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Nice one, Meg! Well said.Not in the sense that I used that word, no.
It means, as you say, "universal" -- but your understanding of that word is not the historical understanding. Historically it meant "everybody in agreement with one another in matters of doctrine and practice" -- and that agreement was manifest by churches being in communion with another. And I don't think you can claim that your idea of "universal" is the same thing by any stretch.
Jesus prayed that "we all might be One" (John 17:21), and Paul insisted that we should "all be in the same mind and judgment" (1 Cor 1:10). And it's just not true that "all Christians who follow what is in the New Testament" are "in the same mind and judgement," about much of anything.
If it's rhetorical, then you already have an answer you accept.Rhetorical question here, If God created/allowed/facilitated schisms between the Jews prior to the 1st century, is it possible He is ok with or had a hand in the Great Schism, the reformation, and the subsequent 12000 protestant denominations?
I agree 100%. God's intention was no divisions. That, however, would require following God's word by all, therefore there's no input from man regarding doctrine. When man decided it was up to him to not only interpret doctrine but create it also, unity was sacrificed by them. No psuedo Pope or regional bishop or high priest (other than the owner, Christ) is in authority to make any calls regarding His church.Nice one, Meg! Well said.
Can you show me an example of even a few Christians agreeing on doctrine or biblical interpretation, for more than a few minutes, without any kind of teacher or pastor?I agree 100%. God's intention was no divisions. That, however, would require following God's word by all, therefore there's no input from man regarding doctrine. When man decided it was up to him to not only interpret doctrine but create it also, unity was sacrificed by them. No psuedo Pope or regional bishop or high priest (other than the owner, Christ) is in authority to make any calls regarding His church.
In Him
We believe that Christ has given those He called and chose, and those who succeeded them, authority, guidance, and grace to rightly interpret what was given, iron out difficulties as they arose, and continue on.I agree 100%. God's intention was no divisions. That, however, would require following God's word by all, therefore there's no input from man regarding doctrine. When man decided it was up to him to not only interpret doctrine but create it also, unity was sacrificed by them. No psuedo Pope or regional bishop or high priest (other than the owner, Christ) is in authority to make any calls regarding His church.
In Him
Would you like an address? Which state & country do you reside. Absent, man's pride and given a total desire to follow God and our savior Christ, all would agree on doctrine.Can you show me an example of even a few Christians agreeing on doctrine or biblical interpretation, for more than a few minutes, without any kind of teacher or pastor?
I know you do, I even recall you saying indulgences were pretty "cool"....We believe that Christ has given those He called and chose, and those who succeeded them, authority, guidance, and grace to rightly interpret what was given, iron out difficulties as they arose, and continue on.
I'm not sure that's true. The Bible has to be interpreted, and I think most people don't have the tools to interpret it correctly without some kind of guidance. Even the NT says God would appoint pastors and teachers.Would you like an address? Which state & country do you reside. Absent, man's pride and given a total desire to follow God and our savior Christ, all would agree on doctrine.
In Him
Hi Mary Meg. I haven't had time to read through both of your threads, but I am in the same state you are and have been for a number of years. I have no answer for you I'm afraid. Except I belong to a small confessional Lutheran Church, love my church and fellow parishioners. Like you I have studied Church History and this is one reason I came back home to the confessional Lutheranism of my youth, after spending a number of years in a large non-denominational church. I do not regret my years in that church as they were instrumental in bringing this prodigal daughter back to Christ. At the time I could see that the Lutheran Church was much more connected to historical Christianity in some ways, but maybe not in full. I'm conflicted because I still believe there is an invisible Church made up of all true believers in Christ but I also believe Jesus founded a visible Church and at one time there was only one Church.Happy Easter! He is Risen!
If you've been following my other musings the past couple days, you probably know a little of what I'm going through... how I'm questioning my Protestant heritage, and struggling with how to read Church history and remain a Protestant. If you're new to me, hi -- a little about me: I was raised in a small, conservative Southern Baptist church where my family has a long tradition. I love my church, because I love my family, but I've made the mistake, maybe, of reading too much history, and now I'm having some serious questions about Protestantism. You may all think I'm really down on Protestantism, but I'm really not. So I wanted to make this post to try to give a more balanced picture of where I'm at. (This proved to be longer than I expected, so at risk of ending up with unbalanced audiences, I may wait until another post to tell in detail why I feel drawn to more apostolic forms of faith.)
