The $100,000 Roman Catholic Question.

[D28guy]

Agnus Dei,

"D28guy, I spot checked some of these 'splinter' groups as you refer to them, and the ones I looked up are ‘religious orders’ that for instance are committed to caring for prisoners and of the sick. Others were orders that gave themselves entirely to works of mercy.

The ones I investigated are all in communion with the Holy See and are fully sanctioned."

Thats the whole point, Agnus. These are card carrying Catholics and yet they have different convictions regarding any number of hundreds of Catholic views.

Some would be highly involved in goddess worship towards Mary. Others would not view that as proper. Some would be very very conservative and would view liberal Catholics as being very wrong, while the very liberal groups would view the conservative Catholics to be in the wrong. Some would be in favor of the old style of mass with nobody understanding the latin being spoken and would be against Vatican II, while others would view Vatican II as being the greatest thing since sliced bread.

On and on and on I could go.

"These groups are nothing like what we see in today’s divisions in Protestantism, which are indeed 'splinter groups'."

Well of course the Catholic Church commands their people that they must not view these groups as being in contradiction to each other. It will disrupt the fairy tale of Catholic unity, and cause them to be seen for what they are...complete hypocrits when they slam protestantism for their differences.

God bless,

Mike

 

[DHK]

So here I thought that God had his hands tied all this time until Luther finally figured it all out and now I’m learning that it wasn’t Luther, but the Evangelical community that finally after close to 2,000 years were the ones that figured it all out.

Just change your statement a bit.
God never had his hands tied.
Luther finally figured it out that the corrupt RCC had been wrong all the time (that is why he nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenburg and then was excommunicated shortly thereafter).
And now you are learning that after 2000 years the Evangelical Community are the same ones who have carried the same gospel message in every generation since the time of the Apostles. This is a lot more accurate.

 

[CarpentersApprentice]

"...Galileo was brought forward in 1633, and, there, in front of his "betters," he was, under the threat of torture and death, forced to his knees to renounce all belief in Copernican theories, and was thereafter sentenced to imprisonment for the remainder of his days."

http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Science/Copernicus.htm

While the broad outline of this statements is generally correct the particulars are a bit hyperbolic.

1. That threats of torture and death are part of some inquisitions is true. I am, however, unaware of any evidence that Galileo was subjected to this. On the contrary, it can be argued that the Inquisistors were somewhat deferential to Galileo since, during the trial, he stayed primarily with the Tuscan ambassador to the Vatican. Note also that when the trial was over one-third of the Inquisitors did not sign the finding that Galileo was "vehemently suspected of heresy."

2. Although Galileo was made to kneel and recant, he was not recanting "all belief in Copernican theories", but in the belief that Copernican's work was a "fact." Regarding heliocentrism as a hypothetical possibility was acceptable.

Remember, after all, that the Bible says that the world is geocentric (Joshua 10:12-13 and Psalm 103:5). In Galileo's day the Bible and the principle Church in a given region were the glue that held society together. To believe the Bible to be wrong was, in effect, to countenance anarchy.

3. Also, although Galileo was sentenced to imprisonment that sentence was never enforced. After the trial he spent 6 months with the archbishop of Siena, who (I believe) was instrumental in keeping Galileo from prison, then he lived near his daughter in Florence. He was under some sort of "house arrest", but the terms were liberal enough to allow him to continue writing.

CA

 

[CarpentersApprentice]

... The very reason for the existence of the Montanists was a movement spurred on because of what they perceived in the church as a whole as "worldliness." ... Many of our IFB churches demand the same.

Sidebar. I agree that they lamented the carnal nature of many churchmen of their day. However, I've always thought of the Montanists as more Pentecostal and Adventist than Baptist. They spoke in tongues, gave women places of significant authority, and set a time and place for the Lord's return.

CA

 

[DHK]

Sidebar. I agree that they lamented the carnal nature of many churchmen of their day. However, I've always thought of the Montanists as more Pentecostal and Adventist than Baptist. They spoke in tongues, gave women places of significant authority, and set a time and place for the Lord's return.

