Quote:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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- your question was already answered. Those councils merely confirmed what was found in Scripture. That proves my point. Quit repeating questions as if everything went completely over your head. Try to understand.

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If is was found in scripture, why did heresies arise during these times?

This isn't going over my head. You are refusing to understand that not EVERYTHING is found clearly in scripture.

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"If it was found in Scripture, why did heresies arise during these times?" - I just can't believe this question. It a pure demonstration of the thinking flaws in you and other RC's here that I have to deconstruct in order to get you guys to see things logically.

Heretics are really good at not following Scripture. PLEASE tell me you're capable of understanding, for example, that docetism (Jesus did not have a real, physical body) is NOT in Scripture, and in fact is DIRECTLY CONTRADICTED by Scripture.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Coke Bear said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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- your first paragraph is just flat out wrong. In fact, it's exactly how cults operate.

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It is historically true that Jesus founded the Catholic Church. It is true that the Spirit of Truth (the Holy Spirit) would guide it in all truth.

My Church has existed for nearly 2000 years, but you believe that it is a something like a cult operates, YET, you refuse to state what church you belong to. YOU have made up a religion based on what YOU believe about the bible which contradicts what the earliest church fathers believe AND which also contradicts all of Church history for the first 1500 years. It sounds to me like you have made your old cult and are attempting to garner disciples here.

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It is true that the Holy Spirit would guide Jesus' church into all truth.

The question is whether the Roman Catholic Church is part of Jesus' church. I've think I've clearly established that it isn't.

My church is the entire body of true believers in Jesus Christ, all who have the Holy Spirit guiding them. This does not include your Church. Your Church has existed for 2000 years, yes (albeit inconsistently). So has God's true church (but consistent). The problem for Roman Catholicism is, those two are not the same thing.

The "made up religion" clearly would be Roman Catholicism, which is built on the whims of fallible man instead of the infallible word of God.

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Who put together the Bible? Who re-edited the Bible? Who re-interpreted the Bible? Glad man had nothing to do with it...

You are not even using the Original version, but man has nothing to do with it. Bible by itself is a storybook. Combined with the Church's history and traditions is the living Word of God. Vatnt separate the two....

" Bible by itself is a storybook"

That's a very atheist perspective. Did not expect that from FLBear.

Fre3dombear said:

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Mothra said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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Mothra said:

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4th and Inches said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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You have a lot to discuss with your priest the next time you go to confession.

But I doubt you will mention there the kind of things you said here.

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You are quite the judger of men in your own mind. Maybe God will have a special job for you when your time comes to take the load off Him a bit.

If you have not confessed your sins to a priest, you are living in mortal sin. Per the Bible. Assembled by Catholics, the Church founded by Jesus Christ

But mock as you wish. It is your free will

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where in the Bible does it say that? It says confess your sin to one another and to the one you sinned against, at no point does it say to confess only to a preist or you live in sin.

Comfessing to a preist is to allow a church member a safe place to confess sin as the church has tares among the wheat..

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Pearls before swine. You're dealing with someone who lacks basic reasoning abilities. He's been propagandized by Catholicism since he was a little boy. There's no getting through to him.

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Younger than that Even but thankfully born into the faith Jesus Christ left us. Helping as many as I can while I'm here. Praise God.

This here is someone posting that inly defense theyve made for their position on this board is nuh uh. Same as it ever was.

Simpleton perspective that canteven explain what they believed last 500 years.

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Yes, they indoctrinated you early, that is for sure. You were a good little altar boy. It would explain your blind allegiance and simplistic defenses.

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You have 2 defenses thus far when not losing it

Nuh uh and John 3:16. Yawn.

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There are numerous verses throughout scripture that state what Jesus said in John 3:16-18 which have been posted ad nauseum in this thread. And you have yet to refute any of them. I just thought it best to post Jesus own words, and get you on record disagreeing with Him.

If you were serious, you would at least have some retort for the numerous verses that contradict your position on salvation. But we both know you are incapable.

DallasBear9902 said:

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Brazil has been eliminated from the World Cup and a national examination of conscience will run for the next few months. Lots of Brazilian commentary out there that the Protestant conversion of Brazil over the past few decades is what has killed Brazilian futbol.

The discourse connecting Brazilian soccer to Protestantism points to a deeper cultural claim: that Brazil’s football decline is not merely tactical, generational, or administrative, but spiritual and civilizational.

The argument is that the old Brazilian style — playful,… https://t.co/yTCEanAMsO pic.twitter.com/T6MZLUWhcU

— Institute for Hispano Studies (@hispano_studies) July 6, 2026

I'm not really sure what currently ails Brazilian soccer, but the framing here is interesting in the context of our running conversation on these boards. Interestingly, I think both sides probably accept the framing.

There is also an interesting meme of Neymar making the rounds (Neymar is the current (Protestant) Brazilian superstar that has defined the last decade plus of Brazilian soccer; a player whose legacy will ultimately be one of disappointment). Delightfully, the play on words translates well to English:

"Prays like a gringo;
Plays like a gringo."

After countless posts, I doubt any of us will change the other's minds theologically, but there is something about the difference in community between the Protestant and Catholic expressions of Christianity. I'm not trying to leave the Orthodox out of this conversation; I've always enjoyed being with them and felt welcome in their spaces, even if it feels (comfortably) foreign to me. And I think they've felt the same about me when invited into my community.

To use a perhaps light hearted example of this, dating at least back to my time at Baylor, many of us have lamented just how challenging it can be to get the Baylor faithful to present a united front just as fans at games (the battles over what shade of gold people were willing to wear come to mind). Contrast to how easily Catholics can rally and unite around Notre Dame and the entire stadium will wear the same thing (or use BYU and Mormons if you prefer). Fundamentally, the specific issue is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it does speak to something bigger.

Where Mothra sees indoctrination, we see unity and community. I suppose where we see recalcitrance and resistance to submission, Mothra sees individual righteousness. And on and on it goes.

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I think your post actually illustrates the concern I've been raising. You treat unity as an intrinsic good, while largely ignoring the mechanism that produces it.

If a church teaches children from birth that questioning certain doctrines is spiritually dangerous, elevates institutional authority alongside or above individual interpretation of Scripture, and conditions members to defer to that authority, then yes, you will generally get more visible conformity. The question is whether conformity is the same thing as genuine conviction.

The fact that Catholics can more easily rally around Notre Dame than Baptists can around Baylor doesn't prove Catholicism is healthier; it may simply demonstrate a stronger culture of deference and institutional loyalty. Protestants have historically traded some degree of uniformity for individual conscience. That's not a bug, it's a feature.

More fundamentally, I'm a Protestant because I believe Scripture should remain the highest authority. When traditions develop that cannot be clearly grounded in Scripture, I think Christians have an obligation to question them rather than submit to them simply because an institution says so. The Reformers were criticized for creating division, but from their perspective the division was caused by the Church's departure from biblical teaching, not by those who objected to it.

So when you say "where Mothra sees indoctrination, we see unity," I would say that gets the issue backwards. The debate isn't whether Catholicism produces unity - clearly it often does. The debate is whether that unity is being produced by fidelity to Scripture or by confidence in institutional authority. Protestants tend to be skeptical of the latter, because history is full of institutions that were unified, disciplined, and wrong.

And that's why I'm not persuaded by the Notre Dame analogy. A stadium full of people wearing the same color is evidence of organizational cohesion. It tells us very little about whether the underlying beliefs are true.

Mothra said:

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DallasBear9902 said:

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Brazil has been eliminated from the World Cup and a national examination of conscience will run for the next few months. Lots of Brazilian commentary out there that the Protestant conversion of Brazil over the past few decades is what has killed Brazilian futbol.

The discourse connecting Brazilian soccer to Protestantism points to a deeper cultural claim: that Brazil’s football decline is not merely tactical, generational, or administrative, but spiritual and civilizational.

The argument is that the old Brazilian style — playful,… https://t.co/yTCEanAMsO pic.twitter.com/T6MZLUWhcU

— Institute for Hispano Studies (@hispano_studies) July 6, 2026

I'm not really sure what currently ails Brazilian soccer, but the framing here is interesting in the context of our running conversation on these boards. Interestingly, I think both sides probably accept the framing.

There is also an interesting meme of Neymar making the rounds (Neymar is the current (Protestant) Brazilian superstar that has defined the last decade plus of Brazilian soccer; a player whose legacy will ultimately be one of disappointment). Delightfully, the play on words translates well to English:

"Prays like a gringo;
Plays like a gringo."

After countless posts, I doubt any of us will change the other's minds theologically, but there is something about the difference in community between the Protestant and Catholic expressions of Christianity. I'm not trying to leave the Orthodox out of this conversation; I've always enjoyed being with them and felt welcome in their spaces, even if it feels (comfortably) foreign to me. And I think they've felt the same about me when invited into my community.

To use a perhaps light hearted example of this, dating at least back to my time at Baylor, many of us have lamented just how challenging it can be to get the Baylor faithful to present a united front just as fans at games (the battles over what shade of gold people were willing to wear come to mind). Contrast to how easily Catholics can rally and unite around Notre Dame and the entire stadium will wear the same thing (or use BYU and Mormons if you prefer). Fundamentally, the specific issue is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it does speak to something bigger.

Where Mothra sees indoctrination, we see unity and community. I suppose where we see recalcitrance and resistance to submission, Mothra sees individual righteousness. And on and on it goes.

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More fundamentally, I'm a Protestant because I believe Scripture should remain the highest authority. When traditions develop that cannot be clearly grounded in Scripture, I think Christians have an obligation to question them rather than submit to them simply because an institution says so. The Reformers were criticized for creating division, but from their perspective the division was caused by the Church's departure from biblical teaching, not by those who objected to it.

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As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I agree that Rome departed from ancient biblical teaching. Even objective Catholic historians acknowledge that the medieval Western Church had developed severe structural and theological abuses.

