RE: Protestant vs. Catholic

[KephaMeansRock]

This is aphisherofmen,

What happened to the protestant v. Catholic debate forum that was going on here?

I just worked last night for over an hour on a post, and now it's gone, and my account is deleted!!!

Did we break a rule'? We were on topic and being respectful....

Anybody? HELP?!

[KephaMeansRock]

I just read this in Touchstone Magazine, which is an ecumenical magazine on "mere Christianity", by Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox theologians...

Peter J. Leithart wrote the following, which made me think of you...

Bearing the Violence Away
In an interview in World magazine, Duke's theologian provocateur Stanley Hauwrwas expressed sympathy for the view that killing to protect the innocent is allowable, but he refused to let his sympathy budge him from his pacifist convictions.

It is never right to kill "to prevent another from being killed," he said. If this puts him in an uncomfortable positions, it's one he's willing to accept: "Christian nonviolence is a harsh and dreadful love requiring at times [that] (sic) we have to watch the innocent suffer for our convictions." Apparently, sympathy for actual victims doesn't budge him either.

Overcome evil with good, Paul says, and the pacifist concludes that Christians are prohibited from mounting violent resistance in any circumstances. That assumes, however, an indefensible equation of violence with evil. Violence comes in such varied shapes, sizes and contexts that it cannot be classed as one thing.

One might borrow a page from Hauerwas himself and say that violence is always a part of a story, and good or bad depending on it's place in the plot.

Thoughts?

[KephaMeansRock]

Another note on pacifism...

I just read an interesting review of The Christian Catacombs of Rome: History, Decoration, Inscription by Nicolai, Bisconti and Mazzoleni. Mike Aquilina was the reviewer, and he had this to say...

All three sections are packed with useful and fascinating details. Mazzoleni, for example, uses the epitaphs to show us what the early Christians did for a living. They were "bricklayers, cleaners, dyers, seamstresses, shoemakers and cobblers...doctors and veterinarians, lawyers, notaries, stenographers, couriers, teachers and clerks of grain administration. Thus we see the whole range of professions and social classes, and probably in close proportion to their distribution in roman society.

Along the way, he challenges the common assertion that the pre-Constantine Christians were overwhelmingly pacifist. On the contrary, he writes, "diverse specialties and every rank" of the military are represented in the Christian catacomb inscriptions, "including praetorians (the corps was disbanded by Constantine), cavalry and equites singulares. [parenthesis and italics original to the piece.]

FYI, the equites singulares were essentially the body-guards of the emperors!

Sorry I had to post this disjointed from the above...again I'd like your thoughts!

Pax Christi,

-Justin

[MagusYanam]

Whew - I've been away for awhile. I'm just going to jump back into the conversation on this point:

Bearing the Violence Away
In an interview in World magazine, Duke's theologian provocateur Stanley Hauwrwas expressed sympathy for the view that killing to protect the innocent is allowable, but he refused to let his sympathy budge him from his pacifist convictions.

It is never right to kill "to prevent another from being killed," he said. If this puts him in an uncomfortable positions, it's one he's willing to accept: "Christian nonviolence is a harsh and dreadful love requiring at times [that] (sic) we have to watch the innocent suffer for our convictions." Apparently, sympathy for actual victims doesn't budge him either.

Overcome evil with good, Paul says, and the pacifist concludes that Christians are prohibited from mounting violent resistance in any circumstances. That assumes, however, an indefensible equation of violence with evil. Violence comes in such varied shapes, sizes and contexts that it cannot be classed as one thing.

One might borrow a page from Hauerwas himself and say that violence is always a part of a story, and good or bad depending on it's place in the plot.

It's an interesting view, though I think that Leithart misinterprets a bit Stanley Hauerwas' postmodernist views of Scripture, as a narrative of the Jewish culture, which later Christians adopted. Now, postmodernism is a funky business, but I essentially agree with Hauerwas. Treating Scripture as anything else: a scientific treatise or a doctrinal handbook or an inspirational guide, for example, would be a disservice and a disrespect to Scripture. No - it is a collection of holy writings, poetry, myth, history and historical commentary: in other words, a continuing, cultural narrative of the Hebrew and Christian cultures.

