Reformation?

The reformation was the start, because it took the authority from a centralized body and gave it to each man to establish his relationship to G*d. That was not Luther's intent, but it was the result. And it has generated everything from Unitarian to Wicca in it's time.

The Koran does not set up the Imams as rulers or as right. That is why they have competing Fatwas from various Imams. Because they are more like Jewish Rabbis than the Papal heirarchy.

The real problem with Islam is that it has been hijacked for political purposes by totalitarian leaders. Not that it does not lend itself to that. It was founded by a totalitarian, after all. But a reformation IS possible.

By the way, stop over at my blog. I have a couple new postings.

Flags,

I agree. In fact I have written similar. I disagree with husker Jeff. Islam has not been hijacked for political purposes. Islam was setup to encompass everything in a persons life including politics and government. From Mohammed onward Islam was to be governed by one individual. Governments, elected or not, only has power that was granted by the clerics. The differing fatwas and edicts are due to the various sects within Islam from the Sunni to the Shia. In Christendom we have the same issues in regards to the various sects.

There can be no reform within Islam without denying their Koran and Mohammed's pronouncements. This won't happen.

Good Post

but it would have to be a distancing away from the Koran. A willingness to see much of it as "parrable," like the lefty religionsist in the states see the Bible. As Flagwaver said, this ain't gonna happen any time soon. And whoever the Islamic Luther was would be dead before he finished nailing up his theses.

drop by my blog when you have a sec (and after you've gone to Husker's (Jeff I'll pop over in a bit myself)).

Based on my limited research, reformation does not seem feasible at all. The Koran is a book full of rules and regulations many of which are brutally dangerous. So what do we do if they keep attacking us?

When you have someone who is so bad that you can’t control them punishment is the only result, there HAS to be consequences for their actions and as of yet there are none.

First, get them all out of our country, ever single last one of them. They are nothing but trouble in the countries that they have established a foothold. We see that they won’t adhere to any Western laws if it is contradictory to their whacked out religion. Heck they won’t even pick someone up in a taxi if the patron is carrying alcohol.

For ever Islamic associated attack in a western country we decimate a city in Iran or Saudi Arabia or take your pick. I don’t mean nukes but I do mean carpet bomb it off the face of the earth. Once this has happened 10-20 times they will realize we are serious and these Islamic states will stop funding individual cells. If the individual cells continue then leave it up to them to hunt down the support in their own countries. I think that having their cities wiped off the face of the earth might be the only incentive we have.

For every Islamic associated attack

Nope. Won't work. Kill them all is an easy solution to state, but a hard one to implement. Chasing Osama into a cave has not stopped them. These are religious fanatics who believe that death in battle is better than life in peace. We would just set ourselves up in a world war against 100 countries rather than agains 100,000 militant Islamics. Look at how well pure military solutions have worked in Israel.

they would have to have the equivalent to our New Testament. Allah would have to send his son to teach peace on Earth.

Husker Jeff's post raises I point I have been pondering lately, and Flag your Blog seems like a good place for the conversation.

"The reformation was the start, because it took the authority from a centralized body and gave it to each man to establish his relationship to G*d. That was not Luther's intent, but it was the result. And it has generated everything from Unitarian to Wicca in it's time."

My understanding was that towards the end of his life Luther rather ironically spent his time trying to end a lot of really strange/silly biblical interpretations people were coming up with, basically trying to surpress heresies much as the Church had done with the Reformation itself.

Much has been made of liberals, secular humanism, etc., making the self into God, certainly Kerry and the Clintons think they are God, note I didn't say Gods as I'm sure they're monotheistic when it comes to worshipping themselves (sorry to inject politics, couldn't resist). I have started to wonder if the Reformation, the taking of religious authority from a centralized body and giving it to each man to interpret on its own as HJ so neatly summarized it, did not start us down this path and thus you could say that secular humanism is a logical conclusion of the Reformation. Obviously secular humanism seems to have infected primarily once Christian societies. Note that I am not excusing any of the things that were occuring within the Church at the time, certainly a lot of Luther's beefs were legitimate.

But I look at it this way: the Church had the sole authority of interpreting and shall we say implementing Scripture; in certain respects they were off-base, and Luther, because he was a rather educated man for his time (which almost necessarily meant a religious man), detected that in a number of cases. My understanding was that he tried to go through channels within the Church for reform and was unsuccessful (Flag, I will concede in advance that you are far more the theologian than I). Then he nailed his 17 theses to the Church door. I look at that and wonder if perhaps by doing so he didn't commit the same sin as Lucifer , which got him cast out of Heaven. Essentially it could be interpreted as Luther saying that the Church doesn't know how to interpret Scripture, but Martin Luther does.

