Featured False Christs

Here's what was done to the Waldensians, an undoubtedly Christian communion, by the Roman Catholics -- you know "the one true church":

"Catholic reaction and response

Seen by the Roman Catholic Church as unorthodox, the Waldensians were formally declared heretics by Pope Lucius III in 1184 at the Synod of Verona, and by Pope Innocent III during the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. In 1211 more than 80 Waldensians were burned as heretics at Strasbourg, beginning several centuries of persecution that nearly destroyed the movement. Part of their legacy is recognized as works of the writer Henri Arnaud (1641-1721). The Waldensian Church of Italy has survived to the present day.

1487 order of extermination

In 1487 Pope Innocent VIII issued a bull for the extermination of the Vaudois. Alberto de' Capitanei, archdeacon of Cremona, responded to the bull by organizing a crusade to complete the process and launched an offensive in the provinces of Dauphiné and Piedmont. Charles I, Duke of Savoy, eventually interfered to save his territories from further confusion and promised the Vaudois peace. But the offensive had devastated the area, and many of the Vaudois fled to Provence and to southern Italy.

Piedmont Easter

In January 1655, the Duke of Savoy commanded the Waldensians to attend Mass or remove to the upper valleys of their homeland, giving them twenty days in which to sell their lands. Being in the midst of winter, the order, of course, was intended to persuade the Vaudois to choose the former; however, the bulk of the populace instead chose the latter, abandoning their homes and lands in the lower valleys and removing to the upper valleys. It was written that these targets of persecution, including old men, women, little children and the sick "waded through the icy waters, climbed the frozen peaks, and at length reached the homes of their impoverished brethren of the upper Valleys, where they were warmly received."

By mid-April, when it became clear that the Duke's efforts to force the Vaudois to conform to Catholicism had failed, he tried another approach. Under the guise of false reports of Vaudois uprisings, the Duke sent troops into the upper valleys to quell the local populace. He required that the local populace quarter the troops in their homes, which the local populace complied with. But the quartering order was a ruse to allow the troops easy access to the populace. On 24 April 1655, at 4 a.m., the signal was given for a general massacre.

The Catholic forces did not simply slaughter the inhabitants. They are reported to have unleashed an unprovoked campaign of looting, rape, torture, and murder. According to one report by a Peter Liegé:

Little children were torn from the arms of their mothers, clasped by their tiny feet, and their heads dashed against the rocks; or were held between two soldiers and their quivering limbs torn up by main force. Their mangled bodies were then thrown on the highways or fields, to be devoured by beasts. The sick and the aged were burned alive in their dwellings. Some had their hands and arms and legs lopped off, and fire applied to the severed parts to staunch the bleeding and prolong their suffering. Some were flayed alive, some were roasted alive, some disemboweled; or tied to trees in their own orchards, and their hearts cut out. Some were horribly mutilated, and of others the brains were boiled and eaten by these cannibals. Some were fastened down into the furrows of their own fields, and ploughed into the soil as men plough manure into it. Others were buried alive. Fathers were marched to death with the heads of their sons suspended round their necks. Parents were compelled to look on while their children were first outraged [raped], then massacred, before being themselves permitted to die.

This massacre became known as the Piedmont Easter. An estimate of some 1,700 Waldensians were slaughtered; the massacre was so brutal it aroused indignation throughout Europe. Protestant rulers in northern Europe offered sanctuary to the remaining Waldensians. Oliver Cromwell, then ruler in England, began petitioning on behalf of the Waldensians; writing letters, raising contributions, calling a general fast in England and threatening to send military forces to the rescue. (The massacre prompted John Milton's famous poem on the Waldenses, "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont".) Swiss and Dutch Calvinists set up an 'underground railroad' to bring many of the survivors north to Switzerland and even as far as the Dutch Republic, where the councillors of the city of Amsterdam chartered three ships to take some 167 Waldensians to their City Colony in the New World (Delaware) on Christmas Day 1656. Those that stayed behind in France and the Piedmont formed a guerilla resistance movement led by a farmer, Joshua Janavel, which lasted into the 1660s."

