Is The Christian Institute Anti-Catholic?
From the website of The Christian Institute…
In 1523 London could number its citizens by the thousands, its crimes by the hundreds and its places of worship by the scores.
Men and women wandered past the religious institutions which held them in superstition and fear. They had no knowledge of the word of God which was withheld from them in Latin by the Church.
Just 15 years later, the Bible was being distributed in English to churches across the land. God’s word would be freely accessible to every man, woman and child who could read or be read to.
This revolutionary change was the focus of our third Autumn Lecture last night, brought to us by Brian Edwards, author and former president of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC).
Edwards explained that the English Bible we read today can largely be credited to the work of one man, used by God – William Tyndale.
Reformation minded
Tyndale was probably born in Gloucestershire in 1491. By 1506, he was studying at Magdalen College, Oxford, before being ordained into the priesthood of the Church of England.
Concerned with the theology of his Oxford colleagues, he is thought to have transferred to Cambridge around 1519. Here he was among a score of upcoming reformers who were discussing the ideas of the Reformation and the work of a certain German monk by the name of Martin Luther.
In 1521, he crossed swords with a local friar who, following a heated debate, exclaimed: ‘we’d be better off without God’s law than the law of the Pope’.
Tyndale replied: “I defy the Pope and all his laws. If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause the boy that drives the plow to know more of the Scriptures than you!”
Thus began Tyndale’s life’s work – translating the Bible into the language of the common people.
Exile
This at a time when it was forbidden for a person to read the Bible in English without a priest’s permission and people were burned at the stake for teaching others the Lord’s Prayer in English.
Tyndale fled England. In 1524 he travelled to Hamburg and then to Cologne, and by 1525 he was starting to print the New Testament in English, before copies were smuggled back to England on German merchant ships.
Amidst barrels of grain were thousands of English New Testaments, available for the price of a load of hay.
Lasting influence
Skilled in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and several other languages, the accuracy of Tyndale’s rendering has been commended by experts.
But he aimed to communicate the Gospel, not just translate, and in the foreword to his New Testament, he urged readers to repent and trust in Christ for themselves.
Medieval historian Ian Mortimer describes Tyndale as, “the only writer in the English language more influential than Shakespeare”. Many of his phrases remain in language today and he introduced new terms including “scapegoat” and “Exodus”.
By 1530, his translation of the Pentateuch had arrived in England. But King Henry declared that Tyndale’s books should be burned and punishment doled out to owners. Tyndale was a hunted man, constantly on the lookout for King Henry’s agents.
Martyred
Early in the summer of 1535, Tyndale was betrayed by his friend Henry Phillips who invited him to lunch and then ambushed him. He was imprisoned outside Brussels for a year, accused of heresy.
In September 1536, William Tyndale, England’s greatest Bible translator was chained to a stake, partially strangled and then burned.
His final words are said to have been: ‘Lord, open the King of England’s eyes’.
God’s word for all
Tyndale’s prayer was answered in that a short time later the Great Bible – based on the work of Tyndale – was presented to Henry VIII and approved for distribution to churches across England.
Brian Edwards concluded: “Tyndale’s legacy is in the pages of every English Bible you ever pick up”. Source – Christian Institute
Comment:
The above article from the Christian Institute website is classic Protestant Propaganda. Click here to read an academic rebuttal of the Protestant view of the Bible, which was butchered, literally, by the Protestant revolutionaries in the Middle Ages. Far from upholding the Scriptures as the Word of God, the “reformers” removed those books which, a cynic might say, were too Catholic for them – notably, books which contain the roots of Catholic doctrines (e.g. Purgatory – Maccabees). See short (2 minutes) video clip below..
Share your thoughts on the blatant propaganda published by the Christian Institute, which is an organisation respected for its work in addressing political correctness in the moral sphere. It has led the fight against the Named Person Scheme in Scotland. Thus, Catholics, myself included, have supported its work – but this might prove to be a game-changer. Or perhaps you disagree? Speak your mind!
