Dear friends:

Do you attend a defective church?  Or one that is not a true church?

You do if you are not a Roman Catholic, according to the new Pope Benedict XVI.  See article and link below.

Well, I have attended many churches in my lifetime and I have never found one that was not defective, so the Pope may be on to something.  However, the difference is that their defect was not due to a lack of Roman Catholic doctrine.  It was due to being comprised of human beings not yet glorified.

The Pope's main argument is that only the Roman Catholic church adheres to what they call "apostolic succession."  But as with many Catholic doctrines, this is not biblical.  See discussion at http://www.gotquestions.org/apostolic-succession.html

Let's cut the Pope some slack because when I was a kid many Protestant churches also thought they were "the one true church."  Some still do.

I once heard evangelist and TV host Ben Kinchlow proclaim that he had found "the one true church."

"It's where my mother goes," he said.  "My mother would not go to the wrong church," he insisted!

Let's face it.  That is why many people are in the churches they are in -- both Protestant and Catholic.  It's where their mother went!  Hopefully, however, most eventually start comparing their church's teachings with Scripture and reacting accordingly.  Still, there may be differences.  But unless the differences involve the basics of the faith, such as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the authority of God's Word, and salvation by grace through faith, let love prevail.  Love the brethren, and be a blessing to others.

Again, see article below.

Jim
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From: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/7/10/213423.shtml?s=ic

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy ­ For the second time in a week, Pope Benedict XVI has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, reasserting the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church and saying other Christian communities were either defective or not true churches.
Benedict approved a document released Tuesday from his old office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which repeated church teaching on Catholic relations with other Christians….
"Christ 'established here on earth' only one Church," said the document released as the pope vacations at a villa in Lorenzago di Cadore, in Italy's Dolomite mountains.
The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession -- the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles -- and therefore their priestly ordinations are not valid, it said.