With regard to violence, I think it is clear that at the very least, Christians are to resort to force only when it becomes absolutely necessary and only as an absolute last resort, when all other methods for bringing about justice have been exhausted. Force is treated darkly in the Gospel, as it is the mark of the Roman Empire which brought with it all the injustices associated with force, and in an era when the preaching of Zealotry (violent rebellion against Rome) was all the rage (pun very much intended), Jesus spoke a message of peace, forbearance and nonviolence. This is not coincidence, nor is it trivia.

Should Christians defend the innocent? Of course. Should they use violent means to do so? In my opinion, that point should never come, and if it does the use of force should never be considered 'just' or 'good' or 'holy', but a mark of wrongdoing. If George W. Bush were honest in his Christianity (or possessed the mental capacity to understand what being Christian entails), he would:
a.) never have declared war against Iraq in the first place,
b.) never declared war in Iraq in the first place,
c.) never declared war in Iraq in the first place and
d.) if such a declaration were absolutely necessary, if we had found that Saddam was stocking massive quantities of WMD's and was preparing to use them or already had, and if the UN failed to take action (worst-case scenario), the first thing he should have done would be to apologise to the American people for his failure to find a peaceful solution, and having asked them to make this sacrifice for his failure.

As per Aquilina's review, I think I should note that the existence of Christians who served in the military is not disputed among Christian scholars, but the available evidence seems to indicate that those Christians who did were clearly deviations from the norm. Not all took the route of St. Maximillian, obviously, when pressured into the service of the Roman army, but they were seen as 'behaving like Gentiles' and treated essentially like murderers.

Sorry, but the presence of Christian persons in catacombs holding the position of 'soldier' or 'bodyguard' doesn't really mean anything, not when all extant writings from the time seem to affirm the contrary. Bear in mind that such people were more likely to have been commemorated by the Romans, since it would give them extra political leverage against what was largely a spreading antiwar cult.

The church anathematized such people for blatantly embracing heresy; such heresy DID threaten to undermine society at large (and given our history these last 500 years, I for one think that that is precisely what DID happen)

Ahh, not so fast. First off, the various movements toward the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution (which really can be classified under the same umbrella as anti-dogmatic, rationalist and humanist movements) did produce short-term loss of stability in most countries. But political compromises between the aristocracy and the middle class in Britain (for example) produced a largely stable society which was still religiously latitudinarian, where the only people left unsatisfied were a small group of militant Protestant extremists who wound up in Massachusetts and, a few Indian massacres and witch-burnings later, moderated themselves by necessity. And in 1648 after the Catholics and the Protestants who had no problem with war killed off a third of Germany between them, they had to learn to get along with each other and create a system which would guarantee stability in international relations and in societies that accepted it, regardless of doctrine.

Secondly, what does 'society at large' mean? You seem to be making the rather remarkable and completely unfounded generalisation that Western Europe between, say, 300 AD and 1500 AD was a politically and socially stable place, and that where it wasn't, apostasy and heresy were the boogeymen responsible.

Um, what gives?

[MagusYanam]

Of course, Jesus was called the bridegroom, but his bride is the Church and his heavenly banquet is, as the name suggests, in heaven. He lived a celibate life. Moreover, he spoke of those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom - meaning those who have taken voluntarily a vow of celibacy like him - and says "whoever can accept this ought to" (Matt. 19:11–12)

Very highly debatable. Symbolic language such as Jesus being the groom and the Church being the bride (as such the parable clearly was) should not be run over roughshod, but treated with caution and respect, while realising that symbol has both meaning and limitation. To suggest that Jesus was a literal groom and the Church a literal bride - in a metaphysical sense, something not even St. Paul did - is to elevate tradition above Scripture, something even the Catholics should not do.

Firstly, Scripture makes no reference to Jesus being celibate. None. Those who wrote the canonical Gospels were silent on the fact, a silence which has implications in two ways. Firstly, in Hebrew society of the time, it was completely unheard-of for a man of Jesus' age to be unwed, let alone a man considered a rabbi. Indeed, Paul was noted for his oddity on this point. It would have been (as it seemingly was in Paul's case) a major scandal (note the defensive language he uses concerning celibacy), and Jesus' enemies, of which he undoubtedly had a fair few, would have been quick to jump on such an abnormality - and this would in turn have been mentioned by the authors of the Gospels. So silence on the matter of Jesus' celibacy can just as easily be seen as indication that he was married as it can that he was not.