CA

There has always been a remnant who held to the Word of God:

1. The early Apostolic church
2. The Bible believing martyrs A.D. 70-313
3. Montanists A.D. 250-600
4. Novatians A.D. 250-600
5. Nestorians A.D. 490-1000
6. Euchites and Messalines A.D. 300-800
7. Donatists A.D. 300-800
8. Paulicians A.D. 600-1200
9. Bogomiles A.D. 800-1200
10. Cathari A.D. 1200-1500
11. Waldenses A.D. 1200-2003
12. Anabaptist A.D. 1400-2003 (Believed the be a duplicate of the Waldenses. They exist today as the Baptist, Mennonites, Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, etc.)
13. Protestants (Partial holders of truth) A.D. 1500-2003 (Lutherans, Calvinist, Puritans, etc.)
14. Baptist A.D. 1500-2003 (Also known as Separatist,and Fundamentalist)

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=156348&postcount=21

Monanists: Had problems with being accused of schism and being accused of rejecting the Scripture in favor of new revelation. However, David Wright refutes this in his article "Why Were the Montanists Condemned?." They were ahead of their time in believing in a millenial reign of Christ and giving the title God to the Holy Spirit (according to C. Bigg, "Origins of Christianity.")

Novationist: I can relate to them a little more because they sought to maintain the essential marks of a true church as purity and holiness. Furthermore, church discipline, which used to be a Baptist characteristic, was emphasized by the Novationists. I can relate to any group that supports a regenerate church membership and emphasizes holiness.

Donatists: The Donatists did not agree with the placing those in charge who had given up the Scriptures while being persecuted. They sought to have a pure church of regenerate believers. The desire for a pure church relates well with Baptist.

Waldensians: They relate better than most. They held the following: (1) The Holy Scriptures alone are sufficient to guide men to Salvation; (2) Against Catholic sacrements; (3) Claim Catholic Priests have no authority; (4) Everyone has the right to preach publicly; and (5) Purgatory is not real. They also sought a pure church, and I believe (although I am not sure) that they practiced believers baptism.

The anabaptist: They are split into too many groups to generally characterize, but they did seek a pure church, reject the Catholic church, practice church discipline, and believe in salvation by grace through faith.

With all of these, there are differences from Baptist but also some similarities. Vedder does a much better job if you have time to read him. And I apologize for advance for any typos, mistakes, or generalities. This should be a decent overview. God bless.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=156344&postcount=17

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

To me, any dependence on or claim to some unbroken linear descent from the Apostolic Church, smacks of Roman Catholicism. I believe rather that God in His wisdom and omniscience allows Truth and Church to virtually disappear from the earth for some times, so that He can raise it up again in striking lustre to His own and greater glory.

I won't have the slightest greater inclination or attraction to a denomination because it has this or that in common with this or that bygone spiritual movement. A Church and its doctrine should be tested and should live by the Scriptures alone, whether having been heard of or popular before or not. The creation of the Church should ALWAYS be in the only way God ever creates, ex nihilo from the Bible. Period.

I repeat my objection to someone's slogan on this thread: The Church did not create the Bible; the Bible created the Church . . . and should create the Church ad infinitum.

 

[CarpentersApprentice]

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=156348&postcount=21

There has always been a remnant who held to the Word of God... 8. Paulicians A.D. 600-1200

DHK,

Considering what the Paulicians believed...

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=958449&postcount=56
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=958453&postcount=57

... what is the criteria used to be considered "a remnant who held to the Word of God?"

CA

 

[CarpentersApprentice]

... A Church and its doctrine should be tested and should live by the Scriptures alone, whether having been heard of or popular before or not...

A noble sentiment. Reminiscent of the Bereans.

... I believe rather that God in His wisdom and omniscience allows Truth and Church to virtually disappear from the earth for some times, so that He can raise it up again in striking lustre to His own and greater glory....

Where, in the Scriptures, do we find support for this belief?

CA

 

[CarpentersApprentice]

Ps104_33,

In your OP what do you mean by "demonstratively traceable to the apostolic age"?

CA
********************************
Ps104_33, 2nd Request. CA

Ps104_33

3rd Request.