Where I part ways with Protestants is the claim that the Reformers successfully returned to the "faith once delivered to the saints." From our perspective, they clearly did not. Instead of recovering the ancient Church, they innovated: developing entirely new doctrines, novel systems of authority, and fragmented theological concepts. On top of that, the Reformation didn't actually scrub away Rome's influence...it adopted deeply ingrained Western assumptions and dogmas that had already developed far away from Orthodoxy and the historical consensus of the early Church. John Calvin didn't reinvent the wheel, he rearranged a machine that Rome had already built. Calvinism, despite its claim to be a radical break from Popery, is fundamentally a product of the medieval Western legal mind and medieval Roman Catholic assumptions. You wouldn't have Calvinism without adopting Roman Catholic Church doctrines of the early 1000s.

Protestantism today spans from hardcore hyper-Calvinists, who believe God arbitrarily predestines souls to damnation, to Oneness Pentecostals, who reject the Holy Trinity altogether. To argue that a unified "invisible Church" somehow exists across such a chaotic chasm of conflicting dogmas is utterly absurd and implicitly accuses the Holy Spirit of sowing confusion rather than leading the body into all truth.

My view is that the Reformers should have looked further East and returned to Orthodoxy. It is an established historical reality that Rome broke away from the ancient patriarchal pentarchy, unilaterally adding the Filioque clause to the Nicene Creed. While Rome developed novel dogmas and the West fractured into Protestantism, Holy Orthodoxy has preserved the faith unchanged, remaining anchored strictly in the synodal decrees of the Seven Ecumenical Councils.

When people in the modern West hear "Eastern," they often think of East Asia (like China, Russia or India). But in the context of church history and geography, the Near East (the Levant, the Holy Land, and the Mediterranean world) is the cradle of Christianity.

The Apostles were not operating on Western, Eurocentric, or Latin assumptions. They were Eastern minded.

When you look at the landscape of Christian history, the 1054 Schism wasn't a political argument about the Pope... it was a complete shift in rationale. Rome detached itself from its Eastern roots, transitioned into a centralized, legalistic empire, and created a totally different theological mindset. When Protestants rebelled against Rome, they didn't change this mindset. Both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are fundamentally locked inside a Western theological bubble, completely removed from the Semitic, mystical, and organic worldview of the Apostles. Ya'll are both hyper legalistic.

Because both sides are stuck inside this courtroom, they are obsessed with questions the Eastern-minded Apostles never asked:

The West asks: "How much legal guilt do we inherit from Adam? How is Christ's righteousness forensically credited to our legal account? How is God's legal wrath satisfied?"
The Eastern Apostles taught: "How do we overcome the disease of death? How do we master the passions? How do we become partakers of the divine nature?

We view the Church as a healing hospital, not a legal courtroom. This is why so many people are becoming Orthodox. Its relational, not transactional. We have to stop thinking like attorneys with God. In the original Greek of the New Testament, sin (hamartia) is not a legal crime that makes God angry, its a "missing of the mark," a spiritual disease that leads to corruption and death. Christ is the Great Physician rather than a cosmic executioner. This paradigm shift is precisely why so many people today are leaving the burnout of Western legalism and turning to Orthodoxy.

Sorry, Bible is great, but it came from the Church not vice versa. It is one leg of the stool, not the stool itself.

Christ gave us the Church, not a book club.


You guys have been brainwashed about the Bible. No where in the Bible does it say Sola Scriptura is the way...

We disagree on this one.

FLBear5630 said:

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Sorry, Bible is great, but it came from the Church not vice versa. It is one leg of the stool, not the stool itself.

Christ gave us the Church, not a book club.


You guys have been brainwashed about the Bible. No where in the Bible does it say Sola Scriptura is the way...

We disagree on this one.

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Agree that we disagree.

Here's the reason for me: Christianity's Scripture starts with the extant Scripture from what we now call the Old Testament. Also, Scripture is consistent, so any document purporting to be Scripture can initially be tested against known Scripture. Also, Scripture is now closed because all accepted New Testament authors could make a credible claim to direct contact with Christ. Yes, even Paul.

Obviously, the Church is built on Jesus Christ. And Christ defended His authority over and over by quoting Scripture. Christ never pointed to a priest or scribe or pharisee or any human to affirm Who He Is.

Now it is true that the Church is the whole community of believers, in all places and times. But again, this does not depend on this individual person or that person of title.

There are no Kings or Queens in Heaven but God.

Telling believers that when in doubt they should trust a human opinion over Scripture is to spit on Scripture, and to do the opposite of Christ's example.

Mothra said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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Mothra said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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Mothra said:

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4th and Inches said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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You have a lot to discuss with your priest the next time you go to confession.

But I doubt you will mention there the kind of things you said here.

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You are quite the judger of men in your own mind. Maybe God will have a special job for you when your time comes to take the load off Him a bit.

If you have not confessed your sins to a priest, you are living in mortal sin. Per the Bible. Assembled by Catholics, the Church founded by Jesus Christ

But mock as you wish. It is your free will

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where in the Bible does it say that? It says confess your sin to one another and to the one you sinned against, at no point does it say to confess only to a preist or you live in sin.

Comfessing to a preist is to allow a church member a safe place to confess sin as the church has tares among the wheat..

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Pearls before swine. You're dealing with someone who lacks basic reasoning abilities. He's been propagandized by Catholicism since he was a little boy. There's no getting through to him.

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Younger than that Even but thankfully born into the faith Jesus Christ left us. Helping as many as I can while I'm here. Praise God.

This here is someone posting that inly defense theyve made for their position on this board is nuh uh. Same as it ever was.

Simpleton perspective that canteven explain what they believed last 500 years.

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Yes, they indoctrinated you early, that is for sure. You were a good little altar boy. It would explain your blind allegiance and simplistic defenses.

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You have 2 defenses thus far when not losing it

Nuh uh and John 3:16. Yawn.

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There are numerous verses throughout scripture that state what Jesus said in John 3:16-18 which have been posted ad nauseum in this thread. And you have yet to refute any of them. I just thought it best to post Jesus own words, and get you on record disagreeing with Him.

If you were serious, you would at least have some retort for the numerous verses that contradict your position on salvation. But we both know you are incapable.

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I have already spoken to countless verses Jesus spoke and included in the NT, how it ties to the OT etc to where we are called ajd commanded todo more than one day at one point in life say "I believe in you Jesus" and have one's name forever written in the book of life neber to be removed.

You disagree. That is fine. To suggest i haven't stated this ad nauseum is a lie. You have free will. It is Yours todo with as you will. Doesnt make you right. Doesnt make it mean you Arent a part of a newly invented sect. Doesnt mean many of your beliefs weren't tested by fire thousands of years ago and the church said pound sand. All of that is fact.

Hundreds of posts by me to that effect at this point.

Everything but the last sentence. I don't agree, Jesus built his Church on men, not a book. He never even told anyone to write a book, that was all man. Get it, they needed a tool to teach people about Christ and to leave when they were not there. But, it was never intended to take the place of the Church, it's history, tradition and Magisterium. It was a tool to be used by the Church to spread the word, but Christ said that salvation was through the Church.

Matthew 16:18 Jesus said, "I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it,"

I get disagreeing but I do not agree with it being the opposite of Christ's example. Christ didn't say take this book I give you. His Church was living in men, not on paper.

Where is Scripture does Christ say to believe the Bible or any book over the Disciples, he sent out?

FLBear5630 said:

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Everything but the last sentence. I don't agree, Jesus built his Church on men, not a book. He never even told anyone to write a book, that was all man. Get it, they needed a tool to teach people about Christ and to leave when they were not there. But, it was never intended to take the place of the Church, it's history, tradition and Magisterium. It was a tool to be used by the Church to spread the word, but Christ said that salvation was through the Church.

Matthew 16:18 Jesus said, "I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it,"

I get disagreeing but I do not agree with it being the opposite of Christ's example. Christ didn't say take this book I give you. His Church was living in men, not on paper.

Where is Scripture does Christ say to believe the Bible or any book over the Disciples, he sent out?

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As an example, this is the flaw of what the SSPX just did and is the entirety of the protestant existence unfortunately.

First, the 'Rock' Jesus was talking about was Peter's faith , not the man himself. Don't forget that very shortly after praising Peter for knowing He was the Christ because the Holy Spirit revealed this to Peter, Jesus sharply rebuked Peter, calling him 'Satan' when Peter protested about Christ's coming death. Making Peter the man the cornerstone of the Church would mean building on the strength of a man who denied Christ three times.

Peter is a great disciple because of his faith in Christ, and it is that faith which is the true Rock of the Church.

And Jesus, as I said, never pointed to a human authority for His bonafides, but quoted Scripture over and over.

Mothra said:

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DallasBear9902 said:

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Brazil has been eliminated from the World Cup and a national examination of conscience will run for the next few months. Lots of Brazilian commentary out there that the Protestant conversion of Brazil over the past few decades is what has killed Brazilian futbol.

The discourse connecting Brazilian soccer to Protestantism points to a deeper cultural claim: that Brazil’s football decline is not merely tactical, generational, or administrative, but spiritual and civilizational.

The argument is that the old Brazilian style — playful,… https://t.co/yTCEanAMsO pic.twitter.com/T6MZLUWhcU

— Institute for Hispano Studies (@hispano_studies) July 6, 2026

I'm not really sure what currently ails Brazilian soccer, but the framing here is interesting in the context of our running conversation on these boards. Interestingly, I think both sides probably accept the framing.

There is also an interesting meme of Neymar making the rounds (Neymar is the current (Protestant) Brazilian superstar that has defined the last decade plus of Brazilian soccer; a player whose legacy will ultimately be one of disappointment). Delightfully, the play on words translates well to English:

"Prays like a gringo;
Plays like a gringo."

After countless posts, I doubt any of us will change the other's minds theologically, but there is something about the difference in community between the Protestant and Catholic expressions of Christianity. I'm not trying to leave the Orthodox out of this conversation; I've always enjoyed being with them and felt welcome in their spaces, even if it feels (comfortably) foreign to me. And I think they've felt the same about me when invited into my community.

To use a perhaps light hearted example of this, dating at least back to my time at Baylor, many of us have lamented just how challenging it can be to get the Baylor faithful to present a united front just as fans at games (the battles over what shade of gold people were willing to wear come to mind). Contrast to how easily Catholics can rally and unite around Notre Dame and the entire stadium will wear the same thing (or use BYU and Mormons if you prefer). Fundamentally, the specific issue is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it does speak to something bigger.

