Can Anabaptism be Catholic and vice versa?

[MaxPC]

36 pages and counting. Simple answer to the OP: no.

A better question I should think would be if Catholics and Anabaptists can be friends? Yes.

Another question: if the world descends into anti-Christian chaos tonight with the killing of any Christians regardless of theology, will Anabaptists and Catholics help to hide each other and save each other’s children? I most earnestly hope so.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Your mythological history continues and justifies hatred and spreads it everywhere. It sickens me,

Can you be more clear on what "mythological history" you are speaking of? The history of Anabaptism is not fairly well defined, and mostly by impartial observers who are not Anabaptists themselves.

So, that part of your faith I think is asinine and that part of it I do seek to discredit. Unfortunately, you beat me to it.

JM's perspective is one from growing up in a culturally and ethnically Catholic place. He has a very valuable perspective, even if I do not always share it. And part of that is that he is more than willing to say just how corrupt and spiritually bankrupt many parts of the Catholic heirarchy are, and dare I say, the associated doctrines.

I think he provides a valuable point of view, and at the end of the day, I'm glad I'm not forced to be Catholic and to submit to a corrupt heirarchy as my ancestors were required to, whether Catholic or Anglican.

I think I’ve made my view of anabaptist historical mythology clear already, in fact, I think JM described it fairly well.

Btw, you’re no more happy than I am about the separation of the Catholic Church from state power. Thank God for that!

As for JM, it’s nice you think he’s so sweet but other here have called him out on his hateful attitude towards me and he scoffs at them.

You think I’m going to kiss his bass for you?

Oh yes, Eric Voegelin, this guy is a flaming atheist, and a conservative cult figure. Do you think he is the truth? Only very slanted revisionist history. We deal with challenges to our history fairly frequently. This Eric Voegelin guy may be a conservative intellectual and a radical moral universalist, he is not a historian. Far better secular historians have researched, written on and agree with our view, I will admit, I did not get far, I don't have to. His history creditability and portfolios are thin. He is a philosopher not a historian.

You may have a view, but it is unsupported, without any apparent evidence to back it up. You keep yelling and cursing, but where is the proof? You keep stating our history is a lie, but you can't prove a bit of it. Your attitude towards mennonites leaves much to be desired. You keep making claims, than not backing them up. You keep handing out half baked ideas about our church. You keep calling our history a myth, yet I have shelves of primary source documentation. I even told you how to find our primary sources if you want it. My take is you did not even look. You are likely steeped in a problem of your own. What Mennonite did you harm? Or do you not like our church because it provides an alternative to catholicism, and is everything that catholicism should be, but became too corrupt to ever be. You have even denied that indulgences were sold, wherever do you get this stuff? I could post primary source woodcuts from Lucas Crannock that shows this. Oh, yes, only the secret archives of the Vatican have the truth. (Along with lots of stolen documents)

The Catholic Church is corrupt to its core. I could go on and on, annulments available, just give us $10,000 for the "investigation." My dad would not pay, hence we were not registered in the parish. We don't approve of divorce, but will not "fix it" for a fee. Priests telling my relatives I am going to hell because I left the "true church." I won't go into the crass idolatry. The worship and bowing down to body parts of saints. The bowing down in front of the "host." If that is not idolatry I don't know what is.

They are going to close another round of churches in our fair town. Maybe we can pick one up cheap. Others have, bankruptcy sales are fun. Would you like me to post segments from the Maryland Attorney General's report? You likely will claim that it is slander too, but they declared bankruptcy, because claims will exceed assets. Yes, that many child molesters. That included one of my friends. Do you excuse this?

[Josh]

As for its birth as a movement being inspired by egalitarian dreams of communal life

The idea early Anabaptism was communal is a fringe view; I myself live in a Christian community and consider it ideal, but as much as I would like to project that on to early Anabaptism, it simply isn't there. They did not share a common purse, nor did they live in communal style communities. Hutterites did at a later junction, mostly out of necessity, and then after that point developed doctrines supporting it.

based on monasteries,

Again, Anabaptists did not really resemble monasteries at all, although there are elements of plain Anabaptists today that do resemble a religious order.

