Posted by Jaypeeto on March 20, 1999 at 08:41:54 {MWfZlKV6ncg82}:
In Reply to: Written to Catholics or JWs? posted by Cygnus on March 19, 1999 at 23:44:57:
As I type this, I am ignoring a loud knock at my front door. I can see through the window that it is a JW! Complete with his literature that he is hoping to "Place."
Anyway,
the next thing that really sticks in my craw, which
the author of that article stated, is that
Catholics "don't really BELIEVE" the Scriptures.
The hubris and Rutherford-like pomposity of that statement comes through loud and clear with only a brief amount of reflection! I can tell
the author that MOST Christians who REVERE the scriptures probably would disagree with him on a number of points which he would insist upon.
What his statement reveals is his ATTITUDE that
anyone who really BELIEVES the New
Testament, will without fail share his personal PRIVATE ***interpretations***, after all, the Holy Spirit is "bearing witness" to him.
He also seems like one of those who has it in the backs of their minds that the early Christians walked around with little gilded-page-edges, leatherette bound new testaments, "witnessing" to people and privately interpreting the 27 books and letters, which weren't even decided upon for a couple of centuries!
How would he interpret
Paul's commands
to HOLD YE FAST TO THE TRADITIONS WHICH YOU HAVE RECEIVED FROM US, whether by WORD OF MOUTH, OR by LETTER?!
Most fundamentalists dodge this plain testimony to UNwritten yet authoritative tradition, by asserting that everything oral was eventually written down. That is patent nonsense, and on it's very face. The apostles and their trained evangelists organized congregations and SERMONIZED, EXPOUNDED, to people, for decades and decades. The scriptures (New Testament) total less than 300 pages in most editions, and are NOT written in the form of a catechism. In no way is it even REMOTELY possible for the entire body of apostolic teaching and preaching to be contained in the collected writings which we call the New Testament.
I regard the new testament as sacred and authoritative. How dare this author assert otherwise? It is he who, of necessity, must evade the question of Christ's promise to be with the Household
of Faith, ALWAYS, until the end of Time.
Where were all his beloved sola-scriptura, once-saved always saved, the Eucharist ain't-nothin'-but-a-symbol, fundamentalists for 1500 years? If he really believes the New Testament, he has to
answer those questions. HE has to, since he makes the assertion, HE must prove his case.
It will not do, and no one should allow to go unanswered, any assertion on these folk's part that yes, there were always the "True" faithful there, somewhere, invisible, unseen, because the wicked ol' Satanic hierarchy was SOOOOOOO powerful that they did not dare raise their voices.
How can a fundamentalist who believes that the Holy Spirit is ALMIGHTY GOD and ALL POWERFUL and MORE POWERFUL than ANY "wicked ol' hierarchy", have the CHUTZPAH to then assert that Christ, in a DIRECT BREAKING of His Promise, would allow the church's FAITH to be utterly obliterated and ground into NOTHING and into INVISIBILITY for even TEN years, let alone 1500 years?!
It is THEY who doubt or avoid the New Testament.
What about Charisms?
I don't know where our author in question stands on this, but in SOME fundamentalist churches, if you claim to have received
Charismatic gifts, you will be excommunicated or shunned or both.
WHY? Because SCRIPTURE SAYS (they claim) that these gifts would utterly cease.
And WHEN would they cease? Why, some assert, When the last apostle died!
WHERE does scripture, SOLA, ALONE, state ANY SUCH THING?! Chapter and verse please. Tell me where SCRIPTURE says that the gifts of the spirit would STOP when the last apostle died.
Thanks, Cygnus!
You've livened up my morning by posting
that link.
Jaypeeto ;)