Critique Time!

[Mudhammam]

I mean, simply, that I've never understood how Protestants such as yourself perceive a particular collection of writings as holding supremacy over and above the authority of popes, councils, and tradition, when it was only by the command and direction of those ecclesiastical offices and functions that the New Testament Canon was conceived and enforced.

But that's just it. "The ecclesiastical offices and functions" were never established with in the New Testament cannon. One can not worship the God of the bible with doctrine and traditions that God does not sanction in said bible. If catholic people want to worship the God of the pope then so be it. For me and mine we worship the God of the bible.

... Yeah... but... um, isn't it obvious that when you remove all pretension of divine authority from the clergy, you eliminate the difference between the writings of the New Testament and everything else that inherits a claim to inspiration, timelessness, insight, or whatever it is that one might delineate works of "the spirit" from works of "the flesh"?