brachypodium

Things are not so simple. This is a matter of the credibility of Western
denominations, and since the Reformation the credibility of all formal
organisations known as Christian in the West has been questioned again
and again. Originally a tool of European monarchs to assist them in
population control, by the Reformation the medieval 'Church' had become
too obviously a monster with a life of its own, which served the
purposes of fewer and fewer. It could hardly have been more
hierarchical, more secretive, more politically involved. Neither could
it have been much more obviously corrupt without dissolving altogether.
These extremes were reached just as learning was increasing, and those
outside the hierarchy could read Scripture for themselves; and they
noted enormous disparities, as they saw them, between precept and
practice. Wyclif, the Lollards and Hus were early and cogent protesters,
though there was much protest, of varied scholarship, even before them.

Eventually the 'Church' made limited changes in the hope of satisfying
the increasing desire for change, and Lutheranism and Calvinism in its
political form were the first examples of these. Anabaptists, whose
belief that only believers should be baptised struck right at the heart
of medieval religion, were persecuted brutally. But the re-formed
religions did not satisfy demand; Lutheranism became moribund, and
Calvinism became impossible to operate. Pietism grew out of the Lutheran
cadaver, which in turn gave way to evangelicalism, which adopted
anabaptist ideas now expressed in some form in baptist and other
denominations.

The present multiplicity of these denominations is due to their
fundamentally heretical nature; they are the result of split after
split, as their false character became evident, just as the Roman church
was seen to be false. These denominations all have some distinctive
truth to attract religious seekers, but they mix it with some basic
disobedience of Scripture, thereby rendering ineffective the whole. This
choice is somewhat like being in a supermarket in which all the
foodstuffs have an unhealthy additive to produce long term sickness;
some look healthier than others, may contain less additive than others,
but it may make little difference in practice what is taken to the
check-out. The tendency to secretive hierarchy able to introduce
legalism, liberalism or other false ideas into the churches remains, and
of course these are applied with the greatest zeal and care to those
denominations that are nearest the truth. So it is very possible to be a
member of the most apparently evangelical denomination but be no nearer
to Christianity than a 14th C. Catholic.

The RCC, though very far from these churches theologically, is not
unaffected, because, just as at the Counter-Reformation, it has
reluctantly had to imitate evangelicalism in the attempt to stay within
distance of it. This has produced much more internal strain than at the
previous reformation, as many RCs see that to alter teachings that are
supposed to be eternal ultimately undermines the single claim that the
RCC has for its credibility, which is its claim to infallible authority.

Peter

joseph geloso

The whole mess cannot possibly be straightened out by human effort,
either. Only God can do that, and He will, in His Perfect Timing. His
Church is His Church, and although there is not a little, but much,
corruption within her, she remains Beloved to Him, and He Himself will
chastise her and purify her. After that, she will shine resplendently,
like the sun, and will draw all men of good will to herself, because
of her surpassing virtue and purity. And that, is almost the opposite
of what you see today. But nonetheless, it will come to pass.