Sometimes I worry about how dissident so many Catholics are these days. In Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic
“From time to time, the proclamation of the truth will solidify the opposition.
The victory of God’s way over man’s way will appear to be in peril. Even some Christians
will not agree to put God’s glory first. Human dignity will suffer. But Jesus promised
that even the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church that he would build
upon Peter. The teaching authority of the Church will not be compromised. She will
always preserve the truth handed down from those original twelve men who turned
the world on its head.”
Like I said, the Church has PR problems. Rand, of A Pattern of Sound Words, asserts:
"A Christian Roman Catholic, to me, is as opposite as a Nazi Jew. One cannot be a follower of Christ and be a follower of Romanism at the same time. Why? Because the Romanist worships a god different than the God of the Bible. For example, consider the 2nd person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ:"
"Romanism – Jesus was born of a sinless, perfect mother, who is declared the 'Queen of Heaven'.
Biblical Christinity – Jesus was born of a kind, godly woman, but still a sinner by birth and choice (Luke 1:26-38)."
The best explanation I have ever heard for Mary's sinless conception was from a Rabbi. The Ark of the Covenant was the seat of God on earth. It could only be safely approached and touched by ritually clean priests at certain times of the year. Mary was the ark of the New Covenant, Jesus Christ (Matthew 26:26-28). Her preservation from Original Sin, as well as actual sin, does not, as some suggest, imply that she did not need Christ's saving grace, made possible by the cross. God is not bound by time. He created it. Thus, Mary received at her conception the saving grace of Christ's sacrifice. Continue reading
I'm discovering more and more that the Catholic Church has some serious PR problems. This Earnestly Contending post is representative of the many Protestant (mostly Evangelical) gross misunderstandings of Catholic teachings and teaching authority that I've encountered. My responses are drawn from comments I made at Weapons of Warfare. Continue reading
"Furthermore, that the body of tradition is not of divine origin nor apostolic is proven by the fact that some traditions contradict others. The church fathers repeatedly contradict one another. When a Roman Catholic priest is ordained he solemnly vows to interpret the Scriptures only according to 'the unanimous consent' of the fathers. But such 'unanimous consent' is purely a myth. The fact is they scarcely agree on any doctrine. They contradict each other, and even contradict themselves as they change their minds and affirm what they previously had denied. Augustine, the greatest of the fathers, in his later life wrote a special book in which he set forth his Retractions. Some of the fathers of the second century held that Christ would return shortly and that he would personally reign in Jerusalem for a thousand years. But two of the best known scholars of the early church, Origen (185-254) and Augustine (354-430) wrote against that view. The early fathers condemned the use of images in worship, while later ones approve such use. The early church almost unanimously advocated the reading and free use of the Scriptures, while later ones restricted such reading and use. Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome and the greatest of the early bishops, denounced the assumption of the title of Universal Bishop as anti-Christian. But later Popes even to the present have been very insistent of using that and similar titles which assert universal authority. Where, then, is the universal tradition and unanimous consent of the fathers to papal doctrine?"
– Loraine Boettner, Roman Catholicism (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962), pp. 78-79
Thoughts?
