Originally posted by hope
Vow, Darn I missed it! I wish I could of read what the Protestants thought about it.... I am still trying very hard to understand why anyone would add words to the Bible. Isn't that called blastfullmey? (Sorry about the spelling of that word, I have no idea of how to spell it)... I just can't believe how some of the Protestant People are letting that slide, because their whole religion is based on the Bible. Adding words in the Bible is even worse than letting Ministers marry same-sex couples.... 
Maybe you could repost that article again on the Roundhouse? Boy, is that an interesting topic to talk about.... I still can't believe it. But, nothing seems to shock me anymore! 
It just seems like Christianity is being watered down with all of these hundreds of different denominations and beliefs.... It makes me sad... Pretty soon the Bible will be one big Soap Opera! Hope
Where there's life there's Hope! No, you didn't miss anything, Hope. The thread is still at Interfaith, if you'd like to take a look. Also, take a look at the thread called, "Closed threads," for a discussion about the discussion. That is very interesting in itself.
But KC, if you think I am going to open up another thread that puts the Catholic viewpoint out there, you're badly mistaken. For one thing, I don't want to have the rug pulled out from under me again. And for another, I don't think the Catholics here are up to a sustained argument in the face of serious opposition, esp opposition that uses the language of feelings.
These developments pretty much took the mickey out of me, I've got to admit. Not that there was a tumult, or a battle royal, but that when the going gets tough we will call on a Catholic moderator to bail us out by closing down the thread. Pah! Were we terrified of TheBear's threat to post a parody of the Catholic faith? "If this thread isn't shut down pretty soon....." he would write a parody. Bango, it was shut down *immediately.* Man, we cow pretty easily. NYJ's embarrassment to the contrary nothwithstanding, the RVP is an excellent serious apologetic argument. The RVP does not address only Calvinists and OSASers, it addresses the whole Reformation project head on. Scripture is their whole thing, and the RVP makes abundantly clear to them how badly they distort it and even eviscerate it, all the while accusing us of not knowing the scriptures. What unbelievable irony.
What did you think they were going to do? Crying "foul" was the only tack they could take, that plus making us feel bad about making them feel bad. Insulting them, or bashing them would be wrong, but their feelngs are pretty much up to them. If we had said, for example that they were a bunch of "uneducated hicks from the Bible belt," *that* would be bashing, or that they don't want to listen to the Pope because it would hold them to a higher standard of morality, *that* would be bashing, but the comparison of Catholic scripture with their positions framed in scriptural language is *not* bashing, no matter how bad it makes them feel.
Please note, no one, NO ONE, even attempted a reply to any of the things that the RPV clearly revealed, because Hoge really did justice to their oft stated positions, positions that are scripturally untenable. If anything, I think we ought to apologize for not confronting them with this in a more sustained fashion than we were able to muster. It was possible to do that politely, but insistently.
As far as any parody that TheBear might have been able to come up with, certainly it would be very easy to do, as he said. The difference is that Hoge's parody was directed at the very heart of Reformation theology using their own much vaunted scriptures. No response was possible. Nothing comparable is possible with Catholicism, but if anything should appear, I hope that we can approach it line by line, addressing the argument in itself, without any puerile whining about "bashing" and how bad it makes us feel. Just answer the argument, that's all we need to do, and all they needed to do, for that matter, but could not.
Peace,
Lee
Hope
