Credibility without Accountability?

Interesting article, Ron. I wonder why the congregation supports him like that? If you can, keep us abreast of any civil action that may occur.

Personally, if someone molested one of my kids, the LAST thing he'd be worried about is being defrocked! I think his health and safety would be a much greater concern! He SURE wouldn't be in the pulpit!

 

Swaggart wasn't Baptist. He was Assemble of God. Do try again.

 

AdaptedMyGod,

"As a Catholic, I'd be thoroughly confused because on one hand I'd have the church telling me that they are absolutely never wrong on moral/faith matters, but on the other hand, Paul who technically would fall under the Catholic church according to Catholics (correct me if I'm wrong) says "Test ALL things, hold onto the good"

So what is your excuse as a baptist. Laugh a little. What makes you think we don't test things. I do daily. The problem is your Baptist mind cannot comprehend Cathoicism. It is like your looking through a window of a Nazi gas Chamber and you gasp in disgust at the naked people. There's an ororgy going on in there you cry!


"If I were a Catholic, which one would I choose?"

You protestants are so good at false dichotomies. The Church is what it is because of Jesus Christ. The Church teaches the truth because it is the "pillar and support of the truth". The Church perseveres in truth because "the gates of hell shall not prevail". If I would a Protestant/Baptist I would be confused because I wouldn't know for certain which of my doctrines that contradict other denominations isn't true. I would wonder why Jesus after establishing his Church through the Apostles, would then, when they all died, let it all go to pot and leave the world in darkness and confusion until Martin Luther and John Calvin fixed some of it and then Zwingli fixed the rest. At which point there started a mad spiral of division in which denominations were born every day. Before Martin Came along there was Catholics, Orthodox and a few minor, come and go sects. Martin complained himself near the end of his days of "men being blown about by every wind of doctrine". The fruits of Sola Scriptura. DIVISION.

Blessings.

 

THANK GOD I'm not the only one who sees it!!! Some of the posts here make me want to aim my .44 magnum (AKA the Boat Anchor) at the screen and unload </font>[/QUOTE]Can you aim at the left top corner of your reply post

Armando

 

Isn't the Bible a Church's writing?

 

Loreli --

Trying to put aside all the heat of this thread, I would ask why it is so hard to believe that God, in His concern for the Gospel and the truth of that Gospel, could not protect His Church from error despite the moral failings of the leaders from time to time.

Are you saying that in order to have this gift, one must be impeccable? Surely that cannot be, because if we are all honest with ourselves, we will confess that we sin in larger or smaller degrees every day.

It would seem to me that the proof of the protection of the Holy Spirit upon the Church is the fact that the few evil popes who obtained the Chair of St. Peter were kept from changing the moral law so as to defend their many wives, concubines, and adulteries. WHY didn't they try to make such a change, claiming, for instance, that it was "God's will" that men have 10 wives and 5 concubines? Why did they not change the basic doctrines which the Church has taught since Her birth?

Perhaps one of the best evidential stories of the protection of the Holy See against heresy is the story of Pope St. Virgilius

Virgilius had the hots for the honor and glory of the papal seat and was not above making a rather nasty deal with the emperess of Constantinople, who was a Monophysite heretic. Through considerable maneuvering and political pressure, he obtained that which he sought.

The interesting thing is this: for two years while he waited for things to come together for him, he preached the Monophysite heresy with gusto from parish to parish. But upon his elevation to the papacy, when he was asked if he would now continue to promote Monophysitism, he replied simply "Now that I am pope, I cannot."

The emperess was outraged at this betrayal and had him arrested and dragged back to Constantinople where he recanted of ever having preached this error and died shortly after being released from prison.

Coincidence? Or the protection of the Holy Spirit? I vote the latter.

And if there is no voice which speaks infallibly in matters of doctrine and morals, then ultimately, I make myself the infallible judge, don't I? That is really what "sola scripturalists" are claiming. They are claiming that they have a deeper and more profound relationship with the Holy Spirit than anyone else and are therefore flawless in their beliefs.

Remember, Lorelei, just because you cannot understand a teaching does not necessarily make it wrong.

Cordially in Christ,

Brother Ed

 

ED,
I have a question. If someone were to ask you how do you know that the Immaculate Conception, Assumption BVM and other non Scriptural doctrines were true you would probably reply that your belief in these doctrines rest on the Infallibility of the Church which teaches them and the church cannot err, right?
Well, on what does your belief in the Infallibility of the Church rest? It would have to rely on your own private judgement which would also have to be infallible in order to decide for yourself what is infallible. Does this make sense?
It seems clear that your certainty that any of the things that the Catholic Church teaches is right cannot be greater than whatever certainty you have that your private judgement has decided the question rightly whether you ought to submit unreservedly to her teaching. Do you see what I am getting at? or am I rambling. Somewhere along in your life you had to decide that the Roman ( or Greek or whatever you are) is your infallible guide and what standard of truth did you use to make that judgement?
If you say Matt 16:18 you will find yourself argueing in a circle.

