₦airaland Forum

Sacluxpaint:
Catholicism tries to fuse Christianity and paganism, that's where I have issues. I like the part of lenten observation once a year but the doctrines of purgatory, virgin Mary, prayer to saints, and so on made me leave. It's either you are totally for Jesus or not. I am not after material things or prosperity but the salvation of my soul. I am a sinner I admit, but Jesus has given me hope.

purgatory, intercessioo of saints and mary, are part and parcel of christianity, it has been there since time imemoral, it isnt from paganism it is christianity. U just havent studied that far.

kress2m1:
What utter nonsense!

What Christ showed the disciples, by washing their feet, was the following:
Popes and Priests have bastardised this simple and effective analogy that Christ displayed. He never (and I dare you to show me in the bible) laid this down as a 'ritual' for Christians in the coming age to follow and I never read of Paul encouraging this either. Two things He left us; Baptising with water and sharing of Communion with one another and even these, men have made every attempt to drag into 'rituals', rather than what Christ intended them to be for.

This is the problem with man today. The simple 'repent and believe' in Christ for your salvation is not enough. Where someone will write all sorts to lead them astray, where their flesh will be titillated and their souls impoverished, that is what they will draw to their itching ears and carry out with all their might.

so this is all u could draw from the above?

Appareil:
No God through Jesus has given us the keys to the Kingdom. Scriptures are for us to learn and follow. All scripture is given by God for doctrine. All!! all .

all scripture is profitable for doctrine, but not all specifically and literarily applies to u. Many old testament pasage do not apply to us, they are time specific, when d new came they became obsolate, others are people specific like d one that concern old testament priest and matt 16:16 where Jesus specifically call peter by name and promise him keys, that was a person specific one.

So yes there are scripture that were addressed to a person or some group of persons.

wiegraf:
Lb, abeg what are you doing??

Maybe you can help me, as I've given up on your brother. For starters, you seem to be saying you'd be willing to apologise. that does not seem to align with italo's position, which is essiantially that the church is flawless. that it can do no wrong. that your oga pope apologizing was all just a charade, that it simply was just a fake, diplomatic act.

Is all this correct?

i agree wit italo. Whenever a man of God use his position to commit havoc, blame usually shift to d church, not because d church encourage such practice, nor is it because d church didnt condemn d practice but becos d church knws dat at some point she has to take responsibility, this is what d church apology is about, it doesnt mean d church ever taught and supported such crimes, instead d church since john paul 2 takes responsibility of d sins her membas committed as an act of goodwill.

analice107:
Ubenedictus REALLY? This is your answer to this? UB truly speaking I don't expect you to give me this kind of an answer for this question.
Pls post those scriptures here let's Analize them to see if they are within context with palm Sunday, and Palm front ashes. And if Christians were ever demanded to carryout this practice.

What has the repentance of Nineveh in sack clothes and ashes got to do with palm Sunday and burning the Palm fronts and using them for rituals?
Ubenedictus, you are standing with your senses defending idolatry...
When in the history of the church was the celebration of Palm Sunday instituted? because outside the Catholic Church, there was never, and never has been the celebration of Palm Sunday and ash Wednesday.
Cc: Peritus.
Pls come and hear what this guy is saying.

lord have mercy,
why are u so quick to accuse pipo of idolatry even when there is no gods involved?

This thread already xplained wat palm sunday is abt. We rememba Christ life, d bible tells us to "look unto Jesus d author and finisher of our faith", we look at his life, his teachin and acts, palm sunday is abt remembering christ entrance into jerusalem to suffer and die for us, the same palm we used in acclaiming him king is burnt and placed on d head as a sign of repentance, acknowledgement of sin and a readines for new life just as we see with d people of God who repent.
There is no idolatry there.

Palm sunday has a good history, there is proof of xtians celebrating it from early times, it was there long b4 protestanism was invented and celebrated by all ancient xtian churches, d orthodox church do it, the oriental churches do it, d melkite, indian, western and eastern churches all dat have connections to d apostles, even ur fellow protestants do it, d anglican, methodist and lutherians and episcopalian churches all do it. It is a christian practice as old as the canonisation of d bible.
Read b4 u condemn.

Mediapace:
All our points are deduced from the verse

yet u jumped d specific verse where an apostle clearly asks 'what must we do to b saved?'

dolphinheart:
1. you need to show me where the 5% who saw those images venerated it?

one example is enough, num 20:6, josh 7:6, dont forget the continous burning of incense.

2. they where not made with divine approval, they where made by divine instructions. God did not approve an image he did not command!

now u are spilting hairs, that which i commanded is done wit my approval.

analice107:
Thank you sir. And the ones he commanded, He never said, Bow to them in obeisance.

But there is scripture that clearly show old testament saint 'falling down' in obeisance b4 the image.

dolphinheart:
apart from the snake statue which they saw for a while cus of the reason it was made(which was also recorded), less than 1% of the isrealites saw those statues , talk less of having an opportunity of bowing to them for any reason.
but this statues of Mary and Jesus are kept in open places, and in front of doorways.

