I'm not choosing the lesser of two evils anymore

[cutenickname]

Scripture paints a picture of discretely approaching erring Christians, then reporting them to competent Ecclesiastical authority, which in this case  would be his bishop and the Pope. If neither of these men have seen fit to excommunicate him or censure him, so much for anyone else's opinions.

The meme contains a number of theologically problematic themes. 1) The idea that the relation of Christ to the baptized, professing Christian is the same as his relation to the money changers at the Temple. 2) The idea that God's direct actions of discipline, etc towards the Christian are punitive rather than medicinal. 3) The bizarre, Catholics are not alone in this, so do not be offended, un-Biblical idea that the primary way we as Christians need to interact with "the world" and Christians who appear to be in grave sin (appear to be, because the actual guilt of anyone for anything is actually a matter known only to God and to a lesser extent to the person themselves) is by preaching the wickedness of those acts/belief. It is not.

The primary way of cooperating with the Holy Spirit and bringing such people to bend the knee to Christ is NOT engaging them in arguments about their specific evil acts, but pointing out to them that they are utterly lost without putting faith in Christ. Indeed, whether you support abortion or object to it Scripture says you are lost if you are expecting to see God based on those positions rather than on a living faith in the Lord Jesus.

Not once in the NT does one get the impression that the Apostles or Jesus Himself are interested in getting the pagan Roman state to stop: allowing divorce, practicing slavery, leaving infants exposed at roadsides, allowing people to engage in a wide range of sex acts that most people here think are modern inventions. I understand that Biden and Trump (and most of our politicians) being brothers (baptized Christians who have not formally apostatized) complicates things, but I still do not think Scripture or the Early Tradition of the Church (by which I always mean something that includes, but is not limited to Catholicism) justifies either the obsession with politics or the tired moral reductionism so many Christians engage in now.

 

5 minutes ago, cutenickname said:

Scripture paints a picture of discretely approaching erring Christians, then reporting them to competent Ecclesiastical authority, which in this case  would be his bishop and the Pope. If neither of these men have seen fit to excommunicate him or censure him, so much for anyone else's opinions.

The meme contains a number of theologically problematic themes. 1) The idea that the relation of Christ to the baptized, professing Christian is the same as his relation to the money changers at the Temple. 2) The idea that God's direct actions of discipline, etc towards the Christian are punitive rather than medicinal. 3) The bizarre, Catholics are not alone in this, so do not be offended, un-Biblical idea that the primary way we as Christians need to interact with "the world" and Christians who appear to be in grave sin (appear to be, because the actual guilt of anyone for anything is actually a matter known only to God and to a lesser extent to the person themselves) is by preaching the wickedness of those acts/belief. It is not.

The primary way of cooperating with the Holy Spirit and bringing such people to bend the knee to Christ is NOT engaging them in arguments about their specific evil acts, but pointing out to them that they are utterly lost without putting faith in Christ. Indeed, whether you support abortion or object to it Scripture says you are lost if you are expecting to see God based on those positions rather than on a living faith in the Lord Jesus.

Not once in the NT does one get the impression that the Apostles or Jesus Himself are interested in getting the pagan Roman state to stop: allowing divorce, practicing slavery, leaving infants exposed at roadsides, allowing people to engage in a wide range of sex acts that most people here think are modern inventions. I understand that Biden and Trump (and most of our politicians) being brothers (baptized Christians who have not formally apostatized) complicates things, but I still do not think Scripture or the Early Tradition of the Church (by which I always mean something that includes, but is not limited to Catholicism) justifies either the obsession with politics or the tired moral reductionism so many Christians engage in now.

 

This was a response to my sister @Lilllabettt.

[Lilllabettt]

1 hour ago, cutenickname said:

Scripture paints a picture of discretely approaching erring Christians, then reporting them to competent Ecclesiastical authority, which in this case  would be his bishop and the Pope. If neither of these men have seen fit to excommunicate him or censure him, so much for anyone else's opinions.

