Catholicism vs Christianity

[debrakay]

On 5/20/2022 at 4:08 PM, Alive said:

The Lord is not offended by honest sons who have incorrect doctrine.

Friendly Reminder: The teachers and pastors are held at a higher accountability by The Father for what they are teaching and preaching their flock. 

[debrakay]

I did want to mention I have some very close long time friends who are lifetime attendees of the Catholic church as were their parents and as are their siblings.  Some of their children have gone on to other denominations of churches.  They call themselves Christians and say they are filled with the Holy Spirit.  They have mentioned they do not hold to all of the old church traditions and do not always agree with the teachings of church leaders regarding these traditions.  They seek the Lord and the scriptures for discernment.  Three of the ladies attend a non-denominational bible study with me.  They continue to attend the Catholic church because they enjoy the fellowship with family and long time friends.  They seek the Lord in other ways that the church is not providing to them.  

One of the ladies told me a week ago that she loves reading the Bible and is now understanding it more and more.  She said she was disappointed in the church as it did not encourage her to read the Bible. 

I believe each of us are led to seek the truth of Jesus in whatever way the Spirit leads if we hear Him regardless of the building we are sitting in and whomever is at the pulpit.  We should each take responsibility for our own understanding of scripture and not rely on any man.

Matthew 7:7 (NIV)
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

[Omegaman 3.0]

42 minutes ago, Marathoner said:

Over the years, my old friend Paul became a scholar of Church history. When we were catching up after decades of being apart, I asked him about Orthodox history.

He laughed and said, do you have a few months to spare? It's not as simple as some believe... and he proceeded to shed a little light upon Eastern Catholic churches, different liturgical rites, and so on. 

Not cut and dried at all!

Yes, that graphic is an over simplification, if it is even accurrate, and does not go into the whats and whys at all!

[Omegaman 3.0]

35 minutes ago, debrakay said:

One of the ladies told me a week ago that she loves reading the Bible and is now understanding it more and more.  She said she was disappointed in the church as it did not encourage her to read the Bible. 

That is an unfortunate characteristic, a black mark on the history of the Christian church (it is an old problem). In the past it was believed (and this was in the RCC) that only clergy could understand the Bible, and that things had to be done in Latin (even though the Bible was not written in Latin). People were even burned at the stake for teaching their children to say the Lord's Prayer in English.

I had a house keeper who immigrated from Guatemala. Now, I do not know how accurate this is, but she told me that she would carry a Bible there (this was several decades ago, 30 to 40 years I'd guess) but to carry a Bible in public, marked you as a Protestant. She said that there were Jesuits who would attack known Protestants. I Take that with a grain of salt, but even if it is not true, there is probably something behind such stories, and that they exist at all, probably indicates something is wrong.

I don't think all religions need to be chummy as though there are no important differences, but the "church" is sick if believers in Jesus regard each other as enemies!

By the way, a good read on how we got the English Bible, is at 

https://www.worthychristianforums.com/topic/277746-how-we-got-the-english-bible/

Reading it will give people an appreciation of what people have sacrificed to get us Bible we can read in our own language, and I think we can see the hand of God in the work and conviction of those who gave up everything for Jesus and His church. 

[Anne2]

1 hour ago, Omegaman 3.0 said:

This is not my promised response to Anne2, it is just a side note.

It has already been mentioned here and there in this thread, hinted at sometimes, and it keeps coming up. I think some might be confused by a term, especially those with little experience in the nuance of Christian jargon, or influenced by the teachings they have received somewhere, and also those just joining in reading this thread, without the benefit of having read the entire thread.

First a short blurb about words in general. This will not be news to anyone, but it is still something to keep in mind. 

Words mean things.

The same word, does not always mean the same thing. 

For a fun exercise, look um the word "run" sometime in an English dictionary. If someone asked you to define the word "run", could you do it?

This is not just a problem in English. I do not know enough about other languages to expound upon how things work in those (consider yourself fortunate) but I am certain this issue is not uncommon. Some languages have different parts of speech and other grammar constucts which do not help our understand when they are translated to our own language(s). In some ways, these can be superior, they are just unfamiliar to us.

I read of one language (some Polynesian dialect as I recall) where they had something like 30 different words for coconut. This was because the language was very simple, in terms of grammar, so they had 30 words for coconut to convey the understanding that our use of adjectives serves. Language  is a way to communicate, but if we use words differently from each other, then the communication is going to break down.

Even in the Bible, words are not consistent in meaning, and you will need to look at the contexts to discover how to apply a term sometimes. Just as one example the word "Jews". In the gospels we see "the Jews" picking up rocks to stone Jesus. In a case like that, we are not saying that all Jews did this, the context there is the Jewish religious leaders, and even then they are not all in agreement, so read carefully and thoughtfully.

This post, is about the word "catholic".

I want to get some understanding of the word here so we do not type and read past each other, and miss what is being said. We need to be on the same page, or we will misunderstand.

As has already been stated in this thread, the word catholic means "universal". If I serve a meal, I might include some sweet items, and some savory (salty) items, in an effort to appeal to catholic tastes. That is not me trying to appeal to any sort of religious people.