Except of course Luther's message was that anybody could be their own final arbiter of the Bible, and it seems to me that if we are each an ultimate arbiter as to what the Word of God and Scripture means then we are essentially making God's Word our own which goes pretty much all the way to making ourself God. For if God's Word means what I want it to mean, then I am God. I find a parallel to this with the interpretation of the Constitution as a living document, we have original intent as discernable from the document itself, the Federalist Papers and various other things, or it can mean whatever an activist judge decides it means, in which case the activist judge is placing themself above and apart from the Founders, the Writers and the Signatories to the Constitution.

Note that as I write this I am very consciously making in my mind a distinction between each individual's relationship with God (by definition unique) and the authority to interpret the Word of God (which I am not so sure is/should be so unique).

I would close by adding that I believe that this conversation is topical in that it seems to parallel with the discussion of whether or not conservatives should vote for Republicans in the House or Senate or vote third party or not at all to punish them for not being as conservative in governance as they were on the stump. Is it time to continue with the Republican party and hope to change it from within, or is it time to nail the conservative theses to the RNC's door?

Hope this was of interest, sorry for the length, I have never been accused of pithiness (much to Bill O'Reilly's relief).

Yeah, way to make a good first impression with a typo in the first sentence! I wish Townhall would let us edit our posts.

Don't worry about the length of the post here, this is the forum for saying what yoy have to say!

I understand where you're coming from with the idea that maybe Luther was elevating himself, but for the comparison to be valid then the catholic church would have to occupy a place next to God.

I know that Luther was trying to reform the catholic church and in many ways he did not disagree with many of the church's doctrines, but the ones that he disagreed with are very significant; the central one being that each man should read and understand the Bible for himself.

I don't see that as giving each man a his own interpretation of the scripture, because that would be dangerous. What Luther was doing and saying was that the church was injecting itself between man and God by making itself the sole dissemenator of the Word. By having that authority, the church could set itself up in a position of determining and controlling the beliefs of its members. That is a dangerous position to take, and it brings the believer into bondage tothe church since the church is the controller of the Word.

You see, I am of the belief that the Bible says what it says, means what it says, and it makes any interpretations itself. Think about it; the Old Testament is an historical record mostly, but when there are prophecies that must be explained, they are explained in the text. In the New Testament the only things that had to be explained were the parables of Christ, and he immediately gave explanations of those as well. The Bible, contrary to popular belief is not some book filled with deep, dark mysteries and secrets! It is simple and straightforward; the problems begin when men start to try to discern things in the Scriptures that are not there. That is when man begins to bring condemnation and curses upon himself, because in his 'interpreting' the Word, he is adding or taking away from it in defiance of the Word itself!

You seem to be coming at this issue from the perspective that the church knows best and is in the best position to tell us what Scripture says. I am convinced that we are to read and understand the Bible for ourselves, as there is no Scriptural basis for turning that type of responsibility over to any church, or member thereof. Doing do opens the believer up to manipulation and puts them in bondage to the person/group that has the 'authority' to tell them what the Word says.

The point is one of the famous slippery slope. Once you say that every man should read and understand the bible for themselves, you have opened yourself to:
1. The bible is a parable and not true.
2. The bible says that George Bush is evil.
3. The bible is all lies by enemies of the true G*d Lucifer.
4. Any other d*mn thing people can come up with.

And without some controlling body, what you end up with is what you have today. Hundreds of denominations from Unitarian to Southern Baptist, to Satanists, to Wiccans. Each has their own interpretation of the scripture and each is it's only judge.

I am not supporting the Catholic church by the way. They were wrong and had gone astray. But the unintended consequences will get you every time.

By the way. Stop over on my Blog and see why Hillary should apparently run as a Republican.

Correct me if I'm wrong but when Luther talked about each man reading the Bible himself that was in the context of his time when the Bible was only in Latin and it was essentially only the priests who could read Latin. I think you could say that it was an early example of knowledge being power and those with the knowledge weren't too interested in sharing. Luther's main concern (or at least what mine would have been in his shoes) in this instance would seem to me to be more of the sort of on the one hand ignorance of the law was no excuse (and punishment usually severe) and on the other hand you couldn't read the law for yourself because it was in a language you didn't understand or (most likely) because you couldn't read at all.

