It was the year 1054, and the differences between the eastern half of the Church and the western half of the Church finally boiled over, resulting in what we now call The Great Schism. The western part of the Church became centered in Rome and the Bishop of Rome established himself as undisputed Pontiff of what we now call the Roman Catholic Church. The eastern part of the church continued on with business as usual and refused to recognize what they considered to be a heretical power grab. But, even after the formal breaking of ties, the western Church was still willing to launch The First Crusade in 1096 AD in order to aid the eastern Church against Muslim aggression.
A few centuries later, the western Church experienced its own schism, when Martin Luther kicked off the Protestant Reformation in 1517. The irony being that the Protestants separated from the Catholic Church for a lot of the same things the eastern Church objected to (the primary issue being the claims of the authority vested in the Pope). In the time since then, Protestants have become experts at schisms. Protestants schism over doctrine, the color of the drapes, the type of carpet, or if you got the biscuits at the potluck from Kentucky Fried Chicken or Bojangles. A brief overview of the Infogalactic entry on Protestantism will give you an overview of the Protestant love for schisming.
In fact, at this point, the Church is so fragmented that we spend more time fighting with ourselves than we do doing the things that we were commanded to do. Islam is on the move for the first time in 3 centuries, and the American Church is too scared of losing their tax exempt status to do anything about issues that seem to be a no brainer. For example, the it has taken 40 years for the United Methodist Church to start righting the ship on abortion. And that’s before you even talk about the rumbling going on in the Southern Baptist Convention, which has been crippled from doing anything useful for fear of alienating churches that are unwilling to take a tough stand.
The time has come for the Men of the West to stand up and start retaking our culture and rebuilding our civilization. The first step in doing that is UnSchisming the Church. And the first step in UnSchisming the Church is to agree that the Body of Christ needs to be whole again. The 3 segments of the Church are going to have to agree to that before we can make any movement on resolving this issue. The Orthodox and Catholics have, to a certain extent. However, there has been no movement on Protestants having a formal relationship with either the Catholics or the Orthodox. On this point, I think it’s probably easier for the Protestants and the Orthodox to find common ground and start working together than for Protestants and Catholics because of the issue of the Pope. This will undoubtedly be a thorny issue in trying to untangle centuries of very real, very significant differences that have arisen between the different sects.
The path forward, once we have agreed that this is a thing that needs doing, is to revisit the councils and canons of the Church from before the Schism, get the leadership of the 3 branches of Christianity together, and find common ground that can be built upon. But this isn’t going to be easy, and because of that, it’s something that is going to have to have ordinary Christians involved. If you think this is a worthwhile goal, be sure to share this column with your pastor, priest, minister, bishop, elder, or whatever title your church uses for leadership. Tweet it, Gab it, or Facebook it. Our mission is being undermined by our disunity and we need to fix it.
UnSchisming The Church
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Hey, here at Men of the West, we say that if you are going to dream, then dream big.
The World Council of Churches already exists for many of these purposes. Its basis is in the universal acceptance of the first seven ecumenical councils.
They have been taken over by entryists.
That’s unfortunate. Symptom of our age, I suppose.
Oh no, not a symptom of our age at all. The WCC was a major Soviet front as early as the 1960s.
4
Speaking as a Catholic, with Pope Francis currently at the helm of the Catholic Church and the homosexuality, corruption and progressive liberalism that is rampant in the hierarchy of the Church I’m not sure that now is the right time. Probably would be more fruitful finding traditionalist conservative lay people.
Listening to a lot of Protestant converts to Catholicism the biggest stumbling block is the Catholic veneration of the Blessed Begin Mary.
I would think that Catholics and Orthodox have less ground to cover than Protestants and Orthodox. In clerical structure and liturgy and being able to trace various Sees back to the apostles there is a lot of common ground that is not there between the Orthodox and Protestants.
A good place to begin might be what is the canon of Scripture.
One difficulty I have in discussions with Protestants is an ignorance of history and a desire to minimialze doctrines that are very important Catholics (again veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the importance of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, etc). In discussions I’ve had with devout Protestants I feel they want me to essentially leave my Catholicism behind.
And that is why step 1 is that we must all agree that such an end goal is desirable. Because it is not an easy path to reunify the Church.
