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I will give you the keys of the kingdom
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This extract was taken from the post of shonika8 quoting, of course, Matthew 16. The pertinent question is to whom was Christ referring by the term "you". The Petrine theory of the Roman Catholic Church answers that question in a way consistent with its view that Peter was indeed the first leader of the Church having been appointed to that position in direct response to the faith he had just expressed.
The subsequent post of called2freedom obviously does not accept that point of view. The Roman Catholic Church is not unique in its claim to primacy. The Orthodox world, as our Father Harry will quickly confirm, considers itself the mother church of Christianity and there is little doubt that Orthodox Christianity did much to lay the entire intellectual foundation for the movement. That segment of Christianity also characterizes itself as "one, holy, catholic and apostolic" the term "catholic" is Greek meaning universal. The Anglican communion in its Book of Common Prayer characterizes itself in precisely the same way; "one, holy, catholic and apostolic." Each of those segments of Christianity in fact believes that it possesses the fullness of the ordinary means of salvation through their sacramental systems which dispense the fruits of the redemptive graces of Christ. The Armenian Church is also of ancient origin which likewise traces its roots to apostolic times. So does the Coptic Church largely centered in modern day Egypt. The general consensus in Christianity, in fact, is that the Church is indeed infallible precisely because of its divine origin - having been founded by Christ Himself. The great debate is precisely where that infallibility rests and how it manifests itself i.e. the Roman Pope speaking ex cathedra; through a council of bishops; through the Bible only (Sola Scriptura) or otherwise. The "Roman" Catholic Church is so named because of the emphasis on the place of primary importance in the early years of our movement i.e. Rome itself.
The dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, however, has a far broader concept of Church than is commonly believed and because of increasing outreach and dialogue with its separated brethren there is a growing movement towards unity. The many posts that I have seen on this forum express a growing distaste for denominational Christianity of whatever stripe. I personally agree with much of the sentiment behind those points of view. It strikes me that such dissatisfaction arises from the exact same motivation that longs for the unity which characterized primitive Christianity and will surely characterize the glorified Christians in Heaven. I welcome and encourage the continuing input from our entire community secure in the knowledge that all such is motivated by good faith desire to glorify God.
I do not hold myself out as an expert in Church history. As I have said before, however, there is no doubt that our movement was considered from a purely historical perspective a Jewish phenomenon at the outset. The early follows clearly did not believe they were rejecting the faith of their fathers in accepting Jesus of Nazareth as the Prophesied Messiah of the Hebrew scriptures. As the movement began to spread to the gentile world the "Christian Church" began to reshape itself and ultimately severed the tie to its Jewish root all together. I personally view that as regrettable in that there is little doubt Christianity and Judaism can indeed be reconciled. A perfect example of such is found in our Messianic Jewish brothers and sisters whose representative in our forum is Rabbi Steven J. Weiler shown on our home page.
Our overall objective remains exactly the same i.e. to unify our army on the march to the new Jerusalem.
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