To me it is not necessarily that the Church knows best but a question of authority and the legitimacy of that authority. Sure I can read the Bible and understand much of it, although it doesn't seem a particularly simple and straightforward affair to me. And it's not like I have huge amounts of time to devote to reading and thinking about it. Now we can argue about the legitimacy and/or authority of the Catholic Church itself, either currently or historically, but when I think about it, here is an institution that goes back to Peter, close to 2000 years old now, and for all that time there have been countless folks each devoting much more time than I have to Scripture, theology, etc. I mean when you think about it, priests these days are highly educated, and have always been. In fact for probably a thousand years or so after the fall of the Western Roman Empire they were virtually the only consistently educated class in those parts of Europe. So you've had the most educated people of their time studying one thing for 2000 years, that kind of humbles me.

Again, not everything coming out of that is necessarily perfect or good, but I personnaly have a hard time saying that hey, I read the Bible a few times, I've got it all figured out and can dispense with 2000 years of collected wisdom. You might say that I didn't know Aquinas, I've read Aquinas, and I am no Aquinas.

I find a very good analogy between this topic and the SCOTUS, an argument that I can express better so I'll try. We are not all lawyers, and even if the law were written in plain language there will still be disputes of law to be resolved, even between reasonable people. If there is no authority to resolve these disputes then we are left to do it ourselves, law of the jungle or frontier justice. Hence the need for an authority, which in the case of U.S. law is the SCOTUS. I don't pretend that a Supreme Cour Justice is the Second Coming or anything close to it, hopefully the justices are at least pretty darned competent. In any event they have been invested with the authority to be the final arbiter, and things work so long as that authority is respected. I know it currently isn't by many, so I'll try and address that.

From what I see most conservatives favor an originalist court rather than an activist court, even should it be a conservative activist court. Although I would expect an originalist court to generally rule in a way that I, as a conservative, would approve of, there will be times when I wouldn't agree with a particular finding, but I'd have to grin and bear it and would respect it because I respected the authority and the way that they arrived at their decision.

I think that I am starting to ramble now, so I will stop and hope that I managed to say something intelligent somewhere.

I don't see the issue that you seem to view it, and here's why.

When you say that there needs to be a controlling auhtority, you are willing to cede to another the ability to work out your soul's salvation. What if the controlling auhtority, in direct defiance of the Scripture said that Mary was to have a special place in heaven as the intercessor between God and man? If you have no knowledge of the Scripture of your own, you would be taken in by that type of blasphemy and heresy, because the 'controlling authority' tells you so. You would not know for yourself that Jesus Himself is given the role of intercessor, and could not refute this imprpoer teaching; you would simply go along with it in your ignorance.

As for the prevalence of denominations, that to me is a bit of a moot point. If you look at the core beliefs of the various Christian denominations you will find that they all have the same beliefs. They all affirm that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, that he was prophesied of old, that He was born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit, that He willingly died on the Cross to redeem man of his sins, that He rose on the third day, that He ministered to His disciples for 40 days, that He ascended to Heaven, and that He will come again. They all believe in the same Gospel and the truth thereof. The differences are usually in how they choose to worship, and other minor doctrinal matters that are generally not based on the Scripture. As for Wiccans, Satanists, etc., they do not believe in the Word of God, or in Jesus as savior, so their views on the Bible and any interpretation are not germane to the discussion.

As for the SCOTUS analogy, it is valid...but I have to disagree with your conclusion. As conservatives, we are all for a strict (fundementalist) reading of the Constitution, and know that the document says what it says. We know that the problems with constitutional law comes, not through disagreements so much, but from judges reading things into it (penumbras) that are just not there. So why would we want any group of unaccountable leaders telling us what the Bible says?

And not to be personally critical, but it is your responsibility to read and undrstand the Bible for yourself. We can find time for everything else, we have time to read the 'Hall, Ann Coulter books, and SI...why can't we find time to read the Bible for ourselves and to ponder it's meaning in our lives? Is there anything in this world that should take precedence over our relationship to the True and Living God?

And finally, on a minor point I do not for a minue believe that the Catholic church traces back to Peter, any more than the Southern Baptists trace back to John the Baptist. There is no Scripture that supports this view and there is no reference to a bishop of Rome anywhere in the Bible. And if you are going to come with "Upon this rock I will build my church" is not enough, as in the original it is clear that Jesus was talking about a rock...something solid and unchanging...that He would build His church upon, not a man that was more than willing to deny Him three times in one night! And even after Christ was resurrected and had ascended to Heaven, Paul had to admonish Peter for trying to force Gentiles to live as Jews (Galatians 2:11-21). I remain convinced that the rock that Christ built His church upon was the fact that "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God", not on the back of a man that was all too human.