The meme contains a number of theologically problematic themes. 1) The idea that the relation of Christ to the baptized, professing Christian is the same as his relation to the money changers at the Temple. 2) The idea that God's direct actions of discipline, etc towards the Christian are punitive rather than medicinal. 3) The bizarre, Catholics are not alone in this, so do not be offended, un-Biblical idea that the primary way we as Christians need to interact with "the world" and Christians who appear to be in grave sin (appear to be, because the actual guilt of anyone for anything is actually a matter known only to God and to a lesser extent to the person themselves) is by preaching the wickedness of those acts/belief. It is not.

The primary way of cooperating with the Holy Spirit and bringing such people to bend the knee to Christ is NOT engaging them in arguments about their specific evil acts, but pointing out to them that they are utterly lost without putting faith in Christ. Indeed, whether you support abortion or object to it Scripture says you are lost if you are expecting to see God based on those positions rather than on a living faith in the Lord Jesus.

Not once in the NT does one get the impression that the Apostles or Jesus Himself are interested in getting the pagan Roman state to stop: allowing divorce, practicing slavery, leaving infants exposed at roadsides, allowing people to engage in a wide range of sex acts that most people here think are modern inventions. I understand that Biden and Trump (and most of our politicians) being brothers (baptized Christians who have not formally apostatized) complicates things, but I still do not think Scripture or the Early Tradition of the Church (by which I always mean something that includes, but is not limited to Catholicism) justifies either the obsession with politics or the tired moral reductionism so many Christians engage in now.

 

This was a response to my sister @Lilllabettt.

Nah.

This is what Jesus says:

15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault,  just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church;and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector." Matthew 18

The private correction and bringing of witnesses is unnecessary since his crimes against the poor are publicly known and announced publicly by the evildoer himself. The church is aware and has told him he is wrong. He has been advised by competent ecclesiastical authority and been denied communion at least once. He persists. 

 "Fr Z" recently wrote on his blog re the SSPX that a schismatic is not a schismatic unless they have been formally declared to be that way. Nonsense. You yourself claim to be an apostate do you not? Are we not to consider you an apostate then, because a complex and expensive procedure has not been carried out to formally declare you so? Legalistic pharisaical nonsense. Deforming human reason this way is a form of mutilation. 

The early Church has a strong tradition of discipline and excommunication for those who participate in, expand, or enforce immoral civil law. Example: one punishment for obeying civil law re: incense burning to pagan gods was excommunication, lifted by public confession and 7 years public penance. The early Christians would probably be horrified at our softness and lack of discipline. 

St Paul says:

9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. 12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” 1 Corinthians 5.

BUT You are right.

Biden has not been formally excommunicated. He is therefore not to be treated as a tax collector or gentile.

He remains a member of the Church. Therefore his abuse of and indifference to the suffering of the poorest of the poor at the merciless hands of a corrupted government cannot be excused.  Rather he should be judged in the harshest of possible terms. 

His attempts to profit politically from his connection to the Catholic faith, while at the same time upholding and pledging to expand civil laws stripping human rights from the poor, maps closely on to the money changers in the temple.

If he were a wiser man, he would wish the church would cast him out. 

[cutenickname]

@LilllabetttSeveral things and this will probably be my last response on the topic for a bit:

1. Do you believe those verses from Matt 18 disagree with the first part paragraph of my response?

2. I simply disagree with you about the public nature of his "crimes" being such that following the mandate of Scripture need not apply. If the Church has "told him he is wrong." without excommunicating him, either the Church has decided in his individual circumstance he is not guilty of the sin unto death (1 John 5:16-17) or it is misapplying Scripture. 

3. As to whether or not you as an individual are in any position to decide that one priest denying communion to a Christian we both think think is in grave objective error on the subject of abortion means that you are free to advocate that people post memes of the Lord Jesus preparing to scourge him, this is yet another moment of us disagreeing.

4.  I am not sure what SSPX's strange canonical situation or my having left the Catholic Church because I am neither convinced of its claims about itself nor at all willing to repent of marrying, loving, and sleeping with my husband while raising my children to fear Almighty God and take His Word as a lamp unto their feet (Psalm 119:105) has to do with Joe Biden or Fox News Meme Jesus. Please elaborate if you think doing so would be good for my soul.

