Perpetual Virginity of Mary

I don’t think it’s so clear because both Luther and Calvin upheld the perpetual virginity of Mary and the perspicuity of Scripture:

All of the early Protestant Founders accepted the truth of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. How could this be, if it is merely “tradition” with no scriptural basis? Why was its supposed violation of Scripture not so obvious to them, as it is to the Protestants of the last 150 years or so (since the onset of theological liberalism) who have ditched this previously-held opinion?
Luther and Calvin on Perpetual Virginity of Mary

Luther:

Christ . . . was the only Son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides Him . . . I am inclined to agree with those who declare that ‘brothers’ really mean ‘cousins’ here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers.

When Matthew [1:25] says that Joseph did not know Mary carnally until she had brought forth her son, it does not follow that he knew her subsequently; on the contrary, it means that he never did know her . . . This babble . . . is without justification . . . he has neither noticed nor paid any attention to either Scripture or the common idiom.

Editor Jaroslav Pelikan (Lutheran) adds:

Luther . . . does not even consider the possibility that Mary might have had other children than Jesus. This is consistent with his lifelong acceptance of the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary.

Calvin:

Helvidius displayed excessive ignorance in concluding that Mary must have had many sons, because Christ’s ‘brothers’ are sometimes mentioned.

[On Matt 1:25:] The inference he [Helvidius] drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband . . . No just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words . . . as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called ‘first-born’; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin . . . What took place afterwards the historian does not inform us . . . No man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.

Zwingli:

I have never thought, still less taught, or declared publicly, anything concerning the subject of the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our salvation, which could be considered dishonourable, impious, unworthy or evil . . . I believe with all my heart according to the word of holy gospel that this pure virgin bore for us the Son of God and that she remained, in the birth and after it, a pure and unsullied virgin, for eternity.

John Wesley:

I believe… he [Jesus Christ] was born of the blessed Virgin, who, as well after as she brought him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin.

This brought to you by Shellie…. I just wanted to have it handy for the next time it comes up.

 

Who Hates Whom?

Still revisiting the recent exchanges and pulling out bits as they jump out at me… I found this interesting considering both James and I replied charitably, never giving Fisher reason to make any such assertation…

Weekend Fisher:

I look at this (post and comments) and I just want to talk to you two as people, not as “Roman Catholics who hate my stinkin’ Lutheran guts”, y’know.

James H:

In the end all we can do is keep doing what we are doing. Pope John II Apologizes to the Church in the East for Events that happen 1000 years ago and the response is nothing but stony silence from the East. Ditto for the Reformation and everything else.

Catholics dialogue with Lutherans and what is the response. Well, one of the major Lutheran Synods in the United States still says the Pope is the Anti Christ:
____________
“43. As to the Antichrist we teach that the prophecies of the Holy Scriptures concerning the Antichrist, 2 Thess. 2:3-12; 1 John 2:18, have been fulfilled in the Pope of Rome and his dominion. All the features of the Antichrist as drawn in these prophecies, including the most abominable and horrible ones, for example, that the Antichrist “as God sitteth in the temple of God,” 2 Thess. 2:4; that he anathematizes the very heart of the Gospel of Christ, that is, the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins by grace alone, for Christ’s sake alone, through faith alone, without any merit or worthiness in man (Rom. 3:20-28; Gal. 2:16); that he recognizes only those as members of the Christian Church who bow to his authority; and that, like a deluge, he had inundated the whole Church with his antichristian doctrines till God revealed him through the Reformation — these very features are the outstanding characteristics of the Papacy. (Cf. Smalcald Articles, Triglot, p. 515, Paragraphs 39-41; p. 401, Paragraph 45; M. pp. 336, 258.) Hence we subscribe to the statement of our Confessions that the Pope is “the very Antichrist.” (Smalcald Articles, Triglot, p. 475, Paragraph 10; M., p. 308″

Uh, as to the first bolded segment, nooooooooooo this isn’t the case.  The Pope recognizes, as do all Catholics who are in agreement with the Magisterium etc, that our separated brothers and sisters in Christ are just that, brothers and sisters in Christ. 

