 |
| Cross of Canterbury |
It is no secret that I am Reformed. That I hold to the Holy Scriptures and believe the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are for today. I tend to be very critical of the Roman Catholic Church. I find many of the practices in the Romanite Church to be deuterocanonical, and as Luther called them “extravagandic.” The doctrines of penance, purgatory, and prayers & veneration (worship) of the Virgin Mary and the Saints are stripped of legitimacy by only s handful of verses:
“be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith” (Philippians 3:9)
“And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27)
“There is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the Son of Man Christ Jesus,” (1 Timothy 2:5)
“Jesus replied, "The Scriptures say, 'You must worship the LORD your God and serve only him.” (Luke 4:8)
I could quote countless verses that confronts the vow of chastity and celibate priests (1 Timothy 4:2-3), the scandals of pedophilia (Matthew 18:16), that you should never take vows at all (Matthew 5:34-37), that praying the Pater Noster (Our Father) over and over is confronted by Jesus (Matthew 6:7-8), that wearing flashy priest garb was mocked by Christ (Matthew 23:5-7), that the Eucharist is not Jesus continuing to offer himself over and over for sin but Had offered Himself once for sin (Hebrews 7:27, Hebrews 9:26), that salvation is not penance but given upon faith and belief in Christ and His grace (John 3:16, John 6:40, Romans 10:9-10, Acts 4:10-12, Acts 15:11), that you should never call anyone priest or father (Matthew 23:7-11), and that it was St. Paul who we can prove went go Rome (Acts 28:11-31), not Peter. In point of fact, it would seem the RCC read the Scriptures and made everything from their dress and doctrine the opposite of what Jesus and His Apostles taught!
I can deconstruct the entire Roman Catholic Church with Scripture. Hence why I have remained Reformed and trust only in Christ and His Scriptures (Philippians 3:8-9, 2 Corinthians 11:2, 2 Timothy 3:16). However, I happen to have Roman Catholic friends and occasionally I find some sayings said by early Romanite theologians and clergy that I find useful. One particular saying that I applaud is a response from Pope Gregory to Augustine of Canterbury (a Benedict Monk, not Augustine of Hippo):
Augustine of Canterbury’s third question: Since there is but one faith, why are the uses of Churches so different, one use of Mass being observed in the Roman Church, and another in the Churches of Gaul?
Answer of the blessed pope Gregory: Your Fraternity knows the use of the Roman Church, in which you have been nurtured. But I approve of your selecting carefully anything you have found that may be more pleasing to Almighty God, whether in the Roman Church or that of Gaul, or in any Church whatever, and introducing in the Church of the Angli, which is as yet new in the faith, by a special institution, what you have been able to collect from many Churches. For we ought not to love things for places, but places for things. Wherefore choose from each several Church such things as are pious, religious, and right, and, collecting them as it were into a bundle, plant them in the minds of the Angli for their use.” (From The Eccleiastical History of the English Speaking People, Book I, Chapters 29-33, Bede, Penguin Publishers, or Fathers of the Church, Registrum Epistolarum, Book XI, Letter 64).
I love Gregory’s reasoning, that the Almighty Trinity may reveal some finer points and practices to one church and other points and practices to another, “But I approve of your selecting carefully anything you have found that may be more pleasing to Almighty God, whether in the Roman Church or that of Gaul, or in any Church whatever.” (Pope Gregory). This passage should have been inscribed on Martin Luther’s 95 Thesis and other works as he argued for reform! It would have been a great means fto sway Catholics into Protestant thinking.
The words of Pope Gregory are ecumenical, “Wherefore choose from each several Church such things as are pious, religious, and right, and, collecting them as it were into a bundle, plant them in the minds of the Angli for their use.” We could be serves well if instead of seeing the Church as only our sect and instead see ourselves as a Familia Christi, and learn the best from each denomination and utilize it: example, be charismatic like Pentecostals or Southern Baptists, be charitable like the Catholics, be humble like the Eastern Orthodox, be Scriptural like the Baptists, be staunch on grace and salvation through faith like the Lutherans, and etc. Instead of calling each other heretics (though we can say to those we disagree what we think and even say that’s heterodox teaching) we could heed Gregory’s advice to take the best from each church and use it. And anything that contradicts Scripture (Old and New Testaments) and the teaching of Christ and His apostles be spat out like lukewarm water (Revelation 3:16). Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment