What's hard to trust about a guy born of a woman who who is lavished in jewels and robed in silk, who sits on a golden throne demanding the devotion and sometimes worship of millions of people and claims to be the vicar of the spoken word of Christ himself while enthroned in jewels?
That is the problem I have with the concept of the pope. Not the man himself, I have never met him, and I try not to pass judgment especially on those I have never spoken to, however this is my problem with the concept of the pope. He has too much power and hardly ever resembles the Jesus from the Bible. He is adored and celebrated and clothed in golden robes as Jesus was born in a manger and crucified naked. The pope sports a bulletproof worship wagon as Jesus rides in unprotected on a mule. It doesn't add up for me.
For those who are offended, I am not condemning the Catholic church, I believe Catholics because of belief alone share in the same Jesus I do. I have many family members who are Catholic and I am excited to share Heaven with them. I just don't get the pope. Why not worship Jesus, why do we need a vicar of Christ when we have His Spirit living inside us?
Rom. 3:9 What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” 13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” 14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
The Bible says there is no one holy. The pope farts and sins just like we do, why pick a man to represent Jesus when we have Jesus right hear with us. We sometimes need help from pastors, and priests, and teachers in understanding what we are reading, but how can there be a fallible man to tell us definitively what the Bible means?
Just a tangent due to something I saw on the tele.
Sing.
Migrate.
™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Bulletproof Worship Wagon
I'm a simple person to figure out. I usually write it all down here. I try not to pretend to be anything. I am what I am and that's good enough until it's not anymore. I want my kids to remember me smiling when I'm gone. Integrity is the very basis of a good life. I love my God, my wife, my kids, my friends, and I try to love all of the rest of you.
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Adam,
ReplyDeleteMany of the views you have regarding the Pope are misunderstandings.
That is okay. It happens all of the time, by both Catholics and non-Catholics. You should research from Catholic sources regarding the Church, the papacy, and the canon they could help clear some of the misconceptions that maybe some of your Catholic relatives may even have.
Peace in Christ.
Renee
We shouldn't worship the pope. We should worship Barack Obama.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link where you may hear the Pope speak for himself.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/vatican
Renee, I went to Newadvent.org a Catholic site to see what the views on the pope are, here is their general definition of it's views, the full info is much to much to post, so for those interested use the link and check it out. As far as I can see, the Catholic Church's view of the pope is what I had posted. I believe the pope has too much authority and has no right to be the authority on the meanings of all moral and scripture conversations. More info on his supposed infallibility is mentioned as well.
ReplyDeleteLike I said before, I do not have any problems with the Catholic Church or it's members, I do however supremely disagree with their doctrines on the pope, and the fact that they believe a succession was even made from St. Peter to another. I do not believe scripture backs that up. Peter was appointed and the rest is up to church history and politics. It is true that in the past there were popes that were not even believers. Are we to say that they were the vicars of Christ too?
The Pope
(Ecclesiastical Latin papa from Greek papas, a variant of pappas father, in classical Latin pappas -- Juvenal, "Satires" 6:633).
The title pope, once used with far greater latitude (see below, section V), is at present employed solely to denote the Bishop of Rome, who, in virtue of his position as successor of St. Peter, is the chief pastor of the whole Church, the Vicar of Christ upon earth.
Besides the bishopric of the Roman Diocese, certain other dignities are held by the pope as well as the supreme and universal pastorate: he is Archbishop of the Roman Province, Primate of Italy and the adjacent islands, and sole Patriarch of the Western Church. The Church's doctrine as to the pope was authoritatively declared in the Vatican Council in the Constitution "Pastor Aeternus". The four chapters of that Constitution deal respectively with the office of Supreme Head conferred on St. Peter, the perpetuity of this office in the person of the Roman pontiff, the pope's jurisdiction over the faithful, and his supreme authority to define in all questions of faith and morals. This last point has been sufficiently discussed in the article INFALLIBILITY, and will be only incidentally touched on here.
Okay. Thanks for posting the link just incase anyone is interested in learning about the history of the Papacy and the Holy Father. Other great sources are The Catechism of the Catholic Church, The Vatican site, Catholic Answers.org/com, and Early Church history documents and testimonies of the church fathers.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being fair Adam by allowing both sides to be heard.