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

 847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation.337

They are even considered Catholic, though in imperfect union with the Church.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

836 “All men are called to this catholic unity of the People of God. . . . And to it, in different ways, belong or are ordered: the Catholic faithful, others who believe in Christ, and finally all mankind, called by God’s grace to salvation.”³²⁰

838 “The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter.”³²² Those “who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church.”³²³ With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound “that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord’s Eucharist.”³²⁴

The second bolded segment is also complete error.  The doctrines of the Church are in keeping with the teaching of Christ and the apostles. It was the fathers of the reformation who rebelled against the authority placed over them and removed themselves from fellowship with the Church. Who embraced antiChristian doctrines, rejecting the teachings passed down to us from Christ and the apostles down through the Early Church Fathers throughout the ages.  

As to yet another charge… the Pope does not claim to be God, but the servant of God and the Servant of His people, the Vicar of Christ, the steward left to care for the Kingdom until Christ returns. 

 As to forgiveness, Christ never said through grace alone or faith alone… Here’s what Christ DID say…

John 3:5 Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

and…

Mark 16:16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the following, in absolute accord with sacred scripture:

 977 Our Lord tied the forgiveness of sins to faith and Baptism: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved.”⁵²¹ Baptism is the first and chief sacrament of forgiveness of sins because it unites us with Christ, who died for our sins and rose for our justification, so that “we too might walk in newness of life.”⁵²²

The rest is just as specious as the bits addressed, yet we are the ones accused of hate?

 

Dave Armstrong Anti-Lutheran?

The following exchange (clips, not the entirety) was taken from the comment section of Response  to Weekend Fisher.  James has done a lovely job of answering many of the assertions made and so I’m putting some of them up in small groupings for ease in reading and referral.

Weekend Fisher:
I’ve talked to other Lutherans who’ve been to Dave Armstrong’s place, and they tell me it’s a mix of 1) stuff we’ve always known – nobody ever claimed Luther was a saint!, and 2) a fair bit of slander, some demonstrably false. I’ve had Armstrong’s site mentioned to me by another Lutheran as “prime example of how low RC’s will stoop in misrepresenting the facts to smear protestants” and “really blatant, hate-blinded animosity towards Luther”.

James H:

Mr. Armstrong is one of the few that does serious Dialogues that are pretty docent decent material. The people he converses with are serious Protestant and Evangelicals and if they are not rabid Anti-Catholics it is done with respect. Further I suggest you go to the section that only defend his scholarship but also go to the pieces that defend Luther against what Mr. Armstrong thinks are false attacks.
Of note are the various articles
In that section that is the header for those he says:
___________________________
SEVENTEEN PAPERS WHERE I DEFEND LUTHER AGAINST MYTHS AND BUM RAPS, CITE HIM IN AGREEMENT, OR TAKE A FAIRLY NEUTRAL STANCE TOWARDS HIS OPINION
(for those who falsely think I am some sort of “Luther-hater” or “Luther-basher”, beyond disagreeing with his theology, and can never praise or agree with him) [I wrote in a paper dated March 2000: “I (like many Catholics) do admire him in certain ways. I like his passion and boldness and apparent sincerity and good intentions (though thoroughly deluded and wrongheaded). He had a great devotion to the Virgin Mary and to the Eucharist.” And in February 2001, I posted on the Catholic Convert Message Board:
“I have never maintained that Luther was “evil” or essentially a “bad” man, nor have I ever denied his good intentions . . . No one can find those sentiments on my website.”
_______________________Also of note please look at his main Web sites especially as he debates the segment of the Traditionalist wing of the Catholic Church that think Only Catholics will be saved and other nonsense.

 

The Fisher is Back…

The Weekend Fisher is back.  I’m not going to get into polemics either (as she said she didn’t want to in her first comment) but I did want to address a few points. 

Well, ok, and I’m going to stick with “Weekend Fisher” to avoid confusion though my name is likewise “Anne” in the real world. (Small world. Are you a redhead too or is it just me? Happy St. Patrick’s, btw; I’m Irish.)