THE issue is not whether or not 0.5% saw the image, the issue is that they were made with divine approval and venerated with the same.

analice107:
I grew up a Catholic dear. I was where they are now, saying the same thing they are saying now. In my Church, I mean the one I used to attend, the Image of Mary is at the entrance of the church. As you go in, so many folk are kneeling and praying, if you just walk into the church without stopping there first, is like you missed church that day.

And did d people who knelt tel u they were worshipping the statue? for sumtime now i also kneel in front of my bible to pray after bible study, am i also worshipping my bible?

johnw74:
@bold, I don't have any of those.
But they are bad, like your pedophile priests.

agreed

analice107:
Aside from your Phantom fon, one other thing that caught my attention is the burning of the Palm leaves and grinding them to be used on Ash Wednesday the next year. Where did the Catholic Church get this tradition from? This is definitely not from the Bible. See why we say, Catholicism is not Christianity? Too many strange idolatrous practices.
And you didn't add scriptures to support this point, why?

D book of jonah and d books of kings show that ash on d head is a sign of sorrowful repentance, that much is biblical.

dolphinheart:
op, you have shown us where God commanded the making of certain images, you have even shown us where it is recorded. but you have not shown us where God commanded the making of the image of Mary or of Jesus, neither have you shown where such commands where recorded.

gods command: " do not make for yourself". my view of the command: do not make for yourself unless I command you to make it.!

The bible also 'what was written in the past is for ur instruction'. when one understands d biblical principles behind making and not making images he will know not need a new revelation, God began d new testament by making his own image since then d xtian church hasnt stopped making images.

cckris:
Catholic Bible says don't MAKE it at all.

yet every body have images of their loved ones all around them.

10 LIES.

When peter was asked how to be saved he didnt give d 7 steps above, he said 'repent and be baptised'

I have to admit it rattled my Protestant bones to
learn, as I explained in Part I, that the unanimous testimony of the early church — in fact of
Christianity until the time of the Reformation —
supported a sacramental view of baptism. With this historical truth in mind, I turned to the
New Testament. I wanted to read what it had to say
about baptism as though for the first time, in the
light of what I’d learned. I began with the classic passage John 3:3-5: “I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “How can
a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus
said. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into
his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus
answered, “tell you the truth, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter
the kingdom of God… Water and Spirit. Is Jesus talking about baptism,
here? Baptists of course say, no. Some say that Jesus is
drawing a contrast here between natural birth
(water) and supernatural rebirth (Spirit). Others say,
no, water is a metaphor for Spirit. When Jesus says
we must be born of “water and the Spirit” he’s just
saying the same thing in two ways. Some say this, some say that, but everyone agrees
that whatever Jesus is saying, he most certainly isn’t
talking about baptism. But then, the Catholic scripture scholars I was
reading at the time encouraged me to consider the
context of these verses. When I did, I saw some
things I’d never seen before. Water and Spirit in John’s Gospel What do we see when we look at the preceding
context of John 3:3-5? Well, in John chapter one, we read about the
baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. John the
Baptist recounts that when Jesus was baptized, the
Spirit descended on him. In the parallel accounts in
Matthew, Mark and Luke we learn that at the same
time a voice from heaven was heard: “This is my beloved Son.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descend as
a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. I
myself did not know him; but he who sent me
to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom
you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is
he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is
the Son of God” (John 1:32-34). Interesting: Water, Spirit and Sonship. Moving forward into the second chapter of John,
we find Jesus performing his first miracle, in which
he transforms six vessels of water used for
ceremonial purification into wine. In the book of
Hebrews these Jewish washings are referred to as
“baptisms”. Again, interesting. Flip forward one more page to John 3, Jesus tells
Nicodemus he must be “born of water and the
Spirit” and immediately after this (now the
succeeding context) we read in verse 22, “After
this Jesus and his disciples went out into the
Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized.” By the way, this is the
only place in all four Gospels where Jesus is
described as baptizing. In other words, it turns out that John 3:3-5 is
bracketed on both sides by stories about baptism
and ceremonial washings. The entire context of
Jesus’ words to Nicodemus is baptism! Is it really possible that a sensitive reader of John’s
gospel would not think Jesus was talking about
baptism when he says we must be born of water
and the Spirit? But this was just the beginning. I was encouraged
to examine the idea of water and Spirit in the
context of Scripture as a whole. Water and Spirit throughout Scripture Turns out these are terms and images that appear
together throughout the Bible — and always in
connection to new life. In the story of creation, in the very first verses of
the Bible, what do we find but the Spirit of God
hovering over the face of the waters to bring forth
life (Genesis 1). The Hebrew word translated “Spirit”
here is ruach, which can also be translated “wind.” Water, Spirit and new life. Speaking of this passage, St. Theophilus of Antioch
wrote around AD 181, Moreover, those things which were created
from the waters were blessed by God, so that
this might also be a sign that men would at a
future time receive repentance and remission
of sins through water and the bath of
regeneration. In the story of Noah we again find water and Spirit
appearing together. For a second time waters cover
the face of the earth, for a second time God sends
his ruach to cause the waters to recede, and for a
second time a new creation emerges. Noah releases
a dove (like the dove that descended on Jesus at the time of his baptism) and it returns with an olive
branch in its beak. Water, Spirit and new life. A new creation in which
the world is regenerated. In the story of the crossing of the Red Sea we find
water and Spirit together again. The Israelites have
left their bondage in Egypt and become trapped
between the Red Sea and the Egyptian armies.
Moses stretches forth his staff and suddenly a
“wind” comes from God (again, ruach) and blows across the waters dividing them so that the children
of Israel can pass over on dry land. In I Corinthians 10 St Paul tells us this was their
“baptism” into Moses. In 2 Kings Naaman the Syrian leper is instructed to
dip himself in the Jordan River seven times in order
to be cleansed of his leprosy. He complains that
Elijah hasn’t given him something more impressive
to do, but finally humbles himself to perform this
simple act of faith and is healed. God uses this “washing” as the occasion for a cleansing that he
performs by his Spirit. Writing around 190 A.D., St Irenaeus Bishop of
Lyon commented on this miracle: “And [Naaman] dipped himself…seven times in
the Jordan.” It was not for nothing that
Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy,
was purified upon his being baptized, but [this
served] as an indication to us. For as we are
lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the
Lord, from our old transgressions, being
spiritually regenerated as new-born babes,
even as the Lord has declared: “Except a man
be born again through water and the Spirit, he
shall not enter into the kingdom of God”‘ (Fragment 34). Water and Spirit in the New Covenant The idea of ceremonial washings is of course all
through the Old Testament. There were a number
of these “washings” (Hebrews 9:9,10 refer to them
as “baptisms”) prescribed by the Law of Moses (the
washing of hands, of cups and dishes, of sacrificial
animals, etc.) but as the author of Hebrews tells us, these were “not able to clear the conscience of the
worshiper.” He describes them as a matter of
“external regulations applying until the time of the
new order” — that is, the new Covenant in Christ,
when the Spirit of God would grant the realities
these washings merely depicted. And notice how that New Covenant is described in
Ezekiel 36:24-27: For I will take you out of the nations; I will
gather you from all the countries and bring
you back into your own land. I will sprinkle
clean water on you and you will be clean; I will
cleanse you from all your impurities and from
all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you
your heart of stone and give you a heart of
flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move
you to follow my decrees and be careful to
keep my laws. The blessings of the New Covenant are described in
terms of a baptism in which sins would be cleansed,
the Spirit would be given, hearts of stone would be
removed and replaced by hearts of flesh. In other
words, a baptism by which we would become sons
of God. We Protestants were always bashing Catholics for
not knowing their Bibles and here I am reading
Catholic scholars and seeing things in Scripture I’d
never noticed before. God’s Spirit brings forth life through water – in
creation, at the time of the flood, at the crossing of
the Red Sea. Naaman is cleansed by the Spirit
through water. Jesus sends a blind man to wash
and he comes up seeing. I began to see that the
ideas behind baptismal regeneration are profoundly scriptural. Baptism in the New Testament It was time to read on through the New Testament,
see if there were any other passages that might
support the Catholic teaching on baptismal
regeneration. I came to Acts chapter two. The New Covenant has
been established in Christ’s body and blood, the
Jewish feast celebrating the ingathering of the first
fruits of the harvest arrives (Pentecost) and the
Spirit descends on the apostles. Peter preaches, his
hearers are cut to the heart and cry out, “What must we do?” and he responds, “Repent and be
baptized, everyone of you for the remission of your
sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit” (Acts 2:38). What? Is Peter saying the Spirit will be given them
through baptism? I read on and came to Acts 19, where Paul
encounters some disciples in Ephesus. He asks
them if they received the Holy Spirit when they
believed and when they answer, “No, we have not
even heard that there is a Holy Spirit,” Paul
responds with the strangest of questions: “Then what baptism did you receive?” I remember thinking, Well, that’s weird. Paul learns
that someone hasn’t received the Holy Spirit and his
mind immediately goes to baptism? Why? What
does baptism have to do with it? I read on and came to Acts 22 where the devout
Ananias says to Saul of Tarsus, “Rise and be
baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his
name.” At this point I was almost wondering whether I’d
ever even read these verses before! “Rise and be
baptized and wash away your sins?” Is he saying
sins are washed away in baptism? I came to Romans 6, where Paul says that in our
baptism we were buried with Christ and raised to
new life, and it’s clear from the context that he
believes something actually happened to us in our
baptism that freed us from slavery to sin. I came to I Corinthians 12:13, where Paul says
Christians have been baptized by one Spirit into one
body and all given one Spirit to drink. Finally, I came to I Peter 3:21, a passage confusing
to most evangelical Protestants. Peter is speaking
about how Noah and his family were saved
through the waters of the flood. And then he says, And this water symbolizes baptism that now
saves you also — not the removal of dirt from
the body but the pledge of a good conscience
toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ In chapter 1:3 Peter spoke of how believers have
been “given a new birth into a living hope through
the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Here he speaks of
baptism saving them… “through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ.” In Peter’s mind baptism and the new birth are
related. Peter seems to be saying that as Noah and
his family were saved through the waters of the
flood, so we are saved through the waters of
baptism — not because there’s something magical
about the water or the outward rite. It saves us, we are born anew, through the power of Christ’s
resurrection (the Spirit!) as we pledge ourselves to
God by this act of submitting to baptism. Conclusion There are other passages as well, but that’s
enough. Now, as an evangelical Protestant I might have
thought, these verses don’t prove anything! They
don’t ‘prove’ that the New Testament is teaching a
sacramental view of baptism! There are other ways
to interpret each of these passages. On the other hand, I had to admit that somehow
the apostles spoke in ways I as a Protestant
preacher would never have spoken. Why is it, I wondered, that if had preached a million
sermons I would never have thought to issue
Peter’s altar call from Acts 2: “Repent and be
baptized and you will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit”? In fact, I’d never heard a single Protestant
pastor use words like that. We called people to ‘believe in Christ.’ We called them to ‘accept Christ as
Savior.’ No one ever said, “Repent and be baptized
and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit!” Why? Why is it I would never have thought to say to
anyone, “Rise and be baptized and wash away
your sins”? Why is it that if I had met someone who said he’d
never heard of the Holy Spirit, it would never have
crossed my mind to respond, “Hmmm, what
baptism did you receive?” Why would I never in my entire lifetime as a Baptist
minister have said, “Baptism now saves you”? Sure, I might not be able to ‘prove’ on the basis of
Scripture alone that all of this evidence added up to
the Catholic teaching on baptism. But what I had said to myself, after learning that
this was the belief and teaching of Christians
essentially until the time of the Reformation, was
not that I would join them in that belief if I could
‘prove’ on the basis of Scripture alone that their
position was correct. What I’d said was that I would join them unless it was absolutely clear that the
Catholic Church’s position contradicted the teaching
of the New Testament, that the New Testament
clearly rejected the teaching of the Church for the
first fifteen centuries of its existence. Could I say that? Not even close. Not even close… And even though this was just one measly little
doctrine, it changed the way I thought about
everything. Here was a doctrine that (a) had been held the first
fifteen hundred years of Christianity, that (b)
appeared to fit very well the teaching of Scripture,
and that (c) was essentially unknown within
evangelical Protestantism. And I mean unknown.
This is how cut off evangelical Protestantism is from history. This is how cut off I had been from historic
Christianity. I became eager to see if what I found to be true of
the Catholic view of baptism might not be true of
other Catholic beliefs.

