Catholics, Calvin, and Commentary

My last post, "To high treason" (a little National Treasure reference for you) drew a good amount of commentary from BillyD and Greg Harris, the father of the authors of The Rebelution. While the topic of the entry was along the lines of "how should Christians change the world?" it has inspired a short, but long-winded debate on the nature of Protestantism and how it has affected economics and the USA and such.

BillyD is Roman Catholic as you may have noticed. Greg's church describes itself as "a "biblically reformed" local church, attempting to be faithful to the whole counsel of God as He has revealed Himself and His purposes in the Bible."

If you guessed that Greg and I disagree on some issues, you would be quite right. You can look at Household of Faith's Essential Reforms to see what I mean. It's not that I think it is all horribly wrong; there are several points, however, where our beliefs differ.

Regardless of where you stand, it is good to talk about this stuff. I don't know if I will post anything else about this "world-changing" subject in one big post. It's kind of a topic that stretches out forever.
Also, I am not going to turn this place into an apologetics website. There is a place for that, but I am not as knowledgable as I would like to be and, face it, we could debate forever without changing anyone's mind. It is a matter of the heart and only the Holy Spirit has control there.

So, I am not going to pick apart anyone's comments and explain what I think.
Feel free to do that in the comment box. I will leave the debate with this thought:

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The Church is founded on the Word of God, not the words. The Word is far more than the Bible. I have come to believe that sola scriptora is not biblical. I trust in the authority of the Church because Christ gave it its authority. There is an unbroken line of apostolic succession from Peter and the Apostles to the Benedict XVI and all of the bishops today.
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Now that I have said that, I have to say that I do not hate protestants or anything like that; nor do I think that their faith is not real. I only put things on here for the edification, education, or entertainment of The Propaganda Machine's small but loyal readership. I do not want to use this blog to debate with people who will probably not change their minds because of my arguements. I will post things like that when I feel that I should and leave the rest to God.

If you have any questions about Catholicism feel free to email me or leave a comment. I will do my best to answer any questions but I won't debate. I had four years of that in college with my protestant friends. Those conversations had a profound effect on my life because they were in person with people I knew and loved.

The point? Finally! If you want to argue something, we can do it in the comment boxes, but I won't focus on it in a post. And as should be expected between Christians, keep the commentary charitable. I haven't had a problem with that since one of my pro-life posts, so I don't think I need to worry about that too much. Thanks guys!