Observations
Preface. Since the Council of Jerusalem never exempted Jewish Christians from adherence to the dicates of the Council and the leaders, the Christian Church, at the instant of the Edict, suddenly became a join of two great congregations, the Jewish and the Gentile, each thoroughly Christian and each quite different. They were one in spirit and two in body, like a single heart and two different hands. I refer to them as two congregations of a single church.
1.In a very general sense the Roman Catholic Church may be considered as the non-gentile ("Jewish") congregation and the Protestant Church may be thought of as the gentile congregation in one and the same Church. The protestants must acknowledge Roman Catholic supremacy (the Pope) with honor (for it was the first of the two congregations and made the second congregation possible), and the Roman Catholics will acknowledge the liberty of the protestant. The Pope remains head of the Church, but can impose laws only on the Roman Congregation
[* I would think that any Protestant church which presumed to find laws anywhere, e.g., in scripture, would have to acknowledge the authority of the Roman Pontiff to expand on that law and to be binding also upon that protestant church. "Except ye be gentile, ye are Jewish and thus today Roman Catholic."]
2. The underlying assumption always is that the Christian is one who consciously follows the Lord Jesus and seeks to reflect the spirit of the three loves. There is no presupposition concerning any dogma whatsoever. For it is not those who say Lord Lord, but those who do the will of my father in heaven that are my friends (citation?) and where the will of God is that we become younger siblings of Jesus, be that Jewish or gentile.*
[* I have not yet come to grips with liberty with regard to dogma. I am presently trying to sort this out. But as a practical matter, the gentile Christian is utterly free.** Kant in Religion Within The Bounds Of Reason Alone, saw this "Lord, Lord" statement as the constitution of Christianity as a moral religion.]
[** Perhaps we could require this much: I am willing to believe in the Resurrection to the extent that a person can obtain a new nature, and I dedicate my life to joining with the members of this church in a pursuit of the Spirit which was said to possess Jesus and which is called the Holy Spirit, and all of which is revealed best in the canonical scriptures, and which I expect eventually to exemplify. This is all very tentative. Some members of the Corinthian church did not believe in the resurrection and were allowed to continue in membership by sharing the same spirit of the 3 Loves with those who did believe (1 Corinthians 15), although Paul did excommunicate those who were immoral in his understanding (1 Corinthians 5:1-2). I think this is an interesting case.]
3. As an image for the two congregations making up one and the same Church, we have the left and right hands. Each can be a perfect manifestation of one and the same thing, a hand; for each can be a perfect hand. And yet if God created the right hand, and then created a glove of laws for that right hand, it would take a separate act of creation to produce a left hand, for while the left hand is identical with the right the glove of laws will not fit it, and so it is different. It is identical and different. Not unlike the members of the Godhead. The difference is not intrinsic, for as a hand they are each one and the same, but externally in comparison to each other in space they are different, a true two. Even so the Roman Congregation and the Protestant Congregation are each a perfect expression of the Church of Christ, and the Church would continue to exist if either of these two congregations ceased to exist (and at the beginning there was only the Roman Congregation of the Lawful Jewish Christians). Each is a perfect example of one and the same Church (in spirit), but they cannot shake hands or wear the same glove of laws, except in an awkward, unnatural way. They may dine together, but only if they don't talk too much (Romans 14). It is worth nothing that presumably Peter went to the gentile table but did not invite the gentiles to his table (Galatians 2:11-16). So be it. The Pope is invited to the Protestant table even if the Protestant is not welcomed at the Roman table because he is unclean in Roman eyes.* **
[* As a speculation, if all the world were to become protestant, the one Church would continue to exist, and the head of the Church Visible is Peter, and so we would still need to elect a Pontiff although he would have no one to command, but only to lead.]
[** Incidentally this image of the two hands serves as a refutation of many and perhaps all logical objections to the concept of a trinity. See "In Aid Of Trinitarians."]
4. The clarity of Gods message through the New Testament is now assured. It would hard for it to be more simple and straightforward. This would most surely have been clear to such genius as both Mohammed and Joseph Smith possessed, if the notion of the two congregations had not vanished upon the well-intended marriage of state and church under Constantine. Neither would have felt the least need to seek for clarity in a new revelation, for the bickering would have ended long ago if the notion of the two congregations had remained alive and the ensuing clarity in the Church of Christ. The rationale of both of these religions (Islam and Mormonism) now collapses. There is no lack of clarity as to what God requires of any person. A clear and calm conscience in Christ (Romans 14:22-23). And which the Church promises to all who will do no more than their very best, and then simply trust in Christ. For, as Kant notes in his Critique of Practical Reason, (citation??) " the Christian has this hope that even though he is inadequate to the task at hand, still, if he will simply do his very best, whatever is still needful will be provided for, even though he cannot imagine how." And indeed it was for this sincere effort which adorns the clear conscience of the Christian (observed in his own parents) that prompted this same Kant, philosophy's great "God-Slayer," to note in an incidental way (Religion Within The Bounds Of Reason Alone) that the Christian religion was the only moral religion ever to have existed in all of public history.
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