Just to note how out of the mainstream of historic Protestantism this “Christian” Zionism is, I have a friend who attended the notorious fundamentalist school Bob Jones University.  He informs me that back in the 1980s, the son of founder, Bob Jones, Jr., would lecture students in their mandatory chapel that they shouldn’t protest Christian Palestinians who have kind words for the PLO as they had no other representation.  Further, Bob Jones, Jr., would ask the students rhetorically why they were so supportive of Israel, a state that mistreated Palestinian Christians.

Another excellent post Mr Foy!

I see the alliance between Christian Zionists and the Israel Lobby as similar to the Hitler-Stalin pact. An alliance of convenience that will not last.

Underneath the surface they hate and fear each other.  The Zionists see Hagee and his followers as dumb goy who can be used to benefit the Zionist project. Hagee sees the ingathering of the Jews as just an intermediate step on the road to rapture.

Sooner or later these two will turn on each other with a vengeance IMHO.

One bit of culture shock which really hit me when I moved to Texas was the dominance of Christian Zionism.  I suspect Texas has the least percentage of Jews of any of the big states and most of those I have met are rather upset by the excesses of the Israeli government.  But the Hagee gang is out in force and its 1000% support of the most nationalist Israelis affects even the not very religious and even a not inconsiderable number of Catholics.  All this blends in with an especially poisonous version of American nationalism - Americans can do no wrong; anyone who opposes “American values” is “evil” and must be killed.  Worst aspect of all this is the phony rapture theology.  Start a nuclear war and don’t worry; Jesus will rapture all his own up to heaven and only the non-believers will have to go through tribulation.  The question that matters - does fake Texas good ol’ boy Bush believe in all this nonsense?

I’m sure Bush doesn’t believe it.  The Neocons treat Bush with contempt, which tells us that they know he responds to them with fear instead of a belief system.

The Christian Zionism thing is an invention of the post-World War 2 era.  While it may combine with previous heresies, such as dispensationalist “theology”, it at bottom appears to be an attempt by some Protestants and quasi-Protestants to gain respectability by allying with powerful pro-Israel interests.  This isn’t to claim that many of the rank and file don’t believe this stuff, but I think the reason it was pushed previously was an attempt to keep some fragment of Protestantism, particularly in its Southern manifestation, in the public eye and “respectable” in the context of a hostile media and elite that was mostly Jewish and Catholic.

Patrick Foy makes the point that one can either accept the word from above about the meaning of Scripture or read it and decide for oneself.  The former leaves one at the mercy of the authorities’ getting it right: the latter makes one personally responsible.  Neither is exactly an enviable position.  One may get it right or wrong; so may the Church’s annointed wise ones. 

The test seems to be whether the interpretation is consistent with Jesus’ message, and exactly what Jesus’ message is is of course another matter of interpretation.  The message being spewed by the high-profile evangelists today would be abhorrent to the Sunday school teachers who influenced me many years ago.  The best I can do is pray for guidance and try to thinkthings through.  Heaven help me.

The thing is not to swallow whole something promulgated by a big daddy, Roman, Orthodox, or televangelistic.  God gave each of us a filter to pass things through, and it’s our duty to use it.

Moyers of LBJ fame vs. Hagee: a dog bites a dog.

Leaving aside what Kirt correctly calls the phony rapture theology, there’s enough blame to pass around among the churches.

My own church (Catholic) had a role in getting us into Vietnam.  Some Catholics, including clerics, told us how wonderful Benito was (e.g. Chesterton’s worst book).  Let’s call them dupes, useful idiots, and souls blinded in their Right eye by the atrocities stories coming out of Stalin’s Soviet Union.  Pius XI with both eyes soon saw the truth. Then there were the simply those Catholics who were Clerical Fascists and Clerical Nazis, some still with us. Adriana has her good reasons for jumping ship.  I’ve seen just as bad: at a St. Patrick’s day fair in Florida 25 years ago, I was invited to buy a bullet to use against British soldiers in Northern Ireland. That day I was ashamed to be Catholic.(I was proud to be a Catholic when I read how Rummel and Cody excommunicated racists in New Orleans. Such a move would be welcome today).

