This is a remarkable post by a non Catholic blogger (a Baptist, I believe):
What I find highly ironic is the way that Protestants like to portray the Roman Catholic Church as biblically illiterate, when the fact is that they are doing a much better job of synthesizing biblical scholarship and pastoral instruction than any Protestant denomination. I really question whether any Evangelical denomination would have the ecclesial resources to put together a work [Pontifical Biblical Commission's The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church] of this kind of sophistication. If they did, no doubt the eyes of many pastors would simply glaze over in the attempt to read it. In the Evangelical world, the church and the academy operate in separate realms (which is why Christian apologetics is in such a sorry state), whereas in the Roman Catholic Church, the academy is able to serve as a help to the Church. Though this does not always work that way, the structures are at least in place to enable it to do so. One quote from the document I found extremely perceptive, and that is in its comments about the hermeneutics of Fundamentalism: “The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that, refusing to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation, it makes itself incapable of accepting the full truth of the incarnation itself. As regards relationships with God, fundamentalism seeks to escape any closeness of the divine and the human. It refuses to admit that the inspired Word of God has been expressed in human language and that this Word has been expressed, under divine inspiration, by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources.” This Nestorian disjunction between the divine realm and the historical realm in fundamentalist hermeneutics explains a lot with regard to the spiritual barrenness and death which many people have encountered in religious fundamentalism. It is the inevitable result of projecting upon the Divine a distance from the messiness of the real world which is integral to their hermeneutical theory.The blog describes itself as
an online theological journal designed to highlight the sacramental, trinitarian, and covenantal connection we have with the historic Church. We term it a Reformational contribution to catholicity. Semper Reformanda is just as important today as it was in John Calvin’s day and we strive to encourage and exhort our brothers and sisters in Christ to consider what we can do in our own churches, denominations, and fellowships to make catholicity a priority among the faithful.I have to admit to not knowing very much about Baptists. How common is such a view? Would I be wrong to think this is Baptist Paleo Orthodoxy is a minority opinion?
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