Where Mothra sees indoctrination, we see unity and community. I suppose where we see recalcitrance and resistance to submission, Mothra sees individual righteousness. And on and on it goes.

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I think your post actually illustrates the concern I've been raising. You treat unity as an intrinsic good, while largely ignoring the mechanism that produces it.

If a church teaches children from birth that questioning certain doctrines is spiritually dangerous, elevates institutional authority alongside or above individual interpretation of Scripture, and conditions members to defer to that authority, then yes, you will generally get more visible conformity. The question is whether conformity is the same thing as genuine conviction.

The fact that Catholics can more easily rally around Notre Dame than Baptists can around Baylor doesn't prove Catholicism is healthier; it may simply demonstrate a stronger culture of deference and institutional loyalty. Protestants have historically traded some degree of uniformity for individual conscience. That's not a bug, it's a feature.

More fundamentally, I'm a Protestant because I believe Scripture should remain the highest authority. When traditions develop that cannot be clearly grounded in Scripture, I think Christians have an obligation to question them rather than submit to them simply because an institution says so. The Reformers were criticized for creating division, but from their perspective the division was caused by the Church's departure from biblical teaching, not by those who objected to it.

So when you say "where Mothra sees indoctrination, we see unity," I would say that gets the issue backwards. The debate isn't whether Catholicism produces unity - clearly it often does. The debate is whether that unity is being produced by fidelity to Scripture or by confidence in institutional authority. Protestants tend to be skeptical of the latter, because history is full of institutions that were unified, disciplined, and wrong.

And that's why I'm not persuaded by the Notre Dame analogy. A stadium full of people wearing the same color is evidence of organizational cohesion. It tells us very little about whether the underlying beliefs are true.

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You're coming across a tad bit defensive here. I made no normative statement. There was no value judgment expressed in my observations. Indeed, I acknowledged your agency and observed "where Mothra sees X, we see Y." I'm literally acknowledging the space for disagreement!

Nonetheless, let's engage the substance of your post. Sure, too much unity, especially at the expense of individual ascension to belief, is problematic, potentially to a very serious level. The Church has had to correct herself over the centuries of the downstream consequences borne of this issue. But it is also true that too much individualism at the expense of unity is a problem. 10,000+ denominations and independent churches, that continue to fracture even today attest to that. How many church plants do we really need? At what point do we work with the churches and the Church that God has already given us? There is a little bit of main character syndrome in play, IMHO.

When unity is not valued you just leave and go start another church for whatever reason. Perhpas because you couldn't reach consensus on some minor or important topic or perhaps because it is just really your dream to do you own thing. Either way, it is running away from the hardwork of being in community with one another. In its worst form, this individualism leads to a group of crazy zealots about 20 miles northeast of Waco shutting themselves off from the world and facing off with government tanks (not justifying Janet Reno, here).

You are correct that the stadium full of people wearing the same colors doesn't tell us much about their underlying beliefs. But it does tell us how they feel about each other and their organization and their greater place within it. And a stadium full of people who can't bring themselves to wear the same color doesn't tell us much about their underlying beliefs, either. But it does tell us about how those people feel about each other and their organization and their place within it.

I am comfortable saying that Christ wanted strong unity among his followers (as differetiated from unthinking unity). Think of it this way: there is a poster on these boards who seems to view himself in prophetic terms sent here to defeat the Catholic Church. If he ever somehow pulled that off, he would then turn to the Orthodox to dispatch them. And then the Lutherans (he'd start with the Missouri synod for their sin of being as close to Catholic as you can get while still being a Protestant). And then the Anglicans. And so on and so on, until all that remains are people who believe *exactly* what he believes in his individual intepretation of revelation. Odds are you will be a target at some point between here and there. Sure, you are convenient bedfellows today united by your hatred of the Catholic Church, but what happens once you actually catch the car? Is that Christ wants?

FWIW, I think you are failing to grasp Catholic unity. The Church has room for Jesuits and for Opus Dei. We have housed liberation theology (which may or may not be communist) and (until recently) the reactionary views of the SSPX. And everything in between. No matter how fierce our disagreements may be, we can and do all sit together in Mass and partake in the Sacraments together as one body.

While there are a few bright lines that cannot be crossed within Catholicism, that is true of every single Christian denomination and non-denominational church I am familiar with. I'm guessing it is true of your church, as well. But I would posit there is much greater diversity of faithful expression within the Catholic Church than just about any single major Christian denomination I am aware of. I cannot think of another denomation that is home to such a diverse range of views and expression of its faith. That mostly functions for the best and edifies us as a body, but sometimes it can get a little nutty. Either way, it really undermines the accussation of unhealthy unity.

Oldbear83 said:

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First, the 'Rock' Jesus was talking about was Peter's faith , not the man himself. Don't forget that very shortly after praising Peter for knowing He was the Christ because the Holy Spirit revealed this to Peter, Jesus sharply rebuked Peter, calling him 'Satan' when Peter protested about Christ's coming death. Making Peter the man the cornerstone of the Church would mean building on the strength of a man who denied Christ three times.

Peter is a great disciple because of his faith in Christ, and it is that faith which is the true Rock of the Church.

And Jesus, as I said, never pointed to a human authority for His bonafides, but quoted Scripture over and over.

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Also, if Peter was the rock, then why did all the apostles ask Jesus who was the greatest, shortly after Jesus proclaimed Peter to be "the rock"?
If Peter was the rock, then why didn't Jesus answer them by saying "I just declared that Peter is the leader"?

This idea that Peter was the first Pope was not popular until hundreds of years later when it was declared by the bishop of Rome. In fact, historians have researched all the Christian writings in the first 3 centuries and found that less than 20% believed that Peter was the rock. More than 50% taught that the declaration of faith was the rock. The rest taught that it was Jesus or all of the apostles as a group.

Again, how could the man who Jesus called "Satan" be the rock? The same guy who denied Jesus three times, and the same guy who had to be confronted & corrected by Paul?

Peter was a great man, but he was clearly very flawed and there is no example of him being the supreme authority during his lifetime. That is an authority that is soley reserved for Jesus Christ, and His actual true Vicar, the Holy Spirit.

ShooterTX said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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First, the 'Rock' Jesus was talking about was Peter's faith , not the man himself. Don't forget that very shortly after praising Peter for knowing He was the Christ because the Holy Spirit revealed this to Peter, Jesus sharply rebuked Peter, calling him 'Satan' when Peter protested about Christ's coming death. Making Peter the man the cornerstone of the Church would mean building on the strength of a man who denied Christ three times.

Peter is a great disciple because of his faith in Christ, and it is that faith which is the true Rock of the Church.

And Jesus, as I said, never pointed to a human authority for His bonafides, but quoted Scripture over and over.

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Also, if Peter was the rock, then why did all the apostles ask Jesus who was the greatest, shortly after Jesus proclaimed Peter to be "the rock"?
If Peter was the rock, then why didn't Jesus answer them by saying "I just declared that Peter is the leader"?

This idea that Peter was the first Pope was not popular until hundreds of years later when it was declared by the bishop of Rome. In fact, historians have researched all the Christian writings in the first 3 centuries and found that less than 20% believed that Peter was the rock. More than 50% taught that the declaration of faith was the rock. The rest taught that it was Jesus or all of the apostles as a group.

Again, how could the man who Jesus called "Satan" be the rock? The same guy who denied Jesus three times, and the same guy who had to be confronted & corrected by Paul?

Peter was a great man, but he was clearly very flawed and there is no example of him being the supreme authority during his lifetime. That is an authority that is soley reserved for Jesus Christ, and His actual true Vicar, the Holy Spirit.

---

Obviously we have a different interpretation from both of the quoted posts above.

Matthew 16:17-19 paints a different picture than when just trying to isolate verse 18 by itself. In 17, Jesus is clearly addressing Simon Peter, in 18 Jesus calls him rock and then in 19 Jesus says he will give the keys to the kingdom of heaven to Peter (which we of course see an allusion to Isiah 22:22 and an appointment of the "prime minister" overseeing the House of David). In full context, we believe that hits differently than your interpretation of an isolated verse 18.

Staying with these verses, there are just 4 men in the scirptures who are directly renamed by God. Each man is significant and the new name has real meaning to the rest of the world:

• Abram (Exalted Father) to Abraham (Father of a Large Multitude)
• Jacob (Deceiver) to Israel (Strives with God)
• Solomon (Peaceful) to Jedidiah (Loved by the Lord)
• Simon (He has heard) to Peter (Rock)

In Acts, at the council of Jersulem, Peter claims that everybody knows the he (Peter) was speicifically chosen by God from the earliest days to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles so that they would believe (most of us on this board). His words are what settle the debate at the council (supreme authority) and the other apostles fall into line behind him.

Perhaps you all read the above differently, that's fine. I disagree, but people can disagree.

The more interesting exchange here is really about Jesus calling out Peter for trying to obstruct Jesus's will ("get behind me, Satan") and Peter's denial of Jesus on the eve of the crucifixation and what that all means with respect to Peter's status within the Church. From where I sit, Peter is always gonig to be the hardest challenge to OSAS. Was Peter OSAS when Jesus accussed him of being a stumbling block? Was Peter OSAS when he denied Christ three times? Was he OSAS when Paul fraternally corrected him?

Catholics don't find a fatal flaw in Peter because we see the Christian life as a spiritual journey, rather than OSAS. Some days will be worse than others (in Peter's case, you get recorded for all of history for denying Jesus). But, like the prodigal son, when you stumble, Jesus will welcome you back home if your heart and love for Jesus are sincere. The Christian's duty is to strive to get closer and closer to the perfect sanctification of the Kingdom of Heaven, in obvservance of Jesus's commands, inspired by love of Jesus, to do his will. We will all have times where we fall short of that in the Christian life, just like Peter. But you get up because you love Jesus, you ask for forgiveness of your sins and you try to get closer to how Jesus is calling us to live. Frankly, it makes sense that a man who publicly stumbled is the rock upon whom the Church was built. It would be a practically impossible standard if it was someone who did not stumble in his faith.

In short, this is a different paradigm, and Jesus's rebuke of Peter and Peter's denial of Jesus does nothing to diminish Peter's standing, but affirms our view what Jesus created.

