Another debate from the Global Pastors Network -
Bill DeDual • Just a quick reply if you don't mind and an observation, John.
You seem pretty hooked on the new pontiff, If you are a Protestant and Evangelical you would know they view the pope as Jesus on earth and pray to Mary for salvation, your article is about wounds? Have they changed to include Jesus? And praying to the Father? No? They keep the divide and send people to hell? Salvation is through Jesus alone, not through Mary and not through the pope, it doesn't matter of your feelings toward the man, of which your lengthy reply was about.
I am after souls for the Kingdom of God! Not write feel good speeches and watch as they go down the road to hell.
John Deacon • Your heaven and hell are different than mine.
We have too little in common to continue this exchange.
If Catholics are going to hell...thinking of the likes of Dorothy Day, Jean Vanier, Henri Nouwen, Mother Theresa and others then I hope to go with them. These are just some of our Catholic brothers and sisters who have inspired not only me but millions of Christians - Protestants and Catholics - to love Jesus and live like Jesus in our time.
William Mayor • Bill, I would question just where you gain all your knowledge about the Roman Catholics. It seems to me that you have a distorted view. But then I guess we could carefully study probe the doctrines taught in your church and likely conclude that they have many non-Christian elements also. At least every church I am aware of has questionable points within its teachings, as none of us are perfect. Some churches that loudly proclaim that they are evangelical Protestants and strongly against Satan tolerate demons being present during their worship services, some even praise the demons when the demons play Holy Spirit for them. Might your church be like that? Just asking, not accusing.
I could either debate you on your eschatology or your insistence that all Catholics are going to hell.
Peter Nagy • If Catholicism is not the false religion from Rome that John and Daniel prophesied, then we must still be waiting for "some other" false religion to rise and take Catholicism's place.
And won't that new false religion basically have to reproduce everything that the Catholic church has already done, in order to re-fulfill prophecy?
John Deacon • So your interpretation of biblical prophesy relies on all Catholics going to hell?
I think your eschatology could use an overhaul. It belongs in the same trash bin as Hal Lindsay's 'Late Great Planet Earth' and the 'Left Behind' series which thankfully most Christians have left behind.
Peter Nagy • Really Mr Deacon? You would wish to join Catholics in hell? Are you sure?
We gotta ask, are Catholic doctrines really that distorted and unbiblical? There is more written about this subject than you can read in your lifetime. Let’s condense it enough to consider a few significant observations and comparisons.
Call no man Father on the earth, for you have one Father in heaven (Matt. 23:9). Priests are called father and the pope is even called “the holy father.”
A pastor must be the husband of one wife (1 Tim. 3:2). Catholic priests are forbidden to marry. We all know how well that has been working for them. But it isn’t widely broadcast that even some popes had wives and children!
We must keep ourselves from idols (1 John 5:21). The Vatican condones and promotes idol worship.
We are supposed to love our enemies (Matt. 5:39, 44). The papacy thought Protestant Christians should be crushed like venomous snakes in the Inquisition.
Don’t pray using vain repetitions like heathens (Matt. 6:7). Don’t they say the “hail Mary” prayer about 50 times in a row?
Yeshua is the Head of the church (Eph. 5:23). The pope says he is the head of the church.
We should study the Scriptures (Acts 17:11). Pope Pius 4th didn’t think the Bible was proper for the people and should be renounced. It is a forbidden book, and Bible students are Satanic.
Pope Nicholas 1st and Pope Gregory 7th put a ban on Bible reading. Pope Gregory 9th forbade Bible possession and ordered them entirely wiped out (1229). Pope Innocent 3rd ordered all who read the Bible should be put to death. Possessing or reading the Bible was forbidden according to the Council of Tolouse and the Council of Trent.
Pope Pius 7th said the Bible was a pestilence back in 1816. Pope Gregory 16th condemned the Bible and ordered priests to destroy as many as they could find (1844). The Council of Tarragona ruled Bibles should be given to bishops to be burned. Pope Pius 9th thought Bible societies were pests and must be destroyed by all means (1866).
The Council of the Vatican declared the infallibility of the popes in the mid 1800’s.
Since the 16th century, the Vatican declares the Virgin Mary absolutely sinless, making her a female god. They even say she was caught up to heaven without dying and crowned queen of heaven. Do you really think Mary wanted millions of people to pray to her? Is praying to a dead human woman found in the Bible?
We only pray to the Lord our God. But, the Vatican promotes praying to dead people (saints) like St. Christopher for protection. Do you really think a saint can protect you?
Is that enough to consider for us to make an educated decision? It’s a little hard to believe, huh? This is the institution you wish to defend?
Peter Nagy • Speaking of the prophesied false religion from Rome.......Do you remember (Dan. 7:24) the 10 horns? The Roman Empire was divided into ten Gothic tribes or kingdoms. There were Heruli, the Suevi, the Burgundians, the Huns, the Franks, the Ostragoths, the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Lombards and the Anglo-Saxons.
Do you remember the little horn (Dan. 7:8) that plucks up or subdues three kingdoms? When the Roman Empire fell, the papacy rose to power, still ruling and reigning from Rome. The papacy overthrew three of the kingdoms; the Heruli in 493, the Vandals in 534 and the Ostragoths in 553.
The little horn wears out the saints of the Most High (Dan. 7:25). Who else is responsible for torturing and killing as many as 50 million Christians and Jews than Rome and the papacy?
The city of Bezier was besieged by men from the Pope that killed 60,000 people in 1209.
The estimates are that 100,000 Albigenses were slaughtered in one day. After attending high mass in the morning, the crusaders accomplished this massacre at Lavaur, in 1211.
People were dragged through the streets, hurled from cliffs, and children murdered in front of their powerless parents. 500 women were locked in a barn and set on fire. If any tried to escape out the windows, they were met with points of spears at the massacre of Merindol.
Pope Pius 4th had men, women and children killed with tortures of every imagination in Orange (1562).
In 1572 10,000 Protestants were killed in St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. The French King went to Mass to give thanks that so many heretics (Huguenots) were killed. The Pope rejoiced with the news and ordered coins made to commemorate this “great event.”
“The Inquisition of Spain” by Llorente, acknowledges more than 300,000 suffered in Spain alone. Over 30,000 died in flames and millions were slain for their faith throughout Europe.
There were priests, bishops and cardinals who were registered members with the Nazi party. For years the Vatican was heavily involved with smuggling numerous Nazi war criminals to safety in South America, both during and after World War II.
This is only a fraction of the bloody history of the big church in Rome. Don’t get mad at me. All of these events happened way before we were born. Just look it up and verify it for yourself. Where are the torture dungeons in Europe? Under Cathedrals!
And this is the institution you wish to join up with, and defend? Are you really sure, John?
John Deacon • Peter - I could either debate you on your eschatology or your insistence that all Catholics are going to hell.
But either would result in gnat straining when clearly there is a camel in the room.
Given that you not only believe all Catholics are going to hell but also anyone who believes in the trinity risks going there, let alone those who disagree with you as to who carried Jesus' cross.
Can I sum up your theology by saying that anyone whose theology differs from yours if not bound to hell, risks at least feeling the heat from its flames?
As the writer Anne Lamott notes - you know your theology is wrong when your god hates the same people you do.
Put another way, you know you've missed the mark when the only ones going to heaven are those whose theology agrees with yours.
That's the camel I referred to earlier.
That heaven is earned by the rightness of what you believe rather than what the apostle identifies as 'a more excellent way.'
Whenever Jesus was asked how one might inherit heaven, he never once responded with 'having the right beliefs.'
Instead he answered with how we are to love our neighbour. In drawing a line between the blessed and the cursed, the line he drew without exception was between those who loved and those who didn't.
Now you may insist that such is works and not faith, but I say it is faith working by love. Our actions give witness not only that we love our neighbour but reveal the God who both wills and does the loving of our neighbour through us. For no one can truly love his/her neighbour without God being at work within.
This love works regardless of our theology. Otherwise those who are mentally impaired from having the right beliefs would be incapable of either giving or receiving God's love.
The Pharisees had their theology as close to being right as any but they were the ones who most hated Jesus because he repeatedly insisted that love and not right doctrine was the ultimate issue.
Having a sound theology is good but without love it is knowledge puffed up and knowledge puffed up is pride and pride is the devil incarnate.
Yes there are huge discrepancies between what some Catholics believe and biblical orthodoxy just as there is between what some Protestants believe and biblical orthodoxy. But it is not the discrepancy there that delineates the damned from the blessed; it comes down to this one thing: 'he who says he loves God must love his neighbour.'
If we don't love our neighbour the rightness of our orthodoxy doesn't matter. We are doomed by the hatred we have for our neighbour (Catholic, Muslim, gay whoever) rather than saved by the rightness of what we believe.
I lament with you the grievous actions of the Catholic Church in past. Just as I lament that equally grievous actions of the Protestant Church against First Nations people, blacks, women and the poor. Too often the church regardless of denomination has turned a blind eye if not outright sanctioned genocide against thousands, if not millions of innocents. Need I remind you that the biggest supporter of Nazism in Germany was the German Evangelical Church? So many of those involved in these heinous crimes had 'the right theology.'
What they didn't have was the right 'orthopraxy', the right love.
Our orthodoxy does give us a standard by which to judge doctrine and in many instances to judge actions. What it doesn't give us, is the right to judge on God's behalf the eternal destiny of others, especially those who differ from us. In this we are 'to judge not, lest we be judged.'
Peter Nagy • First of all, brother John,
I never said all Catholics are destined to hell. I just pointed out some plain information that if they are following Rome's teachings to the letter, they are in direct opposition to, and in contradiction of Scripture. They may have also joined up with the prophesied Roman false religion, which is described as an enemy of Israel, the Lord's believers, and the Lord (Rev. 17). If that will in fact, be a deciding factor on judgment day, that is not up to me.
