Was the early church catholic?

[TrueFollowerOfChrist]

On 4/5/2023 at 7:44 PM, portlie said:

This has been bothering me for a while now, most records seem to state that the early church was catholic. Where can i find knowledge of the actual history of our church? 

 

The early church was NOT Catholic. The word catholic simply means "universal", because there were not different denominations as there are today. But the Catholic church as we have it today really came from many different changes in the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries of various beliefs and traditions being created by different popes at the time. 

[Solus Christus]

1 hour ago, teddyv said:

I had never heard of the Shepherding Movement until you mentioned it here. Reminds me a bit of the Boston Movement of the late '90's that I was briefly involved with.

Yeah, it had “Lording Over.” The Shepherds had “discipleship model” but you never graduated in your discipleship. The women had to clean the shepherds’ houses, the leaders placed ‘watchers’ in house churches to see if you had ‘rebellious tendencies.’ If you left or were kicked out, all your friends still in the cult shunned you. Shepherds decided if you could marry, they taught a white collar person could not marry a blue collar person. If a sheperd had a roofing business, a disciple had to give up their roofing business because “God does not allow competition!” 
 

Leaders were Paul Petrie, Derek Prince, Peter Donne, Bob Mumpherd, and etc. 

It started with the best intentions to be the Acts Church and do discipleship like The Bible says, and became a cult that destroyed families. 
 

“The best intentions pave the way to hell.” -St. Bernard of Clairvaux 

 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Solus Christus

[teddyv]

2 hours ago, Solus Christus said:

Yeah, it had “Lording Over.” The Shepherds had “discipleship model” but you never graduated in your discipleship. The women had to clean the shepherds’ houses, the leaders placed ‘watchers’ in house churches to see if you had ‘rebellious tendencies.’ If you left or were kicked out, all your friends still in the cult shunned you. Shepherds decided if you could marry, they taught a white collar person could not marry a blue collar person. If a sheperd had a roofing business, a disciple had to give up their roofing business because “God does not allow competition!” 
 

Leaders were Paul Petrie, Derek Prince, Peter Donne, Bob Mumpherd, and etc. 

It started with the best intentions to be the Acts Church and do discipleship like The Bible says, and became a cult that destroyed families. 
 

“The best intentions pave the way to hell.” -St. Bernard of Clairvaux 

 

It does sound worse than the Boston Movement. t

They were also trying to model what they thought the early church was doing in Acts but led to same type of abuse. "Sin.lists" which were intended as confession would be used against you later to maintain control. Had to seek permission to buy things from your 'discipler'. Etc.

[Solus Christus]

35 minutes ago, teddyv said:

It does sound worse than the Boston Movement. t

They were also trying to model what they thought the early church was doing in Acts but led to same type of abuse. "Sin.lists" which were intended as confession would be used against you later to maintain control. Had to seek permission to buy things from your 'discipler'. Etc.

Woah.. sin lists, sounds like The Spanish Inquisition. 

[teddyv]

2 hours ago, Solus Christus said:

Woah.. sin lists, sounds like The Spanish Inquisition. 

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

[Solus Christus]

1 hour ago, teddyv said:

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

It is wild the Spanish Inquisition began as an outreach to Jews, and ended up causing The Jewish Diaspora. 
 

Best intentions.. 

[Marathoner]

I wasn't aware that the Spanish Inquisition was intended as "outreach." On the contrary, it was established through pressure and machinations by the Catholic monarchs of Aragon and Castile. The Inquisition was intended to root out heresy among Jewish and Muslim converts (called conversos) and combat "undue" influence of Jews and Muslims on Catholics. 

That three-century nightmare wasn't an outreach effort. 

[Marathoner]

It's rather interesting that the Roman pope thought that the Spanish Inquisition was persecuting conversos unduly, and so he issued a papal bull to end it. However, the queen of Castile threatened to withdraw military support from Rome if this were the case; the Roman pope relented and withdrew that papal bull.

In a twist of irony, a Catholic friar --- himself from a family of conversos --- was instrumental in convincing queen Isabella to initiate that demonic campaign of terror. 

[Solus Christus]

5 hours ago, Marathoner said:

I wasn't aware that the Spanish Inquisition was intended as "outreach." On the contrary, it was established through pressure and machinations by the Catholic monarchs of Aragon and Castile. The Inquisition was intended to root out heresy among Jewish and Muslim converts (called conversos) and combat "undue" influence of Jews and Muslims on Catholics. 

That three-century nightmare wasn't an outreach effort. 

Indeed so it became. The Muslims were called Moriscos. However, conversos and moriscos were often suspected for converting to escape torture and losing land, so they were tortured anyway, “the condemned if you do, condemned if you don’t” came from The Inquisition pressuring people to convert or suffer, but even if you convert you still suffer.

The Spanish Inquisition & The Masscres of Huguenots in France are chief examples of the Roman dark side of Catholicism. 

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Solus Christus

[JimmyB]

14 hours ago, Solus Christus said:

It is wild the Spanish Inquisition began as an outreach to Jews, and ended up causing The Jewish Diaspora. 
 

Best intentions.. 

That is what caused my mother's side of the family to emigrate to the USA.