the civil authority and religious authority were split in the Torah due to sin and remain split. the priest is not to be the king and vice versa. this is only reunited in the priest and kingship of Jesus.

Thanks Zobel and AGC, think I have a better handle on the Eucharist after that.

I still don't quite understand the idea some can saved out of ignorance but maybe that's just the mystery part of it.

Going back to the sidelines.

10andBOUNCE said:

---

Thanks Zobel and AGC, think I have a better handle on the Eucharist after that.

I still don't quite understand the idea some can saved out of ignorance but maybe that's just the mystery part of it.

Going back to the sidelines.

---

It reminds me of a question someone had in confirmation class about infant baptism. What happens to babies that die and aren't baptized? Frankly, that's God's purview and not ours. We know what we are told, and what apostolic tradition teaches, so we follow dutifully and faithfully in baptizing children and growing the church.

Are you Roman Catholic?

AgLiving06 said:

---

Quo Vadis? said:

---

AgLiving06 said:

---

Simply repeating a claim does not make it true or correct.

Christ did not "create the Roman Catholic Church." Christ created His Church. Roman Catholics are certainly within the broad definition of Christ's church, but they don't have a unique claim to anything.

And your second paragraph is just victim blaming, and especially ironic given your analogy to a marriage/broken home. It's really the child's fault the parents are fighting. It's the child's fault the parents want to kill him. Rome was broken.

However, I do enjoy pulling up Exsurge Domine though, because we get to see the pope's own words the "errors of Luther."

Exsurge Domine - Papal Encyclicals

Quote:

---

In virtue of our pastoral office committed to us by the divine favor we can under no circumstances tolerate or overlook any longer the pernicious poison of the above errors without disgrace to the Christian religion and injury to orthodox faith. Some of these errors we have decided to include in the present document; their substance is as follows:

----

33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.

---

Rome itself viewed the burning of heretics, not as problematic, not as an error, but the will of the Holy Spirit.

I hope we could at least find agreement that the pope was absolutely wrong in this claim and should rightfully be called out for theological and frankly human error.

---

I will repeat since you can't understand..Christ created the Catholic Church, and charged the Apostles to shepherd it, Peter foremost of all. Peter established the church in Rome, and passed his authority on for 2,000 years. There are many several apostolic sees, all have been established by Apostles, charged by Christ.

Ah yes the old Lutheran victimhood "the 1500 year old bride of Christ won't bow to the whim of an egotistical German monk, let's take our ball and go home".

Again, we know what Christ said about those who would lead children astray. Would you argue that having millstones thrown around the neck of heretics would be contrary to the will of the Spirit?

---

I will repeat what you can't understand..Christ created His Church. Luther, you, and I aren't beholden to the pope, but to Christ. Rome did not represent "the 1500 year old bride of Christ..." but a branch of christianity that had fallen into error. You continually fall into the error of believing that because the Church existed, it was a reflection of Rome. Rome, especially by the middle ages was not a reflection of the early church and its teachings, but something new that reinvented itself.

To your last point...are your now claiming Rome should continue to execute heretics? Since I certainly believe Luther and the Reformers were correct in their reforming of the errors of Rome, should I be burned at the stake as the pope wanted to do to Luther and others? You danced around it in your post, so please be clear.

Should I be burned at the stake?

---

When did it fall into error? As I've mentioned many times in the past, the oldest churches of Christendom that have been continually celebrating mass for over a thousand years before the reformation are Catholic or Orthodox. At which point did they change from "looking like the original church" to "falling into error"?

Your obstinate "I bow to no one" bs, sounds more like Satan's "non-Serviam" than anything remotely related to Christianity; and being obedient to Christ by severing yourself from the Church he instituted on his Apostles and charged with shepherding you feels counter productive.

Also, the effeminate hysterics behind the burning at the stake will hopefully be put to bed by my answer.