CA

 

[DHK]

DHK,
... what is the criteria used to be considered "a remnant who held to the Word of God?"
CA

God's many promises of his faithfulness--"lo I am with you always even to the end of the world." This was a promise of continuity, without break, of the Lord's presence with His people. We have many such promises in His Word. To believe otherwise is to pick up the anvil of the hundreds, if not thousands of cults, who have established themselves in history by a known leader and say essentially that every one else before they existed that never had the Word of God, or the truth of God, before they came along.
Some KJVO people go to that extreme. The Word of God was lost until 1611.
The Mormon's definitely fall into that category.
So do Oneness Pentecostal people.
It is one of the marks of a cult to say that they discovered the truth to the exclusion of all else, including all generations before them. If that is true everyone before they existed right down to the time of the apostles was lost.
To the KJV extremist, everyone before 1611 never had the Word of God. It was hidden from them. It is only logical to conclude that from the time of the Apostles onward no one could be saved until 1611, an infallible Bible came into existence.
No. God has His people in every generation. He is remains faithful even when we are not faithful. He knows them that are his. He has never left himself without a witness. The Great Commission will always go forth--in every generation. There is no generation that has ever stamped out Christianity. Can you demonstrate in history where Christianity has every been stamped out; where faithful believers have never survived the persecutions of the unsaved?

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

A noble sentiment. Reminiscent of the Bereans.



Where, in the Scriptures, do we find support for this belief?

CA

GE:

What I mean is this, that the true Church with its Truth, virtually disappeared during the dark ages of RC-totalitarianism. But then God revived His Church and His Truth through the Reformation.
This but one example.
The Bible contains many histories of backsliding and revival and reform.

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

DHK:

"There is no generation that has ever stamped out Christianity. "

GE:

True, but there has never been one generation of Christian perfection, but many that lived under and in greater spiritual darkness than generations under greater tokens of grace. One cannot, for instance, compare our own age with that of Roman dominance when the true Church was humanly speaking absolutely invisible.

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

I think you (DHK) too prettily picture some obscure movements. I have read some disapproving views on virtually every movement you in this thread have praised so highly.

 

[gb93433]

Can you name one oral, extrabiblical tradition, demonstratively traceable to the apostolic age, which is necessary for the faith and practice of the Church of Jesus Christ?

All practices in the church before any of the NT was started and when the writing of the OT ended were extrabiblical and passed down as oral tradition.

 

[DHK]

DHK:

"There is no generation that has ever stamped out Christianity. "

GE:

True, but there has never been one generation of Christian perfection,.

As has been said by many others:
If you ever find a church of "Christian perfection," don't join it; for it won't be perfect anymore.

 

[DHK]

I think you (DHK) too prettily picture some obscure movements. I have read some disapproving views on virtually every movement you in this thread have praised so highly.

There are so many things I disapprove of in the church that was at Corinth, that if it existed today, I probably wouldn't fellowship with it either. Yet, it was one of the NT churches that Paul helped to establish.

 

[CarpentersApprentice]

God's many promises of his faithfulness--"lo I am with you always even to the end of the world." This was a promise of continuity, without break, of the Lord's presence with His people. We have many such promises in His Word... God has His people in every generation. He is remains faithful even when we are not faithful. He knows them that are his. He has never left himself without a witness. The Great Commission will always go forth--in every generation. There is no generation that has ever stamped out Christianity...

I agree with you. I'm just trying to understand how the Paulicians made the "remnant" list.

The Paulicians were adoptionist. They believed in baptismal regeneration and transubstantiation; and that a person can't be saved without receiving the Lord's Supper. They did not believe in original sin.

How is it that the Paulicians held to the Word of God?

CA

 

[DHK]

I agree with you. I'm just trying to understand how the Paulicians made the "remnant" list.

The Paulicians were adoptionist. They believed in baptismal regeneration and transubstantiation; and that a person can't be saved without receiving the Lord's Supper. They did not believe in original sin.

How is it that the Paulicians held to the Word of God?

