a question for noncatholic christians

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Rightlydivide said:
Because we do not agree on too many important things.
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But if you didn’t have an alterative, would you really go floundering in you own understanding instead of seeking the absolute Truth which Jesus gave to His Apostoles to hand on down to His Church those 2000 years ago? 🤷 Peace, Carlan
 
traillius said:
Hypothetically, if your church, denomination, fellowship, sect, or congregation, or its leadership, decided to merge with Rome, thus becoming part of the Roman Catholic Church, what would you do? would you follow into Rome, or would you leave and find another church? (or denom., etc…)
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IT would truly depend on that that merger looked like and involved. If it meant submitting to the primacy of the pope and his election taking place the same way it does now, if it meant adopting Catholic doctrines on a number of other issues…I could not be a part of it.
 
Carlan said:
But if you didn’t have an alterative, would you really go floundering in you own understanding instead of seeking the absolute Truth which Jesus gave to His Apostoles to hand on down to His Church those 2000 years ago? 🤷 Peace, Carlan
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The scenario was not my church or the Catholic Church…that is what this response seems to denote but perhaps I misunderstand you or the OP.
We are not floundering and praise God I certainly am not!!
 
As a Southern Baptist, I would have to safely say that it would be impossible the entire denomination to rejoin the Catholic Church. The Southern Baptist Convention simply does not have the authority to do that.

At the present time as a single guy in his 20s, if my congregation chose to perfect our communion with Rome as it stands today, I would seek out another Southern Baptist congregation. As much as I respect the Catholic Church and think its teachings provide a path to salvation within Jesus’ plan, my beliefs differ from mandatory Catholic teachings on too many subjects for me to be able to follow into communion with Rome.

There are two things that could make me consider communing with Rome
  1. Marrying a good Catholic girl (though I would push communing with the Eastern Orthodox churches instead of Rome if she was completely uninterested in becoming protestant)
  2. A worldwide ecumenical effort had taken place in which Rome first became Eastern Orthodox
EO beliefs are just a lot easier for me to buy into than RC (though I do realize they’re similar).
 
traillius said:
Hypothetically, if your church, denomination, fellowship, sect, or congregation, or its leadership, decided to merge with Rome, thus becoming part of the Roman Catholic Church, what would you do? would you follow into Rome, or would you leave and find another church? (or denom., etc…)
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My situation is far too autonomous for any one person to cause a large group of people to follow them anywhere. If my pastor became Catholic or aligned himself with any other denomination, he would leave the church and we’d get a new pastor. He doesn’t have the ability to take people with him- no more than I do, really. Nor does he have the ability to unilaterally change the church from “non-denominational” to anything else. We don’t really have any sort of setup in which that’s doable- if it ever came up, which it won’t, it would probably require a unanimous vote by all members of the church. And unanimous approval by the elders and pastors before it even went to a vote. We don’t really have anything in place for a change that drastic- basically, we’re a non-denominational church that won’t ever change into anything else, and we either survive and grow or lose members and stop existing.

To answer your question a little more precisely, if a prominent member of my church’s leadership wandered off the reservation, he would leave, I would stay, and no one would expect me to follow him anywhere. As for my own decision to remain non-Catholic, this would not affect me. I choose not to be Catholic because it’s up to me and that’s what I’ve decided to do. It’s always been up to me, and that’s how it always will be. If a pastor converts to Catholicism and it happens to be my pastor, it changes nothing as far as what I’m doing. He doesn’t make these decisions for me, nor does he have the ability to change our non-denominational place of worship into anything besides that. He’s able to do exactly as much as you’re able to do with me: Invite me to explore Catholicism with the intent of conversion, which I politely decline. And then I continue attending my non-denominational place of worship, which will be a non-denominational place of worship for as long as it continues to exist. People may come and go as they like (pastors included), but no one has the ability to change our place of worship into something different. That can’t happen. We never intended for it to be possible.
 
traillius said:
Roman Catholics didn’t leave the Orthodox Church, The Orthodox Churches chose to be schismatic. So, you would be rejoining Rome, not welcoming it back.
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What reason could you possibly have for saying that? Do you have a reason, or are you making a funny?
 
This is by far the least likely scenario to ever happen (the church I am looking at has been separated from both Rome and Constantinople for much longer than either have been separated from one another), but if somehow, by the grace and hand of God, Rome were to embrace Orthodoxy, I would have no problem with being in union with Rome. Not under it, but in union with it.
 
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