monex:
not expanded per say as they did not conquer the tribes between benin and lagos.

actually they did not conquer lagos per se but helped the inhabitants defeat the aworis hence the name eko (war camp). note that this was just lagos island epe axis and most of lagos was still under the control of the aworis.

IT expanded per se, oondo and ekiti were all paying tributes to bini

VirginFinder:
Binis keep denying their Yoruba ties.
Yet they wont stop bearing Yoruba names and practicing Ifa.
Many Binis understand and speak Yoruba as a second language.

The Binis cannot prove that Oduduwa is Ekaladerhan from Benin. There is no trace of Bini language/tradition in Ife till tomorrow . But we all agree that Oranmiyan founded the current Oba dynasty in Benin. Cant we all just stick with that?

Binis should have been integrated into the Yoruba tribe during the Western region era.No thanks to Awo

AWO TRIED AND FAILED

imohchard:
This people Juju No be here...
Papa never even die o

he was crowned edaiken, he is not oba yet.

EDUECO:
The enthronement of the new Oba(Eheneden Erediauwa) in Igodomigodo(Edo) kingdom is a quasi beginning for us all! May the reign of our Oba brings us prosperity! Ise! Asagbonrioba,Osa orue nowan!

he is not oba yet, he is the ediaken of uselu and will remain so until his father goes to sleep.

Mariner007:
Who do you pray through? is my question. I need a name.

Jesus christ

During the nearly twenty years I was a ‘Bible Christian,’ while I liked reading Luther and Calvin and the lives of others I respected, what Christians believed in the early centuries of the Church didn’t matter too much to me.

When it came to determining doctrine, all that counted, really, was ‘what saith the scriptures?’

Then I was introduced to John Henry Newman, one of the most brilliant Christian thinkers of the 19th century. At the age of 45, he left the Anglican Church to enter the Roman Catholic Church and one the main things that drove him was reading the early church fathers.

I picked up the defense Newman wrote of his decision to become Catholic, his Apologia pro Vita Sua, and read it. I also read his extraordinary Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, where Newman makes his famous statement: “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”

I remember thinking that this was quite the bold thing to say. Is he kidding? To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant?

But he went even further than this. He insisted that it’s “easy to show that the Christianity of history [was] not Protestantism.” In fact, he said that if any church like the church I was pastoring at the time ever existed in the early centuries of the Christian history, there’s no record of it.

This utter incongruity between Protestantism and historical Christianity is a plain fact, whether…regarded in its early or in its later centuries…. So much must the Protestant grant that, if such a system of doctrine as he would now introduce ever existed in early times, it has been clean swept away as if by a deluge, suddenly, silently, and without memorial.

It was at this point that I decided I needed to read the church fathers. I wanted to know if there was truth to what Newman was saying.

And anyway, these were of the first great apologists, theologians, bishops, saints and martyrs of Christianity. St. Irenaeus was a disciple of a man who was himself a disciple of John. You can’t get any closer to the apostles. Why not see what these men had to say?

The Meaning of Baptism

As I began to read the fathers, one of the first things that struck me was the way they talked about baptism.