CA

[It has been already stated that we derive all our information concerning the Paulicians, through the medium of their adversaries, the writers belonging to the Catholic church. It should not, therefore, surprise us to find them imputing the worst of principles and practices to a class of men whom they uniformly decry as heretics. Mosheim says, that of the two accounts of Photius and Peter Siculus, he gives the preference for candor and fairness to that of the latter -- and yet I find Mr. Gibbon acknowledging, that "the six capital errors of the Paulicians are defined by Peter Siculus with much prejudice and passion" (Decline and Fall, vol. 10, ch. 54.) One of their imputed errors is, that they rejected the whole of the Old Testament writings; a charge which was also brought, by the writers of the Catholic school, against the Waldenses and others, with equal regard to truth and justice. But this calumny is easily accounted for.

http://www.wayoflife.org/articles/jones19.htm

First I would question your sources. Where did you get the information that they believed in baptismal regeneration? The Paulicians arose in protest to the RCC, baptismal regeneration being one of the doctrines they would have protested against. Remember that the account of their history has been much misaligned by the Catholics and others that were their enemies. It is easy to find information that is critical, and unfairly so, about the Paulicians.

 

[CarpentersApprentice]

http://www.wayoflife.org/articles/jones19.htm

[/B]First I would question your sources. Where did you get the information that they believed in baptismal regeneration?

DHK,

"The sacraments are three which are requisite to salvation, to wit, Repentance, Baptism, and the Body and Blood of Christ.... All true baptism... must be preceded by repentance and faith... The Holy Ghost enters the catechumen immediately after baptism (to exclude evil spirits), when a third handful of water is, in his honor, poured out over the catechumen’s head."

Doesn't that sound like baptismal regeneration? (Wouldn't a Baptist say that at least part of the reason he knows he is saved is because he has the Holy Spirit living in him?) Certainly faith and repentance are required, but baptism - for the Paulicians - is when the Spirit enters the person.

It does seem, however, that "baptismal regeneration" may not be exactly the best way to characterize Paulician beliefs since they include the necessity of receiving the Lord's Supper for salvation also. It does seem, though, that baptismal regeneration is a part of the process for the Paulicians.

CA

 

[DHK]

DHK,

"The sacraments are three which are requisite to salvation, to wit, Repentance, Baptism, and the Body and Blood of Christ.... All true baptism... must be preceded by repentance and faith... The Holy Ghost enters the catechumen immediately after baptism (to exclude evil spirits), when a third handful of water is, in his honor, poured out over the catechumen’s head."

Doesn't that sound like baptismal regeneration? (Wouldn't a Baptist say that at least part of the reason he knows he is saved is because he has the Holy Spirit living in him?) Certainly faith and repentance are required, but baptism - for the Paulicians - is when the Spirit enters the person.

It does seem, however, that "baptismal regeneration" may not be exactly the best way to characterize Paulician beliefs since they include the necessity of receiving the Lord's Supper for salvation also. It does seem, though, that baptismal regeneration is a part of the process for the Paulicians.

CA

That doesn't describe the Paulicians. I don't know where you are getting your quotes from. Here it is from a different source:

10. The French Paulicians or Albigenses, were plainly of the same order in church affairs, as the Bulgarians. They had no bishops [see above, ch. 5, sec. 5, ~ 7]; the candidates were prepared for baptism by instruction and stated fasts. [Dr. Allix’s Rem. Ch. Pied. ch. 2, p. 7, and ch. 12, pp. 103-4] They viewed baptism as adding nothing to justification, and affording no benefit to children. [Id. ch. 11, p. 95. Dr. Jortin’s Rem. on Ecc. Hist., vol. v., p. 226; Ency. Brit. Art. Albig.] They received members into their churches after baptism, by prayer, with imposition of hands and the kiss of charity. [Jones’s Lect., v. ii. p. 275] They did not allow of the catholic baptism of infants, but baptized those again who went over from that church to their community. [Rob. Res., p. 463] They were divided into two classes, the perfect and imperfect, the latter class lived in the enjoyment of things like other men. [Ency. Brit. art. Albig.] They were agreed in regarding the church of Rome as an apostate church. They rejected her sacraments as frivolous. While her clergy were ornamented and arrayed in rich vestments, the Albigensian teachers were satisfied with a black coat.

Note, as I mentioned before, they protested agaist the RCC. That is one of the things that they were most noted for. The name Paulicians was also given them for preaching the gospel of Paul, which is a gospel of "justification of faith--the exact opposite of baptismal regeneration. The above quote makes it very plain--"They viewed baptism as adding nothing to justification."
http://www.wayoflife.org/articles/orchard2-07.htm

This is from Orchard's: "A Concise History of the Baptists"