5. The civil law you describe involved the blasphemous post-baptismal denial of Jesus Christ's uniqueness by worshiping heathen deities (usually the Emperor himself). It is not the same as making a prudential decision about the civil law. We do not find excommunications in the early Church for failing to oppose the Empire's general course and the pagan cast of its culture.  To make your analogy work we'd have to find the early Church excommunicating people who though it was imprudent to outlaw the exposure of infants. (People who thought, or said they thought, this act was wrong and horrifying as it obviously is, but who felt no particular need to change the civil law on the matter.)

6. Which thing from 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 do you think Joe Biden is? (Interestingly the Greek word used in vs 9 is Pornos which is generally understood in every context other than Bible translating to mean Prostitutes, a very specific kind of sexually immoral persons if you had the "immorality" of my homosexual marriage in mind not Joe Biden, not saying you did just putting it out there in the event that is what you had in mind.) I am also curious as to who you think St Paul (pray for us) was empowering to do this judging, expelling, and disassociating?

7. The rest of your response is mostly going farther into speculation on the state of Biden's soul than I am comfortable commenting on. I do want to point out regarding "remains a member of the Church" even after excommunication he would remain so. Indeed, in Catholic ecclesiology every Baptized Christian is a member of the Church, just with varying degrees of impaired/non-impaired communion. This was the actual logic that allowed things like the Inquisition to function. By valid baptism one becomes a member or the Mystical body and a subject of its earthly head, etc.

 

 

[cutenickname]

Any snark or hostility in my response is a failing on my part and not intended to be hostile. I am a work in the hands of God and under the tutelage of His grace. I often fail to speak gently and humbly, but it is only rarely from outright hostility. I love those called by the name of Christ with a zeal that increases daily. It is my most fervent desire and prayer that those of us who are caught up in "so great a salvation" (Hebrews 2:3) by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, baptism in the name of the Trinity, and trust in the all-sufficiency of God's grace may awake some morning in a place where the divisions we have suffered on this earth are no more and we can join Our Blessed Mother, the Angels, and the triumphant saints in singing God's glory for an eternity. I love you if you are called by my Lord's name and trust that he can make you stand on the last day (Romans 14:4). Pray for me as I pray for you.

Some Scriptures I try to live by:

Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. Romans 14:4

That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. John 17:21

And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1 John 4:21

What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 1 Cor 1:12-13

 

[Lilllabettt]

3 minutes ago, cutenickname said:

@LilllabetttSeveral things and this will probably be my last response on the topic for a bit:

1. Do you believe those verses from Matt 18 disagree with the first part paragraph of my response?

2. I simply disagree with you about the public nature of his "crimes" being such that following the mandate of Scripture need not apply. If the Church has "told him he is wrong." without excommunicating him, either the Church has decided in his individual circumstance he is not guilty of the sin unto death (1 John 5:16-17) or it is misapplying Scripture. 

3. As to whether or not you as an individual are in any position to decide that one priest denying communion to a Christian we both think think is in grave objective error on the subject of abortion means that you are free to advocate that people post memes of the Lord Jesus preparing to scourge him, this is yet another moment of us disagreeing.

4.  I am not sure what SSPX's strange canonical situation or my having left the Catholic Church because I am neither convinced of its claims about itself nor at all willing to repent of marrying, loving, and sleeping with my husband while raising my children to fear Almighty God and take His Word as a lamp unto their feet (Psalm 119:105) has to do with Joe Biden or Fox News Meme Jesus. Please elaborate if you think doing so would be good for my soul.

5. The civil law you describe involved the blasphemous post-baptismal denial of Jesus Christ's uniqueness by worshiping heathen deities (usually the Emperor himself). It is not the same as making a prudential decision about the civil law. We do not find excommunications in the early Church for failing to oppose the Empire's general course and the pagan cast of its culture.  To make your analogy work we'd have to find the early Church excommunicating people who though it was imprudent to outlaw the exposure of infants. (People who thought, or said they thought, this act was wrong and horrifying as it obviously is, but who felt no particular need to change the civil law on the matter.)

