chrysostom said:
I believe you are on the right side of wrong if that makes any sense.
Wouldn’t you agree that the evangelical movement is a big step back to the Catholic Church even though it is not your intention?
Why do you say the pope no longer has authority? The pope today has the same authority that was given to Peter.
An authority is no authority at all if it cannot command it. Jesus performs the miracles he performs and the response is, "This man truly has authority." Jesus forgives sins, but he also heals where no one else can. You see, authority cannot simply be a nominal thing. Christ says that Peter will have authority to "loose or bind things in Heaven" whatever he can loose or bind on earth, for he says "whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven", and before that, "the gates of hates will not prevail against you." The authority of Peter is not absolute, for it only has an authority in Heaven in as much as Peter has authority on earth. Now if the pope is seen as nothing more than a figurehead of the church, and has been undermined by the state, I have to ask, where is his authority? How does he have anymore power than the queen of England? Its nothing more than basking in the glory of those who came before. The state has dictated exactly what the Pope can and cannot do. You know what Peter did when the Roman Empire tried to command that kind of authority it had over him? He died on a cross, and the same authority that Christ held on the cross was the authority he held over his brothers and sisters, who would take the obedience he held unto death and look to Christ and know that Peter was the one with authority in his crucifixion and not Rome, for Peter has declared in his crucifixion that Jesus is "the Christ, the Son of God." You see Peter's confession of Christ was only made true in his willingness to die with Christ (because you will find that in the following passage Peter is very ignorant about what he himself had said). It is not until he is willing to go the way of death with Christ that confession will be true and that his action on earth will be bound in Heaven.
Later on in Matthew Jesus makes this statement about binding and loosing once again and says it unto all of the disciples. And here the authority is found not in the individual (Peter) but in the gathering. "Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask it will be done for you by my Father in Heaven. For where two or three gather in my name I am there with them." The Pope is not the locus of God's action in the world, but only where there are people gathered in Christ's name. Now I am not trying to deny the Pope's authority over those who gather with him, but to say that the Pope has authority over an invisible "world-wide" church, a mystical body of Christ, that is where I have problems. Because the gathering cannot and should not be made invisible (unless you want to give in to the state). For the Catholics it is almost as if the gathering has become simply a sign of an inward reality (kind of like the Eucharist has become for us protestant evangelicals), and not important as a
real practice. The gathering isn't important in itself, but becomes a sign of the individual Christian's participation and membership to an invisible body known as the "Body of Christ," yet no one gathers for it. What becomes more important is the magic performed on the stage (which one cannot participate in fully).
You are right in hearing the return to catholicity in the evangelical movement in what I am saying (though I don't know if it can be stated in such an all-inclusive way as you have put it, for I don't think that all people in the movement of evangelicals would see themselves as moving towards catholicity, Pat Robertson, for example). I am not trying to move to the present Catholic Church, but I am trying to remember the life of the church in its early years, thus finding myself in unity with the current Catholic tradition, even though I do not blindly follow everything the Catholic Church says. I cannot cease to be a member of the church, as long as Baptism is not something that a priest does, but is what God proclaims about me. Even in the Roman Catholic Church, baptism must be recognized if it is done by a Christian in the name of the Father and in the name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Ghost, and in water. That is because the church does not control baptism, but is called to baptize (every member of the church has that calling, though it is not recommended that all go out and start baptizing left and right). Now you can try to say that I was baptized by an infidel, but I know the one who baptized me, and his life is dedicated to the service of Christ. Even Jesus' disciples were faced with this question when they found others performing miracles in Christ's name, who were not a part of them, and Christ told them, "whoever is not against us is for us." So I am a baptized Christian, a member of a gathering of people who gather in the name of Christ, and I have not forsaken that.
Now the question is whether you are willing to accept that or not. Do you agree with Christ that "whoever is not against us is for us"? If you do, then to call me an infidel, and to tell me to stop is in direct violation of what Christ has said. We are not fighting one another; we are just not seeing the same cause that unites us. I follow Christ and you follow Christ and we are one in as much as we are willing to be one, living in the peace of Christ that he has given to us in his very example. When I say "peace" I mean it. It's not just a filler word.
Peace be unto you from our Lord, Jesus Christ,
Michael