Peace in Christ.
Renee
there are things to applaud about the Catholic church. however, i share the same view on the pope. i also have a hard time understanding the prayers going out to Mary and the saints. patron saints also baffle me. the Bible seems clear to me that Jesus is our only mediator between us and the Father.
ReplyDeleteK,
ReplyDeleteWithout turning this into a Catholic Apologetics post, I will just reference some scripture in regards to your concerns.
Pope
Acts 1:20,2 Chron 19:11, Matt 28:19-20,Acts 1:26,Acts 14:23, Eph 2:20,Titus 1:5, 1John 2:27.
Mary
We ask Mary and the Saints to pray for us. We honor Mary and the Saints and strive to imitate their lives of holiness.
1Cor 11:1, Gal 4:12, Phil 3:17, 1 Thess 1:6-7, 2Thess 3:7-9,Eph 2:19,Tobit 12:12-15, 2 Macc 15:7-16, Zech 1:12-16,Rom 8:35-39, Rom 12:5, 1Cor 12:26, Rev 5:8
Infallibility
1 Tim 3:15, Matt 28:19-20, John 16:13, Acts 15:28, 1John 2:27
Jesus is the High Priest of the Catholic Church.
Well, the reason that The Pope rides in a Bulletproof Jesus Wagon is because The Pope isn't bullet proof.
ReplyDeleteOr have you forgotten the 1981 attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II by Mehmet Ali Ağca?
It is true that no man is holy. It is also true that no man has the ability to dodge bullets or feed a multitude from a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish.
As far as Jesus riding on a donkey goes, the Son of God was (pardon the colloqual) "slumming it" here on earth. We both know that the true riches of God are in Heaven and that a mansion of many rooms awaits the saved.
There will even be enough room for the combined wardrobes of Joel Onsteen and Creflo Dollar, assuming that their faith is genuine.
Do not worry about what The Pope wears; be more concerned about what he says and if it rings true with your faith.
After all, there is a line in the poem Desiderata that cautions against the folly of worrying about people that have more than you do.
Renee,
ReplyDeleteyou've found good scripture, but i don't make the connection in support of the pope, prayer to Mary and saints.
there are simply no scriptures that support the papal office, or the prayers to saints or Mary.
i too, commend Mary for her incredible faith in God. the Lord put her in a tough situation. one in which it would be easy to be angry at God, and rebel against him. so for her faith, she deserves recognition. however, she was only a human being. she doesn't have characteristics of God (omnipotence) that would allow her to even hear our prayers. as for imitating her holy life... i see nothing wrong here. i think God calls us to follow anybody as they follow Christ.
Or, Maybe Renee is simply being polite trying to defend the beautiful faith she follows and traditions that she holds true because of the deeply insensitive betrayal of her trust in this blog. Perhaps words like "fart" and "Pope" aren't as concurrent as "Youth Misister" and "Moronic"?
ReplyDeleteComment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author.
ReplyDeleteFigures.
K,
ReplyDeleteI understand, and thank you for taking the time to read the scriptures. All of these topics are very involved and require much research and studies to appreciate the Catholic position on each of them. Everything starts with Christ and moves forward from there. When we start at the begining, before the NT was written and published, before there were Chrisitians, when Jesus himself was a Jew as was his family and his followers were Jews, before Paul became a Christian, history itself speaks for the Catholic Church, her doctrines, traditions and authority.
That is not to say that those outside the Catholic Church do not know Christ. They do.
Peace in Christ
Renee
Interesting topic.
ReplyDeleteHere is something to consider:
1 Cor 1:10-17
"10 I urge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose. 11 For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by Chloe's people, that there are rivalries among you. 12 I mean that each of you is saying, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Kephas," or "I belong to Christ." 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I give thanks [to God] that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say you were baptized in my name. 16 (I baptized that household of Stephanas also; beyond that I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning."
I believe this echoes the sentiment of what Zombie wrote.
OK, conversation over. I said nothing harmful about the Catholic Church, I am not Catholic however. I do not ascribe to some of what it teaches. My beliefs should not be offensive to anyone as your are not offensive to me.
ReplyDeleteIf there has been trust placed in my blog, then it must be said that I never intended that and faith should never be placed in something a man does or says. I am a flawed person as much as everyone else.