Catholicism teaches “baptismal regeneration” — that in baptism the graces depicted by baptism are actually given. Sins are washed away. We’re spiritually reborn and given the gift of the Holy Spirit.

If you want an image of the Catholic teaching on baptism, think of Naaman the Syrian being instructed to dip himself in the Jordan River seven times in order to be cleansed of his leprosy. Think of Jesus commanding the man blind from birth to “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” in order to receive his sight. In both cases, faith was expressed in an act of obedience through which the blessing was given. So it is with baptism.

Among evangelical Protestants, this teaching is almost universally rejected. Baptism is held to be nothing more than a symbolic act by which a believer makes public profession of his or her faith. It speaks of what God has done in the life of the believer. It doesn’t itself do anything.

This is what I believed as a Baptist.

Baptism in the Fathers

With this background, I began to read the fathers.

I started with the Letter of Barnabas, one of the earliest Christian writings (some date it as early as 70 A.D.). I’m reading along, the subject of baptism arises and I find the author describing baptism as “the washing which confers the remission of sins” and explaining that “We descend into the water full of sins and defilement, but come up bearing fruit in our heart…”

“Hmm… Could mean anything,” I thought.

I finished Barnabas and picked up The Shepherd of Hermas, another of the earliest post-apostolic writings. I’m merrily reading along and suddenly the author says,

“I have heard, sir,” said I, “from some teacher, that there is no other repentance except that which took place when we went down into the water and obtained the remission of our former sins.” He said to me, “You have heard rightly, for so it is.”

At this point I thought, “Well, these two certainly seem to have had some kind of quasi-magical view of what takes place in baptism. But maybe it’s just these two.”

I continued reading and came to Justin Martyr, the first great apologist of Christian history. I’m reading his First Apology, written around 150 A.D. and I run into this:

As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and entreat God with fasting for the remission of their sins that are past, while we pray and fast with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For in the name of God the Father and Lord of the Universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said, “Unless you be born again, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

I go on to read Clement of Alexandria, writing around A.D. 191, and find him saying:

When we are baptized, we are enlightened. Being enlightened we are adopted as sons. Adopted as sons, we are made perfect…. This work is variously called grace, illumination, perfection, and washing. It is a washing by which we are cleansed of sins, a gift of grace by which the punishments due our sins are remitted, an illumination by which we behold that holy light of salvation.

I read Tertullian, writing around A.D. 203:

Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life… Baptism itself is a corporeal act by which we are plunged into the water, while its effect is spiritual, in that we are freed from
our sins.

Now, I could go on and on with similar quotations from fathers and doctors of the early Church. Cyril of Jerusalem said of baptism, “You go down dead in your sins, and you come up made alive in righteousness.” St Augustine said, “Baptism washes away all, absolutely all, our sins….This is the meaning of the great sacrament of baptism, which is celebrated among us.” St. Gregory of Nazianzus said, “Baptism is God’s most beautiful and magnificent gift… We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment, garment of immortality, bath of rebirth…”

I’ve selected only a handful of quotations here so as not to bore you to death. But it’s not as though I found other church fathers arguing against the ideas expressed in these quotations. In fact, this is the way all of the earliest Christian writers speak of baptism and how Christians continued to speak of baptism essentially until the late Middle Ages when early forms of Protestantism appeared. Whenever baptism is mentioned, these are the sorts of things that are being said.

This is what Christians believed for the first 15 centuries of Christian history.

In all my reading I did not run into even one passage in which the sacramental nature of baptism was denied. Not even one that taught the view I and every Christian I knew had of baptism.

Baptism in Early Church Historians

Almost in a panic, I turned to the works of great historians of the early church.

For instance, J.N.D. Kelly, whose work Early Christian Doctrines has been used as a textbook in seminaries around the world. This is what he says in his section on baptism:

From the beginning baptism was the universally accepted rite of admission into the Church… As regards its significance, it was always held to convey the remission of sins…. [It is that washing with] the living water which alone can cleanse penitents and which, being a baptism with the Holy Spirit, is to be contrasted with Jewish washings. It is a spiritual rite replacing circumcision, the unique doorway to the remission of sins.

I read the Emergence of the Catholic Tradition by Jaroslav Pelikan, one of the two or three greatest historians of Christian doctrine alive at the time. He refers to Tertullian’s teaching on baptism as illustrating the view of early church. From Tertullian’s treatise on the doctrine of baptism (the first ever written on the subject) Pelikan says we learn that four basic gifts are given in baptism: “the remission of sins, deliverance from death, regeneration, and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit.”

It became more and more apparent to me that no one in the early centuries of Christianity held the view of baptism that I held as an evangelical, the view that everyone I knew held, the view that virtually all evangelical Protestants hold. Strange realization.

How in the world could we be so cut off from history? I wondered.

I remember around this time coming home and saying to Tina something along the lines of: You know, I’ve been crawling around in the early church for months, now. I’ve looked under every rock and behind every tree and for the life of me… there ain’t a Baptist in sight!

And it was true. There wasn’t.