I am saying that once Luther opened the doors, they were opened for all. I am not a Catholic nor do I think they have all the right answers. But without a person / group that sets the rules, the rules are wildly variable.

You say "They all affirm that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, that he was prophesied of old, that He was born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit, that He willingly died on the Cross to redeem man of his sins, that He rose on the third day, that He ministered to His disciples for 40 days, that He ascended to Heaven, and that He will come again."

I was in a Methodist church on Easter Sunday no less when the minister told the congregation that you do not have to believe any of the above to be a Christian. He said they can be taken as parables and HE DID NOT BELIEVE ANY OF THEM! I left the church and never returned.

That said, that decision on his part is part and parcel of the whole reformation effort. If I can decide, I can decide some pretty strange things.

We may be missing on another here. What you witnessed in that Methodist church is not, as i see it, the doctrine of the entire church. Maybe it is the belief of that one minister you encountered...but even if the church has adopted that position, that does not make it valid. And it does not mean that a church, minister, lay organization or anyone else should be 'making the rules' for believers.

Anyone can twist Scriptures, add to them or subtract from them for their own purposes. I have seen it done, but that does not negate the fact that individual believers are supposed to know the Word for themselves; 2 Timothy 3:12-17 says it all...along with 2 Timothy 4:1-5. How can a man preach the word, and be ready at all times if he does not know the scripture for himself? Read those passages and let me know what you think about what I'm saying about the issue.

Just to stir the pot:

I have a post I saved from Charles Martel (from before the Townhall makeover on July 4th) that kind of dealt with this. It was his contention that the Orthodox Church is the keeper of Christian truth. He thought that the Catholic Church had split from Christian truth and that Protestants are ignorant of church history before the Reformation. Anyway, it's an interesting take on it, but it's a monster of a post, and I didn't want to repost it here without Flag's permission. Anyway, if you're interested, let me know, and I'll post it here.

Feel free to post the article here. It seems that it may add to the ongoing debate. But just to warn all of you...if Mr. Martel is saying that the Orthodox church is the true repository of Christian truth, I am going to disagree with him as well. I contend that the Bible is the repository of the truth to the Cristian world, not any organized group. And while Protestants may be lacking in church history, that has nothing at all to do with what the Word says to us.

I think where we are missing is that you are talking Truth and I am talking practical humanity. I don't dispute that the truth is in the bible and it is the word of G*d. I don't dispute that we should read it and understand it.

However, my point is purely practical. Once you take away mommy and daddy, once there is no authority to tell you the right answer, a million flowers bloom. And you end up with all of the flavors that we see today. From agnostic Methodists, to literalists, to people who reject the whole thing like atheists and even Satanists. If there is no authority, who is to tell you YOUR impression is wrong? (other than the original author, of course.)

I think where we are missing is that you are talking Truth and I am talking practical humanity. I don't dispute that the truth is in the bible and it is the word of G*d. I don't dispute that we should read it and understand it.

However, my point is purely practical. Once you take away mommy and daddy, once there is no authority to tell you the right answer, a million flowers bloom. And you end up with all of the flavors that we see today. From agnostic Methodists, to literalists, to people who reject the whole thing like atheists and even Satanists. If there is no authority, who is to tell you YOUR impression is wrong? (other than the original author, of course.)

You're right, we are looking at the situation from differing perspectives. My thing is, i just do not trust anyone else to tell me what the 'right' answer is. I think it is dangerous and intellectually lazy to let someone else determine what the truth is. There will always be those that make errors, and choose to live in error. that does not mean, however, that to avoid error we should hand control over to someone that will tell us the 'right' answers.

Let me go back to the SCOTUS example for a moment. We all know that the second amendment to the Constitution guarantees the citizens the right to bear arms. We know, just by reading the document ourselves, that it does not pertain solely to the establishment and upkeep of militias. Knowing that, should we then entrust, oh, Justice Bader-Ginsburg to interpret the amendment in the way that she sees fit, simply because she is a trained lawyer and judge?

When you contend that we need to have some outside authority to tell us the truth of the Bible, even when their truth does not square with what we know the Bible says, then we are in a seriously dangerous place. We are supposed to know the Bible for ourselves, so that we are not misled by the ravening wolves that God said would come amongst the believers, trying to lead them astray and devour them. I simply think that God is the only authority that we are to bow to, and to trust implicitly.