Liberal Protestants did even worse, getting the USA into World War I.  Wilson was a Liberal Protestant, and his religious beliefs were his driving principles.  See Gamble’s The War for Righteousness.  We’re about to see the most Liberal Protestant—to her core—since Wilson elected President next year, Nurse Ratched—not without some support from people on these pages --, and we can thus expect in time similar involvement in a Liberal Protestant/Social Gospel war.

Finally The Dispensationalists share the blame for our current war.  Sad:  The biggest Fundy Politico in our history, Bryan, had his finest hour in opposing US entry into World War on.

Catholic, Liberals, Evangelicals—before we cast stones ...

The Protestant panorama of so many different doctrines
is the logical result of denying a central authority.

Basically it is what Catholicism would be if each time
the chaplain of Thistown got mad and excommunicated the
parish priest of Thattwon, and the parish priest
retaliated by excommunicated the chaplain. If this
happened in Catholicism the bishop would intervene and
talk sense into them. But if there were no Bishops,
no fixed doctrine, both priest and chaplain would found
their own church with its own doctrine.

That’s why it makes sense to talk about Catholic doctrine,
as well as Communist ideology, but you cannot talk about
Protestant doctrine, any more than Fascist ideology.

Mr Foy, thanks for the write up, i appreciate you keeping us informed on these important issues. From my perspective the little hope that we have that hagee and the zionist christians fail in their mission of undying support for israel is that the liberal jewish community in america turn in digust from this unholy alliance and rejects the lobbys efforts to unite these two groups interests. The jewish liberals are not too pleased that this union exists, afterall the christian zionist are anticipatiing the ingathering to israel of all the jews just prior to the great war and the mass conversion of the jewish nation to christianity.

But i have seen stranger things already from the jewish american community, american jews who in the past would never have voted for a republican are alligning behind rude giuliani and are ready to vote for him, they turned on obama because he commited the faux pax of saying that he would talk to the palestinians.

Our only hope to stop the fascism that is coming to america is the repulsion of the christian zionists and their jewish ameircan first handlers, how classic of an operation that one is, if you ever see hagee on tv youll notice that he parades israeli politicos on his program all the time much like pat robertsons parading of the neocons and dore gold and the myriad other mossad operatives disguised as the kindly people of god who need the support of the christian nation.

i used to be one of those supporters of israel but ilan pappe, norman finkelstein, the antizionist jews organization and other research along with disgust and animosity towards the neocons have removed the evil spell and i have been set free, the problem is that now i feel like i am living in a nightmare from which there is no escape.

Jesus said that His Kingdom is not of this world.  Thus, those who in effect make a golden calf out of any nation-state are in error.  It is one thing to note that an established nation-state is legitimate and has a right and duty of self-defense, it is another to commit idolatry regarding some nation-state.  It would appear that Christian Zionists are doing just that.

Archbishop attacks neocons over US threat to bomb Iran

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330901183-110878,00.html

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has criticised the neoconservatives of the Bush administration and accused them of “potentially murderous folly” for suggesting military action against Syria and Iran.
Dr Williams has just returned from Syria where he met Iraqi Christian refugees. He warned of a problem of almost unprecedented scale as up to 1.5 million Iraqis have fled to neighbouring countries.
Speaking to the BBC, the archbishop, who opposed the invasion of Iraq from the outset, said: “When people talk about further destabilisation of the region - and you read some American political advisers speaking of action against Syria and Iran - I can only say that I regard that as criminal, ignorant and potentially murderous folly.
“We do hear talk from some quarters of action against Syria and Iran. I can’t understand what planet such persons are living on, when you see the conditions that are already there.”
Dr Williams, who has sometimes been criticised for not giving clear leadership within the Anglican communion, has generally been more outspoken on the war, but never as critical as this. He will feel himself on stronger ground on an issue where the vast majority of English bishops and other religious leaders would share his view.
Among Church of England bishops, only the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, has spoken in support of the military action.
The archbishop, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight programme, also spoke of the targeted ethnic cleansing of members of the longstanding Iraqi Christian community, some of whom he met in refugee camps in Syria.

The matter of useful idiot Hagee and others like him would be easily resolved if only the Jews would clean up their house among themselves.

