Copyright © The Master's TableNote: You can find sermons on this subject on the Master's table web site. Just click this link... A Call to Arms
Just what is the Ecumenical Movement?
Have you ever heard of the Ecumenical movement? It's the term used to describe the search for fuller unity in bringing all Churches back under the main control of the Universal Church. The Greek word oikumene, from which ecumenical is derived, originally meant "the inhabited world" which suggests the Universal Church. To Protestant leaders who have advanced the modern ecumenical movement with the Catholic Church the term has applied not only to Christian unity but also more broadly, to the worldwide mission of Christianity! Information from Grolier publishing, Inc
"The Council of Trent"
Let's look at some more information that will help us understand more clearly why this movement was formed and where it came from. The Council of Trent, the 19th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, was held at Trent in northern Italy between 1545 and 1563. It marked a major turning point in the efforts of the Catholic Church to respond to the challenge of the Protestant REFORMATION and formed a key part of the COUNTER-REFORMATION. The council eventually met during three separate periods (1545-47, 1551-52, 1562-63) under the leadership of three different popes (PAUL III, Julius III, PIUS IV). All of its decrees were formally confirmed by Pope Pius IV in 1564. Tradition was declared coequal to Scripture as a source of spiritual knowledge, and the sole right of the Catholic Church to interpret the Bible was asserted. At the same time, the council took steps to reform many of the major abuses within the Church that had partly incited the Reformation: decrees were issued requiring Episcopal residence and a limitation on the plurality of benefices, (a position or post granted to an ecclesiastic that guarantees a fixed amount of property or income.) and movements were instigated to reform certain monastic (monasteries) orders and to provide for the education of the clergy through the creation of a seminary in every diocese."
"The World Missionary Conference of 1910, held in Edinburgh marked the beginning of modern ecumenism. From it flowed three streams of ecumenical endeavor: evangelistic, service, and doctrinal. Today, these three aspects are furthered through the World Council of Churches, constituted in 1948; in the early 1980s it included more than 295 Churches in more than 90 countries. The evangelical concern of modern ecumenism brought about the formation, in 1921, of the International Missionary Council, comprising 17 national mission organizations. It coordinated mission strategy and aided new churches. The efforts made by Christians across denominational and national boundaries came to fruition in 1925, in Stockholm, when the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work was convened to study the application of the gospel to industrial, social, political, and international affairs. This movement also proceeded under the slogan "service unites but doctrine divides." (*) This slogan is very important to note as it is becoming a powerful vehicle for the WCC to bring all Churches together. "Service" meaning helping, serving, and cooperating for the purpose of unity. "Doctrine divides" meaning that we should accept and respect all religions. This means when we denounce anything that they consider doctrine we are being separatist which will put us in the same category as religious extremist.
"Change came to the ecumenical movement in 1959, when Pope John XXIII proposed the calling of a second Vatican Council to complete the work of the first Vatican Council of 1870. Renewal and reunion were high on the agenda, and the world followed the proceedings closely. The pontiff created a Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Breaking precedent, in 1961 he permitted Roman Catholic observers officially to attend the third assembly of the World Council of Churches. Also through his influence, when Vatican II opened in Saint Peter's Basilica in 1962, Protestant and Orthodox observers were accorded places of honor and included in all working sessions. The 2500 Roman Catholic bishops who attended the four council sessions (1962-65) dealt with Christian unity. Their decree on ecumenism, promulgated in 1964, spoke not of "schismatics" but of "separated brethren," and it deplored sins against unity committed over the years by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike."
