Ray Moscow

When I lived in Italy, I used to attend evangelical services in a US army base. (I was an evangelical at the time.) They were definitely not pacifists.

Most people where I grew (the US South) were and are evangelicals. The murder rate there was, and is, perhaps 20 times higher than in the UK (where evangelicals are relatively rare).

Again, I just don't see any correlation or evidence that evangelicals are nonviolent or pacifistic. In fact, they don't even claim to be. Go meet some, and ask them.

For some illogical reason, you are comparing modern evangelicals with medieval Catholics. The two cultures are so different that any religious differences are unlikely to be much of a factor in determining behaviour.

Try comparing 16th or 17th century Catholics and Protestants (or 20th century!) for those sorts of arguments.

Ray

Toto

Back to the OP -

No one, including Clouseau, has explained what the OP means, given that the Protestants and Catholics do not use the same Bible. They use different translations. They have different versions of the ten commandments. They include different books.

Agree? Disagree? Discuss.

Sauron

If Clouseau actually set up an apples-to-apples comparison, he wouldn't be able to grind his anti-Catholic axe, now would he?

Sheesh, Ray - get with the program, willya?

Sauron

I agree that Clouseau hasn't explained the thrust of the OP, Toto.

Clouseau is trying to say - in his usual verbose and grandiose style - that the Protestants had the opportunity to differentiate themselves from the RCC when they selected their canon. Yet they failed to do so, in any truly meaningful way.

Ergo - according to Clouseau - the bible must be such a special book among all other books that even sworn enemies are forced to agree on its content.

Issues:

1. Clouseau fails to explore any of a number of other possible reasons why the Protestants might not have wanted to diverge too far afield of the RCC canon;

2. nor does Clouseau explore the identical situation in other religions, where divergent factions still agree on the content of their holy book (i.e., Islam). By Clouseau's poorly thought-out argument, that must mean the Koran stands head-and-shoulders above all other peer works, and whatever special sanctity he wants to attribute to the bible can likewise be extended to the Koran.

3. Finally, then there's the problem that Clouseau jumps back and forth between "reformer" and "evangelical", whenever it suits him.


In short, Clouseau's OP is a non-starter. It just takes him a lot of words to arrive at a dead end, that's all.

Clouseau

They use the very same NT.

The Catholics even use Prot translations!!!

(As do the Orthodox, poor things.)

Clouseau

Not so. The comparison is between historical records. The social record of Catholicism is nefarious, particularly their actions against evangelicals. The social record of evangelicals is immaculate. Evangelicals have never in all history associated with government, as an arm of government in the way that Catholics and Orthodox have done, and indeed still do, in places, where it can be dangerous to say a word against the RCC. They are well known for their personal adherence to 'turn the other cheek'. In fact, evangelicals are sometimes taunted to make them retaliate, so that they will thereby disprove their own faith! (I wonder how many people here have schooldays experience of that, on one side or the other.)

At any rate, it looks like downright deliberate perversion to blame evangelicals for what they, chiefly, have suffered.

Sauron

Apparently not, since you ignore:

1. Cromwell
2. The Manifest Destiny movement
3. Persecution of Catholics by Protestants
4. Evangelicals in the American South

which are all part of the "historical record" you claim to be examining.

Wrong.

Unless you count all the exceptions listed above - which your clearly not prepared to address.


Except in the United States and Canada, where evangelicals have run the govt, and used it to further Manifest Destiny as well as a pro-Israel agenda -- not to mention as a tool to persecute Catholics in the new American colonies.

And of course, the various Protestant state churches of northern Europe put the lie to your claim about Catholics being the only ones in bed with the government.

Evangelicals deserve everything they have gotten -- that which they have sown, they shall also surely reap.

Toto

The Catholics don't agree with you about the equivalency of Catholic and Prestestant translations. (And the Greek Orthodox claim to read the NT in the original Greek.)

In the 19th century, there were Bible Wars It was not until Vatican II that Catholics could even consider an ecumenical Bible translation, and they are still suspcious of Protestants - but they don't believe in worshipping scripture in any case.

(Catholic) Bible Translations GuideThe Protestants do not agree either:

Battle of the BiblesEarly_Modern_English_Bible_translations

Clouseau

Catholic publications in English still often quote the KJV, as they have done for many years; and for a while, until they could get up their own modern translation, and no doubt because of its popularity, the RCC used the unaltered RSV text as an official translation. The chief difference in NT versions now is the footnotes that provide Catholics with an approved interpretation.

Anyone who knows the EOC in Europe knows that few Orthodox there read the NT in any language. Those Orthodox who know modern Greek may read the NT in koine with reasonable accuracy, yes, though Prots have been doing intensive studies on the language for a long time, and the uninvolved should not be taken in by the air of superiority that Greek Orthodox are inclined to take on.

But that is irrelevant. Not all Orthodox are Greek, or know Greek, and Orthodox English speakers have, until recently, relied on the KJV as their approved Bible translation. They now have a new translation into English- from the LXX.