Theological Time Travel

I imagined that I could somehow be parachuted back to the time of Irenaeus and Tertullian and Cyprian and Augustine. And I asked myself the question: Would I oppose them on the basis of my personal interpretation of scripture on this matter of baptism? Would I insist they were all wrong and that I was right on this issue? Would I start my own Baptist Church and denomination?

As someone who still thought mainly in terms of sola scriptura, my answer at the time was that I suppose I might oppose the teaching of the universal church on baptism (making the unlikely assumption that I would have had the courage to do it) and, yes, even start my own church and denomination — but only if it was absolutely certain that the doctrine of baptismal regeneration contradicted the teaching of scripture.

In other words, a shift in my thinking was already taking place. Whereas before, it seemed natural to approach any doctrinal issue by simply going straight to the Bible and asking myself, “What do I think it teaches?” after facing such unanimous historical testimony on the meaning of baptism, I now saw that the burden of proof was on me to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the Church was wrong.

It wouldn’t be good enough for me to simply read the New Testament and conclude, “I think it teaches that baptism is X, Y or Z.”

No. To overturn what amounted to the universal faith of the Church for the first fifteen hundred years of its existence (and still the faith of the majority of Christians), I would need to believe that the Church’s view was completely irreconcilable with scripture.

Obviously, the next step was to carefully read again what the New Testament had to say about baptism in the light of what I’d seen in the writings of the fathers. If their view cohered with what I saw there, how could I not join them in that view?

johnw74:
@bold, more rcc bull

@red, idols-statues, and pedophile priests are not holy

The church is holy, below is why

THE CHURCH IS HOLY

823 "The Church . . . is held, as a matter of faith, to be unfailingly holy. This is because Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is hailed as 'alone holy,' loved the Church as his Bride, giving himself up for her so as to sanctify her; he joined her to himself as his body and endowed her with the gift of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God."289 The Church, then, is "the holy People of God,"290 and her members are called "saints."291

824 United with Christ, the Church is sanctified by him; through him and with him she becomes sanctifying. "All the activities of the Church are directed, as toward their end, to the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God."292 It is in the Church that "the fullness of the means of salvation"293 has been deposited. It is in her that "by the grace of God we acquire holiness."294

825 [b]"The Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real though imperfect."295 In her members perfect holiness is something yet to be acquired: "Strengthened by so many and such great means of salvation, all the faithful, whatever their condition or state - though each in his own way - are called by the Lord to that perfection of sanctity by which the Father himself is perfect."296

[/b]826 Charity is the soul of the holiness to which all are called: it "governs, shapes, and perfects all the means of sanctification."297

If the Church was a body composed of different members, it couldn't lack the noblest of all; it must have a Heart, and a Heart BURNING WITH LOVE. And I realized that this love alone was the true motive force which enabled the other members of the Church to act; if it ceased to function, the Apostles would forget to preach the gospel, the Martyrs would refuse to shed their blood. LOVE, IN FACT, IS THE VOCATION WHICH INCLUDES ALL OTHERS; IT'S A UNIVERSE OF ITS OWN, COMPRISING ALL TIME AND SPACE - IT'S ETERNAL! 298

827 "Christ, 'holy, innocent, and undefiled,' knew nothing of sin, but came only to expiate the sins of the people. The Church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal."299 All members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners.300 In everyone, the weeds of sin will still be mixed with the good wheat of the Gospel until the end of time.301 Hence the Church gathers sinners already caught up in Christ's salvation but still on the way to holiness:

The Church is therefore holy, though having sinners in her midst, because she herself has no other life but the life of grace. If they live her life, her members are sanctified; if they move away from her life, they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why she suffers and does penance for those offenses, of which she has the power to free her children through the blood of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Sanchez01:
I would be coming at you with the bolded in your claim. With the bolded, I'm sure you mean to say "the woman" is not EVE but MARY or perhaps, some other woman, simply because Eve was not referred to as "this woman" in Genesis 3:15? Perfect! Here are several reasons why the article "the" was used in Gen 3:15
NB: 'THE" in English language is called an article and it does not belong to any of the word classes or parts of speech in English language.

1. When the article "the" is used to refer to someone or something, it implies that thing or person is the only thing or person, hence, there is no reason to be specific
2. I'm sure you'd agree with me that Eve is the first woman ever created and she is the first and only woman ever to step into and live in Eden. Since there was just one woman at the time, it was quite convenient to refer to her as "the woman". Check out the passage below (Genesis 3:8-16);


Notice "the man" and "the woman" all over the passage. It was never necessary to be specific because they were the only humans at the time. Every man and woman, save Adam, are offspring of Eve, including Mary herself. Abraham, said to be the father of all nations is an offspring of Eve. So, to jump the genealogy of Christ, directly to Mary is laughable.

i hate useless and unnecessary argument, u now know it is the proto evangelium, it is a prophecy of God redeeming mankind by creating enmity between the serpent and the woman and her seed, eve already failed that test, she wasn't the one in enmity with the devil, infact she was the one who agreed with the devil and was deceived, herself and the first adam brought our downfall, God now speaks of a another man, he will be the second adam and this time a woman who is truely an enemy with the devil. one with who he finds favour one who is blessed an antitype for eve. this isn't eve, if it was God wouldn't have repeated the prophecy of a woman and her offspring again through isaiah on Is 7;14

