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Thursday, February 23, 2012

Christ did not say to the earliest church, “I give you my authority”


Following up with my recent comments about Larry Hurtado’s work and in the context of what he’s called “earliest Christianity” (basically the first 100 years of Christianity), I want to mention a comment by K Doran, who provided the first comment in Andrew Preslar’s response to R. Scott Clark and Robert Godfrey had on “the Lure of Rome”. Doran is wrong in this comment:

One additional point is that the data of antiquity is sparse — it is almost certain that the vast majority of what was written has been lost, and that much of what was lived and believed was never written in the first place. In light of this sparseness, arguments that the data do not contain sufficiently explicit references to the precise definitions of transubstantiation, the papacy, etc before, say the late 300s, are completely useless arguments from silence. They tell us nothing either one way or another. Give me the same sample size from 30 A.D. to 330 A.D. that we have from 330AD through 630AD, and then we can talk clearly about development on subtle issues from the very early church to the church of late antiquity. But, with the data as it stands, all we can say is: (1) as soon as the data set gets rich in the late 300s, it looks quite obviously non-protestant even on subtle issues; (2) no one during that time complained that the obviously “Catholic” teachings were corruptions; (3) many people at the time did explicitly and implicitly state that these “Catholic” teachings had always been taught; and (4) the sparse data from the first 300 years do not by any means contradict what was so clearly taught in the late 300s and beyond (unless, again, one is to abuse the statistically impossible argument from silence in that sparse data).
                                                 
In light of the above, the protestant approach to the data of antiquity is very inadequate in comparison to the Catholic one. There is a deep sense in which the majority of the data is Catholic. There is a deeper sense in which the Catholic church has had the confidence to be intellectually honest about the sparse data, applying arguments from silence when and where the data itself permits it, and ignoring silly arguments from silence where the data itself do not. I think this intellectual maturity is what many converts notice, even if they can’t explain it in words; to compare the Catholic embrace of the “mean” of history with the Protestant attempt to find a tiny niche in antiquity to call its own, is an eye-opening experience.

Rather, the New Testament provides for us an embarrassment of riches with respect to our knowledge of the earliest Church and antiquity. Roman Catholics like K Doran make a fundamental mistake in holding on to what Hurtado refers to the darkened pre-Constantinian centuries.

What’s really happening is that, in the first 100 years of church history, we see a picture of Christ-worship and an authority structure in the earliest church that is totally turned on its head, not by “subtle issues” as Doran says, but with true violence. Not all of it was intentional, but some of the Rome-ward and Pagan-ward drift was quite intentional.

There is no need for Protestants to make “arguments from silence” with respect either to “authority” or to what “the church that Christ founded” was really like. The Roman story – and even the Anglican story on “the episcopacy” has changed in recent years to reflect what’s now known about what he calls “the historical phenomenon” of both “Christ devotion” and the earliest church.

Both are now subtly fudging their account of how the episcopal structure came into being. It's important to note just how this fudge is being produced. 

Roman Catholics are fond of saying that the Roman Church is “The sole Church of Christ” that is, [the Church] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter’s pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (subsistit in) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him…”

But as I noted last week, that’s a bait and switch. So too is the Anglican conception of “orders”. Some time ago, I cited Roger Beckwith in his work, “Elders in Every City: The Origin and Role of the Ordained Ministry” (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press ©2003). Beckwith [an Anglican] noted what he called “fuzzy language” in the preface to the Ordinal in the Book of Common Prayer to describe the existence of “Bishops, Priests, and Deacons” in the church:

“It is evident unto all men diligently reading holy Scripture and the ancient Authors, that from the Apostles’ time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church” Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.”

Of this statement, Beckwith says:

This is a very carefully phrased statement which, through loose interpretation, has been misrepresented both by its defenders and by its critics.

For, in the first place, it does not say that this is evident to those “diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors’; in other words, it is evident from Scripture and the Fathers taken together, but not necessarily from one of the two taken singly. If we have difficulty finding the threefold ministry in the New Testament taken by itself, the preface does not say that we should be able to find it there.

In the second place, the preface does not say that “by the Apostles’ decision there have been those Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church” but from the Apostles time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church”; in other words, from the period before the last of the apostles died there have been three orders of ordained ministers; and the last of the apostles, St John, is stated by Irenaeus (Against Heresies 3:3;4) to have lived until the reign of Trajan, who did not become emperor till AD 98. Since the threefold ministry was [evident] when Ignatius of Antioch was writing his letters, about AD 110, it can hardly have arisen later than the beginning Trajan’s reign, in other words, later than the end of the apostolic age. So the preface to the Ordinal is stating the simple truth in saying that it dates from the apostle’s time. But how far the apostles were responsible for the development which took place is left an open question (Beckwith pgs 9-10).