What I love about Protestantism (by which I mean my Baptist Evangelicalism)
What I don't like about [my] Protestantism (or, why I'm having problems)
- The simplicity. Honestly, reading about Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, even Calvinism -- it's really complicated! A lot of hard, confusing, and even troubling things. Growing up I can just open my Bible and read and understand (though often, when I don't understand, my eyes just glaze over and I say, "Okay, God") ... and go to church and love one another and live my faith and everything is fine. All I have to do is have faith ... no other expectations really.
- The worship. I go to a little tiny church, with traditional worship, but I love our hymns and singing together. But I also, just recently, am getting to contemporary worship music on Internet radio, like Chris Tomlin and Crowder and Matt Maher and Jeremy Camp and Bethel Music and Hillsong. And it seems like that's a mostly Protestant thing?
- My own history. I complain sometimes about the history of the Protestant Reformation (which I'll do more below), but my own history is something I love. It's the history of how faithful pioneers came to the hills of North Alabama and founded a church. There are a lot of regaling tales of early ministers, early church minutes to peruse, and especially my own family history -- the histories of my church and my family are largely intertwined for like 6 or 7 generations.
- The people. I love the people -- because they are my family, my friends, my loved ones.
- The belonging. Because this is my church, I am her daughter -- I belong and am accepted and have a place. I can minister (I teach V.B.S., among other things) and really feel I am serving.
Over the past few years, as I've gotten deep in studying Church history and theology and languages and read a lot on my own, I've gradually grown more discontent. This lays out my basic problems.
- Lack of historical foundation. This may be more a problem of my own upbringing than of Protestantism in general, I don't know -- but I feel disconnected from history. Before I started high school, I knew almost nothing about the history of Christianity. Just Bible stories, then BAM! Martin Luther is nailing something to the door! And POW! The church comes to Alabama! There were anecdotes scattered here and there in sermons about "great Christians"... Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, maybe a few others... but these were disconnected dots on a blank sea. And I really didn't realize how empty it was, until I opened a book and saw everything that was there.
- Lack of theological rigor. Growing up, I don't think I ever heard the word theology. My Church taught the Bible and the Bible alone, just the Gospel and that's all. I didn't understand until much later (I was homeschooled and didn't have any friends outside my immediate community until high school) that there is more than one way of understanding the Bible and the Gospel. At first I was floored. Then I started studying theology and languages, and the idea that different people could have different interpretations made more sense. I discovered that my church lives in a sort of quasi-Calvinist-Armenian limbo. Preachers can appeal to either, but avoid the objectionable points of both. But the bottom line is, there's no rigor. Our theology is a wet noodle. And maybe that's okay? But it feels very intellectually unsatisfying.
- Fascination with the Early Church. As I said previously, when I read the New Testament growing up, it was mostly with a confirmation bias, seeing in it a vision of my own church experience. It wasn't until I started reading excerpts of the Church Fathers that I started to get the feeling that this doesn't actually look anything like my church. And let's not get distracted by arguments about sola scriptura or relying on Scripture -- it really doesn't. Whether you believe this is because the post-Apostolic Church quickly fell away from the truth of the faith, or because our modern tradition is just a really long way from the second century -- it really doesn't.
What I admire about the Early Church is more than just the visible things like the liturgy, the way they have church (which you can see in early writers like the Didache and Justin Martyr) -- it's an overall feeling. In our modern Christianity -- especially once you get outside the walls of my little church -- there's a lot of disagreement about faith and practice, what to believe and do; a lot of argument about interpretation of Scripture; a lot of divisions and numerous different denominations. And that's just not what I see in the Early Church. Sure, eventually there were doctrinal questions and crises and schisms, and even in the second century there were heresies -- but to the orthodox faith (and yes, I think that's something that can be objectively seen, not just something that is decided by the victor), there was unity and certainty. These people were sure in what they had been taught, by people who knew or had been taught by the Apostles. And when there was a controversy with these heretics (I'm reading Ignatius and Irenaeus here), they didn't appeal to "Scripture alone" and argument over interpretation, they appealed first to the authority of the bishop, and his agreement with every other bishop in what had been received from the Apostles.
And all of this is getting long, but it's just to say that I admire that certainty of orthodoxy.- Disillusionment with the Protestant Reformation. And I got to the Protestant Reformation in history, and rather than finding the glorious scenes of Martin Luther rediscovering the true Gospel from corruption and restoring the true faith, I was appalled. I had grown to like the Catholic Church, with all the popes and monks and saints -- not that I necessarily agreed with it, but I liked it. So I was disappointed, first, that things in that were becoming corrupted. But it still seemed like a good thing that could be fixed, right? Of course I knew that wasn't where it was going...
