Scathing....

I'm very glad everyone is enthusiastic on the discussions. It shows that we are zealously seeking the Lord. (That's all church speak for "excited about God)
Let's watch out though, there are a few Catholics that visit the site. I should have noted that prior the original mail. Good discussion, good points, but no fighting! So let's keep it clean boys!
Church policies aside, most people don't know the intricacies of theology (including myself), so they basically know only what they have been told. We are trying to dispel any false notions (of anything, much less God) and get back to the Bible. Finding out how to use it as the Rock (esp in this discussion) on which we stand.

So, speaking historically, it was actually the "Catholic Church" (universal, original church) that decided what would go in the Bible in the first place. The Gospels were some of the later books to be written, as opposed to the Letters, and many people think they were mythologized. Historically and looking with Literary Criticism, this obviously isn't the case. The Church chose to leave certain books out, known as the Apocrypha, because they did not have the authority and authenticity of the books that DID make it. The four Gospels were written, not to convert, but to uphold the knowledge that people already had of Christ. Christianity was well underway when they were written. But the Church saw they had the authority of God - by the Holy Spirit and using the brains given us by Him, the early church decided to include some and throw out others. Hermeneutics played a major role. They saw that nothing in these books went against what God had previously stated. They also knew, as we do, the personality of Christ, just as one would know the personality of Aslan after reading the Chronicles of Narnia or Edmond Dantes after reading the Count of Monte Cristo, as well as by the Holy Spirit and certain writings that were up for debate simply didn't "fit." St. Thomas' for example. They just didn't ring true.

In the same way, checking against the rest of the Bible, Isaiah, Ezekiel, indeed every book all the way back, "beginning with Moses," if something comes out that does not have basis for it in the book, it has been discounted. Indeed the Catholic Church itself has raised points about religious leaders that raise their own doctrine are the ones that classify as cultists.
Clearly not counting in themselves among those.
However if we are riled by this, we should remember two things, one, that the Pharisees were guilty of it as well, and two) that we watch so as we are not tempted by it. Whether it be paying so much attention to the letter of the Law that you forget the Basis of the Law, ie, straining at gnat and choke on a camel like the Pharisees, or that you start claiming "divine revelation" like Joseph Smith.

Another point to note, after the Church became accepted in Rome in 313 with the Edict of Milan, Christianity, though surviving in its original form for some time became sharply a political tool. Thus many of the Popes used the power for just that: power. But don't think we don't own much to the Church and esp. the founding fathers. Augustine, Jerome, Athanasius, etc.
It is just difficult to remember which is which - the Church as an eternal, living entity, the hand and feet and body of Christ, or the Institution that resides in Rome. Just because some people cannot make a distinction doesn't mean to deride them. Let us not be judgmental. This poor fellow in the case of our debate here clearly is zealous for the Church. He simply thinks that by doing so he is zealous for Jesus. Show him the truth in the Word. Pray for him.
If the Church is the Bride, then Christ is the Groom and therefore the Head of the Household of Believers. If the Church is the "body" of Christ, what does that make Him? The Head.