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Augustine
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Posted -
2007/7/6 下午 09:55:19
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From the reflections from an EVANGELICAL PROTESTANT CHRISTIAN:
It seems that Pope Benedict XVI is going to reintroduce the Latin Mass despite protests from upper-echelon clergy and Jewish community leaders. The Tridentine Rite–the Latin Mass from the sixteenth century, contains antisemitic phrases.
I’ve read a few articles about this document that will be released late this week or early next week, and the news media likes to accuse the Mass of antisemitism. The article that I link to actually explains what is considered antisemitic in the Mass, and I have to say that I am absolutely appalled by it. The Mass says:
. . . Jews live in “blindness” and “darkness”, and pray “the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ”.
How, exactly, is this antisemitic? It appears as though the Catholic Church is now heading more and more toward ecumenism. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it becomes a very bad thing when one must sacrifice God’s truth in order to achieve it.
Jesus Christ Himself said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me” (Jn 14:6, emphasis added). No words have been minced, and there is nothing unclear about this passage. Jesus said He was the way, the truth, and the life–not a way, a truth, and a life. Jesus isn’t one path of many to God, He is the one and only path.
The text of the Mass isn’t denigrating Jews, it is proclaiming the truth of God’s Word: those opposed to Jesus are enemies of God (Mat 12:30, see also Jms 4:4 ). The text of the Mass is asking for the Jews to come to realize the truth and fullness of God’s revelation in Jesus.
Objective truth is taking a backseat, once again, to the rights of the individual to believe as he or she so chooses. Here in the US, we who believe in objective truth are increasingly being treated as outcasts. Those of us who dare proclaim the Word of God from the Bible are ridiculed and scorned. This is yet more evidence of it. The Catholic isn’t allowed to pray a prayer in a public service that infringes on someone’s religion.
James White had a similar piece, in which he responded to a reader who said that apologists like White should spend more time refuting cultists rather than arguing theology with fellow scholars. I have to agree with Dr. White:
If I demand that God’s Word be held as the highest standard, and that stringent rules of consistent exegesis be applied in responding to the claims of others, I cannot “give a pass” to my brethren who refuse to apply such stringent standards to themselves, and I must apply them to my own teaching and preaching as well.
It seems as if the Catholic higher-ups are once again looking at ideas invented by man–freedom of religion–to set the standards. The apologist like myself, then, must do as Dr. White does: call them out on it, with the Word of God as the highest standard. Rather than looking at this prayer as a sincere request for the Jews to embrace God’s truth, they are more concerned that it makes the Church appear to hate Jews by impinging on the Jewish person’s individual right to believe in a religion of his or her choosing.
I doubt that God will gloss over that at Judgment Day. The Catholics are embracing the values of the world, which is enmity with God (Jms 4:4). They aren’t gathering souls to Jesus; they are scattering (Mat 12:30). Mind you, these protests come from cardinals–allegedly the most learned of Bible scholars within the Church! If I, a Protestant layman with no formal theological training, can figure this out, surely they can, too!
Whatever happened to the Great Commission, Catholics?
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Augustine
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Posted -
2007/7/6 下午 10:47:51
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While I'm a protestant it's interesting to see the Catholic Church being criticized for doing something according to the Bible... What's wrong with this world? If we (let's say, Christians) believe that someone else (Jews, Muslims etc.) are wrong then it's only right to pray for their conversion. And the other way round. Political correctness gone mad - again.
DanielJ, London, UK
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