Post by johnbc on Sept 28, 2020 17:16:04 GMT
I am no authority on theology, but one thing I know how to do is read. Read and understand. I do this not only in Portuguese and other modern languages, but in some old ones. I do not read with the same fluency as Portuguese, English or French in classical Greek, but I understand that language well enough to consult dictionaries, ask questions about the meaning of some words and ascertain the correctness or error of a translation. It is based on this that I assure you:
1. Nowhere in the Gospel does Our Lord say that reading the Bible or even believing in it will save us. There is not even a sentence, a bit, a word, in which He recommends us to read the great book. What He does say, and with unmistakable words, is that salvation, entry into eternal life, comes only through one means: to eat His Body and drink His blood. Not even a mentally retarded person can confuse these two actions with reading a book, however holy and sublime may it be.
2. A rite, by definition, is the formal and exact repetition of a founding act, which in this way overcomes the barrier of time and becomes again present with the same power and efficacy as the original moment in which it took place. When we baptize a baby, we are not only recalling what John the Baptist did, but repeating with actual vigor and effect what he did in biblical times: integrating a new human soul into the Mystical Body of Christ, potentially opening the doors of Heaven to him.
3. In both Luke 22:19 and Corinthians 11: 24–26, Jesus, consecrating bread and wine, commands His disciples: “Do THIS in memory of me.” The Greek expression is very clear: “toyto poiête” — “do this”. He did not say “make a memorial of this”, but “do THIS”: consecrate the bread and wine, transforming them into the Body and Blood of the Redeemer. This is the culmination of Christian Revelation, the very key to salvation. Luther, Calvin and their followers reduced this act to a simple “memorial”, emptying it of its ritual efficacy in the present and denying the real transformation of the two substances. Interestingly, they did not do the same with the rite of baptism. The famous “water baptism” of the evangelical churches does not present itself as a pure “memorial” of what John the Baptist did, but as a current rite, invested with the same properties as the baptism conferred by John the Baptist. If baptism has that power, why wouldn’t the Eucharist have it?
4. Refusing to obey the explicit order of Jesus Christ, Luther, Calvin and tutti quanti instituted biblism, the cult of the biblical text, making it, instead of the Eucharist, the center of Christian revelation, thus reducing Christianity to a “religion of the book” (ahl-al-kitab) as understood by Muslims.
It is my right and my duty to consider this a heresy, a scorn and a scandal, fearing for the eternal destiny of all who have been deceived by such a gross rascal.
1. Nowhere in the Gospel does Our Lord say that reading the Bible or even believing in it will save us. There is not even a sentence, a bit, a word, in which He recommends us to read the great book. What He does say, and with unmistakable words, is that salvation, entry into eternal life, comes only through one means: to eat His Body and drink His blood. Not even a mentally retarded person can confuse these two actions with reading a book, however holy and sublime may it be.
2. A rite, by definition, is the formal and exact repetition of a founding act, which in this way overcomes the barrier of time and becomes again present with the same power and efficacy as the original moment in which it took place. When we baptize a baby, we are not only recalling what John the Baptist did, but repeating with actual vigor and effect what he did in biblical times: integrating a new human soul into the Mystical Body of Christ, potentially opening the doors of Heaven to him.
3. In both Luke 22:19 and Corinthians 11: 24–26, Jesus, consecrating bread and wine, commands His disciples: “Do THIS in memory of me.” The Greek expression is very clear: “toyto poiête” — “do this”. He did not say “make a memorial of this”, but “do THIS”: consecrate the bread and wine, transforming them into the Body and Blood of the Redeemer. This is the culmination of Christian Revelation, the very key to salvation. Luther, Calvin and their followers reduced this act to a simple “memorial”, emptying it of its ritual efficacy in the present and denying the real transformation of the two substances. Interestingly, they did not do the same with the rite of baptism. The famous “water baptism” of the evangelical churches does not present itself as a pure “memorial” of what John the Baptist did, but as a current rite, invested with the same properties as the baptism conferred by John the Baptist. If baptism has that power, why wouldn’t the Eucharist have it?
4. Refusing to obey the explicit order of Jesus Christ, Luther, Calvin and tutti quanti instituted biblism, the cult of the biblical text, making it, instead of the Eucharist, the center of Christian revelation, thus reducing Christianity to a “religion of the book” (ahl-al-kitab) as understood by Muslims.
It is my right and my duty to consider this a heresy, a scorn and a scandal, fearing for the eternal destiny of all who have been deceived by such a gross rascal.