And just one more thing; for me reading the word is not about impressions, it is about the truth. You are right in saying that a person can read the Bible and draw the wrong impressions. However, I believe that most that draw wrong impressions are not reading the Bible with an open heart and mind, but are trying to find justification for some type of shortcoming in their lives and wish to use the Word as a way to assuage their own feelings. That is why you see so much of the word being twisted and lifted out of context.

Quite the discussion, I think I'm going to be mostly along the lines of Jeff, but here goes.

"When you say that there needs to be a controlling auhtority, you are willing to cede to another the ability to work out your soul's salvation."

I really don't see how that necessarily follows. I find that, as Jeff points out, what you need at the very least is someone or some body that is able to help serve as a guide. Your spiritual journey is still your own and very personal and unique, but it is a difficult and perilous one (the road to H and all that) and it's good to have a guide. BTW, do you like Descartes? Your example reminds me of his First Meditation, the one that develops the cogito.

"As for the prevalence of denominations, that to me is a bit of a moot point. If you look at the core beliefs of the various Christian denominations you will find that they all have the same beliefs."

Actually I don't believe that they all do, which is kind of my point. Not only that, but take a look at all of the heresies that occurred prior to the Reformation. One of the very first if not the first heresy, the Gnostic Heresy, did deny Christ's divinity. There were many others that denied that and/or other tenets that you mention, the virgin birth for example. Post Reformation the Anabaptists (mostly in Holland) believed that you could never escape Original Sin as I recall.

I never bothered witht the Da Vinci Code, but I understand that the big mystery that the Church is purportedly hiding is Christ's humanity and the source of this, the writings that prove it that everyone's trying to hide, are actually Gnostic writings. So somehow the lie that the Church is built on comes from the writings of heretics that were suppressed in Roman times? Sounds like a Michael Moore mocumentary to me.

"What if the controlling auhtority, in direct defiance of the Scripture said that Mary was to have a special place in heaven as the intercessor between God and man?"

Then it would obviously it would be wrong. An authority is going to be made up of people, who are obviously imperfect. What if a bunch of people started to believe that on their own? Probably happened at some time or another. How could they be made to realize their error without someone with the knowledge and authority to correct them? And although the authority should be based in knowledge, the authority is needed for if it isn't there than

I just it find it more plausible that an authority made up of people who have engaged in a lifelong pursuit of Biblical knowledge and understanding will be able to come up with a deeper understanding than your average guy with a job, wife, kids, what have you. And there's no question that even given that an authority can't lose its way.

Look at the Episcopalian/Anglican Church, they have obviously thrown a fair bit of the generally held Christian beliefs you mentioned overboard, and I'm given to understand that an awful lot of their members and even priests have left to join other congregations. They used their own understanding of Scripture to decide that their 'controlling authority' had gone astray and sought out others that they believed had not. They did not simply let someone determine what Truth was for them, they had their own concept of Truth and decided that their Church wasn't helping them learn it and went somewhere that they thought would.

