ehBeth wrote:I'd love to know what Martin Luther would think of the 700 Club and other tithing institutions of today.
This is so pathetic. No one here is proposing duelling religions. Start a thread (if you need another one) bashing Christianity.
These aren't criticisms. They're historical facts. What are you afraid of?
smog wrote:Lash:
Why couldn't it be an affirmation of what Luther thought the true church was? Someone doesn't create/establish/form/whatever religions solely because some other guy has it wrong, but rather mainly because that first person thinks he has it right. Especially in the case of Christianity, where most of the major branches trace their roots back directly to the Apostles, it would be a bit shortsighted to say that the main root of Luther's church was going against Catholicism.
There had been a few people trying to reform the church in the centuries before Luther - but not in their basics, they still stayed "children of the Holy Roman Church".
Quote:Luther said that what differentiated him from previous reformers was that they attacked the life of the church, while he confronted its doctrine. Whereas they denounced the sins of churchmen, he was disillusioned by the whole scholastic scheme of redemption. The church taught that man could atone for his sins through confession and absolution in the sacrament of penance. Luther found that he could not remember or even recognize all of his sins, and the attempt to dispose of them one by one was like trying to cure smallpox by picking off the scabs. Indeed, he believed that the whole man was sick. The church, however, held that the individual was not so sick that salvation could not be earned through faith and good works. .... [etc]
... quoted from Britannica, so I don't have to formulate it by myself.
I will be glad to bring his own words. They will be good enough.
This is not a condemnation--but a fair view of events.
Lash wrote:I will be glad to bring his own words. They will be good enough.
This is not a condemnation--but a fair view of events.
I could scan some of the above from the reproductions of the original writings, if you really won't believe: this are his own words, only in indirect speech and a little bit summarized.
Honestly, Lash: you don't know the number of Luther's theses, but want to tell me that you can Luther writings better than I do? When did you learn Middle High German?
Walter-- You really should stop taking yourself so seriously. One can forget a number, but be well acquainted with the motive and result.
Why are you always trying to negate someone else, instead of just adding to it?
It's a poor quality.
A century before Martin Luther, Jan Hus protested against corruption in the Church, because of the schism then existant in the Church, with two popes (three before it was all done). This was the second "great schism" (the first great schism had irrevocably divided the Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churchs from the Roman Church in the 11th century). From 1378 there were competing Popes, and this was no resolved until the Council of Constance, which sat from 1414 to 1418. Jan Hus had loudly and publicly complained of the corruption which surrounded the papacies, both of which sold ecclesiastic sees, and both of which practiced simony, the sale of indulgences (one paid X amount for the remission of one's sins). Jan Hus was invited to Constance, and was promised immunity from prosecution. He went, against the advice of his supporters, and was there betrayed and burned as a heretic. The Austrian thereafter had a serious war on their hands with the Hussites. Hus was Bohemian (Czech for the modern reader unfamiliar with Bohemia), and his followers were often members of the skilled trades, including gunsmiths. They ended by travelling in heavily defended wagon trains, and when attacked by Austrian forces, would circle the wagons and shoot it out--they usually won. The Hussites were the first "Protestants" to successfully resist Church authority, they just weren't known as Protestants.
The end of the schism did not mean the end of corruption. The renaissance popes lead ever more extravagent life styles, paid for expensive projects (such as the renovation of St. Peter's, with Michaelangelo painting the ceiling in the basilica), and financed ruinous secular wars to preserve the papal control of their temporal estates in Italy. As the money ran out, they resorted again to selling episcopal sees and simony. Finally, a notorious German tax farmer was sent into Saxony to sell indulgences before the fact. He'd sell you forgiveness for sins you had not yet committed, or you could buy your already deceased family member's way out of Hell or Purgatory. He was despised, and the Duke of Saxony was no supporter of the practice of Simony. This was a century after the martyrdom of Hus (considered a heretic by the Church, he was considered a martyr by many Bohemians and Germans), and the Germans were less than enthused to see the practice of simony revived, and many members of the Church and of the aristocracy saw it as stealing from the poor because of their credulity. This was when Luther posted his ninety-five theses at Wittenberg, and the Reformation began.
