Carlene

How was slavery in Biblical times "different" than say, slavery in the US - pre Civil War? It was a "custom" of the mid-1800's, was it not? The Bible often does NOT hold women "in high esteem". Ephesians 5:22-24 (American Standard Version) 22 Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the saviour of the body. 24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands in everything. "Subjection" is a pretty strong word. It means, literally, subject to the rule of. Within the church, women were forbidden to teach, or even to speak. How is that "of equal value and importance"? Not motherhood and biology, but WITHIN THE CHURCH. I did not say that the Bible condones slavery - merely that it does not speak AGAINST it. Nor did I say that the Bible condemns divorced people to hell. I said the Bible, if taken literally, says divorced/re-married people are adulterers.

So you think that Kate might go to hell, because she never made an overt act of acceptance of Christ as her savior? The same punishment for her as (we presume) God meted out to Hitler. Eternal damnation. The very idea that anyone would even entertain those thoughts makes me ill, let alone a so-called Christian. God is love. God is just. A just and loving God would not do that.

I will use your own words here, just so we are clear on this. This sounds, to me, like good works are the measuring stick of salvation. If they are present, you are in the process of being saved. If they are absent, you aren't really saved. So.....does this mean you have to keep performing good works all the rest of your life? If you stop after, say, 20 years and start cheating, drinking, etc, does that mean salvation has slipped away? Does it mean you were never really saved in the first place? In my dad's case, he was a pretty nice guy until age 30 or so. He did not drink prior to that, held a job, and was a respected member of society (and the Baptist church).

This probably belongs on a separate thread, but I'd hate to open up yet another can of theological worms. My granddaughter lives with me. Last Saturday we had a dust storm like I've never seen (except in Arizona and West Texas). They closed D/FW airport and cancelled 564 flights. Two of my granddaughter's school chums were walking down a busy thoroughfare during the peak of the storm and were struck by a car. One girl will recover; the other will not. She is on life support only until her organs are harvested for transplant. Here's the question, for all you theologians. "Kate" is 14 and has never been "churched". Will she go to heaven? That was the question Cheyenne asked me this morning, on the ride to school. Let me add that Kate was known for her gentle spirit and her kind ways.

I asked you not to call me "Charlene" because it's not my name, or a diminutive of my name. There is no "h" in Carlene. Had you addressed me as "Carly" I would not have taken offense. Ronnie was good enough for President Reagan, so I thought you might even be flattered. Sorry for the implied intimacy, Mr. Cusano. Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain to us the "proper context" of the scriptures I quoted regarding slavery, a woman's "place", divorce, etc.

You're right about that. First you said "once saved, always saved". Then you said it's a gradual process....first you have a "salvation experience", and that leads you to do good works. My dad, according to his sister, had a "salvation experience". So you're saying what now....that it wasn't a valid save? Would that be from the get-go, or did it slowly ebb away, like air leaking out of a tire? If we are really saved, we keep performing good works, and if we stop performing good works, it means we were never really saved in the first place. Is that it?

Hey, I quoted literal passages from the Word of God and YOU said they didn't count because I had taken them "out of context". No, no, no.....Ronnie. You can't have it both ways.

I don't understand, then. You said earlier that if a person is truly saved, he/she will perform good works. You used my own example (my father) as a person NOT saved because he did not "follow thru" after accepting Christ. Now you're saying that's totally unnecessary?

Okay.....then this should work. And it's perfectly logical. 1. Accepting Christ = being saved 2. Being saved = desire to do good works 3. The truly saved perform good works 4. Only the truly saved go to heaven 5. To go to heaven, you must perform good works, or be prevented from doing so thru no fault of your own.

With all due respect, you obviously have an over-rated opinion of yourself and your knowledge of biblical matters. I have studied the Bible, by the way. I was privileged to have a unique religious education when I was growing up. A Jesuit priest (close family friend) came every Sunday afternoon and taught me - not just Catholicism, but how to read and study the Bible, too. (Jesuits, for those not familiar with Catholic orders, are the scholars of the Catholic Church.) If I have a grasp of the Bible or the teachings of the Church (and I've been told I do), it is due solely to the influence of Father Tommy. Having said that, I also studied religion in college - two semesters (Religions of the World and Comparitive Religion). I made A's in both classes. Would you now care to state your credentials? As for picking verses "out of context", a literal interpretation of the Bible, by definition, means that context does not matter. If every word - every verse - of the Bible is utterly and completely true, then every verse stands alone, as evidence of that. Would you please cite your references for your statement regarding the 100% accuracy of today's Bibles?

How is this a word game? Show me where this logic is not accurate. 1. Accepting Christ = being saved 2. Being saved = desire to do good works 3. The truly saved perform good works 4. Only the truly saved go to heaven 5. To go to heaven, you must perform good works

Okay.....I think I have it! You must be saved in order to go to heaven. If you are truly saved, you will perform good works. Therefore, good works are required to get to heaven.

So a person who doesn't perform "good works" isn't really saved? Is that what you're saying?

That differs a LOT from what you said several pages ago. Edited to add... Gee...that sounds a lot like "good works" to me... "By their fruits you shall know that they are mine."