If I could end the heresy of Protestantism by burning you at the stake, I would do so. Given the fact that it seems at this point impossible to put Pandora back in her bottle, we do not have a state religion, it would be killing someone for no purpose; which is murder. I will instead have to be content with seeing the best and brightest continue to flee from Protestantism into the apostolic faith, while those looking for good music and to see a person jump a motorcycle through a ring of fire continue to defect to the Protestant novelty.

Quo Vadis? said:

---

AgLiving06 said:

---

Quo Vadis? said:

---

AgLiving06 said:

---

Simply repeating a claim does not make it true or correct.

Christ did not "create the Roman Catholic Church." Christ created His Church. Roman Catholics are certainly within the broad definition of Christ's church, but they don't have a unique claim to anything.

And your second paragraph is just victim blaming, and especially ironic given your analogy to a marriage/broken home. It's really the child's fault the parents are fighting. It's the child's fault the parents want to kill him. Rome was broken.

However, I do enjoy pulling up Exsurge Domine though, because we get to see the pope's own words the "errors of Luther."

Exsurge Domine - Papal Encyclicals

Quote:

---

In virtue of our pastoral office committed to us by the divine favor we can under no circumstances tolerate or overlook any longer the pernicious poison of the above errors without disgrace to the Christian religion and injury to orthodox faith. Some of these errors we have decided to include in the present document; their substance is as follows:

----

33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.

---

Rome itself viewed the burning of heretics, not as problematic, not as an error, but the will of the Holy Spirit.

I hope we could at least find agreement that the pope was absolutely wrong in this claim and should rightfully be called out for theological and frankly human error.

---

I will repeat since you can't understand..Christ created the Catholic Church, and charged the Apostles to shepherd it, Peter foremost of all. Peter established the church in Rome, and passed his authority on for 2,000 years. There are many several apostolic sees, all have been established by Apostles, charged by Christ.

Ah yes the old Lutheran victimhood "the 1500 year old bride of Christ won't bow to the whim of an egotistical German monk, let's take our ball and go home".

Again, we know what Christ said about those who would lead children astray. Would you argue that having millstones thrown around the neck of heretics would be contrary to the will of the Spirit?

---

I will repeat what you can't understand..Christ created His Church. Luther, you, and I aren't beholden to the pope, but to Christ. Rome did not represent "the 1500 year old bride of Christ..." but a branch of christianity that had fallen into error. You continually fall into the error of believing that because the Church existed, it was a reflection of Rome. Rome, especially by the middle ages was not a reflection of the early church and its teachings, but something new that reinvented itself.

To your last point...are your now claiming Rome should continue to execute heretics? Since I certainly believe Luther and the Reformers were correct in their reforming of the errors of Rome, should I be burned at the stake as the pope wanted to do to Luther and others? You danced around it in your post, so please be clear.

Should I be burned at the stake?

---

When did it fall into error? As I've mentioned many times in the past, the oldest churches of Christendom that have been continually celebrating mass for over a thousand years before the reformation are Catholic or Orthodox. At which point did they change from "looking like the original church" to "falling into error"?

Your obstinate "I bow to no one" bs, sounds more like Satan's "non-Serviam" than anything remotely related to Christianity; and being obedient to Christ by severing yourself from the Church he instituted on his Apostles and charged with shepherding you feels counter productive.

Also, the effeminate hysterics behind the burning at the stake will hopefully be put to bed by my answer.

If I could end the heresy of Protestantism by burning you at the stake, I would do so. Given the fact that it seems at this point impossible to put Pandora back in her bottle, we do not have a state religion, it would be killing someone for no purpose; which is murder. I will instead have to be content with seeing the best and brightest continue to flee from Protestantism into the apostolic faith, while those looking for good music and to see a person jump a motorcycle through a ring of fire continue to defect to the Protestant novelty.

---

The fruits of the Spirit are peace, patience, joy, love, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control.

Which one of those are you demonstrating?

I love my Catholic friends. We are all united in our love of the Lord. Never heard this sentiment expressed in my life.

Zobel said:

---

Quote:

---

So you say that heresy is not responding to correction from a religious group.
I believe Catholics and Orthodox consider Calvinism a heresy.
And a lot of Calvinists think Catholics/Orthodox are heretical.
Which group sets the rules for heresy?

---

Heresy doesn't mean disagreement. A person who was never in the church is not a heretic. A heretic is someone who is part of the church, who deliberately and knowingly rejects the teaching of the church, especially after being corrected. A person who was never in the church may hold false beliefs, but that doesn't make them a heretic. A person in the church who holds false beliefs in ignorance is not a heretic.

Calvinists today, who were raised Calvinists, are not heretics to either the RCC or the Orthodox. They're not in communion with the Orthodox, they hold to teachings we deem heretical, and if they want to be in communion with us they have to repent of those false teachings.

Quote:

---

And would that group, if it were say the Calvinists, turn all the Catholics/Orthodox over to the governing authorities? Or vice versa?

---

Again, you can't look at this as a modernist, because they were not modernists. The civil authority and the church were tied together and operated together, two heads. Dissenting from one was dissenting from the other, rebelling against one was rebelling against the other.

Quote:

---

All I know is somebody, somewhere thinks every Christian alive is a heretic in some form or fashion. The Nazis thought the News were heretics and acted on it. And almost 100% were Christian's. This is scary stuff.

---

This isn't how it is. The Nazis were secular moderns, and their secular worldview said that the state is absolute, but the state itself is only a container for the people who make it up. Because evolution is true, a weak people will make a weak state. To make the state powerful and strong, you have to have the best people, so you can't let the weak procreate. They didn't round up Jews because they didn't have the same "religion" - unless you're willing to call Nazism a religion. They rounded them up, and others, because they believed they were genetically and physically inferior (ostensibly - of course there were layers here). There were a lot of Americans who had sympathetic eugenicist views, too.

Nazi Germany is a great example of the result of a secular worldview. So is Soviet Russia. And Mussolini's Italy. And today's Communist-turned-militant-nationalist China. And you have to say, modern amoral America. The common theme isn't what they conclude with their secular worldview, because all of them take different basic assumptions. The commonality is that their lack of a check on secular power leads to a totalizing secular state.

In Germany it was the Jews and other 'undesirables'. In Russia it was the Christians. In China its the Uygurs. If you don't want Nazi Germany, or the rest, the correct remedy is to have a moral authority that can check the state.

---

Thanks for the clarification. I understand what you are saying now.

Quo Vadis? said:

---

dermdoc said:

---

Zobel said:

---

i can't answer for him but his post doesn't mean "we need to kill modern protestants" and doesn't say anything about "everyone outside the church is damned". it means just what it says.

my take on what he said is that the effects of the reformation on the grand scale include the collapse of Christendom and the rise of the secular, materialist worldview. the baseline understanding of the Good - the purpose we all strive for at the societal level - is no longer salvation or even the pagan virtues, but animalistic fulfillment of our desires: freedom to do what we want, and prosperity to enable it, even if what we want is bad for us. this materialistic self-indulgence, demonic giving of knowledge and technology to enable it ("reason") is behind every fall. we're reliving the cautionary tale of the apple, of prometheus, pandora, the watchers, of babel.

if this had been prevented (i don't know that it was possible, but this is a counterfactual right?) millions of souls would have been saved - absolutely. millions of deaths in warfare. literal billions of abortions perhaps could have been prevented.

he didn't say anything about today's protestants, but the protestant reformers.

---

Okay. So you think the Reformers should have been executed? For the greater good?

And that is Christ like?

Should Christ have executed all the Pharisees? Because they were obviously heretical as concerned His teachings?

As you might guess, I disagree.

---

Doc, you don't think Judas is in hell, even though Christ himself calls him the son of Hell. I know where you're coming from, but your disagreements seemed to be based more on your own personal interpretation of Christian morality.