Francis Sullivan, evidently in agreement with Beckwith and Kilmartin [whom I’ve cited earlier] and a raft of other modern scholarship on this topic of “authority in the earliest church”, concludes his work “From Apostles to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopacy in the Early Church” (New York, Mahwah, NJ: The Newman Press, © 2001 by The Society of Jesus of New England [Jesuits]):

While most Catholic scholars agree that the episcopate is the fruit of a post-New Testament development, they maintain that this development was so evidently guided by the Holy Spirit that it must be recognized as corresponding to God’s plan for the structure of his Church (230).

On the contrary, the earliest history of the church shows a completely different “structure”, put into place by the Apostles and the earliest disciples. It was this “structure” that was cast aside in favor of an Episcopal structure that has its roots not in the authority structure that Christ left with his apostles, but rather, with the pagan and Roman world around them. As such, it is not a “divine institution” in any way, and the Reformers were clearly in the right to cast off the accretions.

Christ did not say to the earliest church, “I give you my authority”. He said, “go, and I will be with you”. There’s a big difference. 

20 comments:

  1. ***Christ did not say to the earliest church, “I give you my authority”. He said, “go, and I will be with you”. There’s a big difference. ***

    Christ did say that He would be with the Church.

    But He also said:

    "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:19).

    And:

    "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld" (John 20:23).

    That is an investiture of real authority, authority that is proper to God and can only be given by God to God's representatives.

    What is your take on such passages?

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  2. What are your specific responses to Doran's first two points:

    "(1) as soon as the data set gets rich in the late 300s, it looks quite obviously non-protestant even on subtle issues; (2) no one during that time complained that the obviously “Catholic” teachings were..."

    The second question is particularly compelling. What evidence is there of this "true violence" that enforced the false ecclesiology of Rome? (Which, anyway, was not strictly, but common to churches from India to Spain, from Persia to Ethiopia -- many of these, obviously, falling well outside Roman jurisdiction.)

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  3. Philip said: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:19).

    And:

    "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld" (John 20:23).

    That is an investiture of real authority, authority that is proper to God and can only be given by God to God's representatives.

    What is your take on such passages?



    I'm at work right now and "my take" certainly doesn't involve allowing Rome to say "this means what we say it means". You have to start with the text -- what it meant in context -- and it is just incredibly wrong-headed to read Rome's current doctrine back into these verses. Rome's doctrines were no where in sight when these events happened.

    There is a good discussion of what "binding and loosing" meant in context, here, and as for John 20:23, this comment is appropriate, putting the verse into the context of what the entire Gospel is saying:

    Jesus then speaks further of his commission to them: If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven (v. 23). This is a surprising way to put the commission, since it is never said that anyone is "forgiven" in this Gospel. While the reality of forgiveness is depicted (e.g., see comments on 5:14 and 8:11), this is the only occasion where it is stated explicitly. The ultimate sin for which one needs forgiveness is the rejection of Jesus (9:41; 15:22-24; 16:9). The disciples are to bear witness to Jesus (15:26-27), not just by representing Jesus but by actually being the presence of Jesus through the Spirit. In this way they will be the agents of the Spirit's confrontation of the world (16:8-11), which is a continuation of Jesus' own confrontation. "The apostles were commissioned to carry on Christ's work, and not to begin a new one" (Westcott 1908:2:350).

    My hope is to explicate this in more detail, but for now, I'm at work and I'm not able to get into an involved discussion of this. For now, it should suffice to say that the Roman conception of "apostolic succession" or "priesthood" are clearly not in view in either of these verses.

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  4. The response is easy. Nobody is claiming it looked Protestant. Here's the thing, though - it doesn't look very much like modern Rome either.

    The early church was the early church. We must study them for what they were and draw only warranted conclusions therefrom. RCs and EOx are in particular guilty of unwarranted conclusions.

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  5. Philip said: What are your specific responses to Doran's first two points:

    "(1) as soon as the data set gets rich in the late 300s, it looks quite obviously non-protestant even on subtle issues; (2) no one during that time complained that the obviously “Catholic” teachings were..."

    The second question is particularly compelling. What evidence is there of this "true violence" that enforced the false ecclesiology of Rome?


    By the late 300's, Pope Damasus, the murderer pope, was quite in charge in Rome. Here's a brief history of the papacy that I provide at that link:

    150 ad: the church at Rome is ruled by a plurality of presbyters who quarrel about status and honor. (Shepherd of Hermas). “They had a certain jealousy of one another over questions of preeminence and about some kind of distinction. But they are all fools to be jealous of one another regarding preeminence.”