You still don't get it, do you,Ron? To say that I MIGHT go to heaven in spite of my Catholic beliefs is unbelievably arrogant. And so NOT what Jesus would do. PS.....could you please stop calling me "Charlene"? Thanks.

My parents were divorced when I was very young. My mother came from an Irish Catholic family and my father was Southern Baptist. I even had an uncle who was a fire and brimstone preacher. On weekend visits with my dad, I was duly exposed to Baptist theology. The only part I really minded was when they bad-mouthed other religions - and Catholics in particular. And they never got tired of pointing out that my mother, my saintly grandmother, and practically everyone else I loved (as well as myself) were all going to hell. Not because we didn't believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but because we were members of the Catholic Church. My mother was an unbelievably pious woman. She raised two children by herself, with virtually no help from my dad. She did not smoke, drink, swear, or fornicate. My father did all those things, and more. He was an alcoholic - a binge drinker who shirked responsibility and made no attempt to live a Christian life. He drank himself to death at 55 and was buried, of course, by his family - many of whom I had not seen for years. They all assured me that my father was in heaven, because he had been "saved" at a tent revival one summer night when he was about 12 years old. Now, according to my good Baptist relatives, my mom will burn in hell for not abandoning the faith into which she was born and raised. The faith she PRACTICED for almost 80 years. My father, on the other hand, will walk on streets paved with gold, while basking in God's eternal love in heaven. He will not hunger or thirst. He will not know sickness or despair. Because he was "saved", and once saved, always saved. So say the Baptists. In retrospect, maybe I should have converted when I had the chance. It would have been so much easier than being a Catholic. My father almost never set foot inside a church, once he reached adulthood. I, on the other hand, have wasted countless hours on my knees in prayer and penance. I volunteered in soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and food pantries. My dad drank and danced his nights away in bars filled with smoke and easy women. I raised four children to respect their elders, love their God, and obey the 10 Commandments. My father didn't raise his children - we just grew up. But if you ask the Baptist side of my family, I'm still going to hell. And my deadbeat dad is still bound for glory. I don't think so. Somewhere in the Bible it says God is just. I'm counting on that.

I think we established waaaaaaay back in this thread that all of us, as Christians, believe that Christ died for our sins. No one here has argued that point with you. We are perfectly willing to acknowledge that you have the same chance of going to heaven as we do, no matter what group's name is on the church house door. But you don't really believe that the rest of us are worthy of heaven, do you, Ron? Because we are Catholic, or Methodist, or Lutheran, or some other denomination that does not embrace your fundamentalist ideas. And that's where we differ. We practice tolerance and you preach exclusion. I believe, and Jesus taught, that all Christians are brothers and sisters in Christ. If you want to celebrate communion with grape juice instead of wine, go for it. That won't keep you out of heaven. If you don't make the sign of the cross, fast during Lent, pray the Rosary, or genuflect before the alter, that's okay. None of that will stop you from going to heaven. I don't speak in tongues, but if you do, that's cool. Speaking in tongues won't exclude you from heaven. If your church ordains women, more power to them. You can receive the good news of the Lord from a woman and still go to heaven. Do you get my drift, Ron? If the blood of Christ is the key to heaven, then we are all saved. Baptists go to heaven. So do Disciples of Christ, Presbyterians, Episcopalians....and even Catholics. And if you don't get that, or you refuse to acknowledge it, then you sir are not living a Christ-like life.

My point is that the Bible has been translated, interpreted, reinterpreted, translated again - all by human beings subject to error and personal belief and the conventions of their time - to the point that nobody knows what the original manuscripts may have said. First of all, there's the Old Testament. It's part of the Bible. But according to those who interpret it literally, the Old Testament doesn't apply to them. Then what's it doing in an "infallible" rule book for the human race? Why bother with it at all? Maybe because we don't want to follow all those dietary laws. But we like the Ten Commandments, so we'll keep them. And the story of creation, of course. Then there are the New Testament passages that don't support a lot of Christian beliefs. Divorce? Not allowed, per the New Testament. Anyone in your church been divorced, Ron? How about slavery? "Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior." (Titus 2:9-10) There is, of course, much more. Women must cover their heads when they pray. Men must not grow their hair long (but women should). Wives are to be submissive and women are prohibited from being "teachers" (ministers). "If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out". (A good part of America would soon be blind.) "If thine hand offends thee, cut it off". (And one-handed.) And don't give me that lame old argument about "context". Either the Bible is literally, completely, true or it isn't.

http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/pre-reformation.html and by the way, it's an anit-Catholic site. I deliberately chose a source that would not be "slanted" toward my faith, although I left out the author's nasty comments about Catholicism.

You are comfortable telling a large percentage of your fellow Christians that they are going to hell but you don't feel qualified to "second guess" George Bush? There is something terribly flawed in your logic.

The selling of indulgences was absolutely NOT a matter of doctrine, which must be declared (and recorded) as such. It was Leo X's idea of an appropriate fund raiser. Think of it like BINGO....hardly a single Catholic church in America has not hosted a BINGO game, but it's not a matter of doctrine.