---

I just read Thou shalt not kill as pretty clear. A lot of theologians agree with me. As a non Catholic, it sounds like to me you are accepting church doctrine which to me is not Biblically sound.

can a civil authority execute someone and exhibit the fruits of the spirit? specifically, peace, love, faithfulness?

is it ever required by justice for someone to kill another?

to put a finer point on it - when God kills people in the OT, is He being unloving or unlike the Spirit?

Zobel said:

---

can a civil authority execute someone and exhibit the fruits of the spirit? specifically, peace, love, faithfulness?

is it ever required by justice for someone to kill another?

to put a finer point on it - when God kills people in the OT, is He being unloving or unlike the Spirit?

---

I will be honest and say I do not know. I trust God and accept on faith why those actions occurred in the OT.

All I know is Jesus, who is God Incarnate, never killed or advocated killing anyone. In fact, he was killed by the civil authorities after being accused of blasphemy by the religious establishment.
I also know when the disciples wanted Jesus to rain fire and destroy their enemies, Jesus reprimanded them.

Look, I really respect you and love you as a brother in Christ, will agree to disagree.

747Ag said:

---

One of the oddities from this thread is that the loss of human life seems to be considered more tragic than the loss of a soul.

Salus Animarum Suprema Lex

---

I can only answer for myself but that is not what I am saying at all.

I am having a hard time connecting the dots between civil authority and the life and behavior of Christ's Church. Our government is not in any way our authority. We are told to submit to it, but once it goes opposite to the law of God, we should defy it.

It is impossible for God to be unloving, any of those put to death in the OT were justifiable according to God's law.

Nowhere in the history of God's Church as setup by Christ through his Apostles was the idea of putting to death heretics. I would be happy to hear otherwise if you have something, I am surely not as learned as you and others when it comes to Church history.

So please help me understand how the idea that Quo Vadis recently set forth, that he would in fact put to death a Protestant if it hypothetically would stop the spread of that so called heresy.

10andBOUNCE said:

---

I am having a hard time connecting the dots between civil authority and the life and behavior of Christ's Church. Our government is not in any way our authority. We are told to submit to it, but once it goes opposite to the law of God, we should defy it.

It is impossible for God to be unloving, any of those put to death in the OT were justifiable according to God's law.

Nowhere in the history of God's Church as setup by Christ through his Apostles was the idea of putting to death heretics. I would be happy to hear otherwise if you have something, I am surely not as learned as you and others when it comes to Church history.

So please help me understand how the idea that Quo Vadis recently set forth, that he would in fact put to death a Protestant if it hypothetically would stop the spread of that so called heresy.

---

Agree.
It is ironic that the Jewish religious establishment used the civil authorities, the Romans, to kill Jesus for being a blasphemer.
Jesus certainly never used the civil authorities to further His Kingdom.

Zobel said:

---

I am fine to agree to disagree and I think you are not wrong for approaching this with the aim of maximizing gentleness. St Seraphim said - "You cannot be too gentle, too kind. Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other. Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of him who gives and kindles joy in the heart of him who receives. All condemnation is from the devil. Never condemn each other. We condemn others only because we shun knowing ourselves. When we gaze at our own failings, we see such a swamp that nothing in another can equal it. That is why we turn away, and make much of the faults of others. Instead of condemning others, strive to reach inner peace. Keep silent, refrain from judgement. This will raise you above the deadly arrows of slander, insult and outrage and will shield your glowing hearts against all evil." This is a beautiful thing.

We must also say - that Jesus Christ has killed people, and not only advocated but commanded killing. The scriptures say: "The LORD is a man of war." If we have to wrestle with this, we should wrestle.

Christ Jesus was wrongfully accused of blasphemy, was wrongfully judged, was wrongfully executed, and voluntarily laid his life down in that injustice to save mankind from death. This does not mean that there are not those who are justly accused, justly judged, justly executed.

---

Agree. Just seems a slippery slope. And I believe innocent people were also burned at the stake for being unjustly called heretics.

I trust Jesus administering justice. I do not trust men.