Secondly, there are non-canonical Gospels that give some rather strong evidence that Jesus entertained a lover or had a wife, though the strings are few and stretched thin that connect this figure to Mary Magdalene. And even though they are not canonical (not proper for teaching and irrelevant to the cultural narrative, that is), they still have historical value and can shed light on who Jesus may have been.

[KephaMeansRock]

With regard to violence, I think it is clear that at the very least, Christians are to resort to force only when it becomes absolutely necessary and only as an absolute last resort, when all other methods for bringing about justice have been exhausted. Force is treated darkly in the Gospel

Nobody here is arguing that force is a great thing or a first resort...just whether or not it is ever permissible for the Christian.

Should Christians defend the innocent? Of course. Should they use violent means to do so? In my opinion, that point should never come,

Maybe in a perfect world...

and if it does the use of force should never be considered 'just' or 'good' or 'holy', but a mark of wrongdoing.

What do you define as "force"? Pulling a rapist off his victim? Subduing a plane hijacker? Killing a terrorist before he drops a glass beaker of neurotoxin infront of a NYC subway, dispurseing vile, painful death to millions?

Using any of those methods would always be wrong?

Did Jesus sin when he drove out the money changers with violence?

If George W. Bush were honest in his Christianity (or possessed the mental capacity to understand what being Christian entails), he would:

Other's can if they like, but I'm not debating or defending Bush. That some violence is justifiable does not mean any or all is.

As per Aquilina's review, I think I should note that the existence of Christians who served in the military is not disputed among Christian scholars, but the available evidence seems to indicate that those Christians who did were clearly deviations from the norm. Not all took the route of St. Maximillian, obviously, when pressured into the service of the Roman army, but they were seen as 'behaving like Gentiles' and treated essentially like murderers.

Ah, but the book of the Catacombs precisely shows that such occupations were normal and not condemned...

Sorry, but the presence of Christian persons in catacombs holding the position of 'soldier' or 'bodyguard' doesn't really mean anything, not when all extant writings from the time seem to affirm the contrary. Bear in mind that such people were more likely to have been commemorated by the Romans, since it would give them extra political leverage against what was largely a spreading antiwar cult.

So...the bodies were placed by the Romans to undermine this small 1st and 2nd century Jewish sect?

Ahh, not so fast. First off, the various movements toward the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution (which really can be classified under the same umbrella as anti-dogmatic, rationalist and humanist movements) did produce short-term loss of stability in most countries.

The Scientific Revolution was made possible in part because of the Catholic Church and her devotion to Science all throughout the middle ages. It is not the source of instability.

The reformation split all of western society, produced wars (lamentable participation on both sides, sure) and ultimately fostered the "enlightenment" mindset which sought to remove religion from all matters, and has devolved into the relativistic quagmire we've sunk to in the last 100 years...

You seem to be making the rather remarkable and completely unfounded generalisation that Western Europe between, say, 300 AD and 1500 AD was a politically and socially stable place, and that where it wasn't, apostasy and heresy were the boogeymen responsible.

No, I'm saying that in all that time nobody really ever doubted that good and evil existed. Where we are now is categorically different from any schism or heresy in the first millennium and a half of the church, and I'm pretty sure history will bear that one out.

And Christianity in general (which is the real focus of this piece) has never been more divided. Sure the Orthodox and Catholic Churches split, but both sides generally recognize the other as having valid apostolic succession and sacraments, and the teachings of both are nearly identical because they both share the same idiology - that of Christianity en masse for the first 1000 years of it's existence.

Very highly debatable.

No. Debated by some, because there is a market for non-sense. Most Atheists (even Atheist turned Theist Anthony Flew) seldom if ever will attack the celibacy of Christ because all relyable data suggests that this was in fact the case.

Those who wrote the canonical Gospels were silent on the fact, a silence which has implications in two ways. Firstly, in Hebrew society of the time, it was completely unheard-of for a man of Jesus' age to be unwed, let alone a man considered a rabbi.