 

Two articles by Dave Armstrong are worth linking here:

Were the Waldenses Primitive "Protestants?"

Were the Albigensians Primitive "Protestants"?
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Despite something being a dark point in Christian history, it doesn't therefore affect whether or not the Catholic Church is the Church founded by Christ...nor does it affect the doctrine regarding "Infallibility" (properly understood).
Jesus said that His Church would be made up of both "good and bad" members, bad people do bad things. Christ's Church has always contained bad members,even Jesus picked a bad member named Judas, perhaps Jesus picked Judas for a necessary mission in the formation of His particular Church.
Maybe instead of constantly attempting to condemn Christ's Church that you should study more the terrible atrocities committed by the Protestant churches of past history, a good start would be the Protestant Peasant Wars. Why can't some of you kick-in your intellect and realize that if each Protestant church was as large as Christ's Apostolic Church along with it's much deeper history then I'm positive that Protestantism would also have a much more blemished pass than it already has in it's much shorter history.

 

No matter how fallibly flawed the RCC is - in actual history - it is still "infallible"??

really??

in Christ,

Bob

 

And can you trust the word of the "perp" when it comes to vouching for the character of the victim??

 

Lateran IV - 1216 A.D. ... Canon 3 calling for the extermination of heretics and Jews.

Supposedly "infallible ecumenical council"

 

More - raw version. Independent objective source:

http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.asp


CANON 3 Text. We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that raises against the holy, orthodox and Catholic faith which we have above explained; condemning all heretics under whatever names they may be known, for while they have different faces they are nevertheless bound to each other by their tails, since in all of them vanity is a common element. Those condemned, being handed over to the secular rulers of their bailiffs, let them be abandoned, to be punished with due justice, clerics being first degraded from their orders. As to the property of the condemned, if they are laymen, let it be confiscated; if clerics, let it be applied to the churches from which they received revenues. But those who are only suspected, due consideration being given to the nature of the suspicion and the character of the person, unless they prove their innocence by a proper defense, let them be anathematized and avoided by all 1-intil they have made suitable satisfaction; but if they have been under excommunication for one year, then let them be condemned as heretics. Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath. But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. The same law is to be observed in regard to those who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.
We decree that those who give credence to the teachings of the heretics, as well as those who receive, defend, and patronize them, are excommunicated; and we firmly declare that after any one of them has been branded with excommunication, if he has deliberately failed to make satisfaction within a year, let him incur ipso jure the stigma of infamy and let him not be admitted to public offices or deliberations, and let him not take part in the election of others to such offices or use his right to give testimony in a court of law. Let him also be intestable, that he may not have the free exercise of making a will, and let him be deprived of the right of inheritance. Let no one be urged to give an account to him in any matter, but let him be urged to give an account to others. If perchance he be a judge, let his decisions have no force, nor let any cause be brought to his attention. If he be an advocate, let his assistance by no means be sought. If a notary, let the instruments drawn up by him be considered worthless, for, the author being condemned, let them enjoy a similar fate. In all similar cases we command that the same be observed. If, however, he be a cleric, let him be deposed from every office and benefice, that the greater the fault the graver may be the punishment inflicted.
If any refuse to avoid such after they have been ostracized by the Church, let them be excommunicated till they have made suitable satisfaction. Clerics shall not give the sacraments of the Church to such pestilential people, nor shall they presume to give them Christian burial, or to receive their alms or offerings; otherwise they shall be deprived of their office, to which they may not be restored without a special indult of the Apostolic See. Similarly, all regulars, on whom also this punishment may be imposed, let their privileges be nullified in that diocese in which they have presumed to perpetrate such excesses.
But since some, under "the appearance of godliness, but denying the power thereof," as the Apostle says (II Tim. 3: 5), arrogate to themselves the authority to preach, as the same Apostle says: "How shall they preach unless they be sent?" (Rom. 10:15), all those prohibited or not sent, who, without the authority of the Apostolic See or of the Catholic bishop of the locality, shall presume to usurp the office of preaching either publicly or privately, shall be excommunicated and unless they amend, and the sooner the better, they shall be visited with a further suitable penalty. We add, moreover, that every archbishop or bishop should himself or through his archdeacon or some other suitable persons, twice or at least once a year make the rounds of his diocese in which report has it that heretics dwell, and there compel three or more men of good character or, if it should be deemed advisable, the entire neighborhood, to swear that if anyone know of the presence there of heretics or others holding secret assemblies, or differing from the common way of the faithful in faith and morals, they will make them known to the bishop. The latter shall then call together before him those accused, who, if they do not purge themselves of the matter of which they are accused, or if after the rejection of their error they lapse into their former wickedness, shall be canonically punished. But if any of them by damnable obstinacy should disapprove of the oath and should perchance be unwilling to swear, from this very fact let them be regarded as heretics.
We wish, therefore, and in virtue of obedience strictly command, that to carry out these instructions effectively the bishops exercise throughout their dioceses a scrupulous vigilance if they wish to escape canonical punishment. If from sufficient evidence it is apparent that a bishop is negligent or remiss in cleansing his diocese of the ferment of heretical wickedness, let him be deposed from the episcopal office and let another, who will and can confound heretical depravity, be substituted.

