We hear many Protestant voices complaining of Rome's unscriptural new dogmas. However well intended or evidenced these may be, they cannot obscure the fact that the Roman Church has at last preserved the ancient Scriptural creedal heritage of the church, even if marred by later additions. One may well ask what might have happened to this great heritage of the church if during the last 250 years the Church of Rome had not been the guardian, as she was in the days of Chalcedon, of the great dogmas of the ancient church, continually reminding the evangelical churches of what they have lost or are in process of losing. -- Hermann Sasse, *We Confess: Jesus Christ* p. 67.
Yes, indeed, but . . .
ReplyDeleteThe "ancient dogmas", if by that we mean the faith of Christ, survive because they are true, and because we have Christ's guarantee that they are true, that they, and not the Roman Church, are the Rock against which the gates of hell itself shall not prevail, and their survival has nothing whatever to do with the Roman Church. Nothing.
ReplyDeleteThe note and warning re the compromises to which "Lutheranism" has both been subject and subjected itself are good and well taken, but still, while it is true the the catholic church can be found within the Catholic Church, this is no way gives the RCC a constructive role, and, if it ever had, that is now completely lost in the RCC now, a church Sasse did not know, and inapplicable to say the garbage offered on EWTN.
What has caused some well-known
ReplyDeleteLutheran Pastors to swim the Tiber
to Rome is this: The authority of
doctrine concerning abortion, gay
marriage, etc. Think Richard John
Neuhaus and others. Secondary reason
is that Lutheranism has failed as
a reform movement within the church
catholic.
What has caused some well-known
ReplyDeleteLutheran Pastors to swim the Tiber
to Rome is this: The authority of
doctrine concerning abortion, gay
marriage, etc. Think Richard John
Neuhaus and others.
I would pay close attention to how Neuhaus wrote in, say, "The Catholic Moment" before his conversion. His post-conversion writings portray a far more somber and realistic view of Catholicism.
As long as the Church of Rome continues to lift up the theology of glory rather than the theology of the Cross, it matters not one whit whether she has "preserved" the Creeds. It is mere lip service.
If the Lutheran Church as "failed" in an earthly sense she will still be judged by her Lord alone, as she clings in yes, sometimes weakness, to that saving Cross. I think it's far too early to write her off.
Christine