Information from T. Tackett Bibliography: Jedin, Hubert, A History of the Council of Trent, trans. by Ernest Graf, 2 vols. (1957-61); McNally, Robert E., Council of Trent, The Spiritual Exercises and the Catholic Reform (1970); O'Donohoe, J. A., Tridentine Seminary Legislation (1957); Schroeder, H. J., Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (1950) Microsoft® Encarta® 97 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1996
Another Organization:
There's another organization of the Catholic Church that is greatly involved in the Ecumenical movement. They go so far as to infiltrate Christian Churches, from the top, for the purpose of taking them over and bring them into the Ecumenical movement. They have set up many Christian Colleges all over the world for hundreds of years, so they could change the minds of the young early on. These colleges have been accepted by most people, mainly because they have been around so long, but the doctrines they teach is not from the Word of God found in the Holy Bible. This powerful organization is the Jesuits. The true intent of the Society of Jesuits is to use ambiguous or unclear expressions in order to be misleading and unclear about issues.The main roll of the Jesuits is to undo all that the Protestant reformation accomplished and they will not quit until they have done just that. The Jesuits attention focuses on churches with hierarchical, juridical, and institutional type government structures. Unification is seen as proceeding from the top to the bottom. Without the hierarchical government structure in the church it would be impossible to infiltrate and control it. As you will find on into this book that God hates the hierarchical government structure in the church and I will prove to you that it is of man and not of God.
Short History of Jesuits:
"A religious order of men in the Roman Catholic Church, founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in 1534, and confirmed by Pope Paul III in 1540. The motto of the order is Ad majorem Dei gloriam (Latin, "to the greater glory of God"), and its object is the spread of the church by preaching and teaching or the fulfillment of whatever else is judged the most urgent need of the church at the time. Education has been its chief activity almost from the outset. It has made notable contributions to scholarship in both theology and the secular disciplines. The preparation required of a candidate, especially for membership as a priest rather than as a brother (temporal coadjutor), is considerably longer than that required for the secular priesthood or for membership in other religious orders. After two years in seclusion and prayer as a novice, the candidate takes simple vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and becomes a scholastic. He then typically spends two years of study in review of classical subjects and three years studying philosophy, mathematics, and the physical sciences. He then spend some years of teaching succeeded by three years' study of theology, after which ordination to the priesthood takes place.
Following a fourth year of theological study and a year of retirement and prayer, the candidate is awarded his final grade, becoming either a coadjutor or a professed. The coadjutors take final simple vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but the professed take these vows as solemn vows and add an additional solemn vow to go wherever the pope may send them; furthermore, the professed take five simple vows, among them the renunciation of ecclesiastical office beyond their order unless by directive of the order. The order is governed by a superior general, residing in Rome, (called the black pope) who is elected for life by the general congregation of the order, consisting of representatives of the various provinces; there are now some 65 regional provinces in the world, each under its own father provincial. (See The complete Oath of Extreme Induction:)
The first aim of Ignatius of Loyola in forming his band was to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to convert the Muslims; all access to the Holy Land was barred, however, by the outbreak of war with the Ottoman Turks, and the members of the order submitted to the pope a constitution that bound them to go as missionaries to any place the pope might direct. After the constitution was approved, Loyola was elected the first superior general of the order. The development of the order was rapid, and its members took leading parts in the Counter Reformation, establishing schools and colleges throughout Europe.
For 150 years they were the leaders in European education; by 1640 they had more than 500 colleges throughout Europe; by about a century later the number of colleges had increased to more than 650 and, in addition, the order had total or partial charge of two dozen universities. More than 200 seminaries and houses of study for Jesuits had also been established. The education of Jesuits in the period of the Counter Reformation was designed to strengthen Roman Catholicism against Protestant expansion. Among the laity the Jesuits were concerned chiefly with the education of the nobility and those of wealth, although they did conduct trade schools and, in mission countries, schools for the poor.
In the mission field the expansion of the order was equally great. Missions were established by St. Francis Xavier in India and Japan, and the order spread to the interior of China and the coast of Africa. Letters from the Jesuit missionaries in Canada, containing ethnological, historical, and scientific information, were published as the Jesuit Relations and form a unique and valuable source of information about the native tribes of that country. The most famous work of the Jesuit missionaries in the New World, however, was the establishment, in the order's South American provinces, of reductions, or village communities of native peoples under the spiritual and temporal direction of the priests. The most successful were the reductions of Paraguay. In that country for almost 200 years the Jesuits governed a communal nation of Native Americans, founding 32 villages with a total population of about 160,000; they taught the Native Americans agriculture, mechanical arts, and commerce and trained a small army for defense of the settlements." Microsoft® Encarta® 97 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1996.