The Catholics and the Orthodox do indeed have less ground to cover as they have already made moves in that direction. I think that the Orthodox are better suited to reach some kind of accommodation with Protestants for the very simple reason that neither the Orthodox or the Protestants recognize the Pope as anything more than the Bishop of Rome and that is unlikely to ever change.
You are correct, the veneration of Mary is a huge issue for me converting to Catholicism. The second issue would be the praying to saints. How these doctrines came about and how they are practiced by everyday Catholics are different. It is not an ignorance of history, rather, how I see these doctrines practiced. Also, it would be difficult to start with the Canon when Catholics are taught they don’t need to read or study their Bible. It is only for the priests to read and interpret. These are hurdles that both sides need to address and understand.
Drew,
I’m sure what mean about the difference in how prayer to the saints came about and how it is practiced today; could you be more specific?
Catholics are NOT taught they do not need to read or study the Bible (read the encyclical Providentissimus Deus published in 1893). The Church is the official interpreter of Scripture not Her priests. The laity is free to take an interpretation that Holy Mother Church has not ruled on as long as it is in harmony the the Magisterium. A source of confusion could be that for Catholics the Bible is not the end all be all but is on equal footing with the Magisterium and Sacred Tradition. (Beyond Black Legends).
In regards to the Canon I was speaking more specifically about the secular history of the Bible and how we got the Bible we have today. When our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ ascended into heaven He did not give us the Bible; the decision as to what books should be in the Bible ( the canon) was debated and decided much later; my experience with Protestants has been that they do not know anything about this history and treat the Bible like Jesus Himself gave it to us right before He ascended into heaven.
As far as I can tell Catholics are the only ones who are interested in this history.
I work with a Protetant who takes his practice of the Faith seriously and our conversations on Biblical interpretation always ended up with him saying “You have your interpretation, I have mine.” At one point I told him if that were so then between us the Bible is a dead book; guess that’s why we don’t discuss it anymore. Our recent discussions have focused more on whether the Jews today are still God’s chosen people.
3.5
Phase 1 Realizing we must clean our own Churches: We need to clean Mere Christianity orthodoxy is required. We need to broom out the garbage in our own churches and/or repent.
Step 1 of Phase 1: Remove all female leadership from any source of authority in all Christian Churches
Step 2 of Phase 1:….
Step 3 of Phase 1:….
Step 4 of Phase 1 Unite Christendom!
Sorry should say, We need to “enforce” Mere Christianity like orthodoxy in the churches….
Agreed that this is a major step that must be done. It is absolutely required and necessary.
Sorry but this is an absurd pipe dream.
Protestantism is simply incapable of ever being reconciled with anything or anyone and never will be capable.
Either Orthodox or Catholic is fine and in truth they would be perfectly willing to accept one another as say cousins that don’t necessarily agree but will still unite forces against invading Saracens.
The Catholic Church has unfortunately had no real Pope since 1958 so the only real Catholic position is the sede privationist one. Before restoring Christianity at large the Catholic Church needs to purge itself of the Marxist homosexual rot it is infested with.
The Orthodox has other political issues.
In short, I believe if we are going to codify things the easiest and simple way is to either accept the council of Trent and the Pio-Benedictine canon of 1917 as law as these remain uncurropted by Vatican 2, or the equivalent Orthodox position and simply forge ahead.
And do so forcefully and unapologetically.
“And the first step in UnSchisming the Church is to agree that the Body of Christ needs to be whole again.”
We should desire this because we know that Jesus desires it. See John 17:21.
Of course, the conflict between fidelity and apostasy ongoing in every denomination makes this more difficult.
Yes, it also makes it all the more important that we emphasize the things that make us Christians. If we can all agree, for example, that Scripture forbids homosexual practices (as an example) it makes it easier to push out entryists in our own denominations. (That doctrine is universally agreed upon – begone SJW!)
4.5
I think this article is a good start, but we need to discuss this more.
I’ve lived in the Protestant churches (Baptist and Evangelical), and the Orthodox (Catholic, Armenian Apostolic) and I presently attend and am a parishioner of an Eastern Rite Catholic parish and when traveling, I sometimes attend Anglican Use Catholic or the Extraordinary Form Catholic. I started off as a Left atheist liberal. I’m now hard Alt-West.