Comments (31)
Thanks Editor for opening this discussion on what we believe about the bible as opposed to what protestants think.
I am not a biblical scholar so I will leave the big questions about the bible to those members of the Magisterium to throw light on how to interpret the bible since they have been given this authority as divinely instituted since Jesus Christ instructed his apostles to teach and instruct Christians ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost’ before He ascended into heaven.
What surprises me is that the Christian Institute claim that after 1533 the bible was available in English in churches for every man, woman and child who could read. As far as I know the Church was Catholic at the time and most of the population could not read and there were no printing presses.
Isn’t there some manipulation of the truth going on here? If most of the populace were illiterate how could they make use of a bible unless they had some one to teach them how to read. And these first teachers would have been monks and priests in a land of beautiful Cathedrals and Abbeys.
Clotide,
There’s a LOT of manipulation of the truth going on here – I recommend that you take the time to read the link I put in the introduction, to the Joel Peter’s article entitled 21 Reasons to Reject Sola Scriptura. For ease of reference, I post the link again – just click here…
Here’s an extract:
Essential to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is the idea that the Holy Spirit will enlighten each believer as to the correct interpretation for a given Bible passage. This idea presupposes that each believer possesses a Bible or at least has access to a Bible. The difficulty with such a presumption is that the Bible was not able to be mass-produced and readily available to individual believers until the advent of the printing press in the 15th century. (34) Even then, it would have taken quite some time for large numbers of Bibles to be printed and disseminated to the general population.
The predicament caused by this state of affairs is that millions upon millions of Christians who lived prior to the 15th century would have been left without a final authority, left to flounder spiritually, unless by chance they had access to a hand-copied Bible. Even a mere human understanding of such circumstances would make God out to be quite cruel, as He would have revealed the fullness of His Word to humanity in Christ, knowing that the means by which such information could be made readily available would not exist for another 15 centuries.
On the other hand, we know that God is not cruel at all, but in fact has infinite love for us. It is for this reason that He did not leave us in darkness. He sent us His Son to teach us the way we should believe and act, and this Son established a Church to promote those teachings through preaching to both the learned and the illiterate. “Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the Word of Christ.” (Rom. 10:17). Christ also gave to His Church His guarantee that He would always be with it, never allowing it to fall into error. God, therefore, did not abandon His people and make them rely upon the invention of the printing press to be the means whereby they would come to a saving knowledge of His Son. Instead, He gave us a divinely established, infallible teacher, the Catholic Church, to provide us with the means to be informed of the Good News of the Gospel – and to be informed correctly.
Read the entire article – it’s well worth reading, packed as it is with facts to counter the propaganda.
Clotide,
Before printing presses in the 15 or 16 centuries, the bible had to be copied by hand so it’s unlikely that many people could read it first hand. Therefore, it’s a lie to say that the Church authorities prevented people from reading the bible. They had the scriptures read at Masses. However, the Church has always stressed that the oral and written traditions were of equal importance, because Jesus would not have left his infant Church without guidance for hundreds of years until printing presses were invented. The Protestants conveniently ignore that fact.
What I’d like to know though is what about all the ecumenism that has been going on for years now, how come the Christian Institute felt free to publish the material on Tyndale and Luther on their website, without taking the trouble to check the other side. Seems like a return to pre-ecumenical times (not that I’m complaining, LOL!)
I’ve read all of the stuff in the intro and I would say, yes, without a doubt, the Christian Institute is anti-Catholic.
There’s no attempt at checking the facts, just trotting out the same old, same old rubbish about the Church and the Bible, as if the Church didn’t give us the Bible in the first place!
The Joel Peters article is excellent and shows the Protestant propaganda up for what it is. The Protestant position is unsustainable.
This fashion of praising the Protestant Reformers for making us more aware of the Bible, is just ridiculous. The Protestant bible is not only missing seven books from the Old Testament, but they never mention many key passages from the New Testament, LOL!