& inspired by the apocalyptic prophecies of Joachim of Fiore, there’s lots of scholarly work on that. Did you check out that link I left before? Lots of real live scholarly references there.

I can't really think where Joachim of Fiore inspired any Anabaptists at all, certainly not directly. I have read most of what is published of very early Swiss Brethren writing (not that there is a lot of it to go around), and they simply were not that fascinated by this kind of thing.

Overall, you are welcome to hold to an "alternative" history of Anabaptism, but ultimately there isn't even that much debate surrounding the history of early Anabaptism. And your alternative history of what it is does not define us at all, 500 years later.

[Falco Knotwise]

Can you be more clear on what "mythological history" you are speaking of? The history of Anabaptism is not fairly well defined, and mostly by impartial observers who are not Anabaptists themselves.



JM's perspective is one from growing up in a culturally and ethnically Catholic place. He has a very valuable perspective, even if I do not always share it. And part of that is that he is more than willing to say just how corrupt and spiritually bankrupt many parts of the Catholic heirarchy are, and dare I say, the associated doctrines.

I think he provides a valuable point of view, and at the end of the day, I'm glad I'm not forced to be Catholic and to submit to a corrupt heirarchy as my ancestors were required to, whether Catholic or Anglican.

I think I’ve made my view of anabaptist historical mythology clear already, in fact, I think JM described it fairly well.

Btw, you’re no more happy than I am about the separation of the Catholic Church from state power. Thank God for that!

As for JM, it’s nice you think he’s so sweet but other here have called him out on his hateful attitude towards me and he scoffs at them.

You think I’m going to kiss his bass for you?

Oh yes, Eric Voegelin, this guy is a flaming atheist, and a conservative cult figure. Do you think he is the truth? Only very slanted revisionist history. We deal with challenges to our history fairly frequently. This Eric Voegelin guy may be a conservative intellectual and a radical moral universalist, he is not a historian. Far better secular historians have researched, written on and agree with our view, I will admit, I did not get far, I don't have to. His history creditability and portfolios are thin. He is a philosopher not a historian.

You may have a view, but it is unsupported, without any apparent evidence to back it up. You keep yelling and cursing, but where is the proof? You keep stating our history is a lie, but you can't prove a bit of it. Your attitude towards mennonites leaves much to be desired. You keep making claims, than not backing them up. You keep handing out half baked ideas about our church. You keep calling our history a myth, yet I have shelves of primary source documentation. I even told you how to find our primary sources if you want it. My take is you did not even look. You are likely steeped in a problem of your own. What Mennonite did you harm? Or do you not like our church because it provides an alternative to catholicism, and is everything that catholicism should be, but became too corrupt to ever be. You have even denied that indulgences were sold, wherever do you get this stuff? I could post primary source woodcuts from Lucas Crannock that shows this. Oh, yes, only the secret archives of the Vatican have the truth. (Along with lots of stolen documents)

The Catholic Church is corrupt to its core. I could go on and on, annulments available, just give us $10,000 for the "investigation." My dad would not pay, hence we were not registered in the parish. We don't approve of divorce, but will not "fix it" for a fee. Priests telling my relatives I am going to hell because I left the "true church." I won't go into the crass idolatry. The worship and bowing down to body parts of saints. The bowing down in front of the "host." If that is not idolatry I don't know what is.

They are going to close another round of churches in our fair town. Maybe we can pick one up cheap. Others have, bankruptcy sales are fun. Would you like me to post segments from the Maryland Attorney General's report? You likely will claim that it is slander too, but they declared bankruptcy, because claims will exceed assets. Yes, that many child molesters. That included one of my friends. Do you excuse this?

Wow. That’s an amazing amount of scholarly work you’ve done there. Am I “corrected” by you now? Pretty frightening stuff.

