Comments by "1stGruhn" (@1stGruhn) on "The Worst Popes In History" video.

While I'm a christian, this is the primary reason I believe firmly in separation of church and state: that civil authority shouldn't reside in religious institutions. When civil authority is wielded to coerce personal belief, true tyranny is demonstrated. This is valid for any authority that aims to restrict speech and thought.
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@floridaman318 How is that a double standard? I wasn't limiting the statement to religious leadership... I meant it when I said civil authority. Any use of state power, by any organization, to coerce belief is a tyrannical abuse of power.
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@floridaman318 I think tyranny is the inevitable end of any human civil structure. Which is why no government is forever, tyrants will always eat themselves, structurally speaking. Peter wasn't given sole authority: never in scripture. Paul rebuked him as did others. Authority was given to the disciples, if less then at least the primary three: Peter, John, and James. But given Paul's rebuke, it is far more likely that authority was shared between all the apostles. Read Clement of Rome, the early church was lead by presbyters, what the protestants now call elders and they were always in a session style of structure: multiple elders ruling over a congregation. Never vesting in just 1. Papists lie about this historical fact to justify their usurping of authority.
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@The_Midnight_Bear true, but authority is a magnet to those wishing to wield it. And since authority is granted to a position, not a person, anyone who weasels into said position will thus wield said authority. The roman church massively errored in eroding the checks and balances of the early structure (synodality and sessional rule) by sequestering authority into the papacy. The history behind pope was largely due to controversies not being able to be settled in synods. Thus they looked to the pope in Rome more and more to settle things. But this was ultimately just using a power play to bypass hard to assess topics.
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@floridaman318 I recommend re-reading those passages you are referring to: the rock being referred to is the statement that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. The keys are given to the apostles, not just to Peter, as Jesus is talking to all of them in that setting. The Acts passage has several apostles and elders discussed. Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and James all speak authoritatively and Peter himself says in vs 8 and 9 the following: "And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith." What more James has the final word in vs 19 when he says "Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God". Peter had a special place but it was one of the 12. The eastern tradition holds that Peter wasn't even the first bishop of Rome. In fact they hold that Paul and Peter both established the church there and appointed elders (note, multiple) over it, which agrees with Eusebius and Clement of Rome (himself one of the elders in Rome). Rome's later self authorized claim to supremacy is nothing more than hubris which came to divide the church in the 11th century. The papacy is illegitimate, Christ alone is head and he needs no vicar. All believers are the true priesthood, bishops and elders are there to safeguard the immature flock with the aim of growing believers in the faith till they gain maturity. Rome abandoned them to ignorance (by forbidding the vernacular) in order to rule over them thus causing a second schism in the reformation.
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@The_Midnight_Bear The church didn't corrupt the state, nor did the state corrupt the church. People sought authority to do as they wished and they used the institutions that were established to gain the power to do so. The structure of those institutions were such that there were no restrictions on leadership, thus anyone who gained office could abuse their authority if they so desired. If anything it was the idea of divine right to rule (which was less of a church declared doctrine and one more supported/asserted by civil authority), which itself is a misreading of the Bible. The Bible's teaching is that God does establish rulership but the purpose of ruling is to benefit the people being ruled. Rulers will be judged harshly for what they do. It is easy to gloss over self-serving mis-readings of scripture and blame either civil or religious authority when you know neither history or theology. What more, the deeper question is that of corruption: how is it that institutions become corrupt and or how to people become corrupt. The American experiment was based on the protestant theological idea that people are by nature corrupt and that institutional structure can help mitigate the inherent corruption of human nature. Thus though people must be ruled, no man is fit to rule alone. Human authority is seen as a necessary evil and ought to be limited since tyranny is only as far away as leadership is unrestricted. You must balance the tyranny of the majority, the tyranny of chaos, and the tyranny of the minority.
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@floridaman318 I'm not the one misreading the Bible. When all the eastern bishops disagree with Rome and a schism results, one would normally pause: but no says the romans, everyone else is wrong, we hold the only authority to set ourselves as Christ's sole heir. Quite convenient for them. The elders were not priests. Anyone who has read any of the early church fathers would plainly see that. The 12 plus Paul shared authority. Peter wasn't the head. The apostles shared authority among themselves and with the bishops. The Roman church gaining prominence was just a byproduct of the city being the capital. Seeing itself as leading the rest was just hubris, ultimately causing several major splits in the church. Indeed, Cyprian, at the council of Carthage in 256 chastised the roman bishop saying he wasn't a bishop of bishops. Read the early church documents. Literally anything before the Nicaean council, and you won't see a focus on rome at all. The bishops ruled as equals, each was accountable to each other. Tertullian started to make claims that churches founded by apostles had more authority than those who weren't but Cyprian rebuffed Rome's assertions. History isn't on the side of tyrants, never will be. Papists have mislead the world and church has suffered greatly for it.
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@Violet-h2e Jefferson also saw what the church of England did as well as what the Vatican did: persecute those they disagreed with. He didn't want that, it wasn't just Islam, even though Sharia is easily as bad if not worse than anything the the papists or protestants had done.
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