The first schism was over Christ’s divinity, the second over the authority of the Holy Sees, the third over Church authority in general, and the fourth that is about to happen is over the question of the seriousness of sin and on the presumption of grace.
The distance between Rome and Constantinople is not that far, and is even shorter among the group that is labeled Oriental Orthodox. I think if enough effort was put into it, and if you have enough good clergy on both sides, the Western and Eastern lungs of the Church could come together again. Rome is presently the obstacle though, because of our leadership crisis at the moment. This website is Men of the West, and right now, I would not call most of the shepherds in Rome men, and I question the allegiance to the West of many of them. I fully understand the hesitancy of the leaders of the Eastern branches. If Rome was to get strong leadership again, and have the East’s concerns as her own, especially in regards to Islam and the reclaiming of Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia, (and maybe the reclamation of Greek Anatolia), I could see some unification on this issue. Indeed, the Muslim question could be what would unite the two again.
But Protestants…my goodness, the gap is huge. You have 40,000 different branches, and a lot of lies and ingrained falsehoods about Catholics in many of those. I left because of studying history and following the claims, but in talking to my friends who stayed behind, they fight tooth and nail to not accept the history, or to not resort into saying Rome is the whore of Babylon or some other such nonsense. The few, traditionalist branches of Protestantism, like the hard line Anglicans and Lutherans, will likely come over to the Catholics as their churches continue to implode and devolve into Leftist mush. But their is no resolving their way of worship or their theological inventions. At best, our distant brethren in the Protestant faith need to always be invited to come back, and invited to fight the big battles, like Islam, but I don’t see a reconciling happening because neither the Catholics or Orthodox should compromise, especially on issues like the Eucharist.
Anyway, I hope this becomes a series, as I do think the laypeople need to step up and start doing this work. I already have a weekly meet up with a group of guys who are trad Catholics, Eastern Rite Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and trad Lutheran and we find in many things we are in alignment on, especially in regards to what needs doing to save the West, to save Christendom. But none of us are quite sure where to go with this. For myself, I’ve retreated to finding like minded Catholics as I got tired of fighting with leftist laypeople and clergy constantly trying to Marxify the faith in the name of compassion.
Well said
Never happen. Mainly it’s because of the Gospel: those of us Protestants who are actually protesting and just not Catholic because funny hats believe in the Bible and its Gospel. The Papists have added to it and anathematized justification by faith alone. So long as Galatians and Hebrews are in the Bible, there is no justification of the church of Rome.
Furthermore, the constant “invites to return” fail to acknowledge the fact that the Papist Gospel has no Christ in it, the idolatry and paganism of Mary and the “saints” and the alleged “sacraments”. To go to Rome means sacrificing Christ and the authority of the Bible. Thanks, but no.
Exactly. That’s why a discussion on what the canon of Scripture should be is a good place to start followed by the more important topic of how to interpret Sacred Scripture. It’s one thing to agree that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God but another to understand what that means.
Indeed. Papists don’t believe in sufficiency and have been told for centuries what it means instead of reading it themselves. Romanism dies in Hebrews and Galatians not to mention pretty much all of Paul’s writing.
You want to have this discussion and I promise that, just like those on church history that Romanists read anachronistically, it won’t go well. Listen to theologians like Dr. James White exegete the Greek and Hebrew.
Well Sean I can’t say I’ve heard Galations, Hebrews and the rest of the Pauline letters refuting the Roman Church; would you be so kind as to provide some specifics?
Is the “sufficiency” remark regarding 2 Timothy 3:15-16 or something else?
I haven’t had a chance to listen to Dr. White’s stuff yet so I hope you will humor me
Cutting to the chase I don’t understand how Protestants can accept the Bible without the Catholic Church. Christ didn’t leave us the Bible when He ascended into Heaven so what is your basis for accepting the Bible as the inerrant Word of God?
If I’m reading this clearly, you’re saying that the only reason we have a Bible is because of Rome? The Bible was compiled well before Roman primacy occurred. Indeed, Roman primacy wasn’t even considered by the Inspired writers since it wasn’t referenced.
Dr. White debated Mitch Pacwa, Robert Sungenis, Jerry Matatics, Jimmy Akin and others. http://www.aomin.org
Galatians, apart from being basically a commentary on Romans, has two specific parts that refute it. One is 1:6-9; the preaching of a different Gospel and 3:10-14; living by Faith. The Gospel of Christ was anathematized in Trent (1545-1563) with the denials of Justification by faith alone and the codifying of additions to the Gospel like purgatory, limbo et al through lifting up of the Apocrypha.
