Posted by Jaypeeto [Jaypeeto] on March 27, 1999 at 10:00:56 {Hq/lZhRVmk8cLOMUTDWIMWf0hi4VK0MIQ}:
In Reply to: Human Double Standard posted by RomGabe on March 27, 1999 at 08:54:42:
As a Catholic,
I don't feel constrained at all in talking about the Pope.
Nor do I feel bound to accept "everything" that the pope says or feels as 100% accurate, not by a long shot.
As a Dub, I was in absolute DREAD of thinking that the GB might be in error on ANY point, even minor ones, thinking that God was out to "get me" if I felt any doubts at all about something, anything, asserted in the Watchtower.
As a Catholic, I respect the Petrine Office and accept
what has been formally ***defined***.
I also show respect for the ordinary teaching of the Petrine Office, and this, as an Adult Convert, because I have found in my research that there is a basic continuity of the basic faith of the
Church.
With the Governing Body, what I
see is a group of men who CLAIM to be something that they simply are not, and because there were no doctrinal JWs in early christianity, they simply CANNOT BE the "remnant" raised up in these
latter days to "restore" the original faith and practice of the early church. You can't ***restore*** something that never existed, you can only create it anew for the first time.
Another thing:
As a Catholic, and even when I was
going to the Presbyterian Church, I was and am perfectly free
to research Christianity through secular as well as religious publications. I have never been told by ANY trinitarians ***not*** to ***independently*** research things.
I ***was*** told that by the JWs, and in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS.
Jaypeeto