Dr Paul Allen

Author: Cripplegate. Roman Catholicism installed Francis as pope. And much has been made of his bus rides and apartment dwelling back home in Buenos Aires . (The fact that people are impressed by his studied avoidance of opulence actually speaks volumes about Roman Catholicism in general). But while the press fawns and Rome beams over his supposed humility, what should Bible-believing Protestants say? Probably something like this: “How great sin have you heaped up for yourself, when you cut yourself off from so many flocks! For it is yourself that you have cut off. Do not deceive yourself!” Now that would probably not make the cut for a Christianity Today editorial, like A Pope for All Christians , but it is how Christians responded the first time a bishop in Rome made the incredibly arrogant claim that he was supreme pontiff. Conflicting over Church Membership Stephen, the bishop of Rome in the third century (d. A.D. 257), was actually the first guy to pull the “no, you kiss my

Saint Augustine of Hippo, a seminal thinker on the concept of just war (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) " Holy mother church "—historians are not certain who first said it. The statement has been attributed by some to Cyprian , by others to Augustine . The assertion has survived since the early centuries of Christian history —"Who does not have the church as his mother does not have God as his Father ." From its earliest days, the church was given the appellation "mother." The use of paternal and maternal language is an intriguing phenomenon in religion. We cannot deny the virtual universal tendency to seek ultimate consolation in some sort of divine maternity. We have all experienced the piercing poignancy that attends the plaintiff cry of a child who, in the midst of sobs, says, "I want my mommy." Who of us, when we were children, did not utter these words? Among those who are parents, which of us has not heard these words? The nurturing funct