This is only a very simplistic and superficial explanation. Several topics can be "googled" to get more detailed information:
The Avignon Papacy (or Avignon Popes)
The Great Schism (this will yield two results, either the schism of the 11th century, or the later schism of the 14th & 15th centuries--both are interesting, the latter is the one from which the practice of simony became widespread, and from which the Reformation eventually resulted)
Albigensians and Waldensians (two early "heretical" sects which predate the Hussites and the Protestants--a crusade was actually declared against the Albigensians)
Jan Hus and the Hussites
The Council of Constance
The Borgia Popes
John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli (post-Luther Reformation leaders)
John Knox (he took Calvin's teaching to Scotland, from which the Scots Kirk was formed, and Presbyterianism eventually derived--he also spread his teaching in England, from whence the Puritans)
Martin Luther, the Ninety-five Theses and the Augsburg Confession
This is a truly complex subject, but what is appalling is the ignorance displayed by Protestants about the origins of their own churchs.
I am always amused to see that Lash La Rue never lets a little thing such as almost total historical ignorance get in the way of condemning the contributions of Walter and others.
Hey Girl, if Luther ran true to form, he'd be all over the 700 Club like ugly on a ape . . .
Lash wrote:Walter-- You really should stop taking yourself so seriously. One can forget a number, but be well acquainted with the motive and result.
Why are you always trying to negate someone else, instead of just adding to it?
It's a poor quality.
Yes, such is said in the 13 Commandments by the 10 apostles.
It really is fascinating. I highly recommend reading on the subjects suggested above. A Christian should certainly be well-versed in it.
I'm thinking a protestant christian should be well-versed in something (for a change). the catholic christians are bad enough as they are.
That's pretty bad, too, ol' Hoss . . .
Setanta wrote:I am always amused to see that Lash La Rue never lets a little thing such as almost total historical ignorance get in the way of condemning the contributions of Walter and others.
Hey Girl, if Luther ran true to form, he'd be all over the 700 Club like ugly on a ape . . .
Point out one statement I said that is incorrect, in addition to the momentary number error.
And, the 700 Club has no place in this thread. Start another if you feel compelled to bash Christianity more than you already have.
Why afraid to discuss the faults of Catholicism?? Can't do it without trying to drag another religion into it, eh? I thought the 700 Club was an abomination, personally. You're not scoring on me with that pathetic dodge of the issue.
Why do protestants deny their catholic heritage?
I was responding to my Girl's remark about the 700 Club, and that comment was therefore none of your damned business. And the 700 Club is very damned much to the point in such a thread, which has, inevitably come to the point of discussing greed and corruption among christian leaders.
on the other hand, sending missionaries to christianize the savages assumes that the savages aren't already dangerous enough. Perhaps educating protestants would produce even more dangerous savages. Where would the KKK be today if they had not been given matches?
Yes, another Christian bashing thread. I would think that would get tiresome after awhile.
Momma Angel wrote:Yes, another Christian bashing thread. I would think that would get tiresome after awhile.
Hardly, it's a minor form of intertainment not at all unlike T.V. "reality" shows, ever watch "touched by an angel?" No? me either.
dyslexia wrote:on the other hand, sending missionaries to christianize the savages assumes that the savages aren't already dangerous enough. Perhaps educating protestants would produce even more dangerous savages. Where would the KKK be today if they had not been given matches?
After the 1898 Spanish War, McKinley was telling reporters that America had a mission to bring the guiding light of Jesus to the poor, benighted Philippinos--when one of them pointed out that the Philippinos were already Catholic, McKinley responded: "Exactly." (Them Protestants just crack me up.)
Take a chill pill, MOAN, if you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen.
