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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (63227)	12/8/1999 3:29:00 PM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Well now I am not offended. You claimed you "have a problem with believing that the 'true community' of believers was so obscure that it functioned in the shadow of, and counter to, the institutional church for centuries." I am telling you that God established the Church, and as promised will preserve it until the end. The Church is naturally obscure in that no one knows with any finality if any other person is a true member. That knowledge is held by God and each individual human soul. It is why the Scriptures forbid us to judge the spiritual state of anyone but ourselves, for when we claim such and such a person is a true member of the Church, we claim to be God. Now merely because God should decide the Church will not be limited to some fella in Italy and those who follow him does not mean He has broken any law, though it no doubt runs contrary to the Roman paradigm. The reality is the institution, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, is not necessarily the ticket by any means. The institution never has been the ticket in the past and so we ought not expect it to be in the present. It has always held a remnant of true believers. So it has a very important place. But in itself it is not where the reasonable man will turn for truth. A Jew of the time of Christ may have looked to the then known institution of God, following its leaders because they were the leaders, but he would have been in serious error, even promoting the crucifixion of his own Messiah.