Christians, know your lineage

[Kayenneh]

Now, after reading this in Cinjin's and Lucent's debate, I couldn't help but grind my teeth at Lucent's comment: "Catholicism is a blending of paganism and Christianity. The pope, biblically, is a type of antichrist. So yes, they are wrong. I count them as Christians [...]". Since I can't participate in the formal debate, I thought to make a spin-off thread to hopefully educate everyone who hasn't read the history of Christianity.

Let's start off with an easy one, the definition of Christianity. Anyone who says he or she believes in the man called Jesus is a Christian. Thus, every church that follows the Bible, especially the New Testament, and acknowledge Jesus as the Savior, would be a Christian church.

There are two major branches, the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox. These two were actually one church until the 11th century. In the beginning of 1500 a man called Martin Luther started what we nowadays know as the Protestant Reformation and that's why there are Christians that call themselves Protestants, because they follow Luther's ideology. The Protestant branch has many more smaller branches, such as the Baptist, Anglican and Presbyterian, and these all are still followers of Christ.

This might be the simplified version and merely a crash course, but I hope that I makes those think that didn't knew this before. All of you who say that you are Christians, come from the same trunk of the united church of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox. To deny that followers of Jesus isn't "true" Christians, is similar to saying that you don't share any DNA with your grandparents and cousins. You may call each other cults, and disagree with the different ideologies, but the fruit hasn't fallen too far from the tree, now has it?

As for the pope being the Antichrist biblically, well, I have to agree that he looks ominous enough and every pope have said enough absurdities, that one wonders if it is such a good thing that they grant so many senile men such status. (I guess, the more muddled the pope is, the easier it is to pull his strings..). But Lucent, they follow the Bible too, what makes you so sure that he isn't St. Peter's substitute on earth?

[Minimalist]

It usually breaks down into some variant of the No True Scotsman argument.

Like petulant 7 year olds the religious point at others and go "you're not REALLY a xtian."


Fuck all of them.

[Kayenneh]

Yup..

But hey, at least I tried. I've seen situations similar to this so many times, that I concluded that people actually don't know this stuff. For once I tried to be kind and help out, but it's gonna bite me in the butt, isn't it..?

[fr0d0]

Thanks for stating the thread Kay.

I agree with Lucent. He put it pretty succinctly. It's possible for a group of people to lose sight of the root conditions of a system. This is what has happenned to a lot of the followers of Catholicism. The Pope isn't St Peters substitute because that is a direct mistranslation of scripture.

Salvation is conditional.

All Christians agree on the Niceen creed that was agreed upon by an ecumenical council of the early fathers of the church. Catholics.

Now I would go to a Catholic church, and would consider the possibility of a lot of them being Christians.

[Kayenneh]

It not so much about the ideology, more the heritage. In this case I'm not interested in the ecumenism and consensus between the factions, but the evolution of all the Christian churches. Christians is the name for all followers of Jesus, it is not dependent on the "sub-church" that you belong to. And I say that there are many Christians, not particularly Catholics, that have lost sighting of what I once thought Christianity to be, but that is my own opinion, as is everyone else's. It also points out why there are so many branches, people definitely don't see eye to eye when it comes to how God should be worshiped and how to follow the word of Christ the best.

As for the pope, I think he's a dangerous puppet on a string, and saying that he's a fraud doesn't bother me at all But there are more absurd translations in the Bible. Take the Finnish one for example. In all old Bibles, a creature called "the noble deer" is mentioned. Care to guess what animal it is?

[Minimalist]

The two-legged variant?

[fr0d0]

hmmm heritage absolutely. The reason for Luther was the distance between the ideology and the actual. It's been a sorry history of horrors untold.
I agree and I think everyone should view the original message as grossly misrepresented by a large swathe of professing Christians today.

Noble deer : ...erm... Unicorn?

