doubt there were Baptists then, as all Christians were then Baptists.”- Jarrell’s “Church Perpetuity,” p. 69.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, History of Dutch Reformed ‘Church’, Vol. 1 page 148: Dr. Dermont, chaplain to the king of Holland, and Dr. Ypeij, professor of theology at Gronigen, in 1819, were commissioned by the King’s order to prepare a history of the Dutch Reformed Church, which was the State Church of Holland. The history was prepared under royal sanction and published officially. It witnesses the antiquity and orthodoxy, not of the Dutch Reformed Establishment, but of the Dutch Baptists. Here is what they reported to the king: “We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Ana-Baptists, . . . were the original Waldenses, and have long in history received the honor of that origin. On this account the Baptists may be considered the only Christian community which has stood since the Apostles, and as a Christian Society which has preserved pure the doctrines of the Gospel through the ages. The perfectly correct external economy of the [Baptists] tends to confirm the truth, disputed by the Romish Church, that the Reformation brought about in the Sixteenth Century was in the highest degree necessary; and at the same time it goes to refute the erroneous notion of the Catholics that their communion is the most ancient.”

This is far from compelling and harkens back to the same faulty “Trail of Blood” research. The best claims it can make are a few obscure quotes from random church historians from the 19th and 20th centuries that give one liner statements that the Anabaptist are old. Some date them to the middle ages, some further but none of them show any documentation to support their opinions. . I did a google search on a few of them and even these pitiful few quotes are controversial in their origins.

Compare this to what exists for The Catholics: Thousands upon thousands of documents detailing the history of its doctrines and organization going all the way back to the Apostles. And these documents are in existance and on the internet. The work, “History of the Church” by Eusebius dates from 310AD and is still in print. Try reading that book and see if you still share the same opinion.

 

[JacobG]

Yankee you are so right. The Baptists have an ancient and rich history. There is a Baptist Preservation Society in the city where I live. This is what they write:

We are a people whose system of faith was founded by Jesus Christ among Jewish believers during His earthly ministry. The sole rule of our faith and practice is the word of God. We reject all man-made traditions and teachings contrary to scripture (Appendix1).

1. We are a people who are joined together in individual, autonomous assemblies of baptized believers. We are not part of any denominational conglomerate, nor do we subscribe to the mystical aberration of a universal, invisible, “church.” The institution that the Lord Jesus Christ founded is both literal and visible (Appendix2).
2. We are a people who have never had any head or authority over us but Christ. We have no clergy, pope, archbishops, superintendents, presidents, home office, boards, ruling elders, presiding elders, standing committees or any other form of human authority over us.
3. Our historical record is one of suffering bitter persecution, yet never persecuting others. Judgment and vengeance belong only to God. We were called “Christians” first at Antioch. Our name has varied with time and location. But our doctrines and practices have been consistent through out the centuries. Our spiritual forefathers were distinct from others who also later called themselves ”Christian.” We were called Waldenses, Albigenses, Donatists, Lollards, etc., but for over fifteen hundred years our kind were known most often as “Ana-Baptists”.

Our critics called us Ana-Baptists generically because we “rebaptized” by immersion, those who came to us from Catholicism, or Protestantism, or any other “ism” whose baptismal practices were alien to the Scriptures. Hence, the name “Ana-Baptists” (re-baptizers). As time passed the “Ana” was omitted and the result was a people called Baptists.

We would be the first to admit that not all those calling themselves Baptists today contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. It is not the name that people acquire that makes them right, but their continuity in the truth that Jesus Christ taught his first followers. This continuity is important because it is bona fide evidence that the New Testament church truth still prevails and will prevail until the He comes for His people. (Appendix3)

1. We are a people who have survived not because of our own militant efforts, but because of the promise Christ made to His churches that we would continue until he comes again. “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18). Thus we must disagree with the Protestant/Reformed sects, who by their own admission state that the truth did die; the gates of hell did prevail, and they have re- established the faith to its original purity.

We unaffiliated Baptists are not protestants. Our beginning predates the Protestant reformation by 1500 years, and the day of Pentecost by 3 ½ years. Christian religious organizations whose origins are dated on this side of the personal ministry of Jesus Christ are not an improvement on the church which He built upon the “Rock”. Denominations are the result of an urge to ”improve” on the original model. Ephesians 2:20 “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;” Matthew 28:20 “ . . . lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

1. We are a people who feel no obligation or command from Christ to condone heresy or compromise any truth for the sake of unity or peace or numerical power. We choose to have no part in ecumenical or interdenominational alliances. No amount of amassed weakness will produce strength, especially when it is contrary to the will of God (Appendix4).
2. We are a people who believe that “whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Church membership is not the means of salvation but a means of faithfully serving the Lord. Church membership comes after personal salvation, which may occur at any time and at any place anyone repents and trusts in God the Son for salvation. We do not believe this salvation is found only in our midst.

 

[Eric_Hilbert]

Thread has drifted way off topic and is closed.