Concerning Isaiah, yes, there is a prophecy about the birth of Christ and not about Mary. Please note that the focus is on the child, His attributes and what will become/befall him and not what will happen to the mother. It cannot be about Mary when the passage clearly gives detailed information on Christ. Isaiah 9:6-7

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given", kindly explain how Mary fits into the prophecy as she is not even mentioned directly. It could have been anyone, and indeed it was anyone and that was why it was Mary. The only thing we know about Mary in the Scripture is that she was a virgin, nothing more. If God had wanted to accord her 'honour and worship', He would have in plain words. By the way, thanks for the links on "Protoevangelium". It is indeed insightful.

your problem is that you try to scatter where God puts together, God announced a joint enmity the woman and her offspring against the devil, but you prefer if the woman wasn't in the equation isaiah 7 also talks about the woman as part of the prophecy. that puts her squarely in salvation's history, she isn't there by accident, it was the express will of God to put her right there, even Gal 4;4 is interesting it repeats God sent his son born of a woman [note the constant use of the word woman] it isnt eve it is Mary..


and yes God accorded her honor, it is an honor to give birth to your creator, God through the angel declared her blessed among women that is an honor, Elizabeth knew this hence “filled with the Holy Ghost, she cried out with a loud voice and said: ‘Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?’”. if that isn't honor then what is?

Oluwaseytiano:
8 Jozef Tiso:

The Catholic Church is known to have allied
itself with fascists in World War II, most
notably with Mussolini by signing the Lateran
Treaty. However, one lesser-known fascist
dictator of the time was actually a practicing
Catholic priest.
Before Jozef Tiso got into the dictator game,
he cut his teeth in a prestigious seminary in
Vienna and became an ordained Catholic
priest. Father Tiso then worked as an
assistant priest before becoming the Spiritual
director of one of Slovakia’s largest
seminaries. Soon, Tiso began to moonlight in
politics. He joined Slovakia’s fascist party and
served as an editor of a Slovakian newspaper
in which he published a series of extremely
anti-Semitic articles in the run-up to the
Holocaust.
It wasn’t long before Tiso became one of the
leaders of the fascist Slovak People’s Party.
Father Tiso and his confidants shifted the
party to the hard right in line with the nearby
Nazi party, embracing the clerical nationalism
and fascism inspired by Tiso’s own brand of
right-wing Catholicism.
Father Tiso was elected into Slovakia’s
parliament in 1925, but he would ascend to
the role of dictator when Nazi Germany
occupied Sudetenland in 1938. Tiso swiftly
established a dictatorship and made an
alliance with the Nazi party. Slovakia was
turned into the Slovak Republic, a puppet
state of Nazi Germany.
During this time, 16 of 63 members of
Slovakia’s parliament were priests. Slovakia’s
fascist parliament quickly began passing anti-
Jewish legislation. Slovakia then became the
first country to begin deporting its Jewish
residents to concentration camps run by Nazi
Germany, effectively setting the Holocaust into
motion.
According to a December 1940 census, there
were 88,951 Jews in Slovakia at the time.
First, Tiso’s Slovakia sent 20,000 Jews to the
Nazis to be used in work camps before they
were killed. By June 1924, around 52,000
Jews were deported from Slovakia—almost 60
percent of Slovakia’s Jewish population. Most
were sent to Auschwitz, where they were
murdered by the Nazis.
Hitler witnessed one of Tiso’s speeches in
1942 in which Tiso touted his Jewish
deportation scheme. After the speech, Hitler
remarked, “It is interesting how this little
Catholic priest Tiso is sending us the Jews!”
Tiso was removed from power in 1944 during
the Slovak National Uprising. Just before
being ousted, the Vatican radio told its
listeners that Father Tiso retired in his role as
a monsignor for the Vatican, “owing to his
political activities.” After Slovakia was
liberated from Nazi control by the Soviet
Union the next year, Father Tiso was captured
by American troops in June 1945. He was
hanged for treason in 1947.
Throughout the entirety of his political career,
he remained a practicing Catholic priest.
Tiso isn’t the only dictator to start off as an
aspiring priest in seminary. USSR dictator
Joseph Stalin also studied to become a priest
at Russia’s leading Orthodox seminary, the
Tiflis Spiritual Seminary.

the article forgot to add that the vatican was against tiso policies as a nazi and that he acted alone in that, infact he was condemned by the bishops of slovak and d vatican continued to pressure him, this was at a ttime when every catholic codemnattion of nazism meantt tthe deatth of cattholics. Stalin studied in a orthodox seminary not a catholic one.. The vatican treaty has notthing to do with facism, it was about d land that the state took from d church.