Quote:

---

Our government is not in any way our authority. We are told to submit to it, but once it goes opposite to the law of God, we should defy it.

---

You are approaching this as a secular modernist. You've divided the civil authority from your faith. This is unthinkable for any human (Israelite, pagan, Christian) until the modern era. You can't read this attitude or the philosophical assumptions that inform it backward into history.

We can look to the Torah. There is not a split between the civil and religious authority. There is no concept of secular government. There is no concept of being a part of Israel, but like... not a religious Israelite. If you didn't follow the faith of Israel, it wasn't "oh ok you can go do that". You were executed or exiled. You could not be a part of the nation of Israel and not follow the faith of Israel. They were intimately linked, if you rejected one you rejected the other; if you embraced one, you embraced the other. That was priest and king.

Quote:

---

Nowhere in the history of God's Church as setup by Christ through his Apostles was the idea of putting to death heretics.

---

So - this is then demonstrably false. God's church is the assembly of God, which did not begin in AD 30. The assembly of the faithful people of God - Israel - began at the first Pentecost. I cannot stress enough that Jesus Christ did not found a new religion. The Apostles did not found a new religion. They didn't "convert" to Christianity, St Paul never "converted". They worshipped the same God, in continuity. The gentiles converted into faith for Yahweh.

St Paul tells the church - "expel the evil out from among you." This quotation is associated with execution in the Torah repeatedly!

In our modern era where we do not have a Christian state, where the state is explicitly secular, it would be wrong... and really not even thinkable to hand a heretic to the civil government. All we can do is put them outside the faithful - which we should do! we are commanded to! But in a Christian state, when we put them outside of the faithful we are also putting them outside of the people. They are not part of our nation any more. And sometimes the crimes that are so severe to cause such a drastic measure - being cut off from the people and assembly of God is spiritual execution, spiritual death - that they also require physical death to be meted out by the state. For example, if a person cannot safely be around others, or if they are unrepentant in their sin and will continue in it (and therefore cannot be around others).

Quote:

---

he would in fact put to death a Protestant if it hypothetically would stop the spread of that so called heresy.

---

What should Phinehas have done with the Israelite having ritual sex with a Midianite priestess-prostitute in the worship of Baal Peor?

Do you think it is possible for there to be real, actual harm - spiritual and physical - from heretical or pagan teachings to the people of God? And if so, do the civil and religious authorities have a responsibility and duty to the people to intervene?

Would you be willing to put someone to death to prevent them from killing others? An unrepentant abortionist, for example, after a trial? What about a person who is unrepentantly sacrificing children to a pagan God?

Zobel said:

---

Quote:

---

Our government is not in any way our authority. We are told to submit to it, but once it goes opposite to the law of God, we should defy it.

---

You are approaching this as a secular modernist. You've divided the civil authority from your faith. This is unthinkable for any human (Israelite, pagan, Christian) until the modern era. You can't read this attitude or the philosophical assumptions that inform it backward into history.

We can look to the Torah. There is not a split between the civil and religious authority. There is no concept of secular government. There is no concept of being a part of Israel, but like... not a religious Israelite. If you didn't follow the faith of Israel, it wasn't "oh ok you can go do that". You were executed or exiled. You could not be a part of the nation of Israel and not follow the faith of Israel. They were intimately linked, if you rejected one you rejected the other; if you embraced one, you embraced the other. That was priest and king.

Quote:

---

Nowhere in the history of God's Church as setup by Christ through his Apostles was the idea of putting to death heretics.

---

So - this is then demonstrably false. God's church is the assembly of God, which did not begin in AD 30. The assembly of the faithful people of God - Israel - began at the first Pentecost. I cannot stress enough that Jesus Christ did not found a new religion. The Apostles did not found a new religion. They didn't "convert" to Christianity, St Paul never "converted". They worshipped the same God, in continuity. The gentiles converted into faith for Yahweh.

St Paul tells the church - "expel the evil out from among you." This quotation is associated with execution in the Torah repeatedly!