I get it, you see it differently.

DallasBear9902 said:

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ShooterTX said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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First, the 'Rock' Jesus was talking about was Peter's faith , not the man himself. Don't forget that very shortly after praising Peter for knowing He was the Christ because the Holy Spirit revealed this to Peter, Jesus sharply rebuked Peter, calling him 'Satan' when Peter protested about Christ's coming death. Making Peter the man the cornerstone of the Church would mean building on the strength of a man who denied Christ three times.

Peter is a great disciple because of his faith in Christ, and it is that faith which is the true Rock of the Church.

And Jesus, as I said, never pointed to a human authority for His bonafides, but quoted Scripture over and over.

---

Also, if Peter was the rock, then why did all the apostles ask Jesus who was the greatest, shortly after Jesus proclaimed Peter to be "the rock"?
If Peter was the rock, then why didn't Jesus answer them by saying "I just declared that Peter is the leader"?

This idea that Peter was the first Pope was not popular until hundreds of years later when it was declared by the bishop of Rome. In fact, historians have researched all the Christian writings in the first 3 centuries and found that less than 20% believed that Peter was the rock. More than 50% taught that the declaration of faith was the rock. The rest taught that it was Jesus or all of the apostles as a group.

Again, how could the man who Jesus called "Satan" be the rock? The same guy who denied Jesus three times, and the same guy who had to be confronted & corrected by Paul?

Peter was a great man, but he was clearly very flawed and there is no example of him being the supreme authority during his lifetime. That is an authority that is soley reserved for Jesus Christ, and His actual true Vicar, the Holy Spirit.

---

Obviously we have a different interpretation from both of the quoted posts above.

Matthew 16:17-19 paints a different picture than when just trying to isolate verse 18 by itself. In 17, Jesus is clearly addressing Simon Peter, in 18 Jesus calls him rock and then in 19 Jesus says he will give the keys to the kingdom of heaven to Peter (which we of course see an allusion to Isiah 22:22 and an appointment of the "prime minister" overseeing the House of David). In full context, we believe that hits differently than your interpretation of an isolated verse 18.

Staying with these verses, there are just 4 men in the scirptures who are directly renamed by God. Each man is significant and the new name has real meaning to the rest of the world:

• Abram (Exalted Father) to Abraham (Father of a Large Multitude)
• Jacob (Deceiver) to Israel (Strives with God)
• Solomon (Peaceful) to Jedidiah (Loved by the Lord)
• Simon (He has heard) to Peter (Rock)

In Acts, at the council of Jersulem, Peter claims that everybody knows the he (Peter) was speicifically chosen by God from the earliest days to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles so that they would believe (most of us on this board). His words are what settle the debate at the council (supreme authority) and the other apostles fall into line behind him.

Perhaps you all read the above differently, that's fine. I disagree, but people can disagree.

The more interesting exchange here is really about Jesus calling out Peter for trying to obstruct Jesus's will ("get behind me, Satan") and Peter's denial of Jesus on the eve of the crucifixation and what that all means with respect to Peter's status within the Church. From where I sit, Peter is always gonig to be the hardest challenge to OSAS. Was Peter OSAS when Jesus accussed him of being a stumbling block? Was Peter OSAS when he denied Christ three times? Was he OSAS when Paul fraternally corrected him?

Catholics don't find a fatal flaw in Peter because we see the Christian life as a spiritual journey, rather than OSAS. Some days will be worse than others (in Peter's case, you get recorded for all of history for denying Jesus). But, like the prodigal son, when you stumble, Jesus will welcome you back home if your heart and love for Jesus are sincere. The Christian's duty is to strive to get closer and closer to the perfect sanctification of the Kingdom of Heaven, in obvservance of Jesus's commands, inspired by love of Jesus, to do his will. We will all have times where we fall short of that in the Christian life, just like Peter. But you get up because you love Jesus, you ask for forgiveness of your sins and you try to get closer to how Jesus is calling us to live. Frankly, it makes sense that a man who publicly stumbled is the rock upon whom the Church was built. It would be a practically impossible standard if it was someone who did not stumble in his faith.

In short, this is a different paradigm, and Jesus's rebuke of Peter and Peter's denial of Jesus does nothing to diminish Peter's standing, but affirms our view what Jesus created.

I get it, you see it differently.

---

The renaming of someone in the Bible by God is almost one of the MOST SIGnIFICANT things He does with one of his chosen leaders here in this temporal life.

Excellent post. Couldnt agree more.

ShooterTX said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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First, the 'Rock' Jesus was talking about was Peter's faith , not the man himself. Don't forget that very shortly after praising Peter for knowing He was the Christ because the Holy Spirit revealed this to Peter, Jesus sharply rebuked Peter, calling him 'Satan' when Peter protested about Christ's coming death. Making Peter the man the cornerstone of the Church would mean building on the strength of a man who denied Christ three times.

Peter is a great disciple because of his faith in Christ, and it is that faith which is the true Rock of the Church.

And Jesus, as I said, never pointed to a human authority for His bonafides, but quoted Scripture over and over.

---

Also, if Peter was the rock, then why did all the apostles ask Jesus who was the greatest, shortly after Jesus proclaimed Peter to be "the rock"?
If Peter was the rock, then why didn't Jesus answer them by saying "I just declared that Peter is the leader"?

This idea that Peter was the first Pope was not popular until hundreds of years later when it was declared by the bishop of Rome. In fact, historians have researched all the Christian writings in the first 3 centuries and found that less than 20% believed that Peter was the rock. More than 50% taught that the declaration of faith was the rock. The rest taught that it was Jesus or all of the apostles as a group.

Again, how could the man who Jesus called "Satan" be the rock? The same guy who denied Jesus three times, and the same guy who had to be confronted & corrected by Paul?

Peter was a great man, but he was clearly very flawed and there is no example of him being the supreme authority during his lifetime. That is an authority that is soley reserved for Jesus Christ, and His actual true Vicar, the Holy Spirit.

---

You're suffering from the same misunderstanding that some of the disciples did. Being the leader isn't about being the greatest. And early Christian writers didn't see those interpretations of "the rock" as mutually exclusive.

Sam Lowry said:

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ShooterTX said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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First, the 'Rock' Jesus was talking about was Peter's faith , not the man himself. Don't forget that very shortly after praising Peter for knowing He was the Christ because the Holy Spirit revealed this to Peter, Jesus sharply rebuked Peter, calling him 'Satan' when Peter protested about Christ's coming death. Making Peter the man the cornerstone of the Church would mean building on the strength of a man who denied Christ three times.

Peter is a great disciple because of his faith in Christ, and it is that faith which is the true Rock of the Church.

And Jesus, as I said, never pointed to a human authority for His bonafides, but quoted Scripture over and over.

---

Also, if Peter was the rock, then why did all the apostles ask Jesus who was the greatest, shortly after Jesus proclaimed Peter to be "the rock"?
If Peter was the rock, then why didn't Jesus answer them by saying "I just declared that Peter is the leader"?

This idea that Peter was the first Pope was not popular until hundreds of years later when it was declared by the bishop of Rome. In fact, historians have researched all the Christian writings in the first 3 centuries and found that less than 20% believed that Peter was the rock. More than 50% taught that the declaration of faith was the rock. The rest taught that it was Jesus or all of the apostles as a group.

Again, how could the man who Jesus called "Satan" be the rock? The same guy who denied Jesus three times, and the same guy who had to be confronted & corrected by Paul?

Peter was a great man, but he was clearly very flawed and there is no example of him being the supreme authority during his lifetime. That is an authority that is soley reserved for Jesus Christ, and His actual true Vicar, the Holy Spirit.

---

You're suffering from the same misunderstanding that some of the disciples did. Being the leader isn't about being the greatest. And early Christian writers didn't see those interpretations of "the rock" as mutually exclusive.

---

To take one step further, it was about being flawed, being human and asking forgiveness coming back in the light. Christ knew man could not be perfect.

As for Paul, Christ NEVER mentions him! How can anyone take the side of Paul over the man Christ named Petros? Take a good look at what Paul taught versus the Gospels, they do not match. We follow Paul's religion, not Christ. Christ didnt teach faith alone, ask James (you know Christ brother...)

Doc Holliday said:

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Where I part ways with Protestants is the claim that the Reformers successfully returned to the "faith once delivered to the saints." From our perspective, they clearly did not. Instead of recovering the ancient Church, they innovated: developing entirely new doctrines, novel systems of authority, and fragmented theological concepts. On top of that, the Reformation didn't actually scrub away Rome's influence...it adopted deeply ingrained Western assumptions and dogmas that had already developed far away from Orthodoxy and the historical consensus of the early Church. John Calvin didn't reinvent the wheel, he rearranged a machine that Rome had already built. Calvinism, despite its claim to be a radical break from Popery, is fundamentally a product of the medieval Western legal mind and medieval Roman Catholic assumptions. You wouldn't have Calvinism without adopting Roman Catholic Church doctrines of the early 1000s.

---

100% correct. Even if you set aside the radical views of Zwingli that underlie much of American protestantism and look at high church protestantism, the version of the Nicene Creed they inherited was the Roman Catholic version. The version of baptism the Lutherans inherited and practice is the Roman Catholic version, and appear to have reversed the order of baptism and chrismation where the unbaptized child is anointed which makes no sense to me at all. The children of Zwingli restored baptism by immersion as the standard form, but tossed the laying on of hands to receive the Holy Spirit through chrismation entirely.

The thing is, without having studied Orthodoxy - the original church - you exist in a reference frame where you cannot identify these discrepancies.

DallasBear9902 said:

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FWIW, I think you are failing to grasp Catholic unity. The Church has room for Jesuits and for Opus Dei. We have housed liberation theology (which may or may not be communist) and (until recently) the reactionary views of the SSPX. And everything in between. No matter how fierce our disagreements may be, we can and do all sit together in Mass and partake in the Sacraments together as one body.

While there are a few bright lines that cannot be crossed within Catholicism, that is true of every single Christian denomination and non-denominational church I am familiar with. I'm guessing it is true of your church, as well. But I would posit there is much greater diversity of faithful expression within the Catholic Church than just about any single major Christian denomination I am aware of. I cannot think of another denomation that is home to such a diverse range of views and expression of its faith.

