If you look at each denomination and why they split, you'll find that each wanted the Church to change something for them

Personally speaking, I want a Church with a solid foundation, that won't change anything for anyone for reasons of power or convenience. Looking back across 2,000 years, that seems to be an impossible task.

 

We humans are a mess. We all make mistakes… even the best of us.

 

Peter denied Christ three times. Paul, as Saul, persecuted Christians. Adam and Eve blew a really, really good thing. Jonah rebelled. David basically committed murder to cover his lust.

 

Reading this thread, it’s amazing that we can’t even agree on the simplest issues.

 

We all trace our Christian lineage back to Peter and Paul. To suggest that any one branch of the literal Church of Jesus Christ, (which in its most real sense is each one of us who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior and make Him our Lord) has exclusive rights to the truth because they have “dibs” because they “called it” first is as funny as it is debilitating.

 

God did not offer us His precious Son just so we could sell Him off a piece at a time. Jesus did not come to build an even larger, more complicated bureaucracy and legalism than that of the Pharisees and Sadducees He so strongly resisted in His day.

 

If we are to truly follow His example, I have to say that a Mother Teresa living in the slums ministering to the poor strikes me as being far more Christ-like than anyone wearing luxurious robes, living in a palace and sitting on a throne… at least on this earth.

 

Jesus came to tear down the walls of legalism and religiosity. He came to bridge the vast separation sin had so violently ripped between each of us and Him. He came to heal and restore… to renew the relationship He originally intended between each of us and Him.

 

Simpleminded fundamentalists like myself feel that Paul’s admonition in Galatians 1:6-9 is self-explanatory: “6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”

 

Apparently, Paul felt so strongly about adding to or taking away from the Gospel that he repeated himself a second time to drive home the point.

 

In this regard, I don’t need a Cardinal, Pope, Bishop, Pastor, Elder, Deacon, Theologian, Evangelist, Apostle, Minister, Vicar, Reverend, Rabbi, or other learned holy man to "interpret" the obvious. I certainly don’t need someone twisting the simple truth.

 

For this reason, many Protestants like me do not feel comfortable elevating manmade traditions to the level of Biblical authority. This applies equally to Catholics, Mormons, Lutherans, Baptists, Charismatics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Church of Christ, etc. This is also why I personally have a problem accepting The Book of Mormon or the Koran as legitimate holy books.

 

Fire away… I can take it.

You make it sound as if Catholics are sheep being blindly led. That's simply not true. We make the choice to remain Catholic and even today, lo and behold, we still have people of other faiths who choose to join the Catholic Church.

 

Catholics do question, and change does occur within the Church. However, those changes aren't doctrinal changes. Those would be done by the Pope, as Divinely directed. Whether we agree or disagree is not the question. If one simply cannot agree or live in obedience to the Church's Doctrine, then it's possible that the Catholic Faith is not for them after all.

 

Have I ever wished that something was different in the Church? Sure! But to be Catholic is to accept that there is a good reason for the way things are, and to not lose your Faith in the Basic Tenants of the Church because you think something could be done differently. Who knows? Maybe someday married men may be priests. But until that time, does that really change what I believe? Does that change the fact that I believe that when the Priest celebrates the Holy Eucharist I believe that the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ? Does that fact that Catholics must be married in Church change the fact that I believe that the Virgin Mary was actually a virgin, and that she was assumed, body and soul, into heaven?

 

This seems like a good stopping point for our discussion, I think. I respect your beliefs and your faith, whether I've done a good job of conveying that or not. Obviously, I've pointed out a few things I don't agree with in Catholic Church doctrine. You've responded and I appreciate that. Once again, I've learned more about these teachings from the Catholic perspective which I thoroughly enjoy. However, you aren't going to convert me to Catholicism and I'm not going to persuade you to defect... ...not that I think that was either of our goals (I know it wasn't mine). I just feel like we're about to re-hash previous discussions and I see no point in it.

But to be Catholic is to accept that there is a good reason for the way things are, and to not lose your Faith in the Basic Tenants of the Church because you think something could be done differently.

:thumb: :thumb: Sums it up right there.

I agree that this is a good stopping point. I will again quote the Vatican's perspective on other churches.

 

“It follows that these separated churches and Communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church”.