    235: Hippolytus and Pontianus are exiled from Rome by the emperor “because of street fighting between their followers” (Collins citing Cerrato, Oxford 2002).

    258: Cyprian (Carthage/west) and Firmilian (Caesarea/east) both become incensed when Stephen tries to exercise authority outside of Rome. [Stephen is the first pope on record to cite Matt 16:18 in support of his own authority.]

    306: Rival “popes” exiled because of “violent clashes” (Collins)

    308: Rival “popes” exiled because of “violent clashes” (Collins again).

    What genuinely gave bishops of Rome the impetus to expand further was the conversion of Constantine. Eamon Duffy noted that this event “propelled the bishops of Rome into the heart of the Roman establishment. Already powerful and influential men, they now became grandees on a par with the wealthiest senators in the city. Bishops all over the Roman world would now be expected to take on the role of judges, governors, great servants of state (“Saints and Sinners,” New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997, 2001, pg 37). Duffy had previously recounted the story of the young Ambrose (b. 340-397), “fascinated as the women of the family clustered around Liberius (352-366), kissing his hand, and the boy had amused and infuriated his relatives by imitating his stately walk and offering his own hand to be kissed by the womenfolk” (36).


    And of course, Damasus (and his hired gang of thugs) had murdered some 137 followers of his rival to become pope.

    Clearly, this is not the work of "disciples" who, as in the previous comment, are "agents of the Spirit's confrontation of the world (16:8-11), which is a continuation of Jesus' own confrontation."

    This murderous spirit comes from somewhere else. And yes, as K Doran said, this was very clearly the "Roman Catholic" spirit at work through these events.

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  6. ***Clearly, this is not the work of "disciples"***

    Aren't disciples of Christ still sinners, still capable of great wickedness? Did not the Reformers also slay and roast and suppress their enemies? This is the way of fallen man unless he is tightly controlled. We are depraved. Damasus was a sinner, yes, but so are you and so am I. Are you not a disciple, despite yourself?

    As for your response to Doran's questions:

    1. The Roman church was no doubt administered by a "plurality of presbyters," but it was surely ruled by a single bishop. This may not have been the case in the very first formative years, but it was certainly the way of things by AD 150, as witnessed to by Irenaeus.

    2. Scuffles within Rome itself do not prove a vast, conspiratorial overthrow of an apostolic ecclesiology across the whole of the empire.

    3. How do you account for the great similarity between those churches within Roman jurisdiction and those churches outside Roman jurisdiction?

    4. How do you explain the witness of history? What I mean is this:

    Rome can account for every bishop from Peter forward:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popes

    The same is true of Alexandria:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Patriarchs_of_Alexandria

    The same is true of Antioch:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Patriarchs_of_Antioch

    The same is true of Constantinople:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ecumenical_Patriarchs_of_Constantinople
    and the other major sees.

    This is even the case with the Nestorian Church:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Patriarchs_of_the_Church_of_the_East#List_of_Catholicoi_of_Seleucia-Ctesiphon_and_Patriarchs_of_the_East_until_1552

    Yet you suppose history has been so thoroughly and extensively whitewashed? That is hard for me to swallow. No, the simple explanation is that, from the very start, this was was the way of the Church of Christ.

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  7. ***Jesus then speaks further of his commission to them: If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven (v. 23). This is a surprising way to put the commission, since it is never said that anyone is "forgiven" in this Gospel. While the reality of forgiveness is depicted (e.g., see comments on 5:14 and 8:11), this is the only occasion where it is stated explicitly. The ultimate sin for which one needs forgiveness is the rejection of Jesus (9:41; 15:22-24; 16:9). The disciples are to bear witness to Jesus (15:26-27), not just by representing Jesus but by actually being the presence of Jesus through the Spirit. In this way they will be the agents of the Spirit's confrontation of the world (16:8-11), which is a continuation of Jesus' own confrontation. "The apostles were commissioned to carry on Christ's work, and not to begin a new one" (Westcott 1908:2:350).***

    This seems like a lot of fancy footwork to avoid the simple meaning of the text. The commentator writes, "This is a surprising way to put the commission." Indeed, it is. Surprising and confusing.

    I agree with you that the finer points of the Catholic doctrine of reconciliation are hard to find in this text, but that doesn't make the above interpretation any stronger.

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  8. What makes it stronger is that it seeks to place the verse into the context of the Gospel. It is very telling that Rome's doctrine of "reconciliation" is not in the text.