Why not? It's certainly been done before. The earliest scripture is generally considered to be the “Pentateuch”, the first five books of the Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy… though there is some scholarly evidence to indicate that the Old Testament Book of Job may actually be the oldest book in the Bible. These writings were passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. By approximately500 BC, the 39 Books that make up the Old Testament were completed, and continued to be preserved in Hebrew on scrolls. As we approach the last few centuries before Christ, the Jewish historical books known as the “Apocrypha” were completed, yet they were recorded in Greek rather than Hebrew. By the end of the First Century AD, the New Testament had been completed. The oldest copies of the New Testament known to exist today are: The Codex Alexandrius and the Codex Sinaiticus in the British Museum Library in London, and the Codex Vaticanus in the Vatican. They date back to approximately the 300’s AD. In 315 AD, Athenasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, identified the 27 Books which we recognize today as the canon of New Testament scripture. In 382 AD, the early church father Jerome translated the New Testament from its original Greek into Latin. This translation became known as the “Latin Vulgate”, (“Vulgate” meaning “vulgar” or “common”). He put a note next to the Apocrypha Books, stating that he did not know whether or not they were inspired scripture, or just Jewish historical writings which accompanied the Old Testament. The Apocrypha was kept as part of virtually every Bible scribed or printed from these early days until just 120 years ago, in the mid-1880’s, when it was removed from Protestant Bibles. Up until the 1880’s, however, every Christian… Protestant or otherwise… embraced the Apocrypha as part of the Bible, though debate continued as to whether or not the Apocrypha was inspired. There is no truth to the popular myth that there is something “Roman Catholic” about the Apocrypha, which stemmed from the fact that the Roman Catholics kept 12 of the 14 Apocrypha Books in their Bible, as the Protestants removed all of them. No real justification was ever given for the removal of these ancient Jewish writings from before the time of Christ, which had remained untouched and part of every Bible for nearly two thousand years. The first hand-written English language Bible was produced in the 1380’s by John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor, scholar, and theologian. The invention of the printing press in the 1450’s made the Bible widely available to lay people. In 1496, John Colet, another Oxford professor and the son of the Mayor of London, started reading the New Testament in Greek and translating it into English for his students at Oxford, and later for the public at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London. In 1516 the scholar Erasmus published a Greek translation of the New Testament. This milestone was the first non-Latin Vulgate text of the scripture to be produced in a millennium… and the first ever to come off a printing press. Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German from Erasmus Greek-Latin text and eventually went on to publish an entire Bible in German in the 1530’s. William Tyndale wanted to use the same 1516 Erasmus text as a source to translate and print the New Testament in English for the first time in history. Tyndale showed up on Luther's doorstep in Germany in 1525, and by year's end had translated the New Testament into English. The first complete English Bible was printed on October 4, 1535, and is known as the Coverdale Bible. John Rogers went on to print the second complete English Bible in 1537. It is a composite made up of Tyndale's Pentateuch and New Testament (1534-1535 edition) and Coverdale's Bible and some of Roger's own translation of the text. It remains known most commonly as the Matthew-Tyndale Bible. In 1539 the Archbishop of Canterbury hired Myles Coverdale to publish King Henry VIII’s “Great Bible”. It became the first English Bible authorized for public use. In the 1550's, the Church at Geneva, Switzerland, was very sympathetic to the Protestant reformers. Many of them met in Geneva, and under the protection of John Calvin, the Church of Geneva determined to produce their own Bible. Their New Testament was completed in 1557 and the complete Bible was first published in 1560. It became known as the Geneva Bible. The Geneva Bible became the Bible of choice for over 100 years of English speaking Christians. Between 1560and1644 at least 144 editions of this Bible were published. In 1568, a revision of the Great Bible known as the Bishop's Bible was introduced. Despite 19 editions being printed between 1568 and 1606, this Bible, referred to as the “rough draft of the King James Version”, never gained much of a foothold of popularity among the people. With the death of Queen Elizabeth I, Prince James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. The Protestant clergy approached the new King in 1604 and announced their desire for a new translation to replace the Bishop's Bible. This "translation to end all translations" (for a while at least) was the result of the combined effort of about fifty scholars. In 1611 the first version of the King James Bible was published. The Anglican Church’s King James Bible took decades to overcome the more popular Protestant Church’s Geneva Bible. One of the greatest ironies of history, is that many Protestant Christian churches today embrace the King James Bible exclusively as the “only” legitimate English language translation… yet it is not even a Protestant translation! It was printed to compete with the Protestant Geneva Bible, by authorities who throughout most of history were hostile to Protestants… and killed them. Throughout the 1600’s, as the Puritans and the Pilgrims fled the religious persecution of England to cross the Atlantic and start a new free nation in America, they took with them their precious Geneva Bible, and rejected the King’s Bible. America was founded upon the Geneva Bible, not the King James Bible.

The selling of indulgences by one individual was not a matter of erroneous doctrine. Not everything a pope says/does is a matter of doctrine. And the pope, as you well know, is as capable of sin as any other human being. Popes know this too and are, by and large, very humble people.

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