 Welcome back, and happy coincidence that we are both ‘Anne’s,’ though you are the only redhead. Lucky girl. I am brunette.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day indeed.  I do love all things Irish, though I am a mongrel myself.  Descent from inhabitants of America since before it WAS America will do that to ya. I enjoy being Sicilian by marriage though, dh is third generation American while managing to still be a full blood Sicilian. Cool to have heritage like that.

I look at this (post and comments) and I just want to talk to you two as people, not as “Roman Catholics who hate my stinkin’ Lutheran guts”, y’know.

 Please, in NO way do I hate you. On the contrary, I love you as my sister in Christ and have enjoyed the conversation. 

I’ve gone to Lutheran churches for quite a few years now. I’ve never been taught Luther was all that; in fact we’re taught that he has his faults, when he’s mentioned at all; mostly we just stick with the Scriptures and the Sacraments.

 Cool. That is fortunate, however it wasn’t the case for all of us.  We are working from our own experiences and insofar that we were less well educated, or taught a more glossed over version, that is what we must deal with.  Thus must we rectify our education with the truth about the fathers of the reformation as well as the results of it.

I’ve never been taught that the RC church is a cult, just that (don’t throw anything, you’ve heard this before) they’re wrong about earning your way to heaven.

 Well, did we believe that we earn our way to heaven I’d agree with you.  However, we do not believe that we earn our way to heaven. We believe that we are saved by grace. Catholics do not believe that salvation just ‘covers’ us, rather we believe that we are also transformed by it from the inside out. (Both/and again.) We believe that we were saved by Christ’s work on the cross (Rom 8: 24, Eph 2:5,8, 2 Tim 1:9, Tit 3:5), that we are being saved daily by our response and obedience to God through Christ (Phil 2:12, 1Pet 1:9), and that we will be saved as we continue to do so (Matt 10:22, Matt 24:13, Mark 8:35, Acts 15:11, Rom 5:9-10, Rom 13:11, 1 Cor 3: 15, 1 Cor 5:5, Heb 9:28).  Works are just part of our response to God, proof of our faith, for we know that faith without works is dead (James 2:24-26).  However, in NO way do we believe we earn our way to heaven. 

 I’ve talked to other Lutherans who’ve been to Dave Armstrong’s place, and they tell me it’s a mix of 1) stuff we’ve always known – nobody ever claimed Luther was a saint!, and 2) a fair bit of slander, some demonstrably false. I’ve had Armstrong’s site mentioned to me by another Lutheran as “prime example of how low RC’s will stoop in misrepresenting the facts to smear protestants” and “really blatant, hate-blinded animosity towards Luther”.

 Perhaps the better option would be to go and assess the site for yourself.  Certainly, all the writings I’ve read by the Church about herself have not painted the most glowing picture.  If the RCC were going to stoop to misrepresenting facts, surely she would’ve painted herself in a better light?  I don’t hate Luther. I have no desire to smear protestants or Luther himself.  Luther did a fabulous job of doing the same thing we ALL do, what protestants and even Catholics do today.  Attempt to reform truth  into what we would prefer it was, to what is more comfortable, takes less effort, and is less convicting than the truth.  Judge others instead of dealing with our own sins. Of these I am also guilty.  While there was some anger at Luther for a time during my conversion, what I am left with is pity and mercy. Pity and mercy for a man who was sinful like me. Pity and mercy because of how I would feel if I were he, looking at what the consequences of my sin wrought.  Perhaps even hopeful that pity and mercy will be given me when my sins have reached the fullness of their destructive power in the community around me.  When that happens, I pray that those affected by my sin will call it what it is, and work hard not to follow in my footsteps.  (Don’t believe me? Ask my husband. He has STRICT instructions about my eulogy. It had best NOT be one of these PC schmoozes that doesn’t remotely resemble me.  I don’t anticipate that being a problem however, since Red Neck Woman has agreed to deliver said eulogy and is taking bets over her ability to empty the church in under ten minutes.)

And when you talk about American history books being annoyingly British/Protestant, I have to smile. I’m in Texas.

 My home state! Texan born and raised. I’ve only lived here for two years.  Go Aggies!