The New Testament doesn’t say that Jesus had a wife. There’s no hint of a wife in the Gospels, the book of Acts, the writings of Paul, or any other writings of the New Testament.

Now, GRANTED that the absence of evidence in the New Testament isn’t necessarily evidence of absence. Of course, this could be true, unless the situation under consideration causes us to expect to see something we don’t see.

For example, if a man is thought to be rich, but a thorough review of his bank account, his property holdings, and his lifestyle shows only average wealth, it’s a safe bet he’s not rich. Absence of evidence of wealth implies evidence of absence of wealth.

Similarly, if we find nothing where we would reasonably expect to see some reference to Jesus’ wife, then the absence of such evidence should be taken as evidence that Jesus was unmarried. In fact, we find no word of a wife of Jesus in places where we would surely expect to see such a mention if he had, indeed, been married: Jesus’ call to his ministry; his discussion of marriage, divorce, and celibacy; his death on the cross; and his resurrection. There are no explicit references in the Gospels to a wife of Jesus.

Indeed, Paul was noted for his oddity on this point.

Actually, Paul was a very prominent, zealous Jew; and as a prominent, zealous Jew, he lived celibate. This actually shows that - even if not the norm - it was not unheard of nor unacceptable even in higher circles of Judaism.

And the texts from the Essenes in Qumram, a rather contemporary sect vis a vis Christ and the Apostles are recorded in their own documents as often living celibate lives.

Point of the matter: Jesus said that those who can renounce marriage for the sake of the kingdom should - and is He himself, the perfect God/Man not going to be the exemplar par excellence of this and all matters?

It would have been (as it seemingly was in Paul's case) a major scandal (note the defensive language he uses concerning celibacy),

1 Cor 7 does not sound defensive! He says that celibacy is preferable! He notes that widows who have pledged vows of celibacy are to be held to them (showing that such vows were COMMONPLACE!)

Nor does Paul mention a wife of Jesus when it would have been helpful for him to do so. When Paul discusses the relationship between husbands and wives in 1 Corinthians 7, being able to cite the example of a married Jesus would have come in handy. Likewise, it would have been useful to point to Jesus’ wife when Paul argues that he and his collaborators have the right to bring a Christian sister along on their missionary trips to help with temporalities. Paul certainly drew on the example of the other apostles who brought their wives to help (1 Cor. 9:5). Surely if Jesus had been married his example would have trumped that of Peter.

In Ephesians 5, we have the famous exhortation for spouses to model their relationships on the relationship between Jesus and his Bride—not a woman but the Church. It’s hard to understand why this analogy would have been used if Jesus had a wife.

The manifest absence of a wife continues in the book of Acts. It is true that there is no mention of Peter’s wife here either, but Luke had told his readers of Peter’s mother-in-law in his Gospel (Luke 4:38–39), so her existence was known. When Peter tells Jesus that he and the others have left their homes to follow him, Jesus says, "There is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive manifold more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life" (Luke 18:29–30).

Jesus’ statement accounts for why we don’t see spouses of the apostles mentioned in the Gospels and in Acts; the apostles and their wives were separated for the sake of the apostolic ministry. Some apostles later took their wives along to assist them, as we have seen from Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 9:5. Yet we have no similar mentions of Jesus separating himself from a wife as the apostles did, no mention of a wife assisting him during his ministry, and nothing about a wife continuing Jesus’ work in the early Church, as later the apostles’ wives seemed to have done. The Gospels mention the putative father, mother, and "brothers" and "sisters" of Jesus (actually kinsmen of Jesus, not "blood" brothers and sisters). They mention his hometown of Nazareth and the people’s response to him there. They mention how some of Jesus’ family thought he was out of his mind, at least at one point during his ministry. But we find absolutely nothing about a wife. There is as much historical evidence for Jesus being married as there is for him being a professional surfer.

Secondly, there are non-canonical Gospels that give some rather strong evidence that Jesus entertained a lover or had a wife, though the strings are few and stretched thin that connect this figure to Mary Magdalene. And even though they are not canonical (not proper for teaching and irrelevant to the cultural narrative, that is), they still have historical value and can shed light on who Jesus may have been.