Engagement is a core necessity in any kind of relationship and sadly one can’t say Jews are too engaged in the american society they live in. Instead they’re all about themselves. So much and with such pregnance that they’ve even sucked in the lightweight dimwits outside their own community. Which is to say a lion’s share of the american geniles.

A good general advice to Jews would be “stop being such total self absorbed pricks” and to gentiles “stop being such complete pathetic cuckold cowards”.

And btw the excommunication option isn’t what we’ve learned from the Shogun tv series, something to use as when a sinner sins in some serious way. It is reserved for people who seriously and openly disagree with the teachings and doctrines of the church.

At least with Roman Catholicism in days of yore, the interpretation of the holy texts was too important, too sacrosanct, to be left to amateurs. It had to be handled by wise men in the clergy, specifically and ultimately, by the Pope and the Vatican, who could say what was what.

Other than you omitting the role of Bishops, nothing has changed in the Teaching Office of the Church. It remains the same.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p123a9p4.htm#I

that was a crazy special.  what amazed me is that the senators allowed themselves to be lobbied by such obviously ignorant people.  But AIPAC isn’t much different, a religious group lobbying for political power because their ideology tells them they have to.

I’ve also watched Hagee on Daystar TV…he’s right in step with Podhoretz in the condemnation of “Islamofacism”…amazingly critical of Islam as practically demonic.

Hagee is a regular feature of the huge Daystar network. Which takes MONEY!

Foy does a good job of exposign commentary on Hagee...but sort of useless, as you’ve offered no connection to him and the money of the Israeli Lobby---which I suspect is involved in Hagee’s ministry. Or insight in the protestant theology behind the tradition of supporting Israel on among the fundamentalist religions.

It’s interesting that no so long ago, the populist Catholic priest Father Coughlin was railing against Jews, but mostly because of their connection to finance capitalism, and all the problems that it was inflicting on the farmer and laborers. Which of course, evoked a response because of Christianity’s traditional understanding of the role of the Jewish priesthood in cooking up the sedition charge that got Jesus crucified.

I’m not certain a Catholic can do a good critic of guys like Hagee, and he deserves some really thorough examination by someone from the protestant persuasion, as he’s got money, and he’s influential.

Mr Foy has written very well on the subject of Christian Zionism.  I am not certain that he, or any one else for that matter, can adequately explain the motivations of these people.  Ignorance, certainly.  But there are other factors, most of them tied in to their “private interpretation” beliefs.

Just as interesting as Mr Foy’s article are some of the responses of the readers.  One responder is ashamed of his Catholicism because of what a fellow-Catholic once said to him; another pontificates on the state of the Church using his own divinely-inspired lights.  One responder congratulates another for leaving the Church.  These responders are, sadly, forgetting something.

That something is this:  the Catholic Church cannot sin.  It’s members can, and do, sin, but the Church herself cannot sin.  How could it be otherwise, since the Church was founded by Christ while He lived on earth?  Did not Paul once have to correct Peter?  If we look around us and see such contemptible men as Mahony, Law and Weakland running around masquerading as Catholic bishops, or poofs in priestly garb disgracing the cloth they wear with their unnamable perversions, it is easy for some Catholics to do what some 16th Century “reformers’ did and leave the Church...in effect, thowing out the baby with the bathwater.  But if indeed the Church was founded by Christ, which it most certainly was, then jumping ship in self-righteous horror over the bad apples that have crept in is not a good idea.

What happens to branches when you cut them off a tree?  I believe they wither and die.  So to those Catholics who wrote in like, for example, the gentleman who was horrified when an Irish Catholic asked him to “buy a bullet” for use against a British soldier in Northern Ireland (the writer not pointing out the extreme injustice of the situation in Ireland which would lead an exasperated man to want to resort to bullets...like what the Iraqis are going through now, perhaps?)I merely ask them to understand more about a Church that cannot sin and is guided infallibly, in matters of Faith and morals, by its Divine Founder.

Again, my congratulations to Mr Foy for his interesting article.