6. Which thing from 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 do you think Joe Biden is? (Interestingly the Greek word used in vs 9 is Pornos which is generally understood in every context other than Bible translating to mean Prostitutes, a very specific kind of sexually immoral persons if you had the "immorality" of my homosexual marriage in mind not Joe Biden, not saying you did just putting it out there in the event that is what you had in mind.) I am also curious as to who you think St Paul (pray for us) was empowering to do this judging, expelling, and disassociating?

7. The rest of your response is mostly going farther into speculation on the state of Biden's soul than I am comfortable commenting on. I do want to point out regarding "remains a member of the Church" even after excommunication he would remain so. Indeed, in Catholic ecclesiology every Baptized Christian is a member of the Church, just with varying degrees of impaired/non-impaired communion. This was the actual logic that allowed things like the Inquisition to function. By valid baptism one becomes a member or the Mystical body and a subject of its earthly head, etc.

 

 

1. Basically yes Mathew 18 disagrees with you. I don't think Jesus had in mind canonical trials, lawyers, and levels of clerical hierarchy when he said to "tell the church."  That's an ossified legalistic interpretation of the Gospel. "The Church" here is the Body of Christ not a clerical hierarchy and canonical process. 

2. See above. The Church (meaning the clerical hierarchy and legal structures) missaplies Scripture in the external forum, is derelict in its basic duties to the poor and the vulnerable. ALL. THE. TIME. I don't believe the Church regularly practices any type of discipline these days, other than denying funerals to the mafia. The bankruptcy of the hierarchy doesn't prove anything. Every day members of the Body of Christ can call a spade a spade.

3. The powerful in general should be ridiculed mocked and scorned in public for their exploitation of Christianity and indifference to the poor. You can put Jerry Falwells face where Joe Bidens is. Or for an examination of conscience put your own. But you do not sit in high places of honor enjoy fame fortune and reputation so it is less appropriate for other Christians to judge you should you act wickedly. The powerful should be mocked for abusing the poor, rightly so, as Jesus ridiculed them to their face. 

4. The SSPX reference is to demonstrate how legalistic ridiculousness appears coming from the right. The stretches, gymnastics, technicalities and minute specifics people hang their faith on to excuse their plainly noxious "prudential judgments."

5. See above. I have no idea what types of gymnastics you endure to justify your way of living with Christianity. (I mean, I know the various arguments but can't imagine the weight and burden of bending my brain to the degree required to accept them in conscience.) That is 100% your business. Formal legal processes aside I consider you outside the Church and therefore one who is to be treated like a gentile or tax collector. See? Theological posits and canonical processes aside I, like any normal member of the Church, can see on a practical level you are not Catholic and do not claim to be. Therefore it would be silly to hold you to the standards of Catholic morality, like a Jew being offended a gentile eats pork. 

The desire and need for a precise example in the practice of the early Church is another iteration of legalism and ossification. 

Having a prudential decision about  keeping abortion legal is wickedness, and that is plain as day to ordinary Christian sensibility. If there were law which described homosexual men as non persons and excluded them from the constitutional protection of their basic human rights. And some Christian came along with the "prudential judgment" that no repeal of that law is necessary, despite the unpunished murders of hundreds of thousands of gay men annually  --because *hearts and minds* -  that would be plain self evident wickedness. 

6. Once again ... the ways you justify living as you do aren't the point, although I do empathize as I said before the burden would be incredible to me. God bless you. Scripture nit picking - as in "oh this word refers to this specific kind of sex, but he didn't specifically call out gay sex, rape or premarital sex or threesomes so that kind of sex is ok then" -  is an example of legalistic ossified thinking, just like the SSPX.  You found a form of Christianity which conforms to how you want to live, but I doubt you would do as well among the early Church. But once again not my intention to comment on your sex life at all. Your conscience is your own. St Paul comments on all kinds of immorality - drunkenness, greed, swindling etc. It's not a determinative list. Like "these sins are the real bad ones yall throw folks out for these 5." Nope. That's ossification. 

Jesus commands us to judge justly. There is a legal dimension and a moral dimension to justice.  "Innocent until proven guilty" is a legal standard not a moral one. "Catholic in good standing until formally excommunicated" is a legal standard. Not a moral one.