You have absolutely nothing worth responding to, there.

[Judas Maccabeus]

36 pages and counting. Simple answer to the OP: no.

A better question I should think would be if Catholics and Anabaptists can be friends? Yes.

Another question: if the world descends into anti-Christian chaos tonight with the killing of any Christians regardless of theology, will Anabaptists and Catholics help to hide each other and save each other’s children? I most earnestly hope so.

One of my former patients, a regular, is a Jesuit. We had interesting discussions, which if the church hierarchy was listening they would probably take action. He was aware of our early history, and we both agreed that alliance with the state was the worse thing that happened to Christianity.

He seemed much more optimistic about the long term future of our movement, than institutional catholicism. The reason, we need fewer resources.

[Josh]

36 pages and counting. Simple answer to the OP: no.

A better question I should think would be if Catholics and Anabaptists can be friends? Yes.

Of course they can be.

But Catholicism remains mired in severe error and deviation from sound biblical teaching, straying from the apostles' doctrine. Just like the early Anabaptists did in the 1500s, Catholics today should repent and follow the gospel more wholly, starting with abandoning infant baptism, the "chiefest abomination of the pope".

Another question: if the world descends into anti-Christian chaos tonight with the killing of any Christians regardless of theology, will Anabaptists and Catholics help to hide each other and save each other’s children? I most earnestly hope so.

History tells us that the Catholic-state institution is the most likely to be the one rounding up our children and taking them away from us for the crime of not submitting to infant baptism.

[Falco Knotwise]

As for its birth as a movement being inspired by egalitarian dreams of communal life

The idea early Anabaptism was communal is a fringe view; I myself live in a Christian community and consider it ideal, but as much as I would like to project that on to early Anabaptism, it simply isn't there. They did not share a common purse, nor did they live in communal style communities. Hutterites did at a later junction, mostly out of necessity, and then after that point developed doctrines supporting it.

based on monasteries,

Again, Anabaptists did not really resemble monasteries at all, although there are elements of plain Anabaptists today that do resemble a religious order.

& inspired by the apocalyptic prophecies of Joachim of Fiore, there’s lots of scholarly work on that. Did you check out that link I left before? Lots of real live scholarly references there.

I can't really think where Joachim of Fiore inspired any Anabaptists at all, certainly not directly. I have read most of what is published of very early Swiss Brethren writing (not that there is a lot of it to go around), and they simply were not that fascinated by this kind of thing.

Overall, you are welcome to hold to an "alternative" history of Anabaptism, but ultimately there isn't even that much debate surrounding the history of early Anabaptism. And your alternative history of what it is does not define us at all, 500 years later.

That’s good. I’m glad you feel that way, Josh.

[ohio jones]

He’s just being an ass like all three of you always are.

Thank you for ganging up on me with your two butt-buddies.

'Gentlemen', what about turning the other cheek ?

I see the quoted posts from Falco have been deleted by the janitorial staff, and my finger is poised on the Warning button, but I do have to wonder if Sudsy was intentionally contextualizing his response.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Maybe peacemaker Sudsy should frequent those!

If you have no firm beliefs, you are fine anywhere. Just sit in a circle and sing Kim by ya. Everything will be ok until lunch, when the vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians and glatt kosher people get into a tussle. Sooner or later, you gotta make a choice.

I have made mine.

One can have a firm belief as I do, without the desire to bash others over the head with it. As Jesus said, present the faith and if met with stubborn violence walk away shaking the dust from one’s feet.

I am not the one presenting fringe views. He attacks our church, our history and our views on baptism. Remember, that this is a MENNONITE discussion forum.

This I will defend.

Are you trying to take this space over? Sure looks like it.

[Falco Knotwise]

He’s just being an ass like all three of you always are.

Thank you for ganging up on me with your two butt-buddies.

'Gentlemen', what about turning the other cheek ?

You’re right. Certain people post to me now and I just turn away!