Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
This is crazy.
Catholics have been calling themselves Catholics for centuries, long before any other churches "officially" existed. I say "officially" because before and during the dark ages numerous communities of Christians (real churches with or without your proper franchise name) met in secret for fear of papal thugs, the latter day version of Judaizer dogs.
But this speaks to a greater topic, that of distorted oneness. I call distorted oneness one of the greatest evils of church history. Rome used this to its full advantage for centuries. The basic question is this: How far should the church go astray in order to remain "one?" Look at what the papal system accomplished. In the name of oneness they worshiped Mary, established the corrupt Vatican, ordained supposedly celibate priests, sold indulgences, etc. (I could spend all day completing this list.)
Untold corruption under threat of retribution was all accomplished in the name of oneness, not genuine Biblical oneness, but distorted oneness. The same kind of distorted oneness promoted by all exclusive groups, including the Peebs and the Blendeds.
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So you must believe that this distorted oneness was propagated to the Lutherans, and then the Church of England, and so on and so forth? Because the majority of what we call Christianity today (and what Lee would call degraded Christianity), came from these papal thugs, not from these unofficial secretive groups. All of these were, at one time, attempts at "distorted oneness". That is, they all believed themselves to be the true genuine church, at some point. So on and so forth. You seem to swing towards the independent free groups or home groups etc, so probably you are closer to the truth than many on this forum and many Christians in general, that believe all and any denomination that calls itself a church is okay.