7. It actually doesn't matter what the state of Bidens soul is. Just like St Paul didn't care whether "the wicked" are guilty of mortal sin or not. They are wicked because their acts were evil and they were obstinate in committing them, refusing to listen to the Church and confess. Therefore he commands they be cast out. No St Paul did not have a special looking glass to peer into souls and determine whether they are in mortal sin. He still commanded: cast them out. There is no contradiction between St Paul commanding us to judge insiders and Jesus commanding us to stop judging. Jesus refers to the internal forum, St Paul to the external. 

It is actually impossible to level excommunication against someone for "mortal sin." It's never been done, no one ever knows if someone else is in mortal sin. We can see plainly when someone does wickedness and evil, such as when the powerful tacitly accept or in Bidens case promise to expand, policy which refers to the poorest of the poor as "non persons".  Truly, I tremble to think what God has prepared for such men.  

 

 

 

[cutenickname]

1 hour ago, Lilllabettt said:

1. Basically yes Mathew 18 disagrees with you. I don't think Jesus had in mind canonical trials, lawyers, and levels of clerical hierarchy when he said to "tell the church."  That's an ossified legalistic interpretation of the Gospel. "The Church" here is the Body of Christ not a clerical hierarchy and canonical process. 

2. See above. The Church (meaning the clerical hierarchy and legal structures) missaplies Scripture in the external forum, is derelict in its basic duties to the poor and the vulnerable. ALL. THE. TIME. I don't believe the Church regularly practices any type of discipline these days, other than denying funerals to the mafia. The bankruptcy of the hierarchy doesn't prove anything. Every day members of the Body of Christ can call a spade a spade.

3. The powerful in general should be ridiculed mocked and scorned in public for their exploitation of Christianity and indifference to the poor. You can put Jerry Falwells face where Joe Bidens is. Or for an examination of conscience put your own. But you do not sit in high places of honor enjoy fame fortune and reputation so it is less appropriate for other Christians to judge you should you act wickedly. The powerful should be mocked for abusing the poor, rightly so, as Jesus ridiculed them to their face. 

4. The SSPX reference is to demonstrate how legalistic ridiculousness appears coming from the right. The stretches, gymnastics, technicalities and minute specifics people hang their faith on to excuse their plainly noxious "prudential judgments."

5. See above. I have no idea what types of gymnastics you endure to justify your way of living with Christianity. (I mean, I know the various arguments but can't imagine the weight and burden of bending my brain to the degree required to accept them in conscience.) That is 100% your business. Formal legal processes aside I consider you outside the Church and therefore one who is to be treated like a gentile or tax collector. See? Theological posits and canonical processes aside I, like any normal member of the Church, can see on a practical level you are not Catholic and do not claim to be. Therefore it would be silly to hold you to the standards of Catholic morality, like a Jew being offended a gentile eats pork. 

The desire and need for a precise example in the practice of the early Church is another iteration of legalism and ossification. 

Having a prudential decision about  keeping abortion legal is wickedness, and that is plain as day to ordinary Christian sensibility. If there were law which described homosexual men as non persons and excluded them from the constitutional protection of their basic human rights. And some Christian came along with the "prudential judgment" that no repeal of that law is necessary, despite the unpunished murders of hundreds of thousands of gay men annually  --because *hearts and minds* -  that would be plain self evident wickedness. 

6. Once again ... the ways you justify living as you do aren't the point, although I do empathize as I said before the burden would be incredible to me. God bless you. Scripture nit picking - as in "oh this word refers to this specific kind of sex, but he didn't specifically call out gay sex, rape or premarital sex or threesomes so that kind of sex is ok then" -  is an example of legalistic ossified thinking, just like the SSPX.  You found a form of Christianity which conforms to how you want to live, but I doubt you would do as well among the early Church. But once again not my intention to comment on your sex life at all. Your conscience is your own. St Paul comments on all kinds of immorality - drunkenness, greed, swindling etc. It's not a determinative list. Like "these sins are the real bad ones yall throw folks out for these 5." Nope. That's ossification. 