When did you ever hear a Protestant mention the Petrine texts, such as “thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church” or “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you cannot have life in you”
The Christian Institute may be doing good work e.g. the Named Person Scheme but this attack on the Church shows them to be more Protestant than Christian. I won’t be able to think of them with the same high regard any more, sorry to say.
That’s very disappointing about the Christian Institute. I’m afraid they really must be anti-Catholic to have published the material that’s on their website today about the Reformation. Yes, they do good work in dealing with the attacks on marriage and the NP scheme etc. but this does change things quite a bit IMHO.
The Christian Institute do a better job at defending Christian morals than do our lot of weak and faithless bishops, and that’s for sure! However, for such educated people they do let themselves down by their bigoted and unthought out anti Catholic utterances. Anyone with even a titter of wit could research the truth about the Reformation / bible etc., but they don’t and continue to propagate a lie. Shame on them!
Crofterlady,
I agree with you completely. The Christian Institute puts the Catholic Church to shame by its simple presence on the internet. The Bishops of the UK do virtually nothing as marriage and the family is attacked right, left and centre. So it’s kudo to the Christian Institute for their excellent work on the pro-life and pro-marriage front.
That is why it’s very disappointing to read the stuff they’ve posted on the Reformation. It’s ironic that they use the name Christian for their Institute, and yet praise the very men guilty of splitting Christendom down the middle, to the skies.
Crofterlady,
” Anyone with even a titter of wit could research the truth about the Reformation / bible etc…”
Hear hear!
The introduction material is very interesting – Joel Peters’ webpage is very informative as is the short video on the Protestant Bible.
Like everyone else here, I’m bitterly disappointed in the Christian Institute for publishing the anti-Catholic material. I suppose, being non-Catholics, they think they are doing their Christian duty to educate Catholics but it has been a misjudgment.
I’m actually very surprised that the Christian Institute would make such a gaffe. I presume they called themselves the Christian Institute as opposed to the Protestant Institute, because they wanted to gather as many adherents as possible to their cause of defending marriage etc. So, this is quite a surprise, and, as others say, a big disappointment.
I’d still support them, if for no other reason that there is no Catholic equivalent. All the prolife groups are non-denominational and there’s no Catholic body fighting to save traditional marriage.
It makes me wonder what, exactly, the Catholic bishops are doing with their time.
Josephine
You said “I’d still support them, if for no other reason that there is no Catholic equivalent”
To be fair, I think Voice of the Family are doing good work, and they are Catholic http://www.voiceofthefamily.com I would much sooner support them, than the protestant Christian Institute. Voice of the Family also understand the importance of the role of Fatima in the current crisis: http://voiceofthefamily.com/why-we-must-fulfil-our-ladys-request-for-reparation-on-first-saturdays and http://voiceofthefamily.com/st-joseph-terror-of-demons-pray-for-us
The Voice of the Family are Anglican
No Charles,
I’ve just checked their About Us page and VOTF is an “initiative of the Catholic laity” – clergy, as ever, notable by their absence.
Josephine
I am personally acquainted with one or two members of the Christian Institute, and while I have supported some of their work, I can also say – from personal experience – that they are not open to debating their beliefs or their understanding of Christianity with Catholics, as they do not consider us to be “Christian”. Bigotry precludes understanding of sensible conversation and factual data even from seemingly intelligent people
Having said that, I would still support them when they champion Christian values.
Therese,
I didn’t realise that the CI don’t think Catholics are “Christian” – so they believe there was no Holy Spirit guiding the Church for the first 1500 years until the apostate, immoral Luther came along? A man who was so prideful, that his own biographer said that by the end of his life “he would brook no opposition from any man”. They think the Holy Spirit sent HIM to “save” the Church?
Well, that’s some basis for “Christian” faith – not!
Therese,
I don’t think you should support them because they are clearly not supporting Christian values if they are promoting protestantism and eschewing Catholicism. It is the rejection of the One, True Faith that has brought society to its present sorry state, and if they can’t see that, then they are the blind leading the blind. As I said before, there is a Catholic organisation promoting and defending marriage and family life – Voice of the Family. http://www.voiceofthefamily.com We should be getting behind them and letting other Catholics know about them, and not bothering with the Christian Institute. It annoys me when Catholics support protestant charities, when there are Catholic organisations in existence.
WF,
The problem is, it was the Christian Institute and not VOTF which effectively put down the awful Named Person Scheme up here in Scotland. They will have money in the bank that the Catholic organisations just don’t have available. That’s the problem.
Of course, arguably, in the case of the NP scheme, there would have been sufficient non-Catholics to support the CI, but it’s a pity that organisations like VOTF are not in the same financial league as the non-Catholic organisations. That is what makes the difference, no doubt. Remember, the CI are able to take legal action – that is costly, but that’s what makes the difference. The Scottish Government would have laughed quietly at the protests against the NP Scheme but for the fact that they were hauled into court over it, thanks to the CI. I can’t see VOTF being able to do that.
Westminster Fly,
I agree that Catholics should support Voice of the Family but they are not high profile in the media, so not a lot of people know about them. Me, for starters, LOL!
Maybe the Catholic newspapers could raise their profile, but even then, I think it would take a lot for them to have the funding and legal team necessary to do what the Christian Institute does on a national scale.
What doesn’t come through in all this talk about the Reformation (due to the 500th anniversary celebrations) is that there isn’t one “Protestant” group – there are thousands. They all claim to interpret the bible according to the Holy Spirit even though they all come to different conclusions about what the bible is teaching – so now we have Protestants happily supporting divorce and remarriage, even though Jesus called that adultery. He said it clear as day, and yet the Protestants ignore that fact, same goes for other verses.
I don’t think we need to get het up about the Christian Institute celebrating the Protestant revolt, because they never pretended to be Catholic, and I think we all knew they were Protestants. It certainly is a bit insensitive of them to have published the article about the bible reproduced in the introduction above, but it’s not the end of the world.
What they can’t change is the fact that the “Fathers” of their Reformation were all Catholic dissidents, and that Church is the one established by Christ, for the salvation of souls.
I suggest we pray for the grace of conversion for Protestants in this anniversary year.
Lots of good points made so far – time for a little light relief…
https://goodolewoody.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/toon-1035.gif
It never fails to surprise me that Catholics don’t know that evangelical Protestants do not regard Catholics as christians. I live among them and know them well and I can say that they are not remotely hostile at all but genuinely think that we are not christians.
These christians are Brethren, Wee Frees, Baptists and the like. Church of Scotland members, Anglicans and Methodists do not think like this.
Therefore, when I hear our folk eulogising about interfaith events I think to myself: “These people will never think we are christians no matter how many of these events we have”.
Crofterlady,
I, too, have lived and worked with Evangelical Protestants, and I know what they believe about us idolatrous Catholics only too well, so worry not. Be surprised no longer. I didn’t say that I didn’t know that Evangelical Protestants do not regard Catholics as Christians. That is not what I said. What I said was that “I didn’t realise that the Christian Institute [staff] don’t think Catholics are Christian”.
That’s because I didn’t realise that the Christian Institute is staffed by Evangelical Protestants. 😀
I have never actually studied their website. Clotide posted the information about their website supporting the Reformation on another thread, so I took a look at that page. There isn’t actually any “About Us” page on their website, so there does not seem to be any way of telling what kind of “Christians” they claim to be – unless one knows some of them personally, as does Therese.
You don’t say to which “branch” of Evangelical Protestantism the Christian Institute staff belong (from your list – “Brethren, Wee frees, Baptists and the like”) .
I really didn’t give any thought to the matter, but if I’d been asked the question, I would probably have said that I presume the CI staff would be Anglicans, in the main, being based in England.
So, no need to be surprised at my remark about not knowing that the Christian Institute people don’t believe Catholics are “Christians” – the reason being, as I have just explained, that I would have presumed them to be Anglicans (who do not subscribe to this particular heresy) albeit with support from Evangelical Protestants and Catholics.
Hope that clarifies my position.
Crofterlady
Excellent post, especially about the lack of hostility. There is just a blank wall when it comes to thinking objectively; they have been so thoroughly brainwashed.
WorldNetDaily carried an opinion piece the other day (which I can’t find now), by Editor Joseph Farah, to the effect that since Pope Francis was creating such havoc in the Catholic Church, Catholics should just solve the problem by becoming Protestants. Included in this article was a statement by Farah that “Purgatory is just a Catholic problem,” not a Christian one.
So I wrote a letter to the editor and told him that if Purgatory was strictly a Catholic problem, then I supposed that the Bible was also strictly a Catholic problem, since the Bible contained numerous references to Purgatory (I linked to an article that included some of those references).
I also told him he should be ashamed of himself for using his column space to promote his ignorance and personal bias. How ironic that Protestants claim to base their religion on “sola Scriptura,” but don’t even know or understand what’s in it!
BTW, the truth of the matter is that it is Protestants, not Catholics, who are not Christians, since they have rejected, with lies and deceptions, the Church founded by Our Lord. But just try telling that to a Protestant! (Or to a Novus Ordo Catholic…) It would be like trying to tell Editor to stop eating chocolate….
RCA Victor,
All very interesting – I’m proud of the fact that one of our top CT bloggers wrote to the editor of another publication in defence of the Faith. Just let me know how many minutes you were absent from here doing that, so that we can adjust your pay accordingly 😀
I have to admit, though, that you are spot on about my chocolate addiction. It’s getting worse by the day…
http://www.grinningplanet.com/2007/02-13/chocolate-wonka-bath.gif
Editor,
LOL, I think your next step would be to install a cistern and a pump, so you could have liquid chocolate on tap!
In order to make reparation for my lost blog time, I would be happy to write another letter, this one to the Christian Institute (which should read “Christian” Institute), pointing out the lies and absurdities in this article.
Speaking of two-faced Protestants, I found out the other day that the Salvation Army supports abortion and contraception! I’m sure they are thrilled, then, with Pope Francis’ new Academy for Human Life and the Family, formerly known as the Pontifical Academy for Life. I’m sure the re-engineered Academy will be as much about the family as was the Synod on the Family that produced That’s Amoris.
RCA Victor,
If you are really minded to write to the Christian Institute, you can email on info@christian.org.uk
However, I did email them the link to this thread, so if you are having second thoughts, worry not. I’m sure they’ll have paid a visit here, and if honest enough to read the links to the articles rebutting the propaganda on their site, they will know the truth, or at least be on their way towards it. One hopes and one prays…
In the meantime, just to underline the dodgy theology of the evangelicals, here’s a story that says it all… Sounds like a Baptist preacher…
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/0e/80/46/0e8046c5487407b0cf7e80d95e1d2344.jpg
Editor,
Love it! I do think the Baptists should get some credit, though, for being far stronger in their resistance to the NWO than Catholics, who are either asleep at the switch or who have sold out the Church and the Faith for $$ and human respect.
One of the things that bothered me most about this article was the very beginning, where the author, a coward, doesn’t even dare to name the Catholic Church by name. I guess he doesn’t want his bigotry, ignorance and personal bias to be too obvious:
“Men and women wandered past the religious institutions which held them in superstition and fear. They had no knowledge of the word of God which was withheld from them in Latin by the Church.”
Perhaps this author is taking rhetoric and propaganda lessons from Austen Ivereigh?
RCA
Are you sure it’s not extortion after interception the Salvation Army believes in?
RCA Victor,
I Googled to try to find the article you mention but no luck. However, it’s really funny to think that Joseph Farah is calling on Catholics to become Protestants when the majority of them are, de facto! LOL! It’s a wonder he hasn’t realised that!
Michaela,
Judging from his editorial, Mr. Farah doesn’t know much about religion, period!
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