When I see the word "catholic", I assume universal. However, on matters of religion, most people think of a denomination, and most of those cases they will be thinking of Roman Catholics - the Vatican,  Priests, Bishops, Cardinals, Nuns, Mass, the Pope, etc.

When I mean that specific in my posts, I think I usually specify the Roman Catholics, or the Roman Catholic Church, etc. or I will abbreviate that as RCC. Now Catholic (upper case C) is also not a single denomination. The RCC is based in Rome, and because of that, it has ties to the Latin language. There have been various splits in history, so that there are also non-Latin Catholic. There are also Armenian, Byzantine, Coptic, Ethiopian, East Syriac (Chaldean), West Syriac, and Maronite versions of Catholicism (even more actually, those are just the major ones). 

I am not going to get into a lot of church history here, I just want us to understand than when we use the word catholic in this thread, whether making statements or asking questions, we might want to be more specific, so that we might understand each other.

Below also (in spite of saying I was not doing a church history lesson) is a graphic depicting the evolution of the Christian religion. Not everyone would agree with the particulars of this chart, but let's not get into that. This just gives an overview (though maybe only approximate) on how things developed. There can be real Christians (belonging to Jesus true church in any of them, and there are certainly people in each of then who are not true Christians.

Matt 7:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

The graphic below was by Noah Howard, via Wikimedia Commons

This is very helpful. I couldn't think to name all the different Orthodox like you just did. I knew there were more but was not sure which they were.

[JohnD]

2 hours ago, Marathoner said:

In so far as those who declare, "lo, there is Christ!" and He has not come, agreed. That happens with a regularity in some evangelical circles.

However, if one is known by the Lord, and one knows Him, don't you know that the Lord is sufficient unto Himself to keep His beloved? 

Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. All who call upon Him are His. Does it matter where or when He is called upon? Does the building matter? Does the company one keeps matter? 

If this happens in a Catholic church, is a false Christ called upon? Absolutely not. 

Is Mary co-redemptrix with Christ (Isaiah 43:11)?

Is salvation by faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-10)?

Edited May 23, 2022 by JohnD

[Omegaman 3.0]

4 minutes ago, Anne2 said:

I couldn't think to name all the different Orthodox like you just did. I knew there were more but was not sure which they were.

I could not either, I had to look them up, and I did not know about the Maronite Church! My next door neighbor is Armenian Apostolic Orthodox, had I not met him, I probably would never have looked much into the history of catholic (small c) church history, That denomination has some interesting and apparently legitimate claims to being very early.

[Anne2]

1 hour ago, Marathoner said:

Nice graphic, and a timely message regarding the meaning of words!

Over the years, my old friend Paul became a scholar of Church history. When we were catching up after decades of being apart, I asked him about Orthodox history.

He laughed and said, do you have a few months to spare? It's not as simple as some believe... and he proceeded to shed a little light upon Eastern Catholic churches, different liturgical rites, and so on. 

Not cut and dried at all!

I remember going to the Greek orthodox church, to ask for any material thy might have or recommen that a protestant mind might understand. At the time it was to hopefully answer my Catholic father since he had taken to badgering me. So what I was looking for was schism in the Church, as a defense against his claims of original Church, and protestant denominations not agreeing. I had hoped I could at least get him to stop on those fronts. One thing I remember reading was a Greek bishop hinted that he was the head of the Church, not just one among equals. That didn't come to much. It was the Roman bishop of all people that said those sorts of claims are nothing short of anti-christ. I mean wow! That was obviously long before the the Roman bishop made the same claim many years and bishops later of course. I read a lot of fascinating stuff in that book. Another thing I read in another was the eucharistic assembly was the single thing among them all to begin with. Just the partaking of communion. Simple.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Anne2

[Anne2]

17 minutes ago, Omegaman 3.0 said:

I could not either, I had to look them up, and I did not know about the Maronite Church! My next door neighbor is Armenian Apostolic Orthodox, had I not met him, I probably would never have looked much into the history of catholic (small c) church history, That denomination has some interesting and apparently legitimate claims to being very early.

Oh yes, very early...each has a list. The Eastern fathers western fathers etc. right from the apostles on. Sometimes I think some of the baby has been thrown out with bathwater so to speak. There were some reformers that did become Orthodox. Don't know who they were, I just read it somewhere. Oh I also read in those books I got from the Greek Orthodox Church was, the protestant revolt was the fruit basically of the Roman bishops own schism from the Church. We were the fruit of his own attitude towards the rest of the authority of the other bishops. Until he was restored and healed difficulty would be for us as well.

[Sower]

Listening to this discussion I hear much talk about respecting other peoples denominations/beliefs and not be offensive.

I have many loyal Roman Catholic friends/relatives, who do not read scripture, and believe as long as someone goes to church they will be OK.

Anyone here with enough chutzpah to tell me what you would do in this situation?
Would you try to share with them what the word says about salvation in case they do not know, and chance offending them and their beliefs? Should I tell them what God says about some of their church traditions that the bible forbids?  Or should I in love just be agreeable and simply wish them well, and stay in good grace?
What would you really do if they were your aunt or cousins, friends?
Thank you for any input.