1. “the Church cannot sin”, “the Bible is inerrant”, “Jonah lived in whale”, “God’s plan for man is identical to the the KKK’s”—no wonder we have so many of the anti-clerical, the anti-organized religion, and atheists!  Who would need Dawkins and Hitchens?

To be exact:  Only when the Pilgrim Church invokes infallibility as the First Vatican Council defined it is she (or better, her statements) ... “infallible”, in all meanings of that word. For the record, she’s done this only twice: the dogmas defining Immaculate Conception (1854) and Assumption (1950).

2. I’m thankful that Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams are sitting down and working things out. I pray Mr. Guenzel said and did things to help bring about this resolution. Assorted extremist nationalists, Marxists, and Clerical Fascists (among them some Irish Republicans and some Orangemen) didn’t.

A quick reply to Mr Cundiff:  he is undoubtedly unaware that over ther last 2000 years the Church has defined infallibly more than twice.  He need only consult any edition of Denziger.

A good place for him to begin his researches would be to read both Boniface VIII’s UNAM SANCTAM, and the explanatory passaged that go along with it.

James Jones and John Hagee wielded and wield powerful influence over their respective blinkered congregations, but the comparison ends there. A thousand dead in the jungle is a pitiable tragedy, not a national disaster. Through his foolish flock - members both committed and casual - Hagee has the power to help tilt this country into yet another blood-drenched, jackass war. That should matter to all Americans, regardless of whatever Middle Eastern fairy tale they abide.

It is not just John Hagee.  Dispendationalism began with John Darby
in the 1860’s.  Popularized by the Scofield Bible.  Hal Lindsay’s “Late Great Planet Earth” in the 70’s and Tim LaHaye’s “Left Behind” book series.  They believe that modern Israel must expand its borders from the Suez canal to the Euphrates river and replace the Dome of the Rock and al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount with a brand new Third Temple.  All this before the Second Coming can occur.
Conservative radio talk-show hosts Limbaugh, et al, get red carpet trips to Israel while preaching Zionism -lite to the faithful Christian Zionist listeners.
No wonder the Muslims think they are experiencing another Crusade.

Nothing in “Unam sanctam”, 18 xi 1302, Denzinger (D) 870-875 deals with infallibility.  The word isn’t even used.  Boniface was talking about the pastoral authority of the Church in discussing the two swords theory.  Infallibility deals with certain specific definitions of the teaching authority of the Church (the Magisterium) in matters of universal Faith and Morals, as Vatican I clearly said.  But I might have overlooked something.  Dan Guenzel, in proving his point, needs to cite the name of the document, its date, and its Denzinger number.  I’m using the most recent Denzinger, the 40 edition, Freiburg: Herder Verlag, 2005

We got us into trouble the last time in discussing Church teaching by using a faulty procedure.  The best procedure is to start with the Church’s latest and most recent statement on the issue in question, and then work backwards in time.  The more recent the statement, the clearer and more correct it likely is.  The most recent statement on infallibility, just a summary of what went before and not an official statement of the Magisterium, is the General Audience of 24 March 1994:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19930324en.html

The most recent statement of the Magisterium on Infallibility is from the Congregation for the Faith, “Mysterium ecclesiae”, 24 June 1973, D 4530-4541, and I commend it to readers’ perusal.  Vatican II also elaborated the teaching on Infallibility in Lumen Gentium, 21 xi 1964, specifically in D. 4150.

The key document is Vatican I, “Pastor aeternus”, 18 vi 1870, Chapter 4, D 3065-3075, with the key paragraph D 3074.  To be noted in the dogma on an infallible statement”