We had a “first Thanksgiving” here nearly 100 years before the New England states had one. But here’s why I don’t protest the “northeastern origins” view of US history too much: if we start with explorers and conquistadors, US history would be close to 100% land-grab.

 Uh, yeah? That about covers it!

The only mitigating factors in US History come from the idealism, however blind and exclusive, of people who actually wanted freedom, equality, and brotherhood, rather than cheap land and plundered goods at the expense of the natives.

Even many of those didn’t mind getting what they wanted on the backs of those who were willing to plunder and exploit the natives, and do remember that I am referring to my own ancestors here as well.

But can we talk about slanted history books? It was only when I started reading the histories of other nations and other eras that I realized the “Christian history” as I’d learned it was just as slanted as the US History.

There are going to be slanted histories. The victor writes. That doesn’t mean that we have to automatically swallow that line. Whether Christian or secular history, we can go back and read original documents, we can look at history as presented by both sides and get a much clearer picture than one slanted view ever provides.

. I.e., a lot of Rome’s history has been whitewashed too.

Not very well in my opinion. Certainly, were I rewriting my own history I’d do a much better job.

 But that’s the first stumbling block: Rome says she’s infallible and therefore there’s nothing to discuss (except how long we plan to remain heretics for not believing she’s infallible). But Peter wasn’t infallible by himself … he needed correcting by Paul at least once on the record. Peter, alone, is not infallible …

Infallibility is not quite what you have depicted here. Not every action by every priest and every person in the Catholic Church is infallible.  That is not the claim of the Church. The Church teaches that the Pope (and Peter) are infallible when speaking ex cathedra and in communion with the bishops and magisterium on matters of faith and doctrine.  This is referring specifically to the authority given to the priesthood and its chief shepherd by Christ. Hardly an across the board claim to infallibility. Popes are men, and sinful just like us. Priests confess just like the rest of us do, even the Pope has a confessor.  Peter’s need to be corrected by his brother in Christ does not negate Peter’s (and the apostles) authority on matters of faith and doctrine to which Paul himself submitted. (Acts 9:26-30) John 16:13 bears the promise that they will be guided by the Holy Spirit into all truth. Acts 15:28 tells us that the apostles speak with the voice of the Holy Spirit. Luke 10:16 says they speak with Christ’s own voice, that to accept them is to accept Christ and to reject them is to reject Christ. Matt 28:19-20 tells us that He is with them even to the end.

Rome, alone, is not the “one holy catholic and apostolic church”.

Certainly, she is the only one who visibly fulfills all four marks of the Church.  She is the only one which is truly, visibly one, united in one body, under one authority. She is holy, catholic and apostolic. There are those who have removed themselves from the Body of Christ, refusing to maintain the unity Christ prayed for on His way to the cross…

John 17:20-23

20 “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will
believe in me through their word,
21 so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me
and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may
believe that you sent me.
22 And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that
they may be one, as we are one,
23 I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to
perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me,
and that you loved them even as you loved me.

…and the constant prayer of the Church is that the descendents, our separated brethren through no fault of their own, would come home.  Certainly, of this I am guilty, and I do repent of it. I have nothing to protest. 

Again, please understand that this teaching in no way makes protestants the enemy of the Catholic church. On the contrary, the Church already considers them Catholic because of their faith, just in imperfect communion with the Church.  The Church longs for all of us to come home and be reunited in perfect obedience to the faith. It is unfortunate indeed that so many misconceptions abound, both about the Church’s teachings and her view of protestants.  Certainly, my greatest hope and intent is to disabuse those erroneous notions, and to any extent that I fail in that regard, giving offense or inadequately representing the faith I hold so dear, I am most heartily sorry.  My most sincere desire is that others who are like I was would come to find the fullness and richness of the Faith left for us in the care of the Church, that none who earnestly seeks God and His will in their life would have to journey on the scraps left to us in protestantism instead of with the feast and graces left to us in the Sacraments.

Sincerely, and it is my earnest prayer, that God would richly bless you and grant you peace.

 

Response to Weekend Fisher…

This is in response to a comment left on the New Paganism entry. 

