Ask if Rome’s gospel is biblical and what happens to you on certain radio networks? Well, we’ve found out. I imagine Marty would have gotten away with it if he had done just one program, but as I’ve discovered, in essence, if you believe Romans 1:16 is true; and if you believe Galatians condemns false gospels, and if you think it is a really bad thing for an apostle to tell you, “Christ will be of no benefit to you,” then the combined viewpoint of Rome and the majority of pseudo-evangelicalism is, “Shut up!” “Keep it to yourself!” “We don’t want to hear it!” The Church has become Protestants (what a silly word to keep using) and Rome. That is what you must now believe to be “loving and kind.”
First, Jason Engwer has posted some interesting information about this situation at the NTRMIN web board. Here’s the link. I’ll be asking Marty about this stuff next week, Lord willing.
Secondly, hearing the WORD-FM folks talking about the “whole church” and “all Christians” made me think about a distinction Rome itself makes (and about which, I assume, most radio station managers are ignorant). While we as “separated brethren” (to use the post-Vatican II lingo) can be considered “Christians” due to our baptism, our churches are not truly churches. That seems to miss the attention of most. There is no equality here. Rome is the Church. We are “communities” or, when certain bodies are referred to, Churches, but only in so far as we mirror elements of Rome. Rome is the Mother. The wonderfully fuzzy ecumenical feeling that says “let’s just all get together” does not seem to understand that for Rome, we can indeed get together: in Rome. Think that is just old-time Catholicism? Ut Unum Sint from May of 1995 says this:
97. The Catholic Church, both in her praxis and in her solemn documents, holds that the communion of the particular Churches with the Church of Rome, and of their Bishops with the Bishop of Rome, is—in God’s plan—an essential requisite of full and visible communion. Indeed full communion, of which the Eucharist is the highest sacramental manifestation, needs to be visibly expressed in a ministry in which all the Bishops recognize that they are united in Christ and all the faithful find confirmation for their faith. The first part of the Acts of the Apostles presents Peter as the one who speaks in the name of the apostolic group and who serves the unity of the community—all the while respecting the authority of James, the head of the Church in Jerusalem. This function of Peter must continue in the Church so that under her sole Head, who is Jesus Christ, she may be visibly present in the world as the communion of all his disciples.
Rome has no intention, even in her ecumenical dialogues, of abandoning her supremacy as the Mother of all Churches, and not requiring union with her. The non-Catholic, pseudo-evangelicals who think they are standing on equal ground with Rome in their efforts to be “open” to her only show, by their actions, their utter ignorance of her history and teachings. Then again, how often have I said church history, for most modern non-Catholics, goes back maybe 50 years, at best? For some, a decade?