1. It must be a statement of the teaching authority of the church, not the pastoral, i.e. it must be about what is to be believed.
2.  It must be addressed to the whole Church universal, thus what is to be believed by everyone, everywhere, at all times.
3.  It must be about a general principle of faith and morals.  Thus there can’t be an infallible statement that, say, Bismarck is a bad man.
4.  It must be said by a pope or by bishops and the pope together.
5. In the statement, The pope must have the intention of speaking as the supreme teacher of all the faithful with the full weight of his supreme apostolic authority (not as private theologian or the bishop of his Diocese);
he must have the intention of deciding finally a teaching of Faith or Morals, so that it is to be held by all the faithful.  These intentions are called “ex cathedra”.
6. Without these intentions clearly made in his verbal formulation, a decision is not ex cathedra, and thus not infallible.  In other words, infallibility must be invoked.  Only twice has this formulation been enunciated:
i. “Ineffabilis Deus”, 8 Dec 1854, D 2800-2804, and specifically in D 2803, “auctoritate Domini nostri Iesu Christi, beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli ac Nostra, declaramus, pronuntiamus et definimus ....
ii. “Munificentisssiumus Deus” 1 Nov 1950 D3900-3904, with the key paragraph 3903, where the same words of formulation are used.
8. Finally there is with an infallible statement an accompanying anathema stating that anyone who deliberately rejects the teaching is outside the Catholic Church, as in D. 2804 and D. 3904

“Unam sanctum” fulfills none of these conditions whatsoever.  Not even in the very Latin words: D 875.  That great Catholic theologian, The Rev. Ian Paisley, on his website gets it utterly wrong. http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=johnpaul (Though I’m glad he’s making peace!  Kudos to him!)

Furthermore, just because a dogma has not be pronounced infallible (which is 99.99+ of all teaching on Faith and Morals), doesn’t mean that such dogmas don’t have to be believed and obeyed.  They are to be so believed and so obeyed.  Infallibility is only an extra protection added to a dogma, and has been invoked twice only. 

The idea that the every statement of a pope or of the Magisterium is infallible is a risible idea out of Chick Comics.  (Dan Guenzel isn’t making such a statement, of course).  The Pope is not a flesh Bible, the Bible isn’t a paper pope.

Newman is good on this too.  See his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (1875)
The Wikipedia, as of this day and hour, q.v. “papal infallibility”, isn’t bad.

“Ideally, all lobbies in Washington, especially those concerned with foreign affairs, should be banished, because they are based upon bribery, racketeering and intimidation.”

I agree, Mr. Foy.  Any time there’s overwhelming public disgust with the bribery, Congress grabs the issue, renames it “campaign finance reform”, and passes a bill which further legalizes their bribe taking while prescribing criminal penalties for citizens who may somehow become involved in the electoral process.

Congress doesn’t need to pass any laws whatsoever to do away with bribery.  All they would need to do is to establish rules of ethics which forbid any member of the House or Senate from accepting anything whatsoever from anyone who is not eligible to cast a vote for them in an election.

That’s all it would take and no citizen would have to be subject to any law which didn’t apply equally to the politicians.

Wow, what an opportunity to smash the
Protestants! Point to the lunatic fringe
and bingo, the Catholics were right all along!
EX: Adrianna pipes in with the usuall:
“That’s why it makes sense to talk about Catholic
doctrine, as well as Communist ideology,
but you cannot talk about Protestant doctrine,
any more than Fascist ideology.”

What the heck does that mean? I guess Catholicism
and Communism go together? (which is why there
exists a Protestant Church.)And Protestantism is
fascism? Wow. Where did you learn that Adiranna?
In Church?

Cornerstone Church is not the culprit in all of this.
Yes, the Dispensationalist “dual paths of salvation” is
bunk, but it sells. Ok, nothing new there.
The real culprits are the power brokers who are using
Hagee’s vanity to push something much bigger: WAR.

I hope our patient webmaster is not getting too irritated at what appears to be a side issue to Mr Foy’s fine article, but I must once again reply to Mr Cundiff.

When the Church makes an infallible pronouncement, she is not creating out of thin air some new teaching to be believed under pain of mortal sin.  She is only defining for all time a dogma that has always been believed in the Church from antiquity, and she does this because said dogma may be being denied, or misunderstood at a particular historical moment.  When a Pope utters words like “I say, define and pronounce that...” (like Eugene IV did in CANTATE DOMINO in the 15th century) then I think we can safely assume that we are dealing with an infallible declaration.  I know of no solid theologian who can seriously claim that statements such as UNAM SANCTAM and CANTATE DOMINO are not infallible statements.  Yes, there are a score of modernists who will deny that, but we are talking about serious theologians.