Weekend Fisher:

I’m curious — do believe that all evils in the church were the Reformation’s fault, or that Rome is exempt from error and uncharity towards other believers?

Welcome Weekend Fisher!

No, I do not believe all the evils in the church were the Reformation’s fault or that Rome is exempt from error and uncharity towards other believers. (Aren’t you relieved? *wink*) However, I am a convert to Catholicism. I was WELL aware of the faults of the Roman Catholic Church prior to my conversion and while the truth of that was not so extreme as I had been taught, I continue to agree there were definitely problems then and frankly, continue to be now. What body of men does not have them? Indeed, there is none because where there are men, there is sinfulness and error and lack of charity.

That said, I was NOT taught about the problems, the error and uncharity committed by we protestants. Neither has the Catholic Church been teaching me these things. The Church teaches that our protestant brothers and sisters are exactly that, our separated brethren and have not discussed with me AT ALL the Reformation or the consequences thereof. Rather, it has been in my own reading and study that God has been teaching me that both sides have sinned, and all sin has its consequences. What you witness here is the rectifying of a lopsided education.

I have been blogging of my learning of the other side of that equation. What I am learning causes me grief and mourning. It is not that the protestant side has the market cornered on sin and lack of charity. Far from it, rather, the problem is that we should be one Body. That the sin of division and a house divided has led to more sin, like the dropping of a stone into a pond causes ripples. That such division not only hurts our witness and ability to speak to the world as God intended, but grieves the heart of God.

Weekend Fisher:

A Roman Catholic asked me, not too long ago, what exactly was the “cringe factor” when it came to Roman Catholicism. I blogged a full-length reply, but if I had to boil it down to one phrase it would be this: how Rome treats other Christians.

I’m not sure that I agree with you on ‘how Rome treats other Christians’. At least, my experience has led me to a different conclusion and perspective. As a protestant for most of my life, I would have been the first to tell you that Catholics were not Christians (except for the odd man and why DID they stay in that cult anyway), that they were a cult (I did mention that didn’t I?), and that they were idolatrous among other things. I was rude, arrogant, and unkind to my Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ. It was I, and everyone of my aquaintance, who were treating other Christians badly. (I do not assume that this is your position, only speaking to my own as a protestant.) In my experience, and the experience of many whom I have come to know in the past two years, it was the Catholics of our aquaintance who were kind, patient, long suffering. Who did not return unkind words or thoughts or looks with like, but extended grace instead.

That said, Christians of all flavors treat other Christians of all flavors badly… and unChristians too. Catholics, protestants, we are all guity of it.

In the end, I am condemning primarily myself. It is in becoming aware of just how sinful I was as a protestant, just how far from where God intended me to be, that I am able to repent of it and work as best I can to avoid it in the future. At the same time, I LOVE my protestant brothers and sisters… and in NO way intend for anything I say here to suggest otherwise.

Weekend Fisher:

Wishing for genuine dialog rather than polemics.

How’s this for genuine dialog? Like you, I am not interested in polemics. My belief that there is Truth, and that it is God’s to determine, and that it is WE who must correct our faulty understanding and align ourselves with Him is a belief that I have had both as a protestant and as a Catholic. I will be the first to tell you that I am guilty of these sins and am having to do so. I have grieved our Lord. I have failed to do what is right in His eyes. I have leaned unto my own understanding. I have refused to submit to those He placed in authority over me. I have been working hard to be obedient in rectifying many of those things and as much good work as He has done in me, I am far from finished. If you are perceiving finger pointing here, know that it is at myself I point first. If you perceive judgement, know that it is myself who I judge. If you perceive exhortation to change, it is of myself that I demand it above all.

I don’t know if you’ve read my conversion story included in the entries of this blog, but I did not CHOOSE to become Catholic. It is not my understanding that has led me here, or a desire for smells and bells, or a great hurt done by those in my protestant circles. It was required of me by the Lord our God. I do not presume for ONE MOMENT that He is calling you or anyone else to that journey. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. What you read here is MY journey, what I am learning, what I am struggling with, what I grieve over, what I rejoice over.

