Eight of my favorite people in the all the world are a family that neighbors my church. One backslidden protestant dad and seven sparkling, smile bedecked committed Catholics who love the Lord Jesus Christ, "venerate" Mary, idolize whoever is pope, honor the Mother Church, believe deeply in Fatima, et al, and who all come to my Southern Baptist Wednesday night bible study and prayer meeting. They seem to think I'm a really neat Baptist guy!
Out of respect for their beliefs and the apparent beliefs of millions of other Catholics, I try to be careful in how I speak about the new pope and his flock.
But, I'm what's known as a dispensationalist and end-times are critical to my doctrinal positions. First, because it is all going to happen just like God says it will and He warned us to "be on the alert," second, because "the age of the Gentiles" is going to come to an end in someone's lifetime ... why not ours.
Yesterday's piece in Scotsman.com by Stephen McGinty only piques my interest in the how history present might melt into history future. He opens his article with ...
Cloaked in the bright robes of the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI used his first public mass to dispel his image as a dark Vatican enforcer, by stating his desire to have open dialogue with other world faiths and cultures. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope’s doctrinal watchdog, he had dismissed other religions as inferior to Roman Catholicism. Yesterday in the Sistine Chapel, as the 264th successor to St Peter, he said he welcomed everyone with "simplicity and love".
And then quotes the new Pope ...
I welcome everybody with simplicity and love to assure them that the Church wants to continue in open and sincere dialogue with them, in search of the true good of man and society.
Ecumenism is not seen as a positive by many conservative evangelicals. The Scriptures seem to warn us that efforts to unite the faiths of the world into a global community are a sign of the end. But it is not rejected out of hand.
Selection of Ratzinger has raises concerns Benedict XVI might "polarise the global Church." [Ed. comment: note the wording]
Rev Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit weekly magazine America, said: "He could be a wedge rather than a unifier for the church."
What troubles me the most is the belief that the new leader of the Catholics has geo-political ecumenism in his vision for Catholicism and, if true, this means his world-view includes a global government of some kind ... and his view sees the Roman Catholic Church at its head.
But in the end there is hope in the selection of Cardinal Ratzinger as pope, perhaps the world will benefit as much from the German as from the Pole.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment