The Top 40

Well, that will never sell.

Oh, wait . . .

Sola scriptura is the specifically and diagnostically Protestant doctrine (but not all). The Catholic and Orthodox churches, which comprise 90% of Christians worldwide, insist that Scripture must be interpreted in the light of tradition.

It is notable that the Christian Bible is formally defined only in the early 5th Century AD. The Church had already existed for 400 years by then, and the books chosen to be the Bible were selected in conformity with the by then well established Church doctrines. Similarly, the Jewish Bible was the creation of a pre-existing Judaism with a pre-existing doctrine.

The noticeable tendency of the Protestant churches is to periodically purge the Bible of inconvenient chapters and verses. This began with Luther and continues to this day, although the excisions of the text are not formally announced, and the text itself is not redacted.

The one vanished forever book from the Bible, the name of which has also been disappeared is the one book which said two things to Marty l: "Authority is granted to Marty L. to believe in Sola Fide, and two, any books of the Bible he does not like, he can remove. If you accept this mission Mr. Phelps, uh Mr. Marty, this book having been read by you, will automatically self destruct. Have a nice day."
Ave Verum Corpus; Salve Regina; Benedictum sit nomen Domine nostri Jesu Christi.
Oh, and Viva Christo Rey!

Sola Scriptura is part and parcel of the inevitable trajectory of the Modern Project that got us into this hideous mess.

An excellent, short summary is found in John Wright's Restless Heart of Darkness four-part essay at scifiwridght.com.

scifiwright.com

I will tell you, though, that this except is exactly right on target:

... our interests have displaced God's and we are doing his work in our way. The loss of God's centrality in the life of today's church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique, being good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into being successful. As a result, God, Christ and the Bible have come to mean too little to us and rest too inconsequentially upon us.
God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for consumption, or our own private spiritual interest. We must focus on God in our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our personal needs. God is sovereign in worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God's kingdom, not our own empires, popularity or success.

This was written in 1996 and can tell you with some authority that it is well amplified today. In the last year a couple told me they were leaving my church because, "You're not making us happy every Sunday."

Near the end of his life, John Wesley, principal founder of the Methodist movement, understood that the "people called Methodist" would not disappear after his death, but he nonetheless was filled with some foreboding:

1. I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.

2. What was their fundamental doctrine? That the Bible is the whole and sole rule both of Christian faith and practice.

But he foretold what would happen only a few paragraphs later:

9. It nearly concerns us to understand how the case stands with us at present. I fear, wherever riches have increased, (exceeding few are the exceptions,) the essence of religion, the mind that was in Christ, has decreased in the same proportion. Therefore do I not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of true religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality; and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches.

10. How, then, is it possible that Methodism, that is, the religion of the heart, though it flourishes now as a green bay-tree, should continue in this state? For the Methodists in every place grow diligent and frugal; consequently, they increase in goods. Hence they proportionably increase in pride, in anger, in the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life. So, although the form of religion remains, the spirit is swiftly vanishing away.

Things have not improved since then.

It's probably kinder and more constructive for me to suggest to our beloved protestant brethren that reform efforts often inadvertently throw out the baby with the bath water, and to recommend that they study the history of the church before the Reformation, especially its first 300-500 years, in order to better comprehend the indispensability of its founding Traditions in praxis and scriptural interpretation. Without these, the church is literally incomplete as well as flawed.

The protestant concept of 'Sola Scriptura' allows for some highly idiosyncratic and, frankly, wrong interpretations of the New Testament, which is why there are now more than 20,000 protestant sects and so much confusion about Christianity in the modern mind.

If you wish to recover the original beauty and vigor of Christianity, don't roll it back 500 years; roll it back 2000 years.

"Erosion Of Authority"
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I do not recognize authority except authority of self. Nobody owns any part of anybody else.

Your anarchy is showing ghost. Do you really believe your armory is going to be large enough with 7 billion little authoritative gods running around your property? Hillary's got at least 50 million of them in her camp alone.

In the absence of gov't YOU will suddenly become violent why?

Ghost,

It's not me I'm worried about, it's people like you and Hillary who believe in their own autonomy, plus nothing.

Try growing a patch of opium poppies in your front yard and wait and see if you are your own authority. With every breath you take now, and if you should live forever, you are and will be under the authority of others, from the local sheriff on up.

So, the question is not whether you can be under your own authority or not but, - who are you going to obey and serve?