Jesus commands us to judge justly. There is a legal dimension and a moral dimension to justice.  "Innocent until proven guilty" is a legal standard not a moral one. "Catholic in good standing until formally excommunicated" is a legal standard. Not a moral one.

7. It actually doesn't matter what the state of Bidens soul is. Just like St Paul didn't care whether "the wicked" are guilty of mortal sin or not. They are wicked because their acts were evil and they were obstinate in committing them, refusing to listen to the Church and confess. Therefore he commands they be cast out. No St Paul did not have a special looking glass to peer into souls and determine whether they are in mortal sin. He still commanded: cast them out. There is no contradiction between St Paul commanding us to judge insiders and Jesus commanding us to stop judging. Jesus refers to the internal forum, St Paul to the external. 

It is actually impossible to level excommunication against someone for "mortal sin." It's never been done, no one ever knows if someone else is in mortal sin. We can see plainly when someone does wickedness and evil, such as when the powerful tacitly accept or in Bidens case promise to expand, policy which refers to the poorest of the poor as "non persons".  Truly, I tremble to think what God has prepared for such men.  

 

 

 

1. Who is Our Lord addressing in Matthew 18:18? (where he says:  Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.)

Peter and the 1st Century hierarchy or you and I?

I do understand that we are dealing with a large block of His Majesty's speech here and there are shifts in who he is addressing, but when he talks about establishing things by evidence, telling "it" to the Church and then goes own to mention binding and loosing I can't see how it is supportable to think he isn't describing having recourse to appropriate Ecclesial authority.  The entire chain of His thought seems to have started with the discourse about humility in Christian leadership we find at the start of Chapter 18.

I do think starting in vs 21 there is a kind of general address, but it is of the "there is only one Just Judge sort." Not of the "random lay people get to decide who is of sufficient holiness to be my disciple in a meaningful way" sort.

2. "Every day members of the Body of Christ can call a spade a spade." I mean we can, but your understanding seems built on a somewhat eccentric definition of who/what the Body of Christ is. Me, you, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Mark Driscoll, John MacArthur, Catholic Bishops, contraceptive users, LGBTQIA folks, Latin Massers, Anglican lady priestesses, the Holy Father, etc are all members of said body. Either the baptized are the body of Christ or baptism is an empty symbol and the Church is a totally invisible entity.

3. I mostly agree with this. Ought that mocking (I assume you mean here shaming and correction) take the form of a jarring image of Jesus Christ preparing to do bodily harm to a Christian though?

4-7. I am not interested in debating the process of study and discernment that led to my opinions on homosexuality. You believe in an infallible church that has taught the same things on this topic throughout its history. I do not.

I do not think my position on this (Biden, the meme, how we are to respond to Christians we think are in grave error) legalistic per se at least not in an ossified spirit killing way. I just simply do not believe based on either the texts in question or the practice of the Church, at any point in its history, in any iteration of itself that lay people developing and acting on strong opinions of who is in or out based on their political positions or even most sins. I think Scripture describes and expects a medicinal LEGAL process, not us individually deciding that other Christians are demoniacs/false brethren we need to publicly rebuke. At least not when they are still confessing the Triune nature of God, the Eternal Sonship of Christ, and His literal bodily resurrection. This seems to have been the early Church's mere Christianity.

I'd also like to go back to the question of whether or not our actions regarding the sins of others are of medicinal or punitive inspiration. St Paul for instance does advise the Church leaders at Corinth to hand over a certain young man (who was sleeping with his stepmother) "to Satan," but it is expressly stated to be "for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord." This sounds harsh, but the intent is medicinal. I just cannot imagine Scripture empowering random believers to deal with one another or speculate about one another in these ways.

 

[cutenickname]

*holy father. I am an Episcopalian. I adhere to the branch theory of Catholicity. Both Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism reject this idea. I believe the Pope is the Primus inter pares of world bishops and in an undivided church would be in the extreme a court of last resort in the case of disputes within particular churches. As stated earlier the other two branches regard this as a false ecclesiology and each would regard itself as the fullness of truth and The Church in the formal and visible sense, but with various spiritual and other claims over the bodies and souls of other Christians (those not in communion with The Church). The Anglican Communion has a much smaller and humbler vision of itself as only a theological stream/communion/expression of Catholicity that also considers aspects of the Reformation critique of Western Christianity valid. I am not interested in debating the merits of this, Anglican orders, etc. I am just stating my position for clarity (though having re read this I doubt it added much clarity lol).