(*) Below is the ecumenical layout to focus the masses on service and not doctrine by the Confessing Christian Faith in a Pluralistic Society. The Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research.
Have you ever heard of the Ecumenical movement? It's the term used to describe the search for fuller unity in bringing all Churches back under the main control of the Universal Church. The Greek word oikumene, from which ecumenical is derived, originally meant "the inhabited world" which suggests the Universal Church. To Protestant leaders who have advanced the modern ecumenical movement with the Catholic Church the term has applied not only to Christian unity but also more broadly, to the worldwide mission of Christianity! Information from Grolier publishing, Inc
"The Council of Trent"
Let's look at some more information that will help us understand more clearly why this movement was formed and where it came from. The Council of Trent, the 19th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, was held at Trent in northern Italy between 1545 and 1563. It marked a major turning point in the efforts of the Catholic Church to respond to the challenge of the Protestant REFORMATION and formed a key part of the COUNTER-REFORMATION. The council eventually met during three separate periods (1545-47, 1551-52, 1562-63) under the leadership of three different popes (PAUL III, Julius III, PIUS IV). All of its decrees were formally confirmed by Pope Pius IV in 1564. Tradition was declared coequal to Scripture as a source of spiritual knowledge, and the sole right of the Catholic Church to interpret the Bible was asserted. At the same time, the council took steps to reform many of the major abuses within the Church that had partly incited the Reformation: decrees were issued requiring Episcopal residence and a limitation on the plurality of benefices, (a position or post granted to an ecclesiastic that guarantees a fixed amount of property or income.) and movements were instigated to reform certain monastic (monasteries) orders and to provide for the education of the clergy through the creation of a seminary in every diocese."
"The World Missionary Conference of 1910, held in Edinburgh marked the beginning of modern ecumenism. From it flowed three streams of ecumenical endeavor: evangelistic, service, and doctrinal. Today, these three aspects are furthered through the World Council of Churches, constituted in 1948; in the early 1980s it included more than 295 Churches in more than 90 countries. The evangelical concern of modern ecumenism brought about the formation, in 1921, of the International Missionary Council, comprising 17 national mission organizations. It coordinated mission strategy and aided new churches. The efforts made by Christians across denominational and national boundaries came to fruition in 1925, in Stockholm, when the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work was convened to study the application of the gospel to industrial, social, political, and international affairs. This movement also proceeded under the slogan "service unites but doctrine divides." (*) This slogan is very important to note as it is becoming a powerful vehicle for the WCC to bring all Churches together. "Service" meaning helping, serving, and cooperating for the purpose of unity. "Doctrine divides" meaning that we should accept and respect all religions. This means when we denounce anything that they consider doctrine we are being separatist which will put us in the same category as religious extremist.
"Change came to the ecumenical movement in 1959, when Pope John XXIII proposed the calling of a second Vatican Council to complete the work of the first Vatican Council of 1870. Renewal and reunion were high on the agenda, and the world followed the proceedings closely. The pontiff created a Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Breaking precedent, in 1961 he permitted Roman Catholic observers officially to attend the third assembly of the World Council of Churches. Also through his influence, when Vatican II opened in Saint Peter's Basilica in 1962, Protestant and Orthodox observers were accorded places of honor and included in all working sessions. The 2500 Roman Catholic bishops who attended the four council sessions (1962-65) dealt with Christian unity. Their decree on ecumenism, promulgated in 1964, spoke not of "schismatics" but of "separated brethren," and it deplored sins against unity committed over the years by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike."
Information from T. Tackett Bibliography: Jedin, Hubert, A History of the Council of Trent, trans. by Ernest Graf, 2 vols. (1957-61); McNally, Robert E., Council of Trent, The Spiritual Exercises and the Catholic Reform (1970); O'Donohoe, J. A., Tridentine Seminary Legislation (1957); Schroeder, H. J., Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (1950) Microsoft® Encarta® 97 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1996
Another Organization:
There's another organization of the Catholic Church that is greatly involved in the Ecumenical movement. They go so far as to infiltrate Christian Churches, from the top, for the purpose of taking them over and bring them into the Ecumenical movement. They have set up many Christian Colleges all over the world for hundreds of years, so they could change the minds of the young early on. These colleges have been accepted by most people, mainly because they have been around so long, but the doctrines they teach is not from the Word of God found in the Holy Bible. This powerful organization is the Jesuits. The true intent of the Society of Jesuits is to use ambiguous or unclear expressions in order to be misleading and unclear about issues.The main roll of the Jesuits is to undo all that the Protestant reformation accomplished and they will not quit until they have done just that. The Jesuits attention focuses on churches with hierarchical, juridical, and institutional type government structures. Unification is seen as proceeding from the top to the bottom. Without the hierarchical government structure in the church it would be impossible to infiltrate and control it. As you will find on into this book that God hates the hierarchical government structure in the church and I will prove to you that it is of man and not of God.
