Word: mackay
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...salvation, Dr. Mackay says that Protestants believe that "man is delivered from sin and all its consequences through faith in, that is, through commitment to, Jesus Christ . . . He is accessible to the approach of the meanest human sinner...
...Political Catholicism," says Dr. Mackay, is "the most subtle challenge of these three." To meet it, he formulates what he calls "some fundamental principles of a Protestant strategy." Prime requisite of Dr. Mackay's strategy is that it should not be negative-"marked by no mere blistering denunciations." Instead, Protestants "must apprehend in the light of the Gospel the nature of the Roman error," and this means "an intelligent understanding of the Christian faith . . . what the Bible is, what salvation is and what the Christian Church...
Authority & Salvation. To Protestants, he says, the Bible is "the supreme authority upon all matters of Christian belief and behavior . . . the chief and permanent medium of the Christian's communion with God." But to Roman Catholics, says Dr. Mackay, Church tradition "is equal in authority to the Bible. Moreover, the Church itself, under the leadership of an infallible pope, is ultimately more authoritative than either the Bible or tradition...
Much to Do. "For the Protestant Christian," writes Mackay, "the Church is basically a fellowship of believers which has been created by the Holy Spirit. Its ministers . . . are servants of the Church, not its masters. In the Roman Catholic view, Jesus Christ did not found a fellowship, but rather an organization. The hierarchs of this organization belong to the Church in a sense that ordinary Christians do not. In the evangelical view, 'where Christ is, there is the Church.' In the Roman view, 'where the Church is, there is Christ...
This concept of the Church, according to Dr. Mackay, leads to clericalism, which he defines as "the pursuit of power, especially of political power, by a religious hierarchy, carried on by secular methods and for the purposes of social domination. Clericalism constitutes the greatest spiritual menace in the Western world of today...