Hebrews 9 and 10 refute the blasphemy of transubstantiation and mass and Hebrews 7 and 8 remove any such “priesthood” from Christianity. Furthermore, there are no examples of priests in the NT other than Christ himself.
I’m sure you’re likely to retort with John 6 as proof of blasphemy, er, transubstantiation. James White has also done at least two Dividing Lines in the past year or so on John 6.
Sean, you’re probably a nice guy, but your atittude is a prime example of why there won’t ever be any unification between the Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox Churches and the thousands of Protestant churches. Firstly, the word ‘Papist’ is an insult in itself. A more neutral term to use would be ‘Roman Catholic’.
I myself am Eastern Orthodox. About 80-90% of the theology of these two churches are identical. In fact, for the first 1000 years or so, they were fundamentally one church before they were sundered by the egoism of Man. This church, in two slightly different forms, existed for 1500 years before the first Protestant was a gleam in his father’s eye.
The traditions in Catholicism and Orthodoxy that confuse Protestants are based on the Old Testament; Protestants don’t regard it as important as the New Testament, but what do you think Jesus was preaching to all those people before he was crucified? There was no codified ‘New Testament’ until the fifth century AD. The ‘Bible’ referres to in the New Testament is the Old Testament. Christianity is a form of Judaism and inherited many forms and traditions from Temple Judaism, which is not Judaism as practiced now. That’s where all the ‘smells and bells’–amomg other traditions—come from.The tradition is impoosible tim understand outside the context of the Old Testament.
Sola Scriptura cannot possible make sense: there was no final version of the New Testament until the fifth century. Look at the books that were once considered canonical [cf. the Muratorian fragment]. They no longer obtain, but they were once included.
What do you think Christians relied on for their theology for the first 400 years? There was a high illiteracy rate and not much documentation other than the gospels and some miscellaneous letters. (icons are, in fact, attempts to present theology in visual form.) Like the Jews, the earliest followers of ‘The Way’ relied on Tradition. All the confusion of Protestantism can be clarified by reading the works of the church fathers—those holy men and bishops of the church who studied with, and in a direct line from, the Apostles. Within the first 500 years or so after Christ’s crucifixion, they and the councils explained the tenets of the faith as fully as can be explained, [Read, for example, St Ireneaus’ ‘Against Heresies’.] As an Orthodox, I empathize with Protestants, as I disagree with many of the Roman Catholic innovations of the last 200 years—I believe they’re of Man, not of God. Be that as it may, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches rely on Tradition; the schism between the churches is solely a result of frail humans.
I realize that Roman Catholic priest Martin Luther was rightfully irritated when parishoners started coming to confession telling him the’d obtained an ‘indulgence’ to offset their sins but, in insisting on draconian reform, he threw away the baby with the bathwater, and Christianity has never been the same since. If everyone can interpret the Bible according to his own tastes and intellect—outside the context of long-estabnlished and sanctified tradition—then you end up where we are today: with thousands of Protestant sects based on misinterpretations of scripture that were clarified by better men than we—saints some of ’em—centuries ago.
I would urge all Protestants and seekers to study the history and literature of the ancient church. Kindle has a version of the Complete Writings if the Ante-Nicene Fathers [38 volumes] for about $3 last I looked.
Great reply ahem.
On the Catholic issue, why 200 years as your mark? Being that I’m among the Catholics, I see the major break at Vatican II (1962), so 55 years. Are you referring to Vatican I (1869)? That council definitely didn’t help matters regarding their Greek brethren.
Sean you still did not answer what your basis is for accepting the Bible we have today.
Regarding the canon of Scripture, pulling from Infogalactic (https://infogalactic.com/info/Christian_biblical_canons) there is the Vulgate Bible (383 AD) commissioned by Pope Damasus, St. Augustine’s Council of Hippo in 393 listed the canon that the Catholic Church recognizes today and was ratified by the See of Rome :
“…This decision of the transmarine church however, was subject to ratification; and the concurrence of the Roman see it received when Innocent I and Gelasius I (A.D. 414) repeated the same index of biblical books. This canon remained undisturbed till the sixteenth century, and was sanctioned by the council of Trent at its fourth session.”
(note it says the canon remained undisturbed until the time of the Reformation)
Under “A consensus emerges” heading : ” Christian scholars assert that when these bishops and councils spoke on the matter, however, they were not defining something new, but instead “were ratifying what had already become the mind of the Church”.”
Historically in the West Catholic Bishops and the See of Rome were discussing and deciding these matters.
Since you reject the authority of the Catholic Church I again ask you how do you get to what the Bible today is?
Damasus wasn’t a pope, he was the bishop of Rome. Roman primacy doesn’t come until Leo. In fact, previous bishops of Rome like … I think it’s Gregory… even speak out against it. Further, during the old councils, the bishop of Rome doesn’t have the grand status that Papists think he does. He is on equal footing with those from the East. Another account of reading church history anachronistically.
The Reformers would mostly believe that the church is a united being until roughly the time of Constantine until the syncretism that occurred. There is no “Roman church” until much later. I also find it interesting that you’re using the Vulgate as the Bible considering it’s a Latin translation of the original texts. The Reformed belief in Sola Scriptura comes from there: it’s a belief in the infallibility of the original, inspired texts to the sole authority in theological and ecclesiastic matters.
Papists believe in Sola Ecclesia: “We believe what the church tells us to believe”. Ever since Trent when the Papacy dictated that “whenever there is a difference between the Bible and what we say, we’re supreme” (Trent, Session 4, “Decree Concerning the Edition, and the Use, of the Sacred Books”). We believe in the infallibility and sufficiency of the original texts, not the TR, not the Vulgate. As you mentioned earlier, it starts with II Tim 3 but also logically: when God has given His Word, what else do you require?
Galatians is not a commentary on Romans; St. Paul was writing to correct errors that the Galatians had fallen into – namely that others had come and were teaching them that they needed to be circumcised and follow other Mosaic laws. When St. Paul writes of the law he is writing about Jewish laws. One heresy that the early Church had to fight was whether or nor they had to follow the Mosaic laws.
Hebrews was written to Jewish converts to the Faith and is a comparison Jewish worship and Chistian worship. If you take St. Paul at his word that ” For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, …” (Hebrews 10:1) you will understand the beauty of the Mass (Liturgy for the Orthodox) and be in awe of the sublimety of the Eucharist. Pity our culture has lost the understanding of sacrificial worship. Since Catholics don’t use Hebrews as any kind of justification for how the priesthood of Melchizadec works it doesn’t do away with it.
Other priests listed in the NT would be the Apostles, St. Paul, Sts. Timothy and Titus.
If you don’t think Galatians is a commentary on Romans, you’ve never read either one of them.
I agree that he’s writing on the laws and the Judaizers, yes. However, he’s also writing on additions to the Gospel. The Gospel is that we’re all born into Adam’s Sin and Christ is the one to redeem us through his perfect adherence to the Law. Upon believing in his Lordship, that he’s the resurrected Son of God, our sins are forgiven. Period. Not the “de fide” additions like that actions are required of men or that grace can be increased by good works. Read Romans 6.
No, there is no beauty in the Mass because it’s a lessening of the power of Christ. He is not re-presented every time, he was slain once for all time. Sacrifices require blood and the Papist idea that the constant sacrifice of Christ every Mass is pure blasphemy. Repent for the Kingdom of God is near.
Which translation do you yourself prefer? (I wouldn’t trust a Catholic who didn’t use the Douay-Rheims)
“If you don’t think Galatians is a commentary on Romans, you’ve never read either one of them.” Really? You’re going to drop a statement like that without any support and run – are you in the sixth grade or something? St. Paul wrote those 2 epistles to 2 different groups of Christians to address errors that each had fallen into (Am I repeating myself?). He didn’t write Galatians as a commentary for the Galatians on what he had written to the Romans; St. Paul spends the first third of Galatians telling the Galatians why he has the authority to teach and the false teachers who came after him didn’t and then corrects the errors they had fallen into.