by Charles Martel, Jun 27 2006 06:24 AM
"Well, I was raised non-denominational, evangelical Protestant. However, my father wasn't some cliched "country bumpkin" (thank you alphabet stations for your wonderful "open-mindedness"). My father is a high school history teacher (problems of the third world and US history). I grew up reading the history of the Middle East and Russia, as well as the US. It was a heavey reading house, and history was very important. About 10 years ago, I re-read G.K. Chesterton's book "Orthodoxy," and I began asking a lot of questions. I hopped from church to church, having some vague notion of "traditional Christianity" without any real reason of understanding where that "traditional Christianity" came from. Reading Frank Shaeffer's flawed, though fascinating, book "Dancing Alone," I would agree that Protestants in general, and especially in this nation, have been mysteriously "lobotomized" when it comes to Church history. I knew nothing about it - outside of the 16th century. I mean, c'mon, I always thought those "Greek Orthodox" were just some ethnic version of the Roman Catholics. All I knew was that "all you needed was the Bible and an open heart," and the "truth" was "obvious." Well, little did I realize that the "obvious" truth was, in fact, appealing to an historical Tradition; the source of which was purposefully obfuscated by the Reformers, but the message of which those same men attempted to maintain - substituting themselves for the Church Fathers (in fact if not in practice). I always knew I had a problem with the concept of papal infallibility. I always knew I had a problem with "empty ritual." But that, as I see know, was just a Protestant hang-up and not a real argument against the Roman Catholic Church or Tradition or ritual. It was a hangover from the Reformation, amplified by the scholastic tradition and the Enlightenment. That worship of human reason that infected Western culture and elevated the individual to the level of ultimate discernment - the triumph of the will, if you will. You see, egocentrism plays a huge part in Western culture. And it was something I always hated - even as I let it run wild in my theology. "I" knew what the Bible said - all I needed was reason. "I knew" what the truth was, despite the fact that that knowledge was, in fact, presupposing Traditional views on faith. Again, though the Protestants conveniently eliminated history from its new "tradition," they tried to keep the message. So, particular views regarding Biblical interpretation were kept (like homosexuality and abortion being wrong) but the authority for those positions was abandoned. Instead, we were told that "it's just so CLEAR . . . just read the word . . ." Unfortunately, we never stopped to think about why the Word was so clear. After all, as a lawyer, today, I'd easily defeat that methodology by just using another translation of the Bible. So, let's go back to the Protestant parameters: sola scriptura - whatever Christianity is, it is found in the Bible. The next paramter is that if you read the Bible with reason and an open heart to the Holy Spirit's guidance, you will understand the Word. That is, "supposedly confusing passages will become clear." The fact that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, as the joke goes, *proves* that homosexuality is wrong. Well, why? Why does a recounting of an even presuppose a moral order? Well, that very position presupposes a function of Biblical passage. The presupposition is that if God provides an example, it becomes a moral order. The problem is that what if someone, an earnest, seeker of God's truth, doesn't make that presupposition? What if he takes the creation of Adam and Eve as just that, an historical recounting, and NOT a moral order? Why is one view accurate and not another? Protestants, especially evangelicals, in my experience, don't understand this dilemma. It never enters their radar - it's there, in the Bible, and it's clear. Therefore, it IS. They can't get past their own basic, pre-existing biases to understand the fallacies of their own methodologies and, so, arguing with many Protestants, becomes an exercise in circular logic. I know, I've been there. And when I began to see the problem with my own reasoning, I began to question. And then, my long-time hero, G.K. comes along, again, and I'm no longer 12. Now I'm 22, and I re-read "Orthodoxy," and I start asking question. I start seeing the problems with sola scriptura. I start seeing the necessary seeping of egocentrism into the very foundational methodology of Protestantism. And I'm also infected with the evangelical belief that "we're just trying to re-create the primitive church, before the 'institutional church' added too much." THAT, dear readers, has been a stated aim of many evangelical Protestants for years. Yet, at the same time, these very people no NOTHING of the writings and positions of the early Church. Instead, they adopt a humanist view of history: the straight line-trajectory of human development. If we're at 10 now, going back in time, we were at one time 9, and before that 8, and before that 7, and before that 6, etc., etc., etc. And, so, if we have certain rituals in the "modern institutional church" (the Roman Catholics, in the West), then the early church "obviously" worshipped in much more primitive ways, with no centralized authority, no "dogmas," etc. We use the fallacy of linear social development to work backwards to a vision of a "primitive church" in which the emotion reigns supreme. What's really funny is how much this ignores the views of both Calvin and Luther."

"Anyway, to get back on track, I had all these very same prejudices, and I could not let them go. And the, on June 18, 2005, I met the woman who would become my wife. She was Greek, and Orthodox. I was fascinated - I knew NOTHING of orthodoxy, including, really, what I'd read from G.K. So, I began to study. I read the early Church Fathers, I read archpriest Gilchrist, and "Thirsting for God in a Land of Dry Wells." I read Archbishop Kallistos Ware (a VERY fare dealing with orthodoxy, I think). And, again, even more early Church Fathers. Clement, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, etc., etc. etc. The more I read, the more uncomfortable I became. I began attending liturgies with my then girlfriend. It was "too Catholic," too ritualistic. But then I began to read along with the liturgy. I couldn't theologically disagree with anything, except the "Mary stuff." I read more, and the more I read, the more I began to realize that my preconcieved notions of a "primitive church" were so off-base as to be comical. I began to realize how historically ignorant I was, even growing up in a very intellectual evangelical house (to borrow a phrase from Shaeffer). In fact, I was ashamed, as a history/econ double major in undergrad, how truly ignorant I was of early Church history. And, the more I read (independent of my then girlfriend's influence) the more I became convinced that the Roman Catholic church wasn't just "the church" falling out of grace - it was a break from a defineable string of teaching. The early church was a "message." Say, "X." And when anything came up that wasn't X, even X-1, or a subtler X1, the teachers had no problem saying "no! It's X, not X minus 1, or X subset 1. Just X." It wasn't a matter of personal interpretation, but a matter of transmitting the message of X down to later generations AS X, NOT as X minus 1. And that was when I began to see the actual consistency. If Christianity has any merit at all, it must be consistent. The very concept of Christianity as a particular message is very necessary - it CANNOT be some loose organization, or some variable grouping of generally accepted concepts. It must be very specific - in other words, there can be only one true church - one group that has maintained X. That is, X: the message as preached by a man who claimed to be the Son of God. The message was NOT about "how you felt," but what was TRUE. So, it could not change. That, from what I read, was what the Orthodox Church tried to preserve. From my reading, however, the Roman Catholic Church began to engage in the addition of doctrines that had not basis in the Bible or in Tradition. I know many Roman Catholics talk about there always being an authority in the Bishop of Rome, but that isn't true. The historical documents do not bear that out - a pope (a term originally used by the Bishop of Alexandria, by way of random historical tidbit) was anethema'd, and several popes were roundly rebuked, and thier actions denied, by the othe churches. Rome was always considered first in honour, NOT authority. There's a great book called "Two Paths" that talks about this in more detail. Though, for the Proddies, I'd say read the book of Acts - in which James, the bishop of Jerusalem, presides over the council that appoints a new biship to replace Judas Iscariot. NOTICE: the bishop of Rome is NOT the head of the council, nor is his authority sought to ratify the council's position. Clearly, Acts does not support a "Rome as ultimate head of the church" position."