Yet you won't even listen to the non-canonical gospels and writings which show that Christ was celibate as was his mother (like the protoevangelium of James), or any of the writings of the Church from the 1st century which are nothing if not blatantly Catholic...

My case in point is proven here, that you propose such theories and question what does and doesn't belong in the canon because you have no authority higher than yourself (I mean this as charitably as possible, please bear that in mind...chat-boards do not ever reflect vocal intonation!). You can question what does and doesn't belong because without the Church you have no sound grounding other than what you feel is correct.

...

Nevertheless, I respect your opinion, and am glad you are putting in all your 2 cents worth! Keep it up, that we might all grow!

Pax Christi,

-Justin

[samuelbb7]

Howdy Justin

I agree with you JESUS was celibate.

I will have a hard time getting back. But I have copied your previous post to my hard drive and I will be getting to it. In the meantime from the NASB something to ponder.

1Th 4:13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.
1Th 4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
1Th 4:15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
1Th 4:16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of {the} archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
1Th 4:17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
1Th 4:18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

http://www.catholicapologetics.org/ap09 ... m#ap090601
>>>Here is the definintion of worship from the Catholic encylopedia.
# if it is addressed directly to God, it is superior, absolute, supreme worship, or worship of adoration, or, according to the consecrated theological term, a worship of latria. This sovereign worship is due to God alone; addressed to a creature it would become idolatry.
# When worship is addressed only indirectly to God, that is, when its object is the veneration of martyrs, of angels, or of saints, it is a subordinate worship dependent on the first, and relative, in so far as it honours the creatures of God for their peculiar relations with Him; it is designated by theologians as the worship of dulia, a term denoting servitude, and implying, when used to signify our worship of distinguished servants of God, that their service to Him is their title to our veneration (cf. Chollet, loc. cit., col. 2407, and Bouquillon, Tractatus de virtute religionis, I, Bruges, 1880, 22 sq.).
# As the Blessed Virgin has a separate and absolutely supereminent rank among the saints, the worship paid to her is called hyperdulia (for the meaning and history of these terms see Suicer, Thesaurus ecclesiastics, 1728).<<<<
>>>>Please provide the doctrine. The Catholic Church has always taught we are saved by the Grace of God.
980 It is through the sacrament of Penance that the baptized can be reconciled with God and with the Church:
Penance has rightly been called by the holy Fathers "a laborious kind of baptism." This sacrament of Penance is necessary for salvation for those who have fallen after Baptism, just as Baptism is necessary for salvation for those who have not yet been reborn.<<<
We consider both the sacrament of Penance and of Baptism to be the grace of God.

Now I have an article on a Pope who taught conditionalism. But I seem to have misplaced it. I will keep looking.

[MagusYanam]

What do you define as "force"? Pulling a rapist off his victim? Subduing a plane hijacker? Killing a terrorist before he drops a glass beaker of neurotoxin infront of a NYC subway, dispurseing vile, painful death to millions?

Using any of those methods would always be wrong?

Did Jesus sin when he drove out the money changers with violence?

I think I'll borrow Stanley Hauerwas' view on this and say that I can sympathise with this POV, but still consider it wrong. Inflicting bodily harm on another human being was not sanctioned by Jesus, and not even in the Temple is it said that Jesus inflicted bodily harm on anyone.

Your constant appeals to emotion aside, Justin, I still think that nonviolent solutions can work even in some of the most extreme cases. How many black people do you think wanted to fight back against the policemen who were hosing them down, beating them, etc.? How many Hindus and Muslims wanted to fight back against the British when they were mowing them down with rifles by the thousands? How did Martin Luther King and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan respond to such attacks? Did they preach that when a man strikes you on one cheek, you strike him back? Did Jesus?

Ah, but the book of the Catacombs precisely shows that such occupations were normal and not condemned...

I'll have to read this book to see how accurate it actually is on that point. However, the attitudes of the Church leaders with regard to military service still stand. Obviously, not everyone was a St. Maximillian willing to die rather than be drafted.

So...the bodies were placed by the Romans to undermine this small 1st and 2nd century Jewish sect?