I could be wrong about all of this. I have been careful not to say person attacks against anyone especially the pope as I posted here. I only stated my unbelief in the need and mandate for a pope at all. Obviously at least one of you are offended. I cannot lie and apologize for believing a certain way, however if something in particular I said offended you or how I said it, let me know and we can go from there. But as far I as can see, we do not all share the same views on this and grace and forgiveness has to be shown for those that believe differently on the non-essentials of our faith. We must all concede that we too may be wrong just as I may be. None of us is infallible so our interpretations of this could all be incorrect, concession that either or both of us are incorrect need to be made. This isn't a proud pissing match, it is about loving others and your neighbors, and enemies, not about arguments that stir up bad emotions. So the conversation ends and we will agree to disagree. But we must remember that it is a person's God given right to disagree on things that are unclear such as this is obviously.
Please don not take things personal. You're not a bad person. Don't think you're being treated that way. However, you started a blog so that you can be heard. You accept comments so that we can speak back.
ReplyDeleteThere are many things about that Catholic faith that cause people to scratch their heads? The "no meat on Friday", I'm certain is not in the bible. However, tradition has been set and and with many of the parishes, its become a community event during lent. I personally don't feel "gording" myself with "fried Cod" resembles any scacifice God requires of me. But, community is important and the money raised that helps the community and church is important as well? I don't know... I never viewed the Pope as Godly. However, his meaning to the Catholic Faith deserves more than belittlement. (Is that a word?)
Are you a homo?
ReplyDeleteNo
ReplyDeleteI AM (not)
ReplyDeleteNot that there is anything wrong with it..
Just leave the POPE alone. He's a fine man. And doesn't wear a Mr. T Starter kit either!
Oh wow!
ReplyDeleteI have to say it turned pretty entertaining.
Rene'e, you're very sweet.
NEVER DIS THE POPE. 2 people you never dis, the Pope and Rappers!
ReplyDelete"This isn't a proud pissing match, it is about loving others and your neighbors, and enemies, not about arguments that stir up bad emotions."
ReplyDeleteOut of Curiousity, what is your stand on the Death Penalty and a Womens right to choose?
When it comes to a human life, I hardly think it is a pissing match to object to ones death.
ReplyDeleteWhy so anonymous?
You remind me on John Favreau in Swingers who kept leaving those messages over an over again.
ReplyDeleteThen don't give an option for Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteI'm just thinking that it's hard to support the Death Penalty and love your enemies. Just curious of your view...You remind me of a Sarah Palan who can't answer a question.
So there! Zombie=owned
Too cold outside!
Except I do NOT support the death penalty.
ReplyDelete"When it comes to a human life, I hardly think it is a pissing match to object to ones death."
Big picture ... the pope does not have a beard. We all have seen the laughing Jesus picture ... he has a beard. That pretty much wraps this up, no? And who let the 13 year old on here? Which ... thank goodness they are 13 at least if they are going to start throwing monster big words around like homo.
ReplyDeleteZombie ... thank you for your straight answer on your sexual preferences. I find that raw honesty very refreshing. Must have been tough to say that out loud.
I must now return to my G-rated happy place
This has gotten entirely out of hand and missing the point, but it is entertaining.
ReplyDeleteJust to clear up some confusion. I believe there to be three Anonymouses. Whomever left the "Homo" comment is not I.
ReplyDeleteLong live the Pope. (Beard or no Beard)
"NEVER DIS THE POPE. 2 people you never dis, the Pope and Rappers!"
ReplyDeleteIs that in reference to the last Flight of The Conchords episode?
Just watched it yesterday.
YES!!!! YOU SHOULDN'T HURT RAPPERS FEELINGS. OR THE POPE!!!
ReplyDeleteRay, would you please start leaving comments from yourself?!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIf you remove comments you're dising that person and therefor hurting their feelings!
ReplyDeleteI would love a copy of "hurt feelings!!"
Also, I wrote an awesome song about Brandon Walsh. It just came to me and I put it on paper! IT'S AWESOME!!
Oh my gosh. I am crying. This is just so funny. I don't have words to add.
ReplyDeleteIt was my own comment I removed.
ReplyDelete