 

Jesus only left us with One Church and that Church was formed on His Apostles and it contains both "good and bad'' members. If your church only contains 'saints' then it is not the Church that was founded by Jesus.
Matt.18:15-18 " .... if he refuses to listen to them .... tell it to the church... " If Jesus formed a Church, as he surely did, then He/ Holy Spirit would never have let that previous passage allowed in our bibles.
Then in Luke 10;16 all of the Authority and Power given to Jesus was also passed on to His Apostles/ Successors and if the apostles and their successors received this passed on authority that is definitely infallible, because Jesus is infallible so if Jesus says those Words in Luke10: 16 then I believe those Words of Jesus not the words and opinions of mere men who resent the only Church that Jesus left for all of us.

 

This is a fallacy and you should learn it.
Look at it this way. Marriage consists of one man and one woman. Right?
Okay? Which man and which woman? Me and my wife? Then we are the only two people in the world that are married, and all others are false marriages. (This is your logic). We have the only "true" marriage. We claim to be the "true married couple." All others are wrong. We can trace our marriage right back to the marriage of Adam and Eve. You can't do that, can you?

Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Which one?
The "man" is a generic noun representing all men, and the "woman" is a generic noun also used in a collective sense to represent all women.

The word "church" never means denomination, universal church, invisible church, etc. It always means local church. The Greek word is "ekklesia" which should always be translated "assembly" or "congregation."

It is impossible to have an "Unassembled assembly," or universal church.
An assembly always assembles, has a place to meet and meets together at a certain time in an organized manner. There is no such thing as "The Church" in the Bible. Every time ekklesia is used it means "local church." It is an "assembly", always.

Thus when Jesus said, "Upon this ROCK (Jesus) I will build my church, He was referring to Himself, and he was referring right then and there to Himself and his disciples at that present time. They were an assembly, and from that assembly they would grow to 120 on the Day of Pentecost.

In Acts 2:41 the wording is of particular interest:
Act 2:41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
--Added to this assembly, that is "the First Baptist Church at Jerusalem" were 3,000 souls. This was not a universal church. It was a local church at a place called Jerusalem, and for the time they were meeting at the Temple.

Act 2:47 Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.
--He added to the First Baptist Church in Jerusalem every day those that trusted Christ.
This church grew rapidly. Soon there were other local churches there were completely autonomous and not under the rule of this church nor the church of Rome or Antioch or any other. They were all autonomous, independent of each other. That is what history dictates--true history--not the RCC revised version.