"But, anyway, so, historically, the claims of the Bishop of Rome were untenable. In addition, the claim of human infallibility, in even "spritual areas only," flies in the face of everything the Church as taught for millenia. And any system that allows for that cannot be the true Church. So, I was in a quandry. Christ said that He would establish His church so that the gates of he11 would not prevail against it. Was he a liar? Not acceptable, to a Christian. And, yet, the Protestants would have us believe that, immediately following Pentacost, the Church fell into apostasy, and didn't recover for 1500 years, or so. So, that would make Christ a liar. Protestantism also, in this nation, relies on the conept of opening your hear to the directio of the Holy Spirit. I've known some true, earnest seekers of God's truth who took positons (mormonism, seventh day adventists) that I thought were wacky. Was I judging the state of their hearts? (Itself a violation of Protestant parameters). If I wasn't, what does that say about the efficacy of the Holy Spirit? Was it leading people astray? (Another violation of Protestant parameters). Or was it failing? (Again, a violation of Protestant parameters). If I was going to be consistent, there were certain things I could not accept. If I was going to be Christian, I could not believe Christ was a liar, or that the Holy People lead some astray from the true Word or was a failure in some cases of even earnest seekers of God's word. To think otherwise would be to abandon the very concept of Truth existing in this world and in the veracity of Christianity. Since, as a right thinking individual who believes that some things are right and others wrong, no matter where/ when/who you are, I had to believe in absolutes. And, as a matterof upbringing, I believed in a Christian framework, I believed in Christ. I pondered all of this in the past 8 years, in various stages and various manners. Eventually, I acknowledged, though grudgingly and never in the open, that there had to be one, True Church, or not true church could exist at all, and thus Christ was a liar and the Holy Spirit was a failure, thus making a mockery of the very things I declared I believed. Yet, until I learned more about the Orthodox Church and the history of the early Church, I didn't know where to go. Needless to say those explorations led me to where I am now. I told my then girlfriend (now my wife) that I would NEVER convert for her. She said fine. I did my own reading, my own historical analysis. And I found I had been wrong for nearly 31 years - the one, True Church did exist, and had never left the earth. The gates of he11 had not prevailed. Sola Scriptura was a failure that has lead to 23,000 different "views" of the Word. And, most importantly, the concept that my own ego could "discern" the true Church before it knew it was shattered as the circular logic it is. I could either accept the Word as it had been handed down for generations, and accept the logical consistency of the existence of one, True Church, or go on placating my ego and saying "well, *I* really know what the Bible really means." In the hardest moment of my life, I finally told my ego to go screw itself. Though, I wrestle with it still (as, God forgive me, many postings on this thread will attest to), I have begun to attempt to limit my own ego and accept X - the historical teachings of the Church, as they were then, as they are now. So, that, in one giant and thoroughly unabreviated nutshell, is my story. I'm sure I skipped points and stages, and, for that, I am truly sorry."

But I think it does add to the discussion.

I understand much of what Mr. Martel said, and agree with it I do have some bones to pick with him. Mainly it his feeling that Protestants felt that the Church fell into apostasy is not exactly true. The thing is that the church was never supposd to be some huge monolith, or an organization. The church is the baptized body of believes, not an organization. The church is supposed to be who you are, not where you attend services.