In our modern era where we do not have a Christian state, where the state is explicitly secular, it would be wrong... and really not even thinkable to hand a heretic to the civil government. All we can do is put them outside the faithful - which we should do! we are commanded to! But in a Christian state, when we put them outside of the faithful we are also putting them outside of the people. They are not part of our nation any more. And sometimes the crimes that are so severe to cause such a drastic measure - being cut off from the people and assembly of God is spiritual execution, spiritual death - that they also require physical death to be meted out by the state. For example, if a person cannot safely be around others, or if they are unrepentant in their sin and will continue in it (and therefore cannot be around others).

Quote:

---

he would in fact put to death a Protestant if it hypothetically would stop the spread of that so called heresy.

---

What should Phinehas have done with the Israelite having ritual sex with a Midianite priestess-prostitute in the worship of Baal Peor?

Do you think it is possible for there to be real, actual harm - spiritual and physical - from heretical or pagan teachings to the people of God? And if so, do the civil and religious authorities have a responsibility and duty to the people to intervene?

Would you be willing to put someone to death to prevent them from killing others? An unrepentant abortionist, for example, after a trial? What about a person who is unrepentantly sacrificing children to a pagan God?

---

That is not what the vast amount of "heretics" were executed for. Those are civil crimes also.
I am talking about when there are not civil crimes committed. I am talking about the church using the civil authorities to execute people only with different theology.

Phinehas killed a man for practicing a different religion. Only different theology.

Zobel said:

---

it isn't our choice, trust or don't trust. Moses wasn't set over the Israelites by vote. in fact they didn't trust him, and rebelled, and God took that as rebellion against him. Aaron wasn't made high priest because they trusted him. and in fact, Korah and others rebelled because they wanted to be priests - "You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?" they died, swallowed into the earth or consumed by fire from the Lord.

if we trust Jesus, we have to trust Him in His will, and say - those who have authority do so because the Lord wills it. that's why Christ says to Pilate. that's what St Paul teaches.

and we have to trust that even with unjust rulers, and unjust civil authorities, and unjust priests - because that happens - that the Lord will administer justice. they will answer to God, not us. and if we personally suffer unjustly, we receive justice from God, not from men. remember what the three youths say to Nebuchadnezzar - "we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up."

God will save us, but if He doesn't, we haven't lost. the just and unjust alike will receive justice from the great Judge - this life is not where justice is found.

---

Agree. I personally would never refer a "heretic" to the civil authorities for execution.

Zobel said:

---

You are approaching this as a secular modernist. You've divided the civil authority from your faith. This is unthinkable for any human (Israelite, pagan, Christian) until the modern era.

---

I would be curious your interpretation of Jesus' response regarding paying taxes to Caesar (render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's)

Quote:

---

They worshipped the same God, in continuity. The gentiles converted into faith for Yahweh.

---

I am not sure how we can affirm this. Christians believe in the triune God while the Jews would obviously not.

Quote:

---

Would you be willing to put someone to death to prevent them from killing others? An unrepentant abortionist, for example, after a trial? What about a person who is unrepentantly sacrificing children to a pagan God?

---

I am not anti-death in the context of an eye for an eye. etc.

Agree with your first paragraph.

So do you think everyone executed by the Catholic Church for heresy was justly treated?

Or do you believe the Catholic Church is infallible and incapable of injustice?

Because that is the crux of this discussion.

Quo Vadis? said:

---

dermdoc said:

---

Agree with your first paragraph.

So do you think everyone executed by the Catholic Church for heresy was justly treated?

Or do you believe the Catholic Church is infallible and incapable of injustice?

Because that is the crux of this discussion.

---

No I'm sure they were a ton of people who were unjustly treated. The Catholic Church is infallible as the body of Christ, led by fallible men completely capable of injustice.

---

Then why do you trust them to turn heretics over to civil authorities for punishment or execution?

Would you be for putting to death those "bad apples" that are within the Catholic Church? Purging the evil?