Thought and sin

Originally posted by jaywill
jaywill said ?


I guess we are even now. I attributed a quote to you that you didn't write.
Now you attribute one to me which I didn't write.[/b]

Hahahahaha! Yep, looks like one apiece now.

Sorry, jaywill and josephw. I'm moving too fast again. 🙂 It must be time to go to bed. See you tomorrow.

Originally posted by pyxelated
jaywill, thanks for your courteous reply. I will try to reciprocate; you'll have to forgive me for any brusqueness in what follows (for which forgiveness I ask in advance 🙂 )

jaywill said:

[b]Wasn't it you who refered to asking advice on Christian marriage issues from the Jesuit priests ?

pyx replies:

No, that was Kunsoo. I'm not sure what ...[text shortened]... llowed it to go on for 15 centuries before moving somebody to correct it 🙂[/b]

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jaywill said:
MIXTURE is the nature of the Roman Catholic Church. That is the MIXTURE of biblical things with bantantly unbiblical things.
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Now this you can blame me for.

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pyx replies:

I would disagree with that statement (surprise, surprise), as well as your calling the Catholic Church "the oldest Christian sect."
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Maybe I'll open a thread dedicated to the problem of the proper unity of the church.

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(She is God's Church, not a sect). I challenge you to find one single Catholic doctrine (or so much as a practice approved by the universal Church) that cannot be reconciled with the Bible.
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A sect may have right teachings. A sect is not a group which consists of only wrong doctrines. So I would have to say off the bat that right or wrong teaching is not the most basic characteristic of a sect.

A sect is a Christian group that has a unity either smaller than the scope of the Body of Christ or larger than the scope of the Body of Christ.

There are some unbiblical teachings in the RCC. But there are also many right teachings. But if they were ALL right teachings and the principle of unity is other than the unity of the Body of Christ, it is a sect.

Now the RCC was the once the church in Rome. But she followed the way of world empires and made the local church in Rome stretch her jurisdiction over all the Roman Empire.

The apostles established churches according to cities. When the man made way came in of making the empire's central city the headquarter or head church that is sectarian.

The church in Rome then became the Roman World Wide Public Church. Man tried to unite all the local churches under the umbrella of the church in Rome and emulated the Roman Empire. This was against God's ordination.

Now this is a bit off the cuff. But this is a basic introduction to the sectarian nature of the Roman Universal World Wide Church - the Roman Catholic Church.

God did not even allow Jerusalem to be the "head church". He would not sanction Rome to be the "head church" out from which all the churches on earth received organization administrative directions which should be handled locally.

Paul appointed elders according to cities. The establishment of a more prominent city's elders OVER other local elders of other cities was the seeds of hierarchy which was against the ordination of God - to appoint elders according to cities.

Of course there are some terribly wrong teachings in the RCC. But there are some very sound ones also.

But the sectarian nature is imposed is a man made unity not ordained by God which took its que from the practice of world politics. That is to have an Empire center over the localities of the world.

The apostles did not unite all the churches in Asia to be the Asian Church. The apostles did not unite all the churches in Judea to be the Judean Church. And the apostles did not try to unite all the churches in the world to be the World Church.

And they did not unite the churches of the World to be the World church with an organization head quarters in the center of the Roman Empire - the Roman World Church.

It is sectarian. The churches in the New Testament are according to cities, accoding to localities. A church in Rome is quite scriptural. But a church in Rome which has all the other churches as satallites of the Roman World Church is sectarian.

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The first bishops of the Catholic Church (the Apostles, including St. Paul) *wrote* the Bible, after all, and a council of the Catholic Church determined the content of the Bible, and the Church claims to be the authentic interpreter of the Bible, so I think they're going to be pretty careful that they don't transgress the boundaries of Scripture when they do their office (Matt. 28:20).
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There are many things which I acknowledge were done by those participating in the sectarian Roman World Wide Church. To say that she is a sect is not to say nothing noteworthy was ever accomplished by those who were her members.

These noteworthy things, life the preservation of important history and defense of certain doctrines DOES NOT excuse the sectarian nature of the Roman World Wide Public Church.

Of course she also brought in some abominations. So I again state that the principle of the RCC is MIXTURE. That is LEAVEN mixed into the fine meal of the truth to leaven the whole loaf.

So let us be clear. God has people in the RCC. God has people who are my Christian brothers and sisters in the RCC. But she also contains as MEMBERS many many unbelievers.