But I have to agree that much of what the post says about knowing church history is true. It is important to know what you believe, how you worship, and why things are done that way.

Your statement about churches that are falling away from the truth is dead on, but they are obviously falling away and their members know it. And they know it, not because others are telling them, but because they know the Word of God for themselves and know the truth for themselves.

And the 'hypothetical' that I gave you is actually a real teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Now, this is not to pick on the Catholics, but it has been my experience that catholics will believe this type of tripe and heresey bevcause they have put their faith in an authority, the priesthood, to tell them what the truth is. This is the perfect example of what can happen when thise that call themselves Christians allow others to dtermune their beliefs for them.

I have no problem asking for help from those that know more than me about biblical history an exegis, but i cannot give them the place of authority in telling me what the Bible says.

The modern waves of jihadi terrorism IS the Islamic Reformation.

Watch what you wish...

Wow, a fascinating post. My general understanding of the schism (when the Eastern Church and Western Churches seperated in the late 11th century) is that it had little to do with doctrine and a lot to do with the fact that the Patriarch of Constantinople, the sophisticated capitol of the Byzantine Empire, was getting fed up with playing second banana to the Bishop of Rome, then a city with at most a population of 50,000 and a relative backwater.

My general understanding is that there aren't particularly huge differences between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, but it would be interesting to see how their paths have diverged over the ensuing millenia.

You know, we've been talking about things from a sort of top-down approach, the need for a controlling authority, etc., down to how that affects the believer. I would be interested in turning things around and looking at things from the bottom up and hearing your opinion.

For example, in your posts you talk about the baptized body of believers, attending service and asking for help from those more knowledgeable than yourself.

Let's start at the beginning of one's spiritual journey, chronologically speaking, which is in most cases baptism. Someone has to do that, who? Why them? Then we have service (at the level of a single congregation), who presides, what is their role and function, and from where does their authority to acquit these responsibilities come? I would be curious as to how you look at things starting, and then how do they grow and how far do they go? If the foundation is Scripture, which is what I understand you to say, what gets built on top of that in terms of the human experience and how far does this go?

You raise some good questions and I will answer them to the best of my ability.

As to the question of baptism you raised, so far as I can tell seasoned, experienced ministers are those that do the baptizing. Looking back into Scripture at the various baptism there, it was always an apostle, such as Peter, that performed the baptism as they were the inisters with the greatest experience. My personal experience is that my former pastor, who had been active as a minister for longer than I had been alive performed the ceremony. His Biblical authority stems directly from his experience as a minister, and his temporal authority derived from his long standing ordination as a minister in the denomination.

As to the question of who presides in our services and why, the answer to that is found in 1 Timothy 3 the authority to oversee the direction of the service is given to the bishop/pastor, and again it comes back to experience. Verses 5 and 6 make it clear that a bishop/pastor has to be able to take care of the church of God, and he should not be a novice so that he avoids becoming puffed up witself pride.

Now if we are talking about the temporal authority, i believe that it comes from the leaders of the denomination, and in some instances from the states as they issue licenses to ministers. But a good, strong denomination IMO is governed by a group of seasoned ministers that are learned in the Word and are in submission to the will of God. Such men are not trying to exalt themselves, but are concerned with doing the will of the Father and serving their brothers and sisters.

As for what I believe should be built on top of the foundation of Scripture in the uman expeience is relatively simple. Any organization should be built on the Biblical model with a pastor/bishop/overseer to lead the flock and tend its needs, deacons that are there to assist the leader in his duties and serve the flock, and a group of experienced leaders to be a resource for the pastors, and set some guidelines for the demnomnation to follow. But make no mistake, the decisions they make are not going to affect the way the Bible is read and understood, and involves no type of responsibility to interpret the Scripture for the body. There should be a strong body of lay ministers that are prepared to witness to the lost, comfort the brokenhearted, and exhort the brethren. And most importantly, all involved have to understand that there is only one true Head of the church, and that is Christ Jesus.

See, I have no problem with organized churches, especially since they are all over the New Testament starting in Acts. I believe that the denominations that are holding on to the Word of God are much like those churches in Ephesus and Galatia...even though they had different leaders, they were all still brothers and sisters. Likewise, i may be a member of the Apostolic/Holines denomnation, but when I walk into my mother's Baptist congregation, or my brother's Church of God congregation, I am always at home because we are all part of the same body of believers.

I hope that this post is a sufficient answer to the questions you raised.