Small, but growing, and often considered dangerous enough by the Romans that they would execute people simply for refusing to honour the Emperor. What better way to do that than to say, 'hey, these people honoured the Emperor by serving, why can't the rest of you?' I get the feeling that it was more of a psychological system of oppression than anything else.

And psychological warfare against persecuted minorities is certainly nothing new. The Jews have been forced to adapt to whatever culture conquered them ever since Egypt - hell, even Moses had an Egyptian name and lived by Egyptian custom! And then the Babylonians did it to them, and after a short break under Persian rule (thanks to Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes II) the Romans did it to them.

The Scientific Revolution was made possible in part because of the Catholic Church and her devotion to Science all throughout the middle ages. It is not the source of instability.

Bull. If that had been the case, it would have happened centuries earlier, when the Muslims were doing some really advanced work in the fields of physical science, mathematics and medicine. As it was, playing politics against the Orthodox and Muslim kingdoms was more important to the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages than science ever was.

I'm also thinking of names like Galileo, who had to defend the ideas of heliocentrism against the Catholic clergy, and was condemned as 'formally heretical' because of his idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun. And I'm also thinking of when Pius X made the Catholic clergy officially fundamentalist by making them swear to this oath. Particularly intriguing is this little gem:

I reject the opinion of those who hold that a professor lecturing or writing on a historico-theological subject should first put aside any preconceived opinion about the supernatural origin of Catholic tradition or about the divine promise of help to preserve all revealed truth forever; and that they should then interpret the writings of each of the Fathers solely by scientific principles, excluding all sacred authority, and with the same liberty of judgment that is common in the investigation of all ordinary historical documents.

The Catholic Church has been anti-science and anti-modernity for a very long time, arguably up until the Second Vatican Council. They required scholars to take a supernatural view of science and of human history, which is antithetical to the basic practise of science! Science can make no claim on the supernatural, being a discipline whereby natural causes and relations are discerned for natural phenomena, and yet this is exactly what the Catholic Church demanded of the people who did its scholarship.

The reformation split all of western society, produced wars (lamentable participation on both sides, sure) and ultimately fostered the "enlightenment" mindset which sought to remove religion from all matters, and has devolved into the relativistic quagmire we've sunk to in the last 100 years...

The 'Enlightenment' mindset was nothing new by the 1700's, and while it was related to the Reformation it was not a direct result of it. It was merely a popularisation of the ideas of Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and John Locke - who synthesised the pagan and Muslim learning that Catholics of the Middle Ages so readily and so often dismissed.

Also, to say that the Enlightenment sought to remove religion from all matters and create a 'relativistic quagmire' is a dismissal, and an unwarranted one at that. Only someone who picked up Hume and passed over Kant could come away with the conclusion that the Enlightenment was relativistic. Indeed, Kant asserted forcefully than any other person the idea that the Enlightenment did stand for something, and he argued that that something was the Reich der Zwecke (the Kingdom of Ends), which he described as fitting perfectly with the vision of the Kingdom of Heaven as asserted by Jesus Christ.

I move (at the risk of being labelled a Eurocentrist) that humanity and Christianity as a whole (including Catholicism) have benefitted immensely from the pioneering of such ideas by people like Bacon, Newton, Locke, Hume, Galileo and Kant. And yet you want to dismiss them and all their works as being relativistic?

Where we are now is categorically different from any schism or heresy in the first millennium and a half of the church, and I'm pretty sure history will bear that one out.

Firstly, I think I should say right here that I don't trust any statement that begins 'history will judge', because history never judges anyone. Historians do, and people do. And the viewpoints of people do change. That's not relativism, that's fact: twenty years ago, the attitudes of historians and the general public to the figure of John Brown varied widely from the attitudes of historians and the general public to him today. Was he a visionary or a madman? A Bible-thumping firebrand or a pragmatist? Murderer or martyr?

Even in the Bible, there was the need for God to make successive covenants with mankind. Was this because God changed? Process theology aside, most people would answer that this was not because God changed, but because people did.

No. Debated by some, because there is a market for non-sense. Most Atheists (even Atheist turned Theist Anthony Flew) seldom if ever will attack the celibacy of Christ because all relyable data suggests that this was in fact the case.

I'm sorry if you felt I attacked you in any way, because I assure you that was not the case. But there is an alternate viewpoint with some basis in scholarship, so that's an assumption you don't necessarily get to make.