    What do you think of their dishonesty in "infallibly" trying to make that verse one that speaks of it?

    As for your other questions:

    Aren't disciples of Christ still sinners, still capable of great wickedness?

    Yes, and when they exhibit this great wickedness, is the Scriptural injunction to discipline them? Remove them from office? What does Christ do with these kinds of unrepentant individuals? Does he chastise them for it? (Think Matthew 23). Or does he excuse their criminal behavior because they are in some non-scriptural "succession list" and give them even greater honors? What is the way of Christ?

    1. The Roman church was no doubt administered by a "plurality of presbyters," but it was surely ruled by a single bishop. This may not have been the case in the very first formative years, but it was certainly the way of things by AD 150,

    I think you are confused. This is the very thing I am saying. There was not a single bishop in Rome (or anywhere else) much before 100 AD, and as you say, 150 AD in Rome.

    3. How do you account for the great similarity between those churches within Roman jurisdiction and those churches outside Roman jurisdiction?

    I've cited Bock citing Bauer, who noted that we really do need to study how some of these things happened at different times in different places. Ignatius is a place to start when talking about what the word "bishop" actually meant for him. It is certain it didn't mean to him what it means to you. What, then, was he talking about, in his own context?

    4. How do you explain the witness of history? What I mean is this: Rome can account for every bishop from Peter forward:

    For that crucial first 100 years, it certainly has names. But as for Irenaeus, there is a great deal of evidence that while he had the names, he did not have a "succession of bishops" -- he had names that he fashioned into a "succession". I've written about this extensively. But he was functioning as an apologist (vs different groups of heretics), and not as an historian. He was an awful historian. For example, he says that Peter and Paul founded and organized Rome. That clearly is not the case. He gets dates wrong.

    As for the various "sees" and their lists, check out this link and this one too on the tendency of Rome to rewrite history to suit its own apologetic purposes.

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  9. ***What do you think of their dishonesty in "infallibly" trying to make that verse one that speaks of it?***

    I don't think it's not there: It's just not there in full. The Church draws on other verses, as well as the early practices and documents of the Church (ex: the Didache), to form its understanding of this mystery.

    ***As for the various "sees" and their lists, check out this link and this one too on the tendency of Rome to rewrite history to suit its own apologetic purposes.***

    Thank you, I will read those posts. By the way, I hope the wife is doing well.

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  10. "That is an investiture of real authority... What is your take on such passages?"

    Essentially:

    "Unto this catholic visible Church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world: and doth by his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto." (WCF 25.3).

    But note also:

    "The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error;a and some have so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth to worship God according to his will." (25.5).

    Additionally, Matth. 16:19 should be compared with Matth. 18:16-20, among other things. The power of the keys is co-extensive with the gospel and the Word, which it is the duty of the church to administer. It is not a separate track invested in some supposed succesion.

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  11. I don't think it's not there: It's just not there in full. The Church draws on other verses, as well as the early practices and documents of the Church (ex: the Didache), to form its understanding of this mystery.

    Just keep in mind, that if you are trying to understand what Christ was saying to them, precisely what he was asking them to do, and precisely in what way he was "commissioning" them (if at all here), you won't start by reading Roman doctrines back into the texts.

    Too, I gave you one paragraph in that commentary out of a much larger analysis. You may not like what that one paragraph said, but it is part of a larger effort to understand what that entire chapter in John was trying to convey, in relation to the entire Gospel.

    But your attempt to "find" "the sacrament of reconciliation" in that one verse, or in fact, the entire notion of a sacerdotal priesthood (which isn't there) is just symptomatic of what Rome is finding wrong with the historical analysis of these incidents, as well as its attempts to re-write (subtly) some of the doctrines to better align with the history, all the while trying to persuade us that they've had the same doctrine all along.

    I find that whole enterprise to be terribly dishonest.

    The net effect of it isn't to teach the Gospel and to edify; the whole thing just seems to be a clandestine attempt to try and bolster Rome's own notions of its own authority and infallibility.

    Both of those things are a far cry from just simply, as the commentary noted, "to bear witness to Jesus (15:26-27), not just by representing Jesus but by actually being the presence of Jesus through the Spirit."

    That description may not be wholly satisfactory to you, but it is more reflective of what the text actually says. Rome's efforts are twisted and self-serving, not Christ-serving.


    My wife has good days and bad days; yesterday and today, she has been having quite a bit of gastrointestinal distress. We're keeping an eye on that. Thank you for your asking.

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  12. John,

    For how many years did these arguments about the Church's authority seem plausible to you?

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  13. Hi John,

    Thanks for the reminder about "binding and loosing".