 

Hardly. I am able to prove those teaching from Scripture. Your problem is that they are not clearly spelled out like this:

"And on the 4th of Nissan in AD 58, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was ever virgin and never married, was assumed into Heaven body and soul....etc, etc, etc."

It strikes me as more than passing funny that those who hold to the mythological teaching of a so called "rapture" of the Church (my apologies if this is not your personal eschatology) do so by strenuously "exegeting" passages of Scripture to prove such a point, but deny us as Orthodox and Catholics the right to do the same thing with the teachings that THEY cannot distinctly find enscripturated.

"Oh consistency, thou art such a gem."

Cordially in Christ,

Brother Ed

BTW -- Using the foundation of the covenantal structure of the Church, all the doctrines of the Church proved themselves to me from Scripture. The fact that the Church taught them infallibly was just icing on the cake for me and proof that when something comes up that I might wrestle with, I can trust the Spirit's leading in the issue.

 

Ed ,
No, the rapture is not part of my eschatology, thank-you. And I dont think that you answered my question, sir. Also, if "all these doctrines" can be answered from Scripture then why the need for tradition and why the need for John Henry Newmans theory on Christian Developement?
Your Church teaches that the Bible does not contain all that a Christian is bound to believe. (Gibbon) What are some of these thing you believe that are not in Scripture since you say they can all be found in Scripture?

 

Allow me to answer the question on Tradition first:

"Tradition is a word that has gone a little sour in the modern world. It seems to evoke associations from a dead past, all that is backward looking, something that is rigid and impersonal. Tradition, in the Christian East, certainly has a backward gaze to the past, but it is understood as a living thing. While Tradition has specific contents drawn from the past, it is not an authority to whom one resorts when a point is to be proved. It is not merely a religious form of archelogy. Tradition is better thought of as the ferment of the Holy Spirit going on in the heart of the Church. In that sense, Tradition is the church. It is "the continuity of divine assistence, the abiding of the Holy Spirit," which began with Pentecost and which has never ended. To be a member of the Church, whether bishop, monk, layman or priest, is to be immersed in Tradition and to be responsible for it as a bishop, and responsive to it as one of the baptized. The rule of faith in the Eastern church is Tradition, the measure of Christian reality both doctrinally and sacramentally.

The Church and sacred Tradition enjoy a unity like to body and spirit. They cannot be separated without the death of both elements. The Church possesses Tradition as the body possesses its own living priciple. Sacred Tradition consists of many elements.

Some things we have from written teaching, others we have received from the Apostolic Tradition handed down to us in a mystery; and both these things have the same force of piety (St. Basil the Great)

The Eastern Church places the Scriptures themselves, the seven eccumenical councils, the creeds of the universal Church, the teaching of the Fathers, the canons of the Church law and customs, the Church's worship and its art, all within Tradition. All of these elements, including the Holy Scriptures, are the works of the Church through the Holy Spirit. Although it is the most profound thing, holy Tradition is finally very simple. It is nothing less than the preaching of "the new life that came forth from the empty tomb." Everything in the Church's life which makes this new life manifest and which gives men and women access to the Risen Christ, no matter how humble, belongs within holy Tradition." (Emphasis mine)

From the book EASTERN CHRISTIANITY -- The Byzantine Tradition by Archdeacon Lawrence Cross

Holy Tradition is simply that which has made Christ present and real to the faithful over the centuries.

Cordially in Christ,

Brother Ed

 

"Show me do you have any idea what happened to that Baptist minister once he was caught? What about Jimmy Swaggart? I can answer about Jimmy Swaggart--he was defrocked."

The pastor is still serving time. The church is conducting a search for a new pastor, of course.

 

I should add. This is a different Baptist minister involved in molestation than the case that Trying2Understand provided the link for.

 

What about Jimmy Swaggart? He was defrocked? How then has his ministry continued and he is still with the A of G? Am I wrong?

 

Swaggart has a pretty extensive website, though I am hesitant to post it here on the board as it will just give him hits. From all indications, it appears that he claims a non-denominational status.

But that really doesn't have a thing to do with the Catholic church's accountability nor credibility, does it?