 

History, including Jewish history along with none other than Luther and other non-Catholic church founders agree that it was the papist's church that gave them the Bible and that it was really the Catholic Church founded by Jesus. Even the Methodist founder believed in the perpetual virginity and assumption of Mary as did many of the non-Catholic founders.

You are silent on the passage of Matt.18: 15-19, in that passage Jesus tells the Christians that if the brother's problem can not be corrected then bring it to the "church", now which church? The only real church that existed "then" was His Apostolic Church, all the churches mentioned in the Bible were Apostolic because Jesus taught the very same " Doctrinal Teachings" to every one of His apostles, Jesus never was a Teacher of confusion as is found in all non-Catholic churches, all with conflicting doctrine.
Getting back to the previous passage of Matt.18, if that church that Jesus was speaking about went corrupt later then the Holy Spirit would have never allowed those important Christian instructions into Holy Bible.

Romans 16:17-18 also is an added aggregate that helps with the strong binding cement that was then applied to Christ's Apostolic Church, in this verse ...."in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught ...... "
meaning that particular church that Jesus founded already had the necessary doctrine [ Apostolic Traditional Teachings ] for Salvation. Any future church was not necessary.

Luther once wrote to his dissatisfaction that know there are as many individual churches as there are individual minds in opposition to this verse of 1 Cor.1: 10. " ..... that all of you agree and there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment."

 

And they were all wrong. Luther was a former Catholic. John Wesley was brought up as an Anglican--not much different than a Catholic. Thus in their formative years they were raised in churches that believed in "papist doctrine."
The Bible very clearly states that it was the prophets and apostles that gave us the inspired Word of God, the Scriptures and not the Catholics who never even existed until the pagan emperor Constantine came to power in the fourth century. The Canon was completely finished when John wrote Revelation in 98 A.D., and from there the early church, who had been taught by the apostles was entrusted to the care of the Bible. I am sure that the apostles would have taught them which books were inspired and which were not. The RCC had no part in this. It was preserved by God through different churches throughout the ages. It was not preserved by any apostate organization.

This passage is both practical at that time and prophetic for the time to come.
He was teaching his disciples. They were the "church" or assembly that existed at that time. But he knew the future and was giving them instructions for what would happen in the future. It speaks to church discipline, as would be exercised in every local church and cannot be properly exercised by the RCC. This passage cannot refer to the RCC and has never been carried out by the RCC. It in itself proves the RCC wrong.

The RCC did not exist at that time. You have no proof of that. It did not come into existence until the fourth century until Constantine paganized Christianity and paganism was Christianized. Christianity became a state-religion, just as the RCC is still a state-religion in many countries today.

You still don't know the meaning of the passage. Jesus was not speaking of a corrupt church. He was not speaking of the corrupt RCC who cannot practice the principles in this passage. He was speaking of those churches which uphold the Word of God and are based upon Him as the foundation of their assembly (1Cor.3;11).

The RCC has added many doctrines to the Bible that are contrary to what the Bible teaches. We are commanded to avoid them. That is why I had to separate myself from the Catholic Church. I once was a Catholic. The RCC and Bible-believing churches are at extreme opposites of each other. The RCC aligns itself with paganism, not with Christianity.

Paul wrote that verse to the church at Corinth. There must be unity in each individual church. In the various churches I have been a member of throughout my lifetime there has been unity, though the churches have varied in their practices for one reason or another--usually because of culture, not doctrine. But the RCC is a completely apostate organization that no longer believes the Bible, but those things that are contrary to the Bible.

 

Justifying criminal behavior by other criminal behavior, are you? If you had read enough of my posts, you would have seen where I condemn the Protestant Magisterial Reformers just as much a I do the RCC, all of whom were persecutors, torturers, and murderers. But that shouldn't be surprising, cousins as they all were, infant baptizing state churchist deniers of religious liberty, killing others in the name of the One Whose name they claimed.