    With regard to the forgiveness of sins - which is what RC's do with this passage - they forget Jeremiah 31:31-34 (repeated in Hebrews 8 & 10). And that is that God had Jeremiah prophecy that those people He would create in the new covenant would have their sins forgiven in advance.

    I'm glad to hear Beth is getting better. Gotta run.

    Peace.

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  14. Crude, which arguments?

    Any of the ones you're now refuting. Weren't you Catholic for decades? Pardon me if I'm wrong there. But if I'm right, I assume you found a fair share of the Catholic arguments plausible at some point.

    Or was it that you just kind of were raised Catholic but not actually all that dedicated or well-versed in anything until you hit the anti-Catholic arguments?

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  15. Hi Crude. I was born and raised Catholic, and I was fairly devout. I heard the Gospel (four spiritual laws) in high school. I had a fairly significant new birth experience when I was 19. Those two things caused me to question why God was not coming to me through the Catholic Church. I left the RC for a while, but came back in my early 20's, at the invitation of some nice folks who invited me to "come home". I remained fairly devout all through that. During the mid 1990's, I was attending "evenings of recollection" through Opus Dei. I rejoiced at "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" in 1994. But then I started reading some of the reactions to it, the fact that some of the language was equivocal (allowing both sides to take different meanings from it).

    I've written more about my background here.

    In answer to your question, I suppose I would have to say I didn't question the arguments too closely as a Catholic. One thing that puzzled me was that I couldn't see how an institution that was so old and that seemingly traced its lineage back to Christ could be so different from what's actually on the pages of the New Testament. Over the last 10-15 years, I've made a conscious decision to study and learn how this might have happened.

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  16. Thanks John.

    You say "In answer to your question, I suppose I would have to say I didn't question the arguments too closely as a Catholic." Does that mean you were aware of them and accepted them / thought they worked for a very long time, but then changed your mind later?

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  17. Does that mean you were aware of them and accepted them / thought they worked for a very long time, but then changed your mind later?

    This question gets answered differently, at different times of my life.

    As a 19 year old, I wasn't very much aware of the arguments one way or another. I do know at that point that I had read the NT and was struck by the number of times Jesus said "your faith has made you well" (or words to that effect). As I mentioned, there was as striking difference between what I read in the New Testament and what I was seeing at Mass.

    I continued to be a regular attender at Mass after my new birth experience. I recall attending Masses for the "charismatic" group at my church, then attending Protestant charismatic services with some new friends.

    Of course, this got me in trouble with my father, and so I looked for some historical basis for leaving Rome. I do recall reading a lot back in those years. It was more "devotional" in nature. I recall getting very little guidance on this question. Nobody really knew much about it.

    There were the Keith Green tracts (1978-1979, I think), "The Catholic Chronicles". (I have not read these at all recently; I just found them through a Google search). They are based on, or I think, largely taken from Boettner's work, Roman Catholicism. If I recall, the questions asked in this series made a great impression on me.


    * * *

    Just a few years later, I was traveling full time with a Christian singer named Jeff Steinberg. Jeff, because of his disabilities, was very popular within the pro-life movement, and so we came into contact with a lot of Roman Catholics. And to make a long story short, we spent a great deal of time with a couple of big Roman Catholic families who made an impression on me. One of the individuals "invited me home", and while I was attending a Protestant church at the time, I would leave that service and go to Mass on Sundays, and aside from "arguments", it seemed to me that, aside from any of the difficulties I had with Roman Catholicism at the time, God had placed me there, and I thought there would be adequate opportunities to worship the Lord properly within that context.


    * * *

    That was probably 1983-1984. I wanted to serve the Lord, and in that regard, I had some notion of wanting to become a priest or enter a religious order, but I was married several years later, and I now have a big family. As I mentioned, during the mid 1990's, I was happy to see ECT, I was attending Opus Dei evenings of recollection and even spiritual direction. The Catechism of the Catholic Church had recently been released, and it was striking to me that these Catholic men were citing from the Catechism in the same way that some Baptists I had known years earlier would cite from the Bible.

    Probably the first book I came into contact with was James White's The Roman Catholic Controversy. The arguments put forth in this work were probably among the most cogent I had ever seen on this question. That was the late 1990's, and I was able to track down more of these kinds of discussions. And as I mentioned, it's been important for me to learn more and more about this topic over the years.

    I don't know if that fully answers your question. But it's my recollection of the "history" of my experience with these questions.

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  18. John,

    I'm not sure it does either, but I want to thank you for the time you spent attempting to answer it all the same. Very thoughtful and considerate of you, and really, it's a non-seq with regards to this thread anyway.

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