---

What you see as a strength, everyone else sees as a willingness to tolerate anything and everything so long as you bow the knee to the institutional and financial control of the Vatican. Read the letters to the Churches in the Apocalypse of Saint John and see if this level of "unity" - in our modern day extending even to an impenitent LGBTQ community - is in any way Christian.

FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

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First, the 'Rock' Jesus was talking about was Peter's faith , not the man himself. Don't forget that very shortly after praising Peter for knowing He was the Christ because the Holy Spirit revealed this to Peter, Jesus sharply rebuked Peter, calling him 'Satan' when Peter protested about Christ's coming death. Making Peter the man the cornerstone of the Church would mean building on the strength of a man who denied Christ three times.

Peter is a great disciple because of his faith in Christ, and it is that faith which is the true Rock of the Church.

And Jesus, as I said, never pointed to a human authority for His bonafides, but quoted Scripture over and over.

---

Also, if Peter was the rock, then why did all the apostles ask Jesus who was the greatest, shortly after Jesus proclaimed Peter to be "the rock"?
If Peter was the rock, then why didn't Jesus answer them by saying "I just declared that Peter is the leader"?

This idea that Peter was the first Pope was not popular until hundreds of years later when it was declared by the bishop of Rome. In fact, historians have researched all the Christian writings in the first 3 centuries and found that less than 20% believed that Peter was the rock. More than 50% taught that the declaration of faith was the rock. The rest taught that it was Jesus or all of the apostles as a group.

Again, how could the man who Jesus called "Satan" be the rock? The same guy who denied Jesus three times, and the same guy who had to be confronted & corrected by Paul?

Peter was a great man, but he was clearly very flawed and there is no example of him being the supreme authority during his lifetime. That is an authority that is soley reserved for Jesus Christ, and His actual true Vicar, the Holy Spirit.

---

You're suffering from the same misunderstanding that some of the disciples did. Being the leader isn't about being the greatest. And early Christian writers didn't see those interpretations of "the rock" as mutually exclusive.

---

To take one step further, it was about being flawed, being human and asking forgiveness coming back in the light. Christ knew man could not be perfect.

As for Paul, Christ NEVER mentions him! How can anyone take the side of Paul over the man Christ named Petros? Take a good look at what Paul taught versus the Gospels, they do not match. We follow Paul's religion, not Christ. Christ didnt teach faith alone, ask James (you know Christ brother...)

---

what makes you think Paul and James conflict each other? They dont.. Paul says apple trees grow apples(faith plants us in good soil and we naturally grow fruit). James says apple trees grow apples. (Works are the byproduct of true faith like a tree planted in good soil)

Paul tells you not to boast or brag in your works to help avoid the stumbling block of pride and arrogance. James tells you it's not true faith unless works are produced naturally in the faith.

James was a leader of the early Church, which Paul did not agree.

Paul was a better politician. James is hardly mentioned after Paul got through with his visits. Yet, historically Peter and James were the leaders of the early church.

This is a common bone of contention, Paul vs James. Paul was faith alone, James was faith and acts.

FLBear5630 said:

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James was a leader of the early Church, which Paul did not agree.

Paul was a better politician. James is hardly mentioned after Paul got through with his visits. Yet, historically Peter and James were the leaders of the early church.

This is a common bone of contention, Paul vs James. Paul was faith alone, James was faith and acts.

---

two different audiences, Paul was bringing gentiles to the faith so he taught that faith alone was all that was needed, and that the natural byproduct of faith would be the fruits of the spirit.

James was teaching to a different group of people, he was stating that you cannot claim to have faith without the evidence of good works. Both men expected good words to happen when true faith was found.

They are the same message

4th and Inches said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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James was a leader of the early Church, which Paul did not agree.

Paul was a better politician. James is hardly mentioned after Paul got through with his visits. Yet, historically Peter and James were the leaders of the early church.

This is a common bone of contention, Paul vs James. Paul was faith alone, James was faith and acts.

---

two different audiences, Paul was bringing gentiles to the faith so he taught that faith alone was all that was needed, and that the natural byproduct of faith would be the fruits of the spirit.

James was teaching to a different group of people, he was stating that you cannot claim to have faith without the evidence of good works. Both men expected good words to happen when true faith was found.

They are the same message

---

No they are not. Paul clearly states that faith alone, that is a Pauline structure. He introduced that into the Church outside of Jerusalem.

Church pre-Paul reading is very interesting. It was not all unity. Christ also never mentions Paul or another will come. Nothing. The fight for Church leadership was interesting.

4th and Inches said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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James was a leader of the early Church, which Paul did not agree.

Paul was a better politician. James is hardly mentioned after Paul got through with his visits. Yet, historically Peter and James were the leaders of the early church.

This is a common bone of contention, Paul vs James. Paul was faith alone, James was faith and acts.

---

two different audiences, Paul was bringing gentiles to the faith so he taught that faith alone was all that was needed, and that the natural byproduct of faith would be the fruits of the spirit.

James was teaching to a different group of people, he was stating that you cannot claim to have faith without the evidence of good works. Both men expected good words to happen when true faith was found.

They are the same message

---

My opinion is similar, at least at this point, as they were both leaders, each of different audiences, with James as the overall leader. There was tension between Paul and James, but not a battle over "who was the real leader." James clearly led the Jerusalem church, Paul led the Gentile mission, and their occasional conflicts were about how Gentile believers should relate to Jewish lawnot about competing for authority.

If my brief research is accurate, early Christian tradition, at least according to Eusebius, states that Peter, James, and John chose James the "Just" as bishop of Jerusalem after Jesus' ascension. Paul himself acknowledged James as a major authority figure (Gal. 1:19; 2:9).

Realitybites said:

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DallasBear9902 said:

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FWIW, I think you are failing to grasp Catholic unity. The Church has room for Jesuits and for Opus Dei. We have housed liberation theology (which may or may not be communist) and (until recently) the reactionary views of the SSPX. And everything in between. No matter how fierce our disagreements may be, we can and do all sit together in Mass and partake in the Sacraments together as one body.

While there are a few bright lines that cannot be crossed within Catholicism, that is true of every single Christian denomination and non-denominational church I am familiar with. I'm guessing it is true of your church, as well. But I would posit there is much greater diversity of faithful expression within the Catholic Church than just about any single major Christian denomination I am aware of. I cannot think of another denomation that is home to such a diverse range of views and expression of its faith.

---

What you see as a strength, everyone else sees as a willingness to tolerate anything and everything so long as you bow the knee to the institutional and financial control of the Vatican. Read the letters to the Churches in the Apocalypse of Saint John and see if this level of "unity" - in our modern day extending even to an impenitent LGBTQ community - is in any way Christian.

---

I literally said upthread, "[one person] sees X, [another person] sees Y." Tell us something new..

DallasBear9902 said:

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Mothra said:

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DallasBear9902 said:

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Brazil has been eliminated from the World Cup and a national examination of conscience will run for the next few months. Lots of Brazilian commentary out there that the Protestant conversion of Brazil over the past few decades is what has killed Brazilian futbol.

The discourse connecting Brazilian soccer to Protestantism points to a deeper cultural claim: that Brazil’s football decline is not merely tactical, generational, or administrative, but spiritual and civilizational.

The argument is that the old Brazilian style — playful,… https://t.co/yTCEanAMsO pic.twitter.com/T6MZLUWhcU

— Institute for Hispano Studies (@hispano_studies) July 6, 2026

I'm not really sure what currently ails Brazilian soccer, but the framing here is interesting in the context of our running conversation on these boards. Interestingly, I think both sides probably accept the framing.

There is also an interesting meme of Neymar making the rounds (Neymar is the current (Protestant) Brazilian superstar that has defined the last decade plus of Brazilian soccer; a player whose legacy will ultimately be one of disappointment). Delightfully, the play on words translates well to English:

"Prays like a gringo;
Plays like a gringo."

After countless posts, I doubt any of us will change the other's minds theologically, but there is something about the difference in community between the Protestant and Catholic expressions of Christianity. I'm not trying to leave the Orthodox out of this conversation; I've always enjoyed being with them and felt welcome in their spaces, even if it feels (comfortably) foreign to me. And I think they've felt the same about me when invited into my community.

To use a perhaps light hearted example of this, dating at least back to my time at Baylor, many of us have lamented just how challenging it can be to get the Baylor faithful to present a united front just as fans at games (the battles over what shade of gold people were willing to wear come to mind). Contrast to how easily Catholics can rally and unite around Notre Dame and the entire stadium will wear the same thing (or use BYU and Mormons if you prefer). Fundamentally, the specific issue is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it does speak to something bigger.

Where Mothra sees indoctrination, we see unity and community. I suppose where we see recalcitrance and resistance to submission, Mothra sees individual righteousness. And on and on it goes.

---

I think your post actually illustrates the concern I've been raising. You treat unity as an intrinsic good, while largely ignoring the mechanism that produces it.

If a church teaches children from birth that questioning certain doctrines is spiritually dangerous, elevates institutional authority alongside or above individual interpretation of Scripture, and conditions members to defer to that authority, then yes, you will generally get more visible conformity. The question is whether conformity is the same thing as genuine conviction.

The fact that Catholics can more easily rally around Notre Dame than Baptists can around Baylor doesn't prove Catholicism is healthier; it may simply demonstrate a stronger culture of deference and institutional loyalty. Protestants have historically traded some degree of uniformity for individual conscience. That's not a bug, it's a feature.

More fundamentally, I'm a Protestant because I believe Scripture should remain the highest authority. When traditions develop that cannot be clearly grounded in Scripture, I think Christians have an obligation to question them rather than submit to them simply because an institution says so. The Reformers were criticized for creating division, but from their perspective the division was caused by the Church's departure from biblical teaching, not by those who objected to it.

So when you say "where Mothra sees indoctrination, we see unity," I would say that gets the issue backwards. The debate isn't whether Catholicism produces unity - clearly it often does. The debate is whether that unity is being produced by fidelity to Scripture or by confidence in institutional authority. Protestants tend to be skeptical of the latter, because history is full of institutions that were unified, disciplined, and wrong.