Since Protestantism is an offshoot and branch of Catholicism, are some of the Protestant denominations also at the same risk, because of their incorporating some of the Catholic doctrines? Such as the trinity?
But are we not responsible to at least give any with the ears to hear, a heads up on a few of these critical and well documented discrepancies that should not be ignored?
And just for the record, what did I say that you could not look up and verify for yourself? That is long documented information, not only in history books, encyclopedias; but in the Vatican archives as well. I didn't write it, it was already written way before I was born!
John Deacon • Two things please me about your response Peter.
One that you would call me brother given my avowed love of Catholics, Mother T and all.
Two that you have corrected me on my misunderstanding that you think all Catholics are going to hell.
And just for the record - I didn't dispute your catalogue of wrongs committed by the Catholic Church. I merely disputed that Catholics are to be judged by their history. Catholics are to be judged by the same standard we all are, 'do you love your neighbour?'
I agree heartily with you that we are to test what we believe. But the end result of testing still results in this litmus test - 'does what you believe have you loving your neighbour, most especially the neighbour who believes differently than you do?'
Clearly the Samaritan in Luke 10 would have failed a 'do you have the right theology?' test. But it didn't matter. What did matter is that he passed the test of having loved his neighbour, a neighbour whom both his culture and his religion would have identified as the enemy.
Unless we do likewise, we are no better than the priest or the Levite, ones closer to having the right theology than the Samaritan but as far removed from God's kingdom as even the worst of Catholic popes!
William Mayor • Since there was an observation about certain titles, might I inquire as to what happens to all those people who use a common term to refer to their male parent? It would seem that they are violating the words of Jesus. That is unless Jesus was meaning something other than what could be taken literally.
Peter Nagy • No sir, I do not think Catholics will be judged for the wrongs committed by the big church in Rome, but their dedication to what the institution believes and teaches is the real question. Of course we love them, but not so much what their institution teaches, right?
I was raised basically Catholic-ish, and have had a very eye opening last few decades, when I began to discover the Jewishness of Scripture, and how different groups have taken the Bible and made their own respective alterations to it. (referring to the JW's, Mormons, and yes, the Catholics too, who have simply done it for a longer period of time)
I have a 94 year old Catholic theologian neighbor for over 45 years, and he approved and verified all the stuff I posted from my book. He said it was all accurate as far as he knew, and not to change a word of it. He won't call any priest "father" and he won't pray to Mary. He knows the trinity doctrine is not biblical and won't confess to a priest. I said, that makes you a non-Catholic and the Vatican would excommunicate you for that! He laughed and said he was like Luther, and since he was so high up in their ranks, he wanted to try to make a difference from within the system. (I haven't seen a difference so far!)
John Deacon • Knowing your background is helpful in understanding where you're coming from.
Does your 94 year old Catholic neighbour like the current Pope? I'm sure he likes Hans Kung!
I saw a fascinating youtube video featuring Noam Chomsky, who until today I had always thought prophetic but not a professed Christian.
His take on religion is fascinating and one I highly recommend you set aside the 6 minutes it takes to view it. See Noam Chomsky
Peter Nagy • I figure that if a watchman sounds an alarm, it is up to the people to check the validity. If the people fail to heed the alarm, their blood is on them.
If I fail to share what might be alarming, isn't their blood on me? I think there's a verse for that too. I was fairly upset that for the first half of my life, NOBODY said anything about this. Even if they knew there was more to it than what Rome teaches, they kept silent. And that isn't fair to those who are honestly seeking, is it?
William Mayor • I would note that whenever any of us reads the Bible we make some assumptions about what it means. Our assumptions may or may not be correct. The assumptions made by the Roman Catholic Church may or may not be correct. Now if one wishes to decree that the assumptions made by someone else are incorrect, that individual might do well to examine their own assumptions because we are warned that we will be judged by the standards we use to judge others. Does anyone wish to gamble their eternal salvation on their ability to know what assumptions are true and which ones are not?
John Deacon • It's a dance I recognize.
But so often our attempts to inform are excessively alarmist and only add to old prejudices which widen the divide between Catholics and non Catholics rather than help to bring us closer together.
I have met Christians who have left the Evangelical ranks for the very same reason - that unless their politics and beliefs were militantly anti-gay, anti-pro-choice, anti-unAmerica, anti-social justice; they were not true Christians and were best to find their religion elsewhere.
One hope I have for this forum is that it gives people of various convictions to hone what they believe as well as occasion to shape what others believe, allowing that the church would be the unhealthiest of institutions were we to agree on everything!
As the current Pope puts it:
"We must walk united with our differences: there is no other way to become one. This is the way of Jesus."
He's right. You think of those first disciples - as varied as any 12 you can imagine - from Zealots, to tax collectors, to fishermen, to romantics - there were probably many days when the only thing they could agree on was who they were following.
If we can agree on who we are following, the unity will come. From the Catholics I know they are following the One I am, and in many instances better than I am.
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