Oluwaseytiano:
7 Excommunication Policies:

In 2009, the Catholic Church in Brazil came
under fire for punishing an underaged girl who
was raped and subsequently had an abortion.
The Church couldn’t excommunicate the girl
herself because minors cannot be
excommunicated, but the Church did
excommunicate her mother. The Church also
excommunicated the doctors who performed
the emergency abortion. However, they did not
excommunicate the girl’s rapist.
In fact, the Catholic Church opposes abortion
so vehemently that not only is it worthy of
excommunication; the Church believes it’s
worthy of death in some cases. The Catholic
Church has previously established that it
would rather have a woman die than get a
life-saving abortion.
The scandal highlighted an even larger
problem for the Catholic Church that stems
from its core doctrine. First and foremost, it
doesn’t consider rape a crime worthy of
excommunication, even though having an
abortion after a rape an act is worthy of
excommunication. The Vatican’s bizarre
standards on excommunication also broach
its problem with pedophilic priests. The
Catholic Church doesn’t consider pedophilia
and child abuse crimes worthy of
excommunication in and of themselves.
In fact, the Catholic Church didn’t even
excommunicate the Nazis for the crimes
against humanity they committed, despite the
fact that many Nazi leaders were practicing
Catholics. There is only one Nazi to be
excommunicated by the Catholic Church
, and that was Joseph Goebbels. The Vatican
didn’t excommunicate him for starting World
War II or the Holocaust; instead, the Church
excommunicated Goebbels because he married
a divorced Protestant.
Until recently, no pedophilic priest who had
abused children had been excommunicated by
the Catholic Church. Late last year, Pope
Francis broke Church precedent and issued the
first excommunication of a pedophilic priest
who had sexually abused children. The priest
had been convicted of the abuse and
sentenced to 14 years in prison three years
earlier.
But if you think Pope Francis has totally
overhauled the Church’s excommunication
practices, think again. Pope Francis also
excommunicated a priest for advocating that
women should be able to be priests and for
believing that gay marriage is perfectly
reasonable.

heresy, apostasy, and willful abortion all carry a canonical penalty in catholicism there is nothing strange there. One who commits abortion willfully is guity of murder, both the doctors and adviser are under excommunication. There is nothing strange there the church resserves d right to excommunicate and what issues to excercise that right.

Oluwaseytiano:
3 Questionable Charity Policies:

The Catholic Church bolsters its image by
labeling itself as a charitable organization. Its
congregations are led to believe their
donations to the Church fuel charitable causes
around the world. However, the Catholic
Church’s objective for this charity is often
advertising rather than altruism.
Recently, the Catholic Church claimed it would
stop all of its charity work in Washington,
D.C. if the city passed a law legalizing same-
sex marriage . Although they didn’t actually
stop working in Washington, D.C. when gay
marriage was legalized, the Washington
Catholic Charities did cease to provide
benefits to all spouses of both homosexual
and heterosexual workers. To legally avoid
providing benefits to people in gay marriages,
they stopped providing benefits to everyone.
The Catholic Church attempted to use its
influence to prevent charities around the
United States from supporting rights for gay
citizens. When the Catholic Church heard that
the YMCA was patterning with an organization
that supports LGBT rights, the Catholic Church
told the YMCA to cut its ties with the group or
lose $60,000 of its funding. The YMCA didn’t
back down, so the Catholic Church yanked its
funding from the YMCA, along with eight
other charitable groups. When all was said
and done, the Catholic Church yanked over $
300,000 in funding for charities solely because
they began to support equal rights for the
LGBT community.

if u are using catholic money to preach anti cattholic messages like gay marriage and abortion then d church can decide to stop giving u their money. There is nothing questionable there.

Oluwaseytiano:
9 Alliance With Radical Islamists:

In 1994, 180 countries met to draft a proposal
with the United Nations to address the coming
crisis of overpopulation. The plan met an
unexpected foe in the Catholic Church. In its
opposition to the plan, the Catholic Church
reached out to unlikely allies: radical
Islamists.
The population plan drafted by representatives
from 180 countries sought to tamper
overpopulation by including measures to
increase women’s rights and reproductive
rights around the world. The Catholic Church
felt the language went against their
conservative views on abortion rights and
sexual freedom. But the Catholic Church had
a hard time finding allies around the world to
join in their opposition to the measures, so
they allied themselves with “radical and
fundamentalist governments and groups in
Islamic countries.”
The move received swift denunciation from
Western countries around the world. Western
diplomats worried that the Vatican was
bolstering Islamic radicals with plans to
overthrow governments around the Middle
East and form their own radical Islamic state.
After Iran signed on with the Catholic Church,
Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Hashemi
Rafsanjani hinted at a grander alliance
between the Vatican and Iranian Islamist.
Rafsanjani said that “Collaboration between
religious governments in support of outlawing
abortion is a fine beginning for the conception
of collaboration in other fields.”
The Vatican also struck a similar alliance with
Libya and other Islamic fundamentalist
governments. As a result of the deal, the
Vatican tried to help Libya quell its conflicts
with Western nations. The Western nations
sought to clamp down on the dictatorship
after it sponsored the Lockerbie terrorist
attack of 1988, which resulted in the deaths
of 259 individuals.

do u know what the west calls population control? It is simply abortion and contraception. Free for all abortion is what the west calls reproductive rights. I am happy the vatican refuse to sign documents and advise abortion, infact i an proud, even though only the so called muslims countries were on the vaticans side.

Mariner007:
Is that what they tell you "communion of saints" in your creed mean?

THAT IS THE BASIC DOCTRINE.

Mariner007:
Is that what they tell you "communion of saints" in your creed mean?
Do you pray directly or through the mediators?

every xtian prays thru a mediator, are u not aware?