When Mr Cundiff suggests that the proper way to understand these Papal statements is to start with the most current “thinking” on the matter and then see how it squares with antiquity, he gets it precisely backwards.  It has always been recommended, in every epoch of the Church’s history, to go back to beginnings when confusion rears its ugly head.  I would suggest to Mr Cundiff that the disaster the Church has been suffering through for the past forty years is precisely what happens when we let “current thinking” interpret the past for us.  Chrysostum and Aquinas will teach us forever; Von Baltasar and McBrien will be properly forgotten.

Private interpretation of Denziger is just as perilous as private interpretation of Scripture.  I would not presume to interpret either: that’s the job of the Church, whose infallible guidance was guaranteed by its Divine Founder Himself.  If Mr Cundiff would like to engage in a friendly discussion over this in a way that would not bore the readers of Taki’s site I would like to give the webmaster my permission here and now to give Mr Cundiff my email address and then we can, as two gentlemen, discuss these things in more detail.

As I said, the Church cannot sin, since it was Christ himself who founded her.  It’s members, tragically, sin early and often (been there, done that, I’m afraid) but a divine institution cannot sin.  And in discussions like these I am always reminded of Hilaire Belloc’s classic line.  He was attending, I believe, some literary dinner with other men of letters (I think Shaw was in attendance) and his fellow writers were needling him about his strong, virile Catholicism.  Having had enough, Belloc turned to his distinguished colleagues and told them: “The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold as divine.  But for those who doubt this let me say that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.”

I applaud Patrick Foy for his moral clarity, intellectual honesty and courage. Not common in the U.S today.
Its always a pleasure to read his inciteful comments.
This line of enquiry needs to be pursued further to expose the allaince that exists between the military Industrial complex, the Zionists and their neocon jackals.
The ease with which they have hijacked not only the foreign policy but the newsmedia and the congress to serve the what they perceive to be the “interests” of the Zionist project is mind boggling.
They have launched the U.S. on a path of rapid decline and are pursuing a morally and strategically banckrupt course of action whose end result will be the collapse of the Zionist state itself.
They are braying for war with Iran. This will be as fatal for the Zionist project as Hitler’s attack on the USSR. They might be able to go in. They won’t be able to come back.

@metoo

I called into attention the fragmentation of doctrine which
Protestantism suffers. You can say “a catholic believes” and be
reasonably certain that it is the case, because there is a doctrine,
and a centralized doctrinal teaching which defines what a Catholic just
believe and still consider himself a Catholic.

You cannot do the same with Protestantism, because you might find a
Protestant who believes one thing, and anohter who might believe the
opposite, and you cannot say which one has the right doctrine and
who the wrong one, because there is no right Protestant doctrine, there
are a hundred Protestant doctrines, one for each church or sect.

Which, by analogy is what happens to communism (which defines what a
Communist must believe not to be expelled from the Party or purge), and
what did not happen with Fascism, because as I understand in the
thirties anyone could come up with a colored shirt, salute with the
arm rigid, and say nice thigns about Mussolini, and he was in, and once
inside, he could redefine the doctrine as he pleased, and no one would
stop him. Not until he burned the Duce in effigy could he be expelled.

That’s why I put it as another example of an non unique doctrine for a
movement.

One can certainly talk about Protestant doctrines . . . ad infinitum. There’s one for every Protestant.

“I say, define and pronounce that...” (like Eugene IV did in CANTATE DOMINO in the 15th century) then I think we can safely assume that we are dealing with an infallible declaration.

Not the formulation of infallibility or meeting any other requirements for the invocation of infallibility, all stated by me above. Give us the Latin and the Denzinger number.  Or do you have something to hide?

I know of no solid theologian who can seriously claim that statements such as UNAM SANCTAM and CANTATE DOMINO are not infallible statements.

And I know of no solider Catholic theologian who does.  Nor has the Magisterium herself recognized this documents as infallible, unlike the documents quoted by me from 1854 and 1950. I do know of Protestant polemicists who misrepresent the official teaching so as to discredit the Catholic Church, and I gave a link to an example with respect to Unam Sanctam.  Why my opponents presents their misrepresentation is for others to guess.