And that's why I'm not persuaded by the Notre Dame analogy. A stadium full of people wearing the same color is evidence of organizational cohesion. It tells us very little about whether the underlying beliefs are true.

---

You're coming across a tad bit defensive here. I made no normative statement. There was no value judgment expressed in my observations. Indeed, I acknowledged your agency and observed "where Mothra sees X, we see Y." I'm literally acknowledging the space for disagreement!

Nonetheless, let's engage the substance of your post. Sure, too much unity, especially at the expense of individual ascension to belief, is problematic, potentially to a very serious level. The Church has had to correct herself over the centuries of the downstream consequences borne of this issue. But it is also true that too much individualism at the expense of unity is a problem. 10,000+ denominations and independent churches, that continue to fracture even today attest to that. How many church plants do we really need? At what point do we work with the churches and the Church that God has already given us? There is a little bit of main character syndrome in play, IMHO.

When unity is not valued you just leave and go start another church for whatever reason. Perhpas because you couldn't reach consensus on some minor or important topic or perhaps because it is just really your dream to do you own thing. Either way, it is running away from the hardwork of being in community with one another. In its worst form, this individualism leads to a group of crazy zealots about 20 miles northeast of Waco shutting themselves off from the world and facing off with government tanks (not justifying Janet Reno, here).

You are correct that the stadium full of people wearing the same colors doesn't tell us much about their underlying beliefs. But it does tell us how they feel about each other and their organization and their greater place within it. And a stadium full of people who can't bring themselves to wear the same color doesn't tell us much about their underlying beliefs, either. But it does tell us about how those people feel about each other and their organization and their place within it.

I am comfortable saying that Christ wanted strong unity among his followers (as differetiated from unthinking unity). Think of it this way: there is a poster on these boards who seems to view himself in prophetic terms sent here to defeat the Catholic Church. If he ever somehow pulled that off, he would then turn to the Orthodox to dispatch them. And then the Lutherans (he'd start with the Missouri synod for their sin of being as close to Catholic as you can get while still being a Protestant). And then the Anglicans. And so on and so on, until all that remains are people who believe *exactly* what he believes in his individual intepretation of revelation. Odds are you will be a target at some point between here and there. Sure, you are convenient bedfellows today united by your hatred of the Catholic Church, but what happens once you actually catch the car? Is that Christ wants?

FWIW, I think you are failing to grasp Catholic unity. The Church has room for Jesuits and for Opus Dei. We have housed liberation theology (which may or may not be communist) and (until recently) the reactionary views of the SSPX. And everything in between. No matter how fierce our disagreements may be, we can and do all sit together in Mass and partake in the Sacraments together as one body.

While there are a few bright lines that cannot be crossed within Catholicism, that is true of every single Christian denomination and non-denominational church I am familiar with. I'm guessing it is true of your church, as well. But I would posit there is much greater diversity of faithful expression within the Catholic Church than just about any single major Christian denomination I am aware of. I cannot think of another denomation that is home to such a diverse range of views and expression of its faith. That mostly functions for the best and edifies us as a body, but sometimes it can get a little nutty. Either way, it really undermines the accussation of unhealthy unity.

---

I'm not sure "defensive" is a fair characterization. You specifically called me out by name, referenced my perspective and contrasted it with your own ("where Mothra sees X, we see Y"), so I responded to the observations you made about my position.

More importantly, I think you're subtly changing the issue. I wasn't arguing that unity is bad. Virtually every Christian agrees unity is good. The question is whether institutional unity should be treated as evidence of spiritual health or theological correctness. Your examples largely assume the conclusion. Yes, fragmentation can be a problem. Yes, some people leave churches for bad reasons. Yes, Christians should be willing to endure disagreement and do the hard work of community. I agree with all of that. What I don't agree with is the implication that larger organizational unity is inherently superior. History gives us examples of both excessive individualism and excessive institutional conformity. Neither extreme is a virtue.

You point to thousands of Protestant denominations. Fair enough. But numerical diversity doesn't by itself demonstrate a failure of Christian charity any more than Catholic unity demonstrates theological truth. A Baptist and a Presbyterian may worship in different churches while still recognizing one another as fellow Christians. Meanwhile, two Catholics may sit in the same pew while holding radically different views on theology, morality, and Church life. Organizational unity and substantive unity are not the same thing.

I also think you're overlooking the danger on the other side of the equation. Unity is a virtue only when it is unity in the truth. Unity at the expense of truth is not a Christian virtue at all. To use a practical example, I know many Catholics personally - including lifelong Catholics who are my nextdoor neighbors - who sincerely believe that being a "good person" is what saves someone. I also have Catholic friends who openly advocate for abortion rights despite the Church's unequivocal teaching on the issue, and I have a legal assistant who is in a same-sex relationship and attends Mass faithfully.

My point is not to single out or condemn these individuals. Rather, it is to illustrate that institutional unity and sacramental participation do not necessarily indicate a shared understanding of, or submission to, the Gospel. If people can sit in the same pews, receive the same sacraments, and identify as members of the same church while holding fundamentally different views on salvation, morality, and human sexuality, then visible unity by itself cannot be the measure of spiritual health or faithfulness. In fact, I would argue that such examples demonstrate the very danger I am describing: unity can sometimes be preserved even when truth is not. What I am describing would never happen in my church.

That is why I continue to maintain that truth must be the primary standard. Unity is a great blessing when it is grounded in truth, but unity alone is not evidence that truth has been preserved. A church can have remarkable organizational unity while still containing profound disagreement or outright confusion about the very message that Christians are supposed to proclaim. The Catholic Church is clear evidence of that. That is why I am hesitant to treat visible unity as a reliable measure of spiritual health. Truth has to remain the primary standard; otherwise unity becomes an end in itself rather than a means of faithfully following Christ.

Mothra said:

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DallasBear9902 said:

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Mothra said:

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DallasBear9902 said:

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Brazil has been eliminated from the World Cup and a national examination of conscience will run for the next few months. Lots of Brazilian commentary out there that the Protestant conversion of Brazil over the past few decades is what has killed Brazilian futbol.

The discourse connecting Brazilian soccer to Protestantism points to a deeper cultural claim: that Brazil’s football decline is not merely tactical, generational, or administrative, but spiritual and civilizational.

The argument is that the old Brazilian style — playful,… https://t.co/yTCEanAMsO pic.twitter.com/T6MZLUWhcU

— Institute for Hispano Studies (@hispano_studies) July 6, 2026

I'm not really sure what currently ails Brazilian soccer, but the framing here is interesting in the context of our running conversation on these boards. Interestingly, I think both sides probably accept the framing.

There is also an interesting meme of Neymar making the rounds (Neymar is the current (Protestant) Brazilian superstar that has defined the last decade plus of Brazilian soccer; a player whose legacy will ultimately be one of disappointment). Delightfully, the play on words translates well to English:

"Prays like a gringo;
Plays like a gringo."

After countless posts, I doubt any of us will change the other's minds theologically, but there is something about the difference in community between the Protestant and Catholic expressions of Christianity. I'm not trying to leave the Orthodox out of this conversation; I've always enjoyed being with them and felt welcome in their spaces, even if it feels (comfortably) foreign to me. And I think they've felt the same about me when invited into my community.

To use a perhaps light hearted example of this, dating at least back to my time at Baylor, many of us have lamented just how challenging it can be to get the Baylor faithful to present a united front just as fans at games (the battles over what shade of gold people were willing to wear come to mind). Contrast to how easily Catholics can rally and unite around Notre Dame and the entire stadium will wear the same thing (or use BYU and Mormons if you prefer). Fundamentally, the specific issue is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it does speak to something bigger.

Where Mothra sees indoctrination, we see unity and community. I suppose where we see recalcitrance and resistance to submission, Mothra sees individual righteousness. And on and on it goes.

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I think your post actually illustrates the concern I've been raising. You treat unity as an intrinsic good, while largely ignoring the mechanism that produces it.

If a church teaches children from birth that questioning certain doctrines is spiritually dangerous, elevates institutional authority alongside or above individual interpretation of Scripture, and conditions members to defer to that authority, then yes, you will generally get more visible conformity. The question is whether conformity is the same thing as genuine conviction.

The fact that Catholics can more easily rally around Notre Dame than Baptists can around Baylor doesn't prove Catholicism is healthier; it may simply demonstrate a stronger culture of deference and institutional loyalty. Protestants have historically traded some degree of uniformity for individual conscience. That's not a bug, it's a feature.

More fundamentally, I'm a Protestant because I believe Scripture should remain the highest authority. When traditions develop that cannot be clearly grounded in Scripture, I think Christians have an obligation to question them rather than submit to them simply because an institution says so. The Reformers were criticized for creating division, but from their perspective the division was caused by the Church's departure from biblical teaching, not by those who objected to it.

So when you say "where Mothra sees indoctrination, we see unity," I would say that gets the issue backwards. The debate isn't whether Catholicism produces unity - clearly it often does. The debate is whether that unity is being produced by fidelity to Scripture or by confidence in institutional authority. Protestants tend to be skeptical of the latter, because history is full of institutions that were unified, disciplined, and wrong.

And that's why I'm not persuaded by the Notre Dame analogy. A stadium full of people wearing the same color is evidence of organizational cohesion. It tells us very little about whether the underlying beliefs are true.

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You're coming across a tad bit defensive here. I made no normative statement. There was no value judgment expressed in my observations. Indeed, I acknowledged your agency and observed "where Mothra sees X, we see Y." I'm literally acknowledging the space for disagreement!

Nonetheless, let's engage the substance of your post. Sure, too much unity, especially at the expense of individual ascension to belief, is problematic, potentially to a very serious level. The Church has had to correct herself over the centuries of the downstream consequences borne of this issue. But it is also true that too much individualism at the expense of unity is a problem. 10,000+ denominations and independent churches, that continue to fracture even today attest to that. How many church plants do we really need? At what point do we work with the churches and the Church that God has already given us? There is a little bit of main character syndrome in play, IMHO.

When unity is not valued you just leave and go start another church for whatever reason. Perhpas because you couldn't reach consensus on some minor or important topic or perhaps because it is just really your dream to do you own thing. Either way, it is running away from the hardwork of being in community with one another. In its worst form, this individualism leads to a group of crazy zealots about 20 miles northeast of Waco shutting themselves off from the world and facing off with government tanks (not justifying Janet Reno, here).