No unbeliever can POSSIBLY be a member of Christ's mystical Body because NO unbeliever has the divine LIFE of Christ through regeneration.

I know that you will protest here. This is not a statement that we know everyone who has the divine life and everyone who does not. Sometimes we do not know. and sometime we may mistakenly treat a unbeliever as a Christian brother when they are in fact NOT a or not YET a Christian brother.

This is a mistake in fact. It is not a mistake in procedure. The PROCEDURE of RCC is to embrace millions, I said MILLIONS of unbelievers as member of a CHURCH. But NO unregenerated human being is a member of Christ's church PERIOD.

My baby boy I love. And I hope he someday becomes born again. But until that time my baby boy is not a member of the Body of Christ. And no one can be born naturally INTO the Body of Christ. RCC includes on principle MILLIONS who are not born of God. And they are mixed with those who are born of God to be one big public world wide "church".

That is a human invention. It is not an error of fact. It is an error in practice and in procedure. We are talking about an encredibly solidly FIXED error in world history. Yet it is an error just the same. And it has almost destroyed the nature of the Christian church.

jaywill said:

Maybe I'll open a thread dedicated to the problem of the proper unity of the church.

pyx replies:

That would be an interesting thread; I would definitely participate.


jaywill said:

A sect may have right teachings. A sect is not a group which consists of only wrong doctrines. So I would have to say off the bat that right or wrong teaching is not the most basic characteristic of a sect.

pyx replies:

The word "sect" itself means part. My first response is purely grammatical: the "Catholic" (that's Greek for "universal"😉 Church cannot be a "sect". Another name frequently used for the Church is the "Body of Christ" (this is also from St. Paul's letters). The Church is the whole Body of Christ.

Jesus and Paul both thought the Church was (and prayed for the Church to be) one, united, believing the same doctrines.... "that they may all be one, Father, as you and I are one"... "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." And Paul's letters show that heresy and schism were there from the very first; he spends a lot of time correcting errors and defending himself against the attacks of false teachers within the early Church. Sects go way back... but the whole Church came first 🙂

Of course sects have some correct teachings... if they didn't nobody would belong to them. But that's exactly the problem: every religious belief, even atheism, has to have SOME of the truth to have any adherents at all; but only the Catholic Church has ALL of the (revealed) truth. (The non-revealed truth is available to anybody who wants it and is smart enough to figure it out; it's the natural law.)


jaywill said:

A sect is a Christian group that has a unity either smaller than the scope of the Body of Christ or larger than the scope of the Body of Christ.

pyx replies:

A Christian group whose scope is larger than the Body of Christ? Hmm. That doesn't seem possible, unless you're talking about a group that calls itself "Christian" but isn't really.

jaywill said:

There are some unbiblical teachings in the RCC.

pyx replies:

Name one!

Now, granted, not everything that the Catholic Church believes explicitly appears in so many words in the Bible, but that doesn't make it unbiblical. No doctrine of the Church conflicts with the Bible, properly understood.

A question back for you: where in the Bible does it say that the Bible is the sole authority for Christian faith? That is a doctrine of the Protestant Reformers, not of Christ. (Fr. Brian Harrison, a convert from Protestantism, wrote an excellent article on this; it's called "Logic and the Foundations of Protestantism." It's available here: http://rtforum.org/lt/lt18.html#II . Don't read it if being a Protestant is more important to you than knowing the truth 🙂 )


jaywill said:

Now the RCC was the once the church in Rome. But she followed the way of world empires and made the local church in Rome stretch her jurisdiction over all the Roman Empire.

The apostles established churches according to cities. When the man made way came in of making the empire's central city the headquarter or head church that is sectarian.

The church in Rome then became the Roman World Wide Public Church. Man tried to unite all the local churches under the umbrella of the church in Rome and emulated the Roman Empire. This was against God's ordination.

Now this is a bit off the cuff. But this is a basic introduction to the sectarian nature of the Roman Universal World Wide Church - the Roman Catholic Church.

God did not even allow Jerusalem to be the "head church". He would not sanction Rome to be the "head church" out from which all the churches on earth received organization administrative directions which should be handled locally.

Paul appointed elders according to cities. The establishment of a more prominent city's elders OVER other local elders of other cities was the seeds of hierarchy which was against the ordination of God - to appoint elders according to cities.


pyx replies:

Where is all this in the Bible?