 

And how were these abominable apostates any different from modern radical Islamists? No different. And yet this is the "one true Church" founded by Jesus? He wouldn't recognize it.

 

Excuse me, those former Catholic Protestant fathers of your conflicting churches also believed after they invented their different churches about that which I wrote in my last post ie ever-virgin Mary, assumption of Mary, Eucharist, Catholic Church founded by Jesus and that Church is the Church that compiled our accepted Bible. how do you think that we received the Holy Bible, do you think it fell from a passing cloud ? Somebody had to decipher that which was Canonical and that which was not from the myriad of different writings, who do you think accomplished this? The Bible is a collection of books written in many different literary forms, I hope you understand the implications if one did not know the correct interpretation along with the various kinds of writing in the Bible in order to understand the meaning of each book. Those early Bishops of the Church were guided by the Holy Spirit. With your sense of logic by calling the Church corrupt then how do you know that the Holy Bible too is not 100% infallible/inerrant ? I will save you from the trouble of researching anything outside of your bibles. I will give you a very important clue: It was the church, the church formed at Pentecost First Century with Christ's apostles/successors, successors as Paul. Barnabas, Timothy, Titus and Matthias { see Acts 13:3, 14:22, 1:24-26 and Titus 1:3.}

 

The Canon of the NT had nothing to do with the RCC.
Even today we have over 5,000 MSS some dating as far back to 150 A.D., pre-existing the RCC. We have other translations of the Bible containing most of the books if not all of them that existed long before the appearance of the RCC.
What "Bishops" are you referring to? You never did give a refutation totally annihilating your belief, that Peter was ever in Rome in any kind of leadership position. And I did that just through Scripture alone. He went there to die at the hands of Nero. We can prove that through Scripture. No wonder you have been silent. Thus the rest of your history is totally questionable for it is all rose-colored revisionist history straight from the hand of the RCC who do not report actual fact, only the fiction they want you to believe.

 

DHK,
I take it that you must be writing about the Muratorian Fragment, although it lists most of the New Testament books, it's missing a few (e.g. Matthew, James, 3 John), and it adds several works which are not inspired.

These facts demonstrate that, although the Fragment came close, it did not represent the actual canon of inspired Scripture. Further, there is no internal evidence in the document that it sought to represent any kind of official canon that was regarded by the Church as binding.

In the first four centuries of the Church many books, such as the seven letters of Ignatius, the Letter of Clement [the fourth pope] to the Corinthians, the Didache, and The Shepherd were revered by many Christians as inspired but were later shown to be non-inspired.

It was not until the Councils of Hippo and Carthage that the Catholic Church defined which books made it into the New Testament and which didn't. Probably the council fathers studied the (complete) Muratorian Fragment and other documents, including, of course, the books in question themselves, but it was not until these councils that the Church officially settled the issue.

The plain fact of the matter is that the canon of the Bible was not settled in the first years of the Church. It was settled only after repeated (and perhaps heated) discussions, and the final Canon was determined by Catholic bishops. This is an inescapable fact, no matter how many people wish to escape from it.

 

Many of those councils were a mere stamp of approval on that which had already been done and accepted.
David Sorenson, in his book "Touch not the Unclean Thing" writes:

There is a lot of documentation to back up what he is saying.

 

David Sorenson should be disregarded. He is about as much of an authority on the history of translations as is David Cloud or Peter Ruckman.

Actual scholars such as Stanley E.Porter, Michael Kruger and Charles Hill can be relied on for factual information.

 

If a J.W. is the author of an article on Christmas trees, and his material is correct would you use it?
Don't shoot the messenger if the information is correct.

Bob Ryan has offered excellent insight into the teachings of the RCC and he is an SDA. Should we disregard everything he says?