Sunday, September 11, 2005

Rebellion against Mother Church...did they succeed?


The following thesis was presented regarding the Catholic Church and the advantage of an authoritative teaching body (magisterium)...


"There was a mutiny, and the "captain" could not quell the mutiny. So the presumed advantage of the Magesterium when actually prevailed upon, failed."
There certainly was a rebellion (like the sin of Korah's rebellion, cf. Num 16, warned against in Jude 11). Yet, I wouldn't say it isn't being quelled. Nor would I say the magisterium has failed.

For example, over 100 years ago there were more Protestants than Catholics. Today, 54% of all those calling themselves Christian call themselves Catholic. Among the Protestant mutineers, there is such disagreement that it cannot honestly be called a mutiny against Catholicism anymore, but thousands of mutinies within a whole band of mutineers, all rebelling against each other in ways unimaginable by Martin Luther.

Think of it this way, does it appear that the mutiny succeeded? It doesn't appear that way to me. Thus, the magisterium has not failed. The chart above (click on it to make it bigger) makes this rather obvious. The large group to the far left is Catholicism (54%). The next is largest is Orthodoxy (12%). The rest of the mutineers are divided up into little piece parts, the largest of which is the African Indiginous Sects at 5.8%. (source: www.adherents.com). Keep in mind, of the above classifications, the only one that classifies as a single Church is the Catholic Church. None of the others even meet Webster's definition of "denomination", which is "a religious organization uniting local congregations in a single legal and administrative body." [the Latter Day Saints being the only exception, but I don't agree they are Christians, but instead are polytheists].

Other than the Catholic Church, which has a single legal and administrative body governing the single Church, the other classifications of Christianity are divided up further still into many distinct governing authorities, creating such disunity that some authors estimate that they divide at a rate of 5 new groupings per week.

Seems to me the only "rock" in the past 2000 years among these mutineers has been the Rock of Peter, where Christ built His Church. (Matt 16:18)

God bless,

Dave

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

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9:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This blog really is good, and I have enjoyed reading it. :)

I like articles like this, that demonstrate that the Catholic Church is still going strong.

It reminds me of a story I heard one time which my brother told me about. He was talking in an environment where many denominations existed, and they said something along the lines of "We think Christian dogma should be decided on democratic principles", and my brother pointed out that even if they all voted against the Catholic Church, they'd still be outnumbered.

Owl.

9:29 AM  

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