I pray that in reading this, whether or not you agree with my agreement with the Teachings of the Catholic Church, what I have learned, or any of the rest, that you will hear my heart. That is what I pour out here, in this comment, and in the blog in general. It is not an easy thing to learn that what one has believed for over 30 years, while partly true, held so much error. It is not an easy thing as an older person to change. It is not easy to admit to having been so horribly wrong. In order to do so, it is important to be willing to face my sin head on, acknowledge it, see the consequences of it as He does. As hard as this is, it would be even worse to not do so and cease to walk with God.

I do not apologize for calling sin what it is. I do not apologize for defending the faith, for if the faith or teachings of the Church and sacred scriptures give offense, it is not for me to apologize. For any mistreatment of Christians by Catholics, I extend my most sincere apologies. For anything I have said that has made you think that I do not love and esteem my separated brethren, I sincerely apologize. Not for one moment do I intend to convey a lack of love or a lack of charity just because I see that I am not the only one guilty of such sins and mourn the consequences of what we have wrought.

May God bless you above all you could ask or imagine and hide you in the secret of His Face,
Anne

 

Why Chuck Them?

I’m posting this with a heavy heart… I wrote it several days ago and left it saved to see if it was something that I really needed to say as it is very strongly worded and not perhaps as coherent as I’d like despite repeated work.  It has not only been constantly a burden of sorts, but the issue has come up yet again, with yet another comment by a Christian who said that the reason homosexuality gets such a bad rap in scripture is not because it was sinful, but because the Romans were hedonistic, which, she claimed, is very different from a loving homosexual family.  This simply can not stand. This in direct opposition to what God teaches us in sacred scripture, both about what constitutes a family and what is sinful in the way of sexual relations.  It is because of this… because everything in me cries out against this false belief and I can not get rest over it, that I publish this post.  This horribly distorted faith I have just described IS one of the fruits of the reformation.

This is probably common knowledge to everyone here but is there a particular reason that the protestants removed books from the Christian bible? And how did they choose which ones to remove or keep?

 This quote was taken from the homeschooling forums I frequent (one of them anyway).  In an attempt to answer quickly I posted the following from Dave Armstrong…

Protestantism, following Martin Luther, removed the deuterocanonical books from their Bibles due to their clear teaching of doctrines which had been recently repudiated by Protestants, such as prayers for the dead (Tobit 12:12, 2 Maccabees 12:39-45 ff.; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:29), intercession of dead saints (2 Maccabees 15:14; cf. Revelation 6:9-10), and intermediary intercession of angels (Tobit 12:12,15; cf. Revelation 5:8, 8:3-4). We know this from plain statements of Luther and other Reformers.

Luther was not content even to let the matter rest there, and proceeded to cast doubt on many other books of the Bible which are accepted as canonical by all Protestants. He considered Job and Jonah mere fables, and Ecclesiastes incoherent and incomplete. He wished that Esther (along with 2 Maccabees) “did not exist,” and wanted to “toss it into the Elbe” river.
The New Testament fared scarcely better under Luther’s gaze. He rejected from the New Testament Canon (“chief books”) Hebrews, James (“epistle of straw”), Jude and Revelation, and placed them at the end of his translation, as a New Testament “Apocrypha.” He regarded them as non-apostolic. Of the book of Revelation he said, “Christ is not taught or known in it.” These opinions are found in Luther’s Prefaces to biblical books, in his German translation of 1522.

… and then this from myself…

Generally speaking, the easiest way to answer is just that they removed the bits that taught things they didn’t like. In our current era, they don’t remove them, rather just redefine what it means to suit their own beliefs. Over time, more and more is ‘defined’ away until some who claim Christianity resemble it not at all.

Feathers got ruffled to say the least.  I apologized as I didn’t INTEND to ruffle feathers or cause offense.  That said,  I did not mean that I was sorry for the basic content of the post.  Luther DID remove the ‘bits’ that taught things he didn’t like, that he didn’t agree with.  In fact, he WANTED to remove far more than he DID!  Some people excuse that as oh, he was a sinful man and wasn’t right about everything. HUH? How does one say that it wasn’t ok for him to do that, but it WAS ok for him to break his vows to God and his superiors and refuse to submit to the authority over him?  It comes down to ‘it was ok for him to leave the RCC because we don’t like her and don’t want to obey either.’  Double-minded men, sinful men, just as Luther was sinful… who do what is RIGHT in their own eyes. God forgive us…

Also, the fact that in our current era we don’t remove but instead redefine is an undeniable fact. All one has to do is look at the number of protestant denominations. Over and over in discussions people say “I don’t believe it says that.”  What they MEAN is “I don’t want it to say that” and they set about explaining how it can’t possibly say that which they find offensive or that which might require that they take action.  I was guilty of this as well, at least to some extent… while I was protestant.

At the end I said that so much of this had gone on that there are those who claim Christianity but do not resemble it and I stand by that as well.  Just on this set of forums in the past few months I have read of several such belief systems.  One focuses on the deity of Christ to the exclusion of God the Father or the Holy Spirit. The other claimed that homosexuality was not a sin, that God didn’t mean that it was a sin when He called it an abomination.  Yet another called circumcision sexual mutilation, and by default, God a sexual mutilator as He had ordered circumcision for His people (thinking specifically of the Jewish here, not going into the whole NT disposition).  

I do not see how these beliefs are REMOTELY compatible with Christianity.  One might agree or disagree on any number of things which don’t contradict sacred scripture outright and claim the faith… but to blatantly claim beliefs that are in direct opposition to teachings which have left NO room for misunderstanding or confusion is just beyond my ability to comprehend. NEVER, in my WORST moments as a protestant did I read anything God made absolutly crystal clear like ‘for a man to lie with another man is an abomination’ and pretend otherwise. NEVER did I call what God said was right for His people to do was an abomination.  These are just beyond even what I have ever seen a devout protestant dare! 

Don’t misunderstand… not for ONE MOMENT do I think that as a protestant I was sinning any less for my own particular brand of heresy than they are in theirs. Certainly, I am just as guilty… and despite the absolution for my sins… it grieves me still.  That is perhaps why I get so frustrated by all this… I didn’t know any better… they don’t know any better… we are ALL (protestants, whether current or former) paying the price for the sins of our forefathers.  The truth of the faith, the fullness of the faith was stolen from us… and as a result we sin greatly, and grieve God who extends mercy in spite of it all.

That said, I do NOT want to be guilty of continuing that and not about to lie and say that people AREN’T calling interpretations the way they want them to be!  Perhaps this is more uniquely true in the American church… I don’t know… but there was a time when almost everyone I knew, even as a protestant, held themselves accountable to what God said was right and wrong.  That is no longer true… many still do, true… but many are remaking the faith to fit their own desires, their own sense of right and wrong, their own comfort, their own idea of what makes a good faith/religion.  Some in outright contradiction of God’s word… how does one NOT take a stand on this?  How can it NOT grieve anyone truly seeking God?

Conversion to the Catholic Church has been a great blessing in my life… God truly knew better than I did what was right and best.  Part of my conversion has been giving UP what seemed right and good and true in my own eyes and being obedient instead to what God said.  Many of these things have come to make sense and I can see the joy and blessing obedience brings. Other things are difficult, I understand even as I demand obedience from myself despite the costs and suffering, despite whether or not I think it is just or fair.  Is this not what we must do? Is it not always we who must move to align ourselves more fully with God?

Over and over protestants say ‘that is what you choose to believe’ and inside I’m yelling ‘NO! It WASN’T!’ but they don’t understand… and no wording will change that.  How do you explain a burning bush… holy ground… following because you must… because there lies the only path to Life?  Only those who have walked this ground seem to understand and it is so hard to look at those who remain where I was, to have a heart for them, to want them to share the beauty and joy and riches God has shown me here… and find myself unable to reach them when trying to answer their questions.  It is as though I speak a different language… and yet I feel more love for my brethren than ever before.

In some ways I am more completely a part of the Body of Christ than I have ever been… and in some ways I feel more alone, rejected, vilified, and misunderstood.  It is not without much struggle, this narrow way… It was much easier when I had ‘my own’ interpretation… no protestants were offended by it, there was no struggle… certainly nothing like this and yet…

 Even so Lord, lead on…