You are correct that the stadium full of people wearing the same colors doesn't tell us much about their underlying beliefs. But it does tell us how they feel about each other and their organization and their greater place within it. And a stadium full of people who can't bring themselves to wear the same color doesn't tell us much about their underlying beliefs, either. But it does tell us about how those people feel about each other and their organization and their place within it.

I am comfortable saying that Christ wanted strong unity among his followers (as differetiated from unthinking unity). Think of it this way: there is a poster on these boards who seems to view himself in prophetic terms sent here to defeat the Catholic Church. If he ever somehow pulled that off, he would then turn to the Orthodox to dispatch them. And then the Lutherans (he'd start with the Missouri synod for their sin of being as close to Catholic as you can get while still being a Protestant). And then the Anglicans. And so on and so on, until all that remains are people who believe *exactly* what he believes in his individual intepretation of revelation. Odds are you will be a target at some point between here and there. Sure, you are convenient bedfellows today united by your hatred of the Catholic Church, but what happens once you actually catch the car? Is that Christ wants?

FWIW, I think you are failing to grasp Catholic unity. The Church has room for Jesuits and for Opus Dei. We have housed liberation theology (which may or may not be communist) and (until recently) the reactionary views of the SSPX. And everything in between. No matter how fierce our disagreements may be, we can and do all sit together in Mass and partake in the Sacraments together as one body.

While there are a few bright lines that cannot be crossed within Catholicism, that is true of every single Christian denomination and non-denominational church I am familiar with. I'm guessing it is true of your church, as well. But I would posit there is much greater diversity of faithful expression within the Catholic Church than just about any single major Christian denomination I am aware of. I cannot think of another denomation that is home to such a diverse range of views and expression of its faith. That mostly functions for the best and edifies us as a body, but sometimes it can get a little nutty. Either way, it really undermines the accussation of unhealthy unity.

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I'm not sure "defensive" is a fair characterization. You specifically called me out by name, referenced my perspective and contrasted it with your own ("where Mothra sees X, we see Y"), so I responded to the observations you made about my position.

More importantly, I think you're subtly changing the issue. I wasn't arguing that unity is bad. Virtually every Christian agrees unity is good. The question is whether institutional unity should be treated as evidence of spiritual health or theological correctness. Your examples largely assume the conclusion. Yes, fragmentation can be a problem. Yes, some people leave churches for bad reasons. Yes, Christians should be willing to endure disagreement and do the hard work of community. I agree with all of that. What I don't agree with is the implication that larger organizational unity is inherently superior. History gives us examples of both excessive individualism and excessive institutional conformity. Neither extreme is a virtue.

You point to thousands of Protestant denominations. Fair enough. But numerical diversity doesn't by itself demonstrate a failure of Christian charity any more than Catholic unity demonstrates theological truth. A Baptist and a Presbyterian may worship in different churches while still recognizing one another as fellow Christians. Meanwhile, two Catholics may sit in the same pew while holding radically different views on theology, morality, and Church life. Organizational unity and substantive unity are not the same thing.

I also think you're overlooking the danger on the other side of the equation. Unity is a virtue only when it is unity in the truth. Unity at the expense of truth is not a Christian virtue at all. To use a practical example, I know many Catholics personally - including lifelong Catholics who are my nextdoor neighbors - who sincerely believe that being a "good person" is what saves someone. I also have Catholic friends who openly advocate for abortion rights despite the Church's unequivocal teaching on the issue, and I have a legal assistant who is in a same-sex relationship and attends Mass faithfully.

My point is not to single out or condemn these individuals. Rather, it is to illustrate that institutional unity and sacramental participation do not necessarily indicate a shared understanding of, or submission to, the Gospel. If people can sit in the same pews, receive the same sacraments, and identify as members of the same church while holding fundamentally different views on salvation, morality, and human sexuality, then visible unity by itself cannot be the measure of spiritual health or faithfulness. In fact, I would argue that such examples demonstrate the very danger I am describing: unity can sometimes be preserved even when truth is not. What I am describing would never happen in my church.

That is why I continue to maintain that truth must be the primary standard. Unity is a great blessing when it is grounded in truth, but unity alone is not evidence that truth has been preserved. A church can have remarkable organizational unity while still containing profound disagreement or outright confusion about the very message that Christians are supposed to proclaim. The Catholic Church is clear evidence of that. That is why I am hesitant to treat visible unity as a reliable measure of spiritual health. Truth has to remain the primary standard; otherwise unity becomes an end in itself rather than a means of faithfully following Christ.

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I think you are skirting what I am saying.

I agree that doctrinal truth (individual ascension to belief) is what matters and unity is not the end all be all. But lack of unity does tell us something, too.

The Baptist and the Presby choose to worship in seperate churches for a reason. What is that reason telling you?

The issues you identify within the Catholic Church are likely plagueing your church in some way or another. Depending on size of your congregation, odds are someone in your congregation is living in a sexually unchaste way or does not fully doctrinally assent to your dogma or buys into some prosperity gospel bs, etc...

Are you really identifying a Catholic-specific issue or is it a problem for all Christians?

FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ShooterTX said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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First, the 'Rock' Jesus was talking about was Peter's faith , not the man himself. Don't forget that very shortly after praising Peter for knowing He was the Christ because the Holy Spirit revealed this to Peter, Jesus sharply rebuked Peter, calling him 'Satan' when Peter protested about Christ's coming death. Making Peter the man the cornerstone of the Church would mean building on the strength of a man who denied Christ three times.

Peter is a great disciple because of his faith in Christ, and it is that faith which is the true Rock of the Church.

And Jesus, as I said, never pointed to a human authority for His bonafides, but quoted Scripture over and over.

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Also, if Peter was the rock, then why did all the apostles ask Jesus who was the greatest, shortly after Jesus proclaimed Peter to be "the rock"?
If Peter was the rock, then why didn't Jesus answer them by saying "I just declared that Peter is the leader"?

This idea that Peter was the first Pope was not popular until hundreds of years later when it was declared by the bishop of Rome. In fact, historians have researched all the Christian writings in the first 3 centuries and found that less than 20% believed that Peter was the rock. More than 50% taught that the declaration of faith was the rock. The rest taught that it was Jesus or all of the apostles as a group.

Again, how could the man who Jesus called "Satan" be the rock? The same guy who denied Jesus three times, and the same guy who had to be confronted & corrected by Paul?

Peter was a great man, but he was clearly very flawed and there is no example of him being the supreme authority during his lifetime. That is an authority that is soley reserved for Jesus Christ, and His actual true Vicar, the Holy Spirit.

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You're suffering from the same misunderstanding that some of the disciples did. Being the leader isn't about being the greatest. And early Christian writers didn't see those interpretations of "the rock" as mutually exclusive.

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To take one step further, it was about being flawed, being human and asking forgiveness coming back in the light. Christ knew man could not be perfect.

As for Paul, Christ NEVER mentions him! How can anyone take the side of Paul over the man Christ named Petros? Take a good look at what Paul taught versus the Gospels, they do not match. We follow Paul's religion, not Christ. Christ didnt teach faith alone, ask James (you know Christ brother...)

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And yet Peter in his own writings calls Paul an Apostle and confirms his letters as scripture and encourages Christians to read Paul's letters.
Sounds like you have a big issue with Peter too.

DallasBear9902 said:

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Mothra said:

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DallasBear9902 said:

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Mothra said:

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DallasBear9902 said:

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Brazil has been eliminated from the World Cup and a national examination of conscience will run for the next few months. Lots of Brazilian commentary out there that the Protestant conversion of Brazil over the past few decades is what has killed Brazilian futbol.

The discourse connecting Brazilian soccer to Protestantism points to a deeper cultural claim: that Brazil’s football decline is not merely tactical, generational, or administrative, but spiritual and civilizational.

The argument is that the old Brazilian style — playful,… https://t.co/yTCEanAMsO pic.twitter.com/T6MZLUWhcU

— Institute for Hispano Studies (@hispano_studies) July 6, 2026

I'm not really sure what currently ails Brazilian soccer, but the framing here is interesting in the context of our running conversation on these boards. Interestingly, I think both sides probably accept the framing.

There is also an interesting meme of Neymar making the rounds (Neymar is the current (Protestant) Brazilian superstar that has defined the last decade plus of Brazilian soccer; a player whose legacy will ultimately be one of disappointment). Delightfully, the play on words translates well to English:

"Prays like a gringo;
Plays like a gringo."

After countless posts, I doubt any of us will change the other's minds theologically, but there is something about the difference in community between the Protestant and Catholic expressions of Christianity. I'm not trying to leave the Orthodox out of this conversation; I've always enjoyed being with them and felt welcome in their spaces, even if it feels (comfortably) foreign to me. And I think they've felt the same about me when invited into my community.

To use a perhaps light hearted example of this, dating at least back to my time at Baylor, many of us have lamented just how challenging it can be to get the Baylor faithful to present a united front just as fans at games (the battles over what shade of gold people were willing to wear come to mind). Contrast to how easily Catholics can rally and unite around Notre Dame and the entire stadium will wear the same thing (or use BYU and Mormons if you prefer). Fundamentally, the specific issue is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it does speak to something bigger.

Where Mothra sees indoctrination, we see unity and community. I suppose where we see recalcitrance and resistance to submission, Mothra sees individual righteousness. And on and on it goes.

---

I think your post actually illustrates the concern I've been raising. You treat unity as an intrinsic good, while largely ignoring the mechanism that produces it.

If a church teaches children from birth that questioning certain doctrines is spiritually dangerous, elevates institutional authority alongside or above individual interpretation of Scripture, and conditions members to defer to that authority, then yes, you will generally get more visible conformity. The question is whether conformity is the same thing as genuine conviction.

The fact that Catholics can more easily rally around Notre Dame than Baptists can around Baylor doesn't prove Catholicism is healthier; it may simply demonstrate a stronger culture of deference and institutional loyalty. Protestants have historically traded some degree of uniformity for individual conscience. That's not a bug, it's a feature.

