This is an interesting connection and I very much agree with your thoughts here. And I’m glad to see my comment was the impetus for some thinking and writing on your part!
It feels wrong to me now after the Covid years where the line was always “trust the experts” to have to “trust the experts” for matters of faith as well. Especially when we learned from Covid that “the experts” were wrong about pretty much everything.
When I talked with my friend about what Catholicism entails, I just kept wondering where the Biblical foundation for these practices was. Much of it seems to be from the Catechism and just part of Catholic tradition. I genuinely don’t understand where concepts of a Pope, praying to Saints, or purgatory come from if you are just using the Bible as your foundation. Obviously, Catholics have justifications for all of these things, but my reading of the Bible so far seems to actually pretty directly rebuke these practices.
It does start to feel authoritarian when the typical Catholic line on a lot of these things is that you need to trust them and it relies more on tangential arguments about how it’s “the original church.” Though when I went down a rabbit whole about the practice of Marian veneration, that didn’t start until the 3rd and 4th century, so many of the Church’s beliefs today were in fact not part of the “first church.” And when there are quotes in the Bible such as 1 Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” how do you pray to Mary and accept the authority of a Pope? I don’t usually like to rely on out-of-context Bible quotes, but from what I’ve read so far, the New Testament especially seems to reinforce the idea in that verse.
Catholics are entitled to their beliefs, but I don’t agree with the idea that reading the Bible full of God’s teachings isn’t enough of a foundation for my faith, and I need to trust another authority and their writings and teachings.
Ultimately though, I agree with your point that a specific church is not the solution, but rather truly and earnestly turning to and trusting in God is needed. I think that starts with reading the Bible, because that’s the one text Christians agree on, at least in theory. It’s not about bickering between different sects, but it’s about doing our own reflecting and coming to faith with understanding, reverence, and humility.
And when the globalist cabal has been so wrong about so many things, I’m going to keep doing my own research for now…!
Thank you for the thoughtful article! More to think about…
Thanks for your comment, I'm glad what I said was helpful. And I agree with you 100%. Just this morning I read these words from John 17:
"I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth." (John 17:14-17)
Sanctify them by the truth... your word is truth. That really hit me today as being what we need. And I'm really pleased to see that God seems to have led you to that conclusion, which gives me hope that he can certainly do that for other people. There are a lot of people at the moment who are searching for truth beyond what the experts tell them -- they just need to realise that it's found in the Word of God!
I think you are confusing, legitimate authority with authoritarianism. The idea of a well ordered society without authority, without hierarchy - has always simply provided a stalking horse for worldly despotism. The upsurge in sincerity, individualism and an unmediated relation to God that came with the Protestant revolution, did not open the door to the city of God. It paved the way to capitalism, nationalism, secularism, and materialism. Only through Jesus, can we be saved. As individuals and as coherence societies. But we come to Jesus through the church.
As a matter of fact, the reformation in England did not rescue a moribund Church . The pre-reformation church was vibrant and dynamic. The reformation was a top down act of vandalism in England. This is very clear now from the work of historian such as Eamon O Duffy And on the continent, it went much further than Luther had ever envisaged. And the final result after 500 years has been a catastrophe. . You only have to look at the Anglican church now. I don’t think any reasonable observer could conclude otherwise.
When proper, God-given authorities overstep the bounds of their authority, as defined by God, that rule becomes tyrranical. That is what I believe has happened with the Catholic church. It assumes more for itself than any human institution is permitted to do by God.
Yes, we come to Jesus "through the church" -- but that simply means the one holy, catholic and apostolic church, which is not the same thing as the Roman Catholic church. I find it utterly baffling that so many revivals could have happened outside the Catholic church, that there could be so much corruption within it, and yet people still defend it as "The Church".
Let me reiterate that I am not trying to argue that any other denomination is "the church". The church is bigger than that.
The church is full of sinners. Look at the history of Israel - and yet God kept his covenant. As he does with the Church. The Protestant diaspora stumbles all the time. You need tradition and ecclesiastic authority and scripture. There are good Popes and bad Popes. There are Saints and there are moments of corruption and sinful behavior. And life goes on. And God’s covenant goes on. They are now more Catholics than Anglican in the UK. For all the twists and turns, and manifest good things that came out - perhaps that road is over as a separate path. Time for the stream to rejoin the river
This is an interesting connection and I very much agree with your thoughts here. And I’m glad to see my comment was the impetus for some thinking and writing on your part!