Peter was appointed by Jesus as the head of the Apostles (Matt. 16:13ff, John 21:15ff) and acknowledged as such by all (see Acts chs. 1 and 15). His settlement in Rome gave the church of Rome the preeminent position among the churches of the world. The Universal (or Catholic) Church is the assembly of all those local churches in union with the head Church, the one led by Peter. The things that make them one Church are that they have "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph 4:5, CV).

jaywill said:

Of course there are some terribly wrong teachings in the RCC. But there are some very sound ones also.

Well, there have been some pretty bad people in the Catholic Church, including some of the Popes, bishops, and priests... but the Church is infallible (in the very limited sense defined at the first Vatican Council) and as such has never taught error. This does not mean that even the Popes themselves have never personally taught error or given bad example: we even see that in the Bible, in Galatians 2, where St. Paul corrects St. Peter's human respect for the Jewish Christians against the Gentiles. (But note even here: St. Paul uses this incident to prove his bona fides to the Galatians: "You want to know who I am? Well, I stood up to Peter himself!"😉

But this is exactly what Jesus wanted: read the parable of the wheat and the cockle (Matt. 13:24ff). The good and the bad are allowed to grow up together; they'll be sorted out at the end of the harvest. (And if there are any rapture believers lurking out there, take note: the cockle is gathered up first 🙂 )

Besides, where better for a sinner to be than in the Church? After all, Jesus "did not come to call the just, but sinners" (Matt. 9:13)

jaywill said:

The apostles did not unite all the churches in Asia to be the Asian Church. The apostles did not unite all the churches in Judea to be the Judean Church. And the apostles did not try to unite all the churches in the world to be the World Church.

pyx replies:

Yes, they did. Read Acts 15. The apostles were gathered in Jerusalem for a council on whether Christians had to follow Jewish dietary practices. They decided this question for the whole Church.

jaywill said:

And they did not unite the churches of the World to be the World church with an organization head quarters in the center of the Roman Empire - the Roman World Church.

pyx replies:

No, Peter did that by moving to Rome. One of the early Church Fathers summed it up best: Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia--where Peter is, there is the Church.

jaywill said:

So let us be clear. God has people in the RCC. God has people who are my Christian brothers and sisters in the RCC. But she also contains as MEMBERS many many unbelievers.

No unbeliever can POSSIBLY be a member of Christ's mystical Body because NO unbeliever has the divine LIFE of Christ through regeneration.

I know that you will protest here. This is not a statement that we know everyone who has the divine life and everyone who does not. Sometimes we do not know. and sometime we may mistakenly treat a unbeliever as a Christian brother when they are in fact NOT a or not YET a Christian brother.

This is a mistake in fact. It is not a mistake in procedure. The PROCEDURE of RCC is to embrace millions, I said MILLIONS of unbelievers as member of a CHURCH. But NO unregenerated human being is a member of Christ's church PERIOD.


pyx replies:

Yes, likely the Catholic Church contains many people who don't follow Christ in any significant way. Great numbers of Catholics aren't even aware of the Church's teachings in many areas; this ignorance seems especially widespread in English-speaking countries since the second Vatican Council, which encouraged a false sense of "openness to the world" that has been near-disastrous for catechesis and thus the Faith, especially in the West.

But clearly we can't judge everybody from the outside, and even those who have strayed can be called to repentance and conversion. (And if the truth be told, we ourselves may occasionally need some repentance and conversion too 🙂 ) The Church follows the Lord's command to let the wheat and the cockle grow up together.

And a doctrinal point. It is baptism that incorporates us into the Body of Christ, the Church. Anybody who has been baptized is by that fact a Christian, like it or not. (And infant baptism is valid; parents or guardians can provide for their children in faith as in all the other things they provide before the child can do for himself.)

jaywill said:

My baby boy I love. And I hope he someday becomes born again. But until that time my baby boy is not a member of the Body of Christ. And no one can be born naturally INTO the Body of Christ. RCC includes on principle MILLIONS who are not born of God. And they are mixed with those who are born of God to be one big public world wide "church".

That is a human invention. It is not an error of fact. It is an error in practice and in procedure. We are talking about an encredibly solidly FIXED error in world history. Yet it is an error just the same. And it has almost [b]destroyed the nature of the Christian church.[/b]

pyx replies:

Once he's born of water and the Spirit, he's a member of Christ's Body, no matter how old he is. Get thee to a baptistry! (Ha, ha, only serious. Really. Don't put it off.)

As to the nature of the worldwide Church, see my comments on that above.