Historically there is no Sola Scriptura doctrine prior to the Reformation; it was made up by Luther to do an end run around actual authority. Historically it also doesn’t make sense. In the early Church there was a lot of debate about which books should be the Christian Canon of Scripture (both Old and New Testaments) https://infogalactic.com/info/Christian_biblical_canons “…instead the canon of the New Testament developed over time. Like the development of the Old Testament canon, that of the New Testament canon was gradual.”); Church authorities worked that out and made that decision. They had the authority to do that. Christ did not leave us the Bible; He left us a group of men invested with authority. Ultimately it is the Church guided by the Holy Spirit that has the final say until Christ Himself returns. How can the Bible be the sole authority when it looks outside of itself for the decision as to which books should be in it?
That is why the Council of Trent in the session you mention says that the Catholic Church is the official interpreter (http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct04.html “Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,–in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, –wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,–whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,–hath held and doth hold” –
not the “whenever there is a difference between the Bible and what we say, we’re supreme” way you have spun it.
If I understand you correctly you are saying that Sola Scriptura is found in the earliest copies of each of the books of the Bible? It’s not. You are still relying on a human when it comes down to what is the correct translation of the original sources; your sole authority (the Bible) is looking outside of itself for the authoritative translation.
As far as I can tell you don’t understand how the Bible came to be in its present form; you are relying on the authority of the Catholic Church while trying to say that you aren’t.
By definition the Pope is the Bishop of Rome (still is today): https://infogalactic.com/info/Pope
“The Pope (Latin: papa from Greek: πάππας pappas,[1] a child’s word for “father”)[2] is the Bishop of Rome and the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church.[3] The primacy of the Roman bishop is largely derived from his role as the traditional successor to Saint Peter, to whom Jesus is supposed to have given the keys of Heaven and the powers of “binding and loosing”, naming him as the “rock” upon which the church would be built.”
The primacy of the See of Rome has a long history – https://infogalactic.com/info/Primus_inter_pares#Religion “The Eastern Orthodox Church also uses the term “first among equals” in regard to the Bishop of Rome.[4] Whereas the Patriarch of Constantinople is now considered first among the Orthodox patriarchs, the Orthodox Church considers the Bishop of Rome (regarded as the “Patriarch of the West”) the “first among equals” in the Pentarchy of the Patriarchal Sees according to the ancient, first millennial order (or “taxis” in Greek) of Rome, Constantinople …”.
And https://infogalactic.com/info/East–West_Schism
“In 342, Pope Julius I wrote: “The custom has been for word to be written first to us [in the case of bishops under accusation, and notably in apostolic churches], and then for a just sentence to be passed from this place”.”
“Pope Boniface I (418-422) declared that the church of Rome stands to “the churches throughout the world as the head to its members” and that bishops everywhere, while holding the one same episcopal office, must “recognise those to whom, for the sake of ecclesiastical discipline, they should be subject”.”
“The idea that with the transfer of the imperial capital from Rome to Constantinople, primacy in the Church was also transferred, is found in undeveloped form as early as John Philoponus (c. 490 – c. 570).”
If you are going to say “previous bishops of Rome like … I think it’s Gregory… even speak out against it.” You need to provide which pope and a source – otherwise it’s fake history.
Historically just as the canon of Scripture had to be worked out so did the primacy of the See of Rome. It took the Arian Heresy to get the bishops to work out and formulate the doctrine of the Trinity. The epistles of the Bible are a record of the Apostles working things out. If your position is, that since it wasn’t so right out of the gate then it is not so, when even the Bible was not, is to be ignorant of the Christian history.
” The epistles of the Bible are a record of the Apostles working things out.”
If you seriously believe this, you have no idea of what the purpose of scripture is, or who its ultimate author is.
The ultimate author is the Holy Ghost.
When St. Paul wrote his epistles he was addressing errors that various groups had fallen into because things that were clearly taught by the Apostles were being challenged by false teachers.
It’s easy to accuse me of not “having an idea what the purpose of scripture is” without elaborating. This thread has focused on the question of by what authority one accepts the validity of Sacred Scripture. Instead of just making an accusation why not make a case?
And on what authority do you you accept the Scripture? (This is the second time I’m asking you?)
If the concept of the primary of the pope had to be worked out over time then it is the fruit of men, not the Holy Spirit. Truth is, no scripture established a rule greater than the local, no heirarchy was given, no rulership granted in the style of the Gentiles. To the contrary, it was condemned.