[Kayenneh]

Nope, lion. Yeah. They actually "translated" lion into noble deer, because they just didn't know what a lion was. Guess why I don't care much about what the bible has to say, I can only imagine what else has been lost in translation.

[coffeeveritas]

Yup..

But hey, at least I tried. I've seen situations similar to this so many times, that I concluded that people actually don't know this stuff. For once I tried to be kind and help out, but it's gonna bite me in the butt, isn't it..?

I don't think this one will bite you in the butt, it's a pretty good summary. All Christians come out of the Catholic church (with the possible exception of the Ethiopian church, but there is some evidence that the Ethiopian church fell under the authority of the church at Alexandria, which was one of the five centers of the (Catholic) Christian church). Everyone traces their lineage to the same place, but too often they want to act like being a Christian is a new trick their guy invented in the 16th century. Christians are increasingly getting along better, but still have a LONG way to go. It would certainly seem like a lot of Christians aren't aware of this information at some level, good post, Kayenneh.

As for the pope, I would certainly agree the office of the pope is based off of some shoddy reading of the text, but there have been some really good people in the office of the pope. (There were also corrupt, depraved egomaniacs, but let's not forget the good ones). Pope Gregory the first was an all-around good guy. When the Lombards threatened Rome from both sides and thousands were starving and panicking Gregory stepped in and made peace with the Lombards, fed the poor, and rallied everyone to rebuild. It was the Roman equivalent of one person achieving world peace and solving global hunger. By all accounts he was known for being a man of unrivaled virtue. Especially after that episode, everybody wanted more pope. The people could not get enough pope. If you took away their pope, they would get mad cravings for another pope. Of course the scenery is different now, but there were some popes that were very good for their time. Even in recent years, Pope John Paul II was beloved by people all around the world and did more to bring peace between Catholicism and other worldviews than any other person in modern history. (He was also the person responsible for opening the Catholic church up to the idea of evolution). His funeral was the largest Christian pilgrimage in world history, as well as an event that brought together leaders of many different countries and faith traditions.

[DeistPaladin]

The Catholic vs. Protestant dispute follows a logically predictable pattern when there's a large scale schism in a religion and where one is easily identified as a new or rebel faction. The very name "protestant" is derived from "protest", so it is indisputably the rebel of the two.

The old faction has the luxury of appealing to tradition as their source of authority. After all, if God really did establish this particular faith, then the faction that represents traditional authority must be the one on the side of God, right?

The new or rebel faction typically counters this claim by appealing to a nostalgic dreamscape of an "early church", one which is much different from the current incarnation represented by the old faction. The charge is that the old sect has lost the original mission and become corrupted by whatever taint can be easily imagined (outside influences, political power, greed, etc.). Thus, the rebel group isn't really rebelling against God but rather FOR God, hearkening back to the "early church" and getting back to the ways they imagine God had originally intended.

Now why God would sit by for a thousand or so years and watch as his sacred church got defiled and corrupted is a question that is glossed over.

Of course, the whole nostalgic dreamscape has no basis in historical reality. The actual history of Christianity doesn't reflect Hollywood's vision. According to what information we have, there was a wild variety of different churches with conflicting ideas on what Jesus was and what he had to say.

As an aside, we see the same argument in Trinitarian Christianity vs. Islam. Muslims, like Protestants, fantasize about a proto-Islamic church established by Jesus, which the dastardly heretic Paul managed to corrupt in just a few years after Jesus flew up into the sky. It doesn't matter that there is no historical basis for the claims. Folklore will substitute nicely for historical documentation in the minds of the faithful.

But to get back to Protestants, it's easy to see why they must reject Catholics as "True Christians". Their own theological legitimacy depends on it. To acknowledge that the Catholic Church represents a legitimate brand of Christianity is to admit that their own rebellion wasn't legitimate.

Putting Catholicism and Protestantism on equal theological footing, assuming that Christianity really was divinely established, means the Catholics can play the appeal to tradition card and they win!