Please see my prior efforts on this book
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
A few years ago I was asked to type a doctoral dissertation for a student from over seas. He was a nice enough fellow and so I agreed. I was having some computer problems at the time and so I asked my sister to help me. I remember sis called me up one night and said, “Wow, we should have gone on for our postgraduate degrees. This stuff is easy!” I had to agree with her. Other than fixing up some grammatical errors and some spelling, the rest of the text was very easy and I came away with the feeling that if it weren’t for time and money I could easily be persuaded to pursue such a degree myself. It just wasn’t brain surgery!!
I am having a similar sensation going though the Gipp book. It seems that if one has the time and money to write a book and get it published (or in this case offer it as a free e-book) you can do it! It apparently doesn’t take a lot of thought or research.
In this Chapter Dr. Gipp made no attempt to hide his contempt for the Catholic Church. Dr. Gipp in blue italics
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:8, 9.
Here lie two totally contradictory statements. They cannot both be correct. The one which you believe will depend on which authority you accept.
This is a false dilemma logical fallacy. Dr. Gipp loves them. He sprinkles them liberally. Catholics of course understand that this isn’t an either/or situation but a both/and.
Dr. Gipp also LOVES to take things out of context. Here is the statement from Unum Sanctum in context:
Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission
of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles [Sgs 6:8] proclaims: ‘One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the
chosen of her who bore her,’ and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one
pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed. We venerate this Church as one, the Lord having said by
the mouth of the prophet: ‘Deliver, O God, my soul from the
sword and my only one from the hand of the dog.’ [Ps 21:20] He has prayed for his soul, that is for himself, heart and body; and this body, that is to say, the Church, He has called one because of the unity of the Spouse, of the faith,
of the sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is the tunic of the Lord, the seamless tunic, which was not rent but which was cast by lot [Jn 19:23-24]. Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head,
not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking to PeterHimself said: ‘Feed my sheep’ [Jn 21:17], meaning, my sheep in general, not these, nor those in
particular, whence we understand that He entrusted all
to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ,
since Our Lord says in John ‘there is one sheepfold and one
shepherd.’ We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: ‘Behold, here are two swords’ [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: ‘Put up thy sword into thy scabbard’ [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered _for_ the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and
sufferance of the priest.
Gipp goes on:The Roman Catholic Church has long been antagonistic to the doctrine of salvation by grace. If salvation is by grace, who needs “mass?” If salvation is by grace, who needs to fear purgatory? If Jesus Christ is our mediator, who needs the Pope? If the Pope cannot intimidate people into obeying him, how can he force a nation to obey him?
The true Bible is the arch-enemy of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome can only rule over ignorant, fear-filled people. The true Bible turns “unlearned and ignorant” men into gospel preachers and casts out “all fear.”
Gipp is betraying a certain amount of ignorance himself as far as what the church teaches about grace, the purpose for the mass, and the doctrines of purgatory and the papacy. Further his statement that only “ignorant, fear-filled people” can be Catholic is an ad hominen logical fallacy. It’s also not true. The vacancy left by the removal of Christ would be easily filled by Mary and other “saints” along with a chain of ritualism so rigid that no practitioner would have time to really “think” about the true gospel.
He means the “Gipp” gospel. I actually laughed outloud whe I read this paragraph. Apparently Dr. Gipp is unaware of the Liturgy of the Hours and the daily mass readings! He is also unaware of how the saints and Mary point us to Jesus and the Gospels. But as I said, I guess it doesn’t take a lot of research to slap up an e-book.
I covered the bologna about the ancient texts and St. Jerome last week. This was worth a giggle: Rome enlisted the help of a loyal subject by the name of Jerome. He quickly translated the corrupt Local Text into Latin.blank stare… it took Jerome 15 years to translate. I’m betting Dr. Gipp slapped his Understandable Bible History together in considerably less time. I also want to highlight this Gippism because is just so dishonest!You may ask, “Would not a weakening of the place of Jesus Christ weaken the Roman Catholic Church’s reason for even existing?” The answer is “No.” The Roman Catholic Church does not even claim to represent the gospel of Jesus Christ. Romanist Karl Adam admits this: “We Catholics acknowledge readily, without any shame – nay with pride – that Catholicism cannot be identified simply and wholly with primitive Christianity, nor even with the Gospel of Christ.”45 In context what Karl Adams actually wrote was:
We Catholics acknowledge readily, without any shame, nay with pride, that Catholicism cannot be identified simply and wholly with primitive Christianity, nor even with the Gospel of Christ, in the same way that the great oak cannot be identified with the tiny acorn. There is no mechanical identity, but an organic identity. And we go further and say that thousands of years hence Catholicism will probably be even richer, more luxuriant, more manifold in dogma, morals, law and worship than the Catholicism of the present day.
The rest of the chapter is about Martin Luther, the Reformation and Trent and the Jesuits. He takes a few nasty swipes at St. Ignatius.Candy Brauer had a funny comment on her blog regarding the Jesuits:In this chapter we are also introduced to the Jesuits, which was founded by Ignatius Loyola in 1534. What was the purpose of Jesuits? They were:extremely loyal to the Pope, who would set about to undermine Protestantism and “heresy” throughout the world.Has the job of the Jesuits changed today? I think not.Well she has it partially right; she doesn’t think. In recent history the Jesuits have not exactly been associated with obedience to the Magisterial, although of course there are notable exceptions.
Incidentally, my posts on this book are showing up on Google quite prominantly, in front of Candy’s. For this reason, I will continue on to the end of the book.
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