It is from men and it’s fruit, in the form of the blood of the martyrs, is bad.
And on what authority do you accept the Sacred Scripture? (This is the second time I’m asking you)
Unity is not possible. They preach a false gospel and worship idols. They have a long history of murdering those who disagree with them, proving they’re not of Christ. Their leadership is fataly compromised by pedophiles. The best we can hope for is to fight together our common enemy in Islam.
You ungrateful Prots should thank God every day for the Catholic Church and Jan III Sobieski. If not for them, you would be bowing down to Mecca.
Perhaps those who are interested would take a look at the Orthodox Christian Information Center website: http://www.orthodoxinfo.com
Thank you, Joseph. Several Members of MOTW are active Orthodox Christians. Good to “meet” anoher.
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[…] can’t compete dollar for dollar with the state system. At least not where we are now. ( I happen to have some ideas about why the West is so starved for resources to raise up our children … […]
“The time has come for the Men of the West to stand up and start retaking our culture and rebuilding our civilization.”
Yes, absolutely. And in America, that culture is a British-based, Protestant culture. Sure, we allowed various Christian sects, including Catholics, freedom of worship, but twelve of the original thirteen states were specifically Protestant. The American Revolution was explicitly Whig-Protestant, with all that those terms signify in political (Whig) and religious (Calvinist Protestant) philosophy.
“The first step in doing that is UnSchisming the Church. And the first step in UnSchisming the Church is to agree that the Body of Christ needs to be whole again.”
Just, no. The author posits no rationale or evidence that resolving the great schism between the three broad branches of Christianity is necessary or desirable to retaking our culture and rebuilding Western Civilization. None. There is a logic gap here Rommel could drive the 7th Panzer Division through.
“The 3 segments of the Church are going to have to agree to that before we can make any movement on resolving this issue.”
Aside from the previous failure of argument (that the first step in retaking the culture and rebuilding Western Civ is to un-schism the broad streams of Christianity), there is also an insurmountable failure to recognize that the three broad streams of Christianity are doctrinally and theologically incompatible. There can be no legitimate accommodation or reconciliation with apostasy and gross heresy.
From the Reformed Protestant perspective there is very little commonality between New Testament Christianity and many current so-called Protestant denominations, much less Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria cannot ever tolerate or abide Catholicism’s self-claimed Papal authority and works-righteousness route to salvation. And those are the reasonable doctrines of the Roman church! Eastern Orthodoxy’ penchant for state (ethnic or nationalist) churches, beholden to government cannot viably underpin the principle of separation of church and state (government) authority, which is a Western value, and an especially Protestant, British and ultimately American one.
New Testament (aka Reformed) Christianity is necessarily incompatible with Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and liberal Mainline Protestant denominations, not to mention the craziness of modern Oneness Pentecostalism – see below.
But the whole scheme is unnecessary, as well.
“The path forward, once we have agreed that this is a thing that needs doing, is to revisit the councils and canons of the Church from before the Schism, get the leadership of the 3 branches of Christianity together, and find common ground that can be built upon.”
Again, an impossible, and ultimately undesirable task. In terms of retaking American culture back to first (Protestant) principles, Western men of good faith – including those who are not religious or Christian, but who recognize the historical role of Christianity in forming and maintaining a culture – can work with Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, as well as observant Jews, etc. to regenerate the moral basis of the American and Western culture.
In our explicitly not-a-national-church type country, more than such common action – to regenerate the moral framework of society – is neither needed nor desired.
The hard (virtually impossible) task is weeding out the post-Christian apostates that permeate the denominational and confessional leadership and seminaries of every Protestant denomination – with so few exceptions as to be specifically noteworthy. Even the explicitly ‘conservative’ denominations (SBC) and ‘conservative’ wings of mainline denominations (PCA vs. PCUSA, for example) are becoming increasingly “converged”. The Roman Church and the various flavors of Eastern Orthodoxy are beyond hope (absent direct, Divine intervention, of course).
So, I would argue that “taking back the culture” and “rebuilding Western Civ” do not involve resolving the great schism between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, or the greater, more fundamental and therefore more divisive schism between Protestantism and Catholicism.
What Men of the West need to focus on is that understanding of Politics and Religion laid out so cogently in M. Stanton Evans: “The Theme is Freedom”. It is a far more useful and historically relevant model for action.
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