More fundamentally, I'm a Protestant because I believe Scripture should remain the highest authority. When traditions develop that cannot be clearly grounded in Scripture, I think Christians have an obligation to question them rather than submit to them simply because an institution says so. The Reformers were criticized for creating division, but from their perspective the division was caused by the Church's departure from biblical teaching, not by those who objected to it.

So when you say "where Mothra sees indoctrination, we see unity," I would say that gets the issue backwards. The debate isn't whether Catholicism produces unity - clearly it often does. The debate is whether that unity is being produced by fidelity to Scripture or by confidence in institutional authority. Protestants tend to be skeptical of the latter, because history is full of institutions that were unified, disciplined, and wrong.

And that's why I'm not persuaded by the Notre Dame analogy. A stadium full of people wearing the same color is evidence of organizational cohesion. It tells us very little about whether the underlying beliefs are true.

---

You're coming across a tad bit defensive here. I made no normative statement. There was no value judgment expressed in my observations. Indeed, I acknowledged your agency and observed "where Mothra sees X, we see Y." I'm literally acknowledging the space for disagreement!

Nonetheless, let's engage the substance of your post. Sure, too much unity, especially at the expense of individual ascension to belief, is problematic, potentially to a very serious level. The Church has had to correct herself over the centuries of the downstream consequences borne of this issue. But it is also true that too much individualism at the expense of unity is a problem. 10,000+ denominations and independent churches, that continue to fracture even today attest to that. How many church plants do we really need? At what point do we work with the churches and the Church that God has already given us? There is a little bit of main character syndrome in play, IMHO.

When unity is not valued you just leave and go start another church for whatever reason. Perhpas because you couldn't reach consensus on some minor or important topic or perhaps because it is just really your dream to do you own thing. Either way, it is running away from the hardwork of being in community with one another. In its worst form, this individualism leads to a group of crazy zealots about 20 miles northeast of Waco shutting themselves off from the world and facing off with government tanks (not justifying Janet Reno, here).

You are correct that the stadium full of people wearing the same colors doesn't tell us much about their underlying beliefs. But it does tell us how they feel about each other and their organization and their greater place within it. And a stadium full of people who can't bring themselves to wear the same color doesn't tell us much about their underlying beliefs, either. But it does tell us about how those people feel about each other and their organization and their place within it.

I am comfortable saying that Christ wanted strong unity among his followers (as differetiated from unthinking unity). Think of it this way: there is a poster on these boards who seems to view himself in prophetic terms sent here to defeat the Catholic Church. If he ever somehow pulled that off, he would then turn to the Orthodox to dispatch them. And then the Lutherans (he'd start with the Missouri synod for their sin of being as close to Catholic as you can get while still being a Protestant). And then the Anglicans. And so on and so on, until all that remains are people who believe *exactly* what he believes in his individual intepretation of revelation. Odds are you will be a target at some point between here and there. Sure, you are convenient bedfellows today united by your hatred of the Catholic Church, but what happens once you actually catch the car? Is that Christ wants?

FWIW, I think you are failing to grasp Catholic unity. The Church has room for Jesuits and for Opus Dei. We have housed liberation theology (which may or may not be communist) and (until recently) the reactionary views of the SSPX. And everything in between. No matter how fierce our disagreements may be, we can and do all sit together in Mass and partake in the Sacraments together as one body.

While there are a few bright lines that cannot be crossed within Catholicism, that is true of every single Christian denomination and non-denominational church I am familiar with. I'm guessing it is true of your church, as well. But I would posit there is much greater diversity of faithful expression within the Catholic Church than just about any single major Christian denomination I am aware of. I cannot think of another denomation that is home to such a diverse range of views and expression of its faith. That mostly functions for the best and edifies us as a body, but sometimes it can get a little nutty. Either way, it really undermines the accussation of unhealthy unity.

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I'm not sure "defensive" is a fair characterization. You specifically called me out by name, referenced my perspective and contrasted it with your own ("where Mothra sees X, we see Y"), so I responded to the observations you made about my position.

More importantly, I think you're subtly changing the issue. I wasn't arguing that unity is bad. Virtually every Christian agrees unity is good. The question is whether institutional unity should be treated as evidence of spiritual health or theological correctness. Your examples largely assume the conclusion. Yes, fragmentation can be a problem. Yes, some people leave churches for bad reasons. Yes, Christians should be willing to endure disagreement and do the hard work of community. I agree with all of that. What I don't agree with is the implication that larger organizational unity is inherently superior. History gives us examples of both excessive individualism and excessive institutional conformity. Neither extreme is a virtue.

You point to thousands of Protestant denominations. Fair enough. But numerical diversity doesn't by itself demonstrate a failure of Christian charity any more than Catholic unity demonstrates theological truth. A Baptist and a Presbyterian may worship in different churches while still recognizing one another as fellow Christians. Meanwhile, two Catholics may sit in the same pew while holding radically different views on theology, morality, and Church life. Organizational unity and substantive unity are not the same thing.

I also think you're overlooking the danger on the other side of the equation. Unity is a virtue only when it is unity in the truth. Unity at the expense of truth is not a Christian virtue at all. To use a practical example, I know many Catholics personally - including lifelong Catholics who are my nextdoor neighbors - who sincerely believe that being a "good person" is what saves someone. I also have Catholic friends who openly advocate for abortion rights despite the Church's unequivocal teaching on the issue, and I have a legal assistant who is in a same-sex relationship and attends Mass faithfully.

My point is not to single out or condemn these individuals. Rather, it is to illustrate that institutional unity and sacramental participation do not necessarily indicate a shared understanding of, or submission to, the Gospel. If people can sit in the same pews, receive the same sacraments, and identify as members of the same church while holding fundamentally different views on salvation, morality, and human sexuality, then visible unity by itself cannot be the measure of spiritual health or faithfulness. In fact, I would argue that such examples demonstrate the very danger I am describing: unity can sometimes be preserved even when truth is not. What I am describing would never happen in my church.

That is why I continue to maintain that truth must be the primary standard. Unity is a great blessing when it is grounded in truth, but unity alone is not evidence that truth has been preserved. A church can have remarkable organizational unity while still containing profound disagreement or outright confusion about the very message that Christians are supposed to proclaim. The Catholic Church is clear evidence of that. That is why I am hesitant to treat visible unity as a reliable measure of spiritual health. Truth has to remain the primary standard; otherwise unity becomes an end in itself rather than a means of faithfully following Christ.

---

I think you are skirting what I am saying.

I agree that doctrinal truth (individual ascension to belief) is what matters and unity is not the end all be all. But lack of unity does tell us something, too.

The Baptist and the Presby choose to worship in seperate churches for a reason. What is that reason telling you?

The issues you identify within the Catholic Church are likely plagueing your church in some way or another. Depending on size of your congregation, odds are someone in your congregation is living in a sexually unchaste way or does not fully doctrinally assent to your dogma or buys into some prosperity gospel bs, etc...

Are you really identifying a Catholic-specific issue or is it a problem for all Christians?

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I agree that every church has sinners. Every church has people struggling with sin. Every church has people who are imperfectly catechized. That's just Christianity this side of glory.

However, my observation isn't merely that Catholics have sinners. It's that there often seems to be a large gap between the Gospels and what the Catholic Church officially teaches and/or tolerates in practice. In my church, if someone openly rejects the core Gospel, denies our confession, or persists in conduct contrary to the church's teaching without repentance, the church addresses it. You will not be allowed to become a member. We don't simply treat mutually contradictory beliefs as equally acceptable expressions of the faith. Membership and fellowship actually mean something.

We also teach the essentials of the Gospel. Our congregants don't lack even a rudimentary understanding of the core message of the Gospel - certainly not in the way that the Catholics I know so often do.

FLBear5630 said:

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4th and Inches said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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James was a leader of the early Church, which Paul did not agree.

Paul was a better politician. James is hardly mentioned after Paul got through with his visits. Yet, historically Peter and James were the leaders of the early church.

This is a common bone of contention, Paul vs James. Paul was faith alone, James was faith and acts.

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two different audiences, Paul was bringing gentiles to the faith so he taught that faith alone was all that was needed, and that the natural byproduct of faith would be the fruits of the spirit.

James was teaching to a different group of people, he was stating that you cannot claim to have faith without the evidence of good works. Both men expected good words to happen when true faith was found.

They are the same message

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No they are not. Paul clearly states that faith alone..

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does he?

Paul taught that good works must accompany saving faith (Eph. 2:10; Tit. 3:8; Gal. 5:6; Phil. 2:11-12)

Paul taught to correct the error of leagalism. James focused on teaching to correct the error of antinomianism.

Paul was speaking of those good works that an unsaved person tries to do in order to win God's favor or work his way to heaven. James on the other hand was referring to those good works that a saved person performs which gives evidence of a real, living, saving faith.

Zero contradiction. Read Acts 15.. James did not disagree with Peter or Paul when he had a chance.

We are justified by faith alone (Paul's teaching). The faith that justifies us is not alone; it must be accompanied by good works (James' teaching). The Holy Spirit pours in, we pour out. We are the branch and Jesus is the vine. Fruit is a natural byproduct of good soil.

And if the fruit isnt there, are you saved?

FLBear5630 said:

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And if the fruit isnt there, are you saved?

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Paul says those who have true faith in Jesus Christ will be "eager to do what is good" (Titus 2:14).

Paul says God created believers for good works (Ephesians 2:10). Salvation comes by God's grace through faith, and that faith is manifested in good works. This means that good works are the result of faith and are proof of it.

James is not saying that justification is by faith plus good works, but that a person who is truly justified by faith will have good works in his or her life. The works are an outward show of genuine faith in Christ (James 2:14, 17, 20, 26)

Both agree that good works are produced naturally by faith.. no amount of works will save you but a saving faith naturally produces good works.

We are told to do many good works in secret so it is hard to know if someone is expressing good works or not.. not all are called to complete the same type of works.

A business man who gives a large donation to fund a mission is helping to spread the gospel as much as the missionary who engages the people on the street.

Give freely as it has been given(it was never yours to begin with..)

Oldbear83 said:

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" Bible by itself is a storybook"

That's a very atheist perspective. Did not expect that from FLBear.

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It wasn't at all surprising to anyone with discernment.