Short History of Jesuits:
"A religious order of men in the Roman Catholic Church, founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in 1534, and confirmed by Pope Paul III in 1540. The motto of the order is Ad majorem Dei gloriam (Latin, "to the greater glory of God"), and its object is the spread of the church by preaching and teaching or the fulfillment of whatever else is judged the most urgent need of the church at the time. Education has been its chief activity almost from the outset. It has made notable contributions to scholarship in both theology and the secular disciplines. The preparation required of a candidate, especially for membership as a priest rather than as a brother (temporal coadjutor), is considerably longer than that required for the secular priesthood or for membership in other religious orders. After two years in seclusion and prayer as a novice, the candidate takes simple vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and becomes a scholastic. He then typically spends two years of study in review of classical subjects and three years studying philosophy, mathematics, and the physical sciences. He then spend some years of teaching succeeded by three years' study of theology, after which ordination to the priesthood takes place.
Following a fourth year of theological study and a year of retirement and prayer, the candidate is awarded his final grade, becoming either a coadjutor or a professed. The coadjutors take final simple vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but the professed take these vows as solemn vows and add an additional solemn vow to go wherever the pope may send them; furthermore, the professed take five simple vows, among them the renunciation of ecclesiastical office beyond their order unless by directive of the order. The order is governed by a superior general, residing in Rome, (called the black pope) who is elected for life by the general congregation of the order, consisting of representatives of the various provinces; there are now some 65 regional provinces in the world, each under its own father provincial. (See The complete Oath of Extreme Induction:)
The first aim of Ignatius of Loyola in forming his band was to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to convert the Muslims; all access to the Holy Land was barred, however, by the outbreak of war with the Ottoman Turks, and the members of the order submitted to the pope a constitution that bound them to go as missionaries to any place the pope might direct. After the constitution was approved, Loyola was elected the first superior general of the order. The development of the order was rapid, and its members took leading parts in the Counter Reformation, establishing schools and colleges throughout Europe.
For 150 years they were the leaders in European education; by 1640 they had more than 500 colleges throughout Europe; by about a century later the number of colleges had increased to more than 650 and, in addition, the order had total or partial charge of two dozen universities. More than 200 seminaries and houses of study for Jesuits had also been established. The education of Jesuits in the period of the Counter Reformation was designed to strengthen Roman Catholicism against Protestant expansion. Among the laity the Jesuits were concerned chiefly with the education of the nobility and those of wealth, although they did conduct trade schools and, in mission countries, schools for the poor.
In the mission field the expansion of the order was equally great. Missions were established by St. Francis Xavier in India and Japan, and the order spread to the interior of China and the coast of Africa. Letters from the Jesuit missionaries in Canada, containing ethnological, historical, and scientific information, were published as the Jesuit Relations and form a unique and valuable source of information about the native tribes of that country. The most famous work of the Jesuit missionaries in the New World, however, was the establishment, in the order's South American provinces, of reductions, or village communities of native peoples under the spiritual and temporal direction of the priests. The most successful were the reductions of Paraguay. In that country for almost 200 years the Jesuits governed a communal nation of Native Americans, founding 32 villages with a total population of about 160,000; they taught the Native Americans agriculture, mechanical arts, and commerce and trained a small army for defense of the settlements." Microsoft® Encarta® 97 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1996.
(*) Below is the ecumenical layout to focus the masses on service and not doctrine by the Confessing Christian Faith in a Pluralistic Society. The Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research.
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