And then the Reformation very quickly got ugly. Luther calling the pope "antichrist," everybody writing nasty letters to each other, revolts and people getting killed... And then everybody else starts jumping on board, and it seems like a free-for-all, and political opportunism in a lot of cases more than anything else... And before long, anybody with a beef against the Catholic Church, for any reason, is breaking away and grinding their own axe... And then martyrdoms (murders) on both sides, and wars... Christians killing Christians... And this is not a glorious picture at all.
And I just think, again and again, to Jesus's prayer "that we all might be One" (John 17:21). And I just think none of this is what Jesus wanted at all.
So this is really long, sorry about that, and more emotional than I really meant for it to be. But this is my heart. Go easy on me, ok?
It requires ZERO interpretation on how one is to be saved. ZERO. The discrepancies came from what man wants to accept or not. For instance, the faith only camp is forced to find a way to make null and void "whosoever believes and is baptized shall be saved"....I'm not sure that's true. The Bible has to be interpreted, and I think most people don't have the tools to interpret it correctly without some kind of guidance. Even the NT says God would appoint pastors and teachers.
"...and on this Rock..."I know you do, I even recall you saying indulgences were pretty "cool"....
You have absolutely nothing, inspired from God, creating a Pope. If you did I would be on board.
If pigs had wings...
Obviously that's not true, since choosing to "accept or not accept" your understanding of those verses is an act of interpretation...It requires ZERO interpretation on how one is to be saved. ZERO. The discrepancies came from what man wants to accept or not. For instance, the faith only camp is forced to find a way to make null and void "whosoever believes and is baptized shall be saved"....
And the scriptures that say verbatim that by baptism our prior sins are washed away.
Anyone can pull a verse out and say, I'll follow that as my guide but that in no way means he'll be accepted.
In Him
rock, is clearly the fact that Christ is the son of the Living God. Nothing more, if you wish to interpret it that way you have the right to but you can not bind that on anyone else."...and on this Rock..."
Obviously that's not true, since choosing to "accept or not accept" your understanding of those verses is an act of interpretation...
Basically you're saying you're saying your interpretation is the only one, and anybody who understands something different than you is wrong. And that's what everybody else says, too. But if it's so clear, requiring "zero interpretation," then I think there would be a LOT more agreement.
As somebody who knows Greek and some Hebrew, I say there are a LOT of verses that are ambiguous, that can admit more than one meaning and interpretation. More than that, there are verses where the actual text isn't clear, where different manuscripts say slightly different things. And there are a lot of things that just aren't spelled out, where the Bible doesn't say one way or another. And it's the nature of language, anyway, that it has to be interpreted, that different people are going to understand it differently.
I thought it requires "ZERO interpretation"?rock, is clearly the fact that Christ is the son of the Living God. Nothing more, if you wish to interpret it that way you have the right to but you can not bind that on anyone else.
In Him
Yeah, but I'm a girl.Maybe you have a calling as a pastor? You have the brains for it, certainly.
Yeah, but I'm a girl.
Absolutely right. That is starting to sound like Judaism, where ALL of the options are considered and unless shown wrong elsewhere, are accepted as valid. (even if they conflict with each other)As somebody who knows Greek and some Hebrew, I say there are a LOT of verses that are ambiguous, that can admit more than one meaning and interpretation. More than that, there are verses where the actual text isn't clear, where different manuscripts say slightly different things. And there are a lot of things that just aren't spelled out, where the Bible doesn't say one way or another. And it's the nature of language, anyway, that it has to be interpreted, that different people are going to understand it differently.
That is where you are dead wrong. It is not my understanding. When Jesus said whosoever believes and is baptized shall be saved. It says what it says. In order for you or anyone else, for that matter, to make the verse say something other you must use YOUR higher knowledge or something aside from the word. God said what He meant to say, if He didn't then WE ALL are wasting our time.Obviously that's not true, since choosing to "accept or not accept" your understanding of those verses is an act of interpretation...
Basically you're saying you're saying your interpretation is the only one, and anybody who understands something different than you is wrong. And that's what everybody else says, too. But if it's so clear, requiring "zero interpretation," then I think there would be a LOT more agreement.
As somebody who knows Greek and some Hebrew, I say there are a LOT of verses that are ambiguous, that can admit more than one meaning and interpretation. More than that, there are verses where the actual text isn't clear, where different manuscripts say slightly different things. And there are a lot of things that just aren't spelled out, where the Bible doesn't say one way or another. And it's the nature of language, anyway, that it has to be interpreted, that different people are going to understand it differently.
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