I would suggest [...]that the disaster the Church has been suffering through for the past forty years is precisely what happens when we let “current thinking” interpret the past for us.
A rejection of Vatican II (which must be correctly understood, by the way). Do we have here a Sedevacantist?  I quoted from Church documents with the Denzinger Numbers or links, not McBrian.  My opponent does not so quote and cite.  Later church teachings indeed build on the past.  They also clarify and correct.  Notice how my opponents in discussing Church teachings never quote a document written by the Magisterium after 1958.  What does that mean?

I would not presume to interpret either: that’s the job of the Church, whose infallible guidance was guaranteed by its Divine Founder Himself.
My opponent doesn’t want to argue and effectively throws in the towel.  OK.

I too regret straying from the topic.  A correction was all the same necessary.

@Adrianna

That’s baloney.
Have you ever heard of the Nicene Creed?

The Nicene Creed, Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed or Icon/Symbol
of the Faith, is an ecumenical Christian statement of faith accepted
in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy,
the Assyrian, the Anglican Communion, Lutheranism, the Reformed churches,
Methodism, and many other forms of Protestantism.

This is what Protestants AND Catholics believe.
As a Catholic you are making the classic mistake of assuming ALL
non-Catholic denominations are Protestant.
This is FALSE. The true Protestant Church consists of the original
fragments of the Catholic Church ("protestantism" is not the same
thing as “the” Protestant Church.)
Many other denominations have formed since the original schisms but
they do not qualify as Protestant.
Examples: Jehova’s Witness (deny the Nicene Creed),
Mormon (deny the Nicene Creed), World Wide Church of God (deny the
Nicene Creed), etc.
Summary: The Protestant Church is the original fragmentation of the
historic Holy Catholic Church (Roman and Orthodox) and the common
denomiator which remains intact and still binds all of these
fragments together is the Nicene Creed.
There is very little doctrine that separates the Roman Catholic Church
from its former self. Orthodox, Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran all accept
the Nicene Creed and recognize the Catholic Church as sanctified, but
we reject Cannon law, celibate Priests, secret confession, etc. (none
of which are prescribed by either Christ or His Apostles.
Still, we accept the Catholic Church as sanctified, and Holy (just a
little confused.)

I suppose most Christian churches in the U.S., have always been somewhat pro-Israel, but this new super pro-Israel attitude isn’t really about religion, it’s a reaction to the anti-white, anti-West racism and anti-Christian bigotry of the dominant left.  It’s an attempt at getting relief from the awful burden of being white and Christian in a society where the elite spew hatred and the idea that those groups are born evil and don’t really have the right to exist on them 24 hours a day (few non-white Christian churches make much out of the situation in the Middle East, a telling fact).  It’s a sort of Stockholm Syndrome, driven by the shame inculcated in them by the system; a chance to get out from under the charge of bigotry and be “good guys” by the moral standards of the system.  It isn’t just fundamentalist Christians who dare not think critically about the situation in the Middle East, it’s the vast majority of so-called Conservatives as well (and by “thinking critically” I don’t mean they can’t support Israel).  In short, the actions and words of these groups are not driven by support of Israel as much as the fear of being called racists, and you can’t really separate this phenomenon from all the other forms of Racially Correct bowing and scraping being done before the system of Political Correctness.

The Nicene Creed is only said and believed by those that are even “a little bit”
Catholic.

That is, if you say and believe the Nicene Creed, you are in agreement with the
Catholic Church, and should seriously start thinking about coming into full
communion with the Church, instead of protesting on the sidelines.

However, outside of the Nicene Creed are some things that Catholics must believe,
but “Protestants” do not, but some do believe those things, which is why there is
no “Protestant Doctrine”, other than protesting some aspect of the Church.

For example, one can be a “Methodist” and believe in the Assumption of Our Lady.
One can also be a “Methodist” and NOT believe in the Assumption of Our Lady.

One can NOT, however, be a Catholic and NOT believe in the Assumption of Our Lady.

There are a lot of things “Methodists” are allowed to disagree upon, some of them
quite important to their faith.  There is NOTHING that Catholics are allowed to
disagree upon that is important to Our Faith.  Catholics may disagree upon whether
or not the current war in Iraq is “just”, but we may NOT disagree upon whether or
not Our Lady was taken up into Heaven, full body and soul.