[Lilllabettt]

Church discipline is medicinal for two parties: the obstinate unrepentant sinner and the Church itself. The second sense is what motivated Paul to write to the Corinthians.  The second sense is in large part what motivated the extreme and, by our standards, harsh penances handed out by the early Church 

But discipline is always medicinal to obstinate sinners because there is no help for them as long as they remain in that condition within the Church.  They have no need for a physician, since they do not consider themselves sick. For them there is only eating and drinking judgment unto themselves.

Their judgment day will go far better if they are found outside of the Church, like so many gentiles and tax collectors, rather than if they are discovered as "wicked servants" within it.  Jesus is very patient with outsiders who miss the mark. With insiders who miss the mark He is decidedly less so. 

I do not think "the Church" refers to individual Catholics on their own deciding to shun each other. And yet I do not see this as a legal process either. It is more like the sensus fidelium. The position of the Church on the wickedness of "prudential judgment" re legal abortion is well known. 

"At least not when they are still confessing the Triune nature of God, the Eternal Sonship of Christ, and His literal bodily resurrection." Why? Even the devil does as much! Is the devil a Christian to be admitted to communion? Repentance is what differentiates a Christian from the devil. Not being without sin but confessing sin. 

"speculate about one another"

But there is no speculation right ... it's judgment on stuff in the external forum.

[cutenickname]

@Lilllabettt

Well I think we disagree on a number of points, especially on whether or not a person with a baptized soul can be out of the Body of Christ while they are still in their natural body (never mind the fact that literally no one on earth is competent to say whether the man in question is a Christian in very deep sin who to quote Lord Byron talking about something all together different is "Mad. Bad. And dangerous to know." or has a soul full of Sanctifying grace and a clear conscience). 

Curiously, I think my position is Rome's.

I don't think it is good for Jesus folks to debate each other in public, I interpret us as having a mere chat thus far.

We have stated our positions ably I think.

If you want the last word you can have it.

Blessings sister and pray for me, "The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects."

[Norseman82]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3iTaK7-o9I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7HNLcmLRuI

Edited September 20, 2020 by Norseman82

[little2add]

The Bipartisanship Of the Democrat party leadership is stunning, at Just the mere possibility of naming the next supreme court justice...

here is what Nancy is spouting:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Sunday’s broadcast of ABC’s “This Week,” that Democratic lawmakers have “arrows in our quiver,” when asked if impeachment was a possibility to stop a lame-duck Supreme Court nomination should President Donald Trump lose the White House in November and the vacancy following the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has not been filled.

 

After the hatchet job on Kavanaugh it seems the Democrats Are going to make this into anti-trump 

Thing

[Ash Wednesday]

15 hours ago, Norseman82 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3iTaK7-o9I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7HNLcmLRuI

I just thought I'd mention how much I really appreciate this particular priest, Fr. Goring. He speaks with authenticity and conviction, with down to earth clarity, straight from the heart. 

[Jaime]

On 9/20/2020 at 3:38 PM, Ash Wednesday said:

I just thought I'd mention how much I really appreciate this particular priest, Fr. Goring. He speaks with authenticity and conviction, with down to earth clarity, straight from the heart. 

I like him too!!

[dUSt]

On 9/20/2020 at 3:38 PM, Ash Wednesday said:

I just thought I'd mention how much I really appreciate this particular priest, Fr. Goring. He speaks with authenticity and conviction, with down to earth clarity, straight from the heart. 

Thanks! Subscribed.

[Peace]

OK that debate was a disgrace. I can't bring myself to vote for Trump. Considered it. Some of his policy I agree with. But I just can't vote for this man! He just seems like a despicable human being to me, sorry. Will probably be the ASP candidate again this year. I'm even considering Biden at this point, which I would feel much better about if Amy Coney gets confirmed before the election.