Point of the matter: Jesus said that those who can renounce marriage for the sake of the kingdom should - and is He himself, the perfect God/Man not going to be the exemplar par excellence of this and all matters?

He says that celibacy is preferable! He notes that widows who have pledged vows of celibacy are to be held to them (showing that such vows were COMMONPLACE!)

Ugh. I'm detecting the underlying assumption here that sex is automatically not preferable to celibacy and therefore bad or dirty. This attitude is most unfortunate, though I admit it does have a basis in early Christianity (and, indeed, the early Anabaptist communities as well, thanks to the Gnostics). But it also caused a good deal of suffering and counterproductive thinking about sex - the Cathars, for example.

My reading of that 'point of the matter', as you call it, is that Jesus is saying that you give what you can give, and if that that is sensual pleasure, that is fine. Indeed, Jesus made a much greater sacrifice; sacrificing sexual pleasure would have been superfluous to the death on the Cross, wouldn't you agree? But the 'point of the matter', I think, is that he is not condemning sex as bad or beneath him. Think for a moment about circumcision. The Jews who practised this were essentially saying, 'we are giving up sensual pleasure for the sake of our covenant with God', but sex was still not considered bad or dirty.

The assumption that Jesus must have been celibate because sex is bad or dirty and such a thing would be beneath him is bad theology, plain and simple, stemming from a rather forced reading of certain passages primarily from the Pauline epistles and from Gnostic assumptions about the 'dirty' nature of the body.

I think there are other reasons to think Jesus may have been celibate - I agree with your points about the lack of mention in Scripture, by the way - but I see no reason for this counterproductive and Gnostic attitude towards human nature. The reason I even brought it up was not because I agree with it, but more to get a sense of where we stand on the issue.

Yet you won't even listen to the non-canonical gospels and writings which show that Christ was celibate as was his mother (like the protoevangelium of James), or any of the writings of the Church from the 1st century which are nothing if not blatantly Catholic...

My case in point is proven here, that you propose such theories and question what does and doesn't belong in the canon because you have no authority higher than yourself (I mean this as charitably as possible, please bear that in mind...chat-boards do not ever reflect vocal intonation!). You can question what does and doesn't belong because without the Church you have no sound grounding other than what you feel is correct.

Again, I'll listen to them if I think they're historically interesting, or shed certain insights on canonical Scripture (the reason I'm a pacifist is not because St. Irenaeus or Origen or St. Gregory said so, but because I believe the Gospel requires it). But I won't accept them as authoritative in themselves.

As to the last, I'm sorry that you feel that way, but I feel that I do have a sound grounding in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A sound grounding does not mean that I cannot question what I think I already know. Indeed, St. Paul urged all his followers to test all things and hold fast to what is good.

Indeed, though, I'm glad you continue to put in your two cents as well! Dialogue is always a good thing; it would be a sin to discourage it!

The peace of Christ also be upon you,

Matt

[KephaMeansRock]

I just made quite a long post to answer, and then the browser crashed and I lost it...

Sigh..

I'll try to retype it later...

[McCulloch]

Did Jesus sin when he drove out the money changers with violence?

I did not see that this question was addressed.

[MagusYanam]

Sorry that you missed it, McC, but as a matter of fact, I did.

Inflicting bodily harm on another human being was not sanctioned by Jesus, and not even in the Temple is it said that Jesus inflicted bodily harm on anyone.

It says he got angry, scared off the moneychangers and overturned tables and chairs, but not that he inflicted bodily harm on anyone. I think I've made this point before. These are the passages in question:

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, 'It is written,

"My house shall be called a house of prayer";
but you are making it a den of robbers!'

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, 'Is it not written,

"My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations"?
But you have made it a den of robbers.'

Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, 'It is written,

"My house shall be a house of prayer";
but you have made it a den of robbers.'

John's account of the event is a little stranger:

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, 'Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!'

But never in Scripture is violence against a person directly implied in this event, but driving cattle and sheep, and destruction of what Jesus thought were the symbols of greed in the temple. Indeed, it could be interpreted that Jesus shamed everyone buying and selling out of the temple, and thus drove them out.