It feels wrong to me now after the Covid years where the line was always “trust the experts” to have to “trust the experts” for matters of faith as well. Especially when we learned from Covid that “the experts” were wrong about pretty much everything.
When I talked with my friend about what Catholicism entails, I just kept wondering where the Biblical foundation for these practices was. Much of it seems to be from the Catechism and just part of Catholic tradition. I genuinely don’t understand where concepts of a Pope, praying to Saints, or purgatory come from if you are just using the Bible as your foundation. Obviously, Catholics have justifications for all of these things, but my reading of the Bible so far seems to actually pretty directly rebuke these practices.
It does start to feel authoritarian when the typical Catholic line on a lot of these things is that you need to trust them and it relies more on tangential arguments about how it’s “the original church.” Though when I went down a rabbit whole about the practice of Marian veneration, that didn’t start until the 3rd and 4th century, so many of the Church’s beliefs today were in fact not part of the “first church.” And when there are quotes in the Bible such as 1 Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” how do you pray to Mary and accept the authority of a Pope? I don’t usually like to rely on out-of-context Bible quotes, but from what I’ve read so far, the New Testament especially seems to reinforce the idea in that verse.
Catholics are entitled to their beliefs, but I don’t agree with the idea that reading the Bible full of God’s teachings isn’t enough of a foundation for my faith, and I need to trust another authority and their writings and teachings.
Ultimately though, I agree with your point that a specific church is not the solution, but rather truly and earnestly turning to and trusting in God is needed. I think that starts with reading the Bible, because that’s the one text Christians agree on, at least in theory. It’s not about bickering between different sects, but it’s about doing our own reflecting and coming to faith with understanding, reverence, and humility.
And when the globalist cabal has been so wrong about so many things, I’m going to keep doing my own research for now…!
Thank you for the thoughtful article! More to think about…
Thanks for your comment, I'm glad what I said was helpful. And I agree with you 100%. Just this morning I read these words from John 17:
"I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth." (John 17:14-17)
Sanctify them by the truth... your word is truth. That really hit me today as being what we need. And I'm really pleased to see that God seems to have led you to that conclusion, which gives me hope that he can certainly do that for other people. There are a lot of people at the moment who are searching for truth beyond what the experts tell them -- they just need to realise that it's found in the Word of God!
I think you are confusing, legitimate authority with authoritarianism. The idea of a well ordered society without authority, without hierarchy - has always simply provided a stalking horse for worldly despotism. The upsurge in sincerity, individualism and an unmediated relation to God that came with the Protestant revolution, did not open the door to the city of God. It paved the way to capitalism, nationalism, secularism, and materialism. Only through Jesus, can we be saved. As individuals and as coherence societies. But we come to Jesus through the church.
As a matter of fact, the reformation in England did not rescue a moribund Church . The pre-reformation church was vibrant and dynamic. The reformation was a top down act of vandalism in England. This is very clear now from the work of historian such as Eamon O Duffy And on the continent, it went much further than Luther had ever envisaged. And the final result after 500 years has been a catastrophe. . You only have to look at the Anglican church now. I don’t think any reasonable observer could conclude otherwise.
When proper, God-given authorities overstep the bounds of their authority, as defined by God, that rule becomes tyrranical. That is what I believe has happened with the Catholic church. It assumes more for itself than any human institution is permitted to do by God.
Yes, we come to Jesus "through the church" -- but that simply means the one holy, catholic and apostolic church, which is not the same thing as the Roman Catholic church. I find it utterly baffling that so many revivals could have happened outside the Catholic church, that there could be so much corruption within it, and yet people still defend it as "The Church".
Let me reiterate that I am not trying to argue that any other denomination is "the church". The church is bigger than that.
The church is full of sinners. Look at the history of Israel - and yet God kept his covenant. As he does with the Church. The Protestant diaspora stumbles all the time. You need tradition and ecclesiastic authority and scripture. There are good Popes and bad Popes. There are Saints and there are moments of corruption and sinful behavior. And life goes on. And God’s covenant goes on. They are now more Catholics than Anglican in the UK. For all the twists and turns, and manifest good things that came out - perhaps that road is over as a separate path. Time for the stream to rejoin the river