@Metoo:

Adriana isn’t a Roman Catholic.  She isn’t Protestant either.  And she isn’t Orthodox (Eastern) either. I’d also guess she isn’t a Muslim or a Hindu. 

Adriana is a Left Wing troll of the Left Wing troll congregation.

@metoo

You forgot the Unitarian Church, which rejects the doctrine
of the Trinity.

And which considers itself a branch of Protestantism…

One can be a Methodist, Presbyterian, or Lutheran and NOT believe in the sanctification of sodomy or the emasculation of redemption, but not for long. Just ask your Episcopalian colleagues.

Another illustration of political correctness driving the super-hawkdom of the religious right (and, as with non-white Christian churches, it’s telling that it is the Christian RIGHT) when it comes to Israel, hardly a one of these allegedly religion motivated Christians has the nerve to call for a banning of Muslim immigration into the U.S., something their predecessors would have dome without a second thought.

and we fiddle on while rome is burning.

labels labels labels.....what matters is not labels but people, not corporate interests but peoples...not political ideologies but people....and not for a better world in the future like the marxist communist promise or the socialist promise or the neocons promise of a better future, if men and nations care about peoples they would make a difference NOW.

but its death and destruction now as in the first world war and as in the second and all in the name of the future.

humanity is full of duplicitous lies and promises in the name of causes and ideologies that promise a better future.

so fiddle on roman.
communist marxism, trotskyism, socialism, finance capitalism, castroism, stalinism, all a bunch of hooey dressed up as humanitarian causes.

fiddle on romans.

This topic and its related posts inspire me to paraphrase a favorite movie line.

In a climactic scene in “The Last Boy Scout,” drunk, down-on-his-luck PI Bruce Willis was helpless--tied to a tree by a psychotic bad guy.  The latter waved a switchblade just millimeters from Willis’s eyes and growled: “I want to make you scream in agony!”

Willis smirked: “Play some rap(ture) music!”

Larry Schanz sed: “It is not just John Hagee.  Dispendationalism began with John Darby in the 1860’s.  Popularized by the Scofield Bible.  Hal Lindsay’s “Late Great Planet Earth” in the 70’s and Tim LaHaye’s “Left Behind” book series.  They believe that modern Israel must expand its borders from the Suez canal to the Euphrates river and replace the Dome of the Rock and al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount with a brand new Third Temple.  All this before the Second Coming can occur...No wonder the Muslims think they are experiencing another Crusade.”

Finally someone who understands the Protestant tradition, and udderstands that “Christian Zionism” runs deep in the Protestant tradition. Foy and his fellow Catholics just can’t understand what is going on really. I’m not sure which Catholic Church they think they are speaking about, maybe one that goes back 100 years. The modern Catholic Church has just as effectively got it’s wings clipped by Vatican II,
and is as impotent as a 80 year old Grandma. It’s “apology” to the Jews for it’s interpretation, I’m half expecting the modern Catholic Church to rebuke the Jesus story about the Moneychangers in the Temple---for being anti-semitic for not understanding the concept of “holy money"…

Racked by a cash flow crisis and scandals, the American Catholic Church is dying...it’s Pentacostals like Hagee that are the danger.

I’d still like to see the FINANCIAL connection between Hagee and the Israeli Lobby...they have financed the neo-con think tanks, and the development of neo-conservatism, I’d not be surprising if the taint of their money is involved with promoting “Christian Zionism”.

JS is correct in his brief assessment of the Hagee follower-types.  They yearn to be good people.  But having been sorely propagandized for 50 years or so - pummeled during the last 25 or so with an escalating anti-Christian/anti-Western hatred and bigotry offensive launched from hideouts in the college campus, the legal profession, the entertainment industry, print journalism, and even the nightly teevee news - they’ve fallen, Stockholm-like, for their tormentors.  If not for the cunning success of their brain washers they might very well awaken from the nightmare on the wrong side of the bed and partner with the jihadists to make war on all things “semitic” (one might catch an occasional glimpse or foreshadowing in “old Europe”, as Rummy sarcastically called it).  Are the rest of us obliged to awaken them and get them standing upright and on the right side of the bed?  If so, for whose purpose?