Are protestants able to go to Heaven?

[JaredM]

Coming from a person who has struggled MIGHTILY with Anglican-or-Catholic, Anglican-or-Catholic over and over for the better part of a couple of years, I feel your pain in which you are caught between two worlds. It’s tough indeed. But I will say that Lutheranism and Catholicism are incompatible, hence Luther’s split with Catholicism. His very departure was his own admission to he and his followers that they could not in good conscience remain in the CC. Likewise, one cannot attend Lutheran worship and theological values and be Catholic. They have too much that contradicts and especially the Catholic Church has an all-or-nothing product. Like Costco, you buy it in bulk or not at all!

I know it’s bizarre, but I view that Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism are not incompatible with each other. I was raised by a Lutheran mother and an Irish Catholic father.(who has recently converted to Lutheranism) I agree with most of the Roman Catholic Church (pro-life, evolution, Liberation theology, etc.) but then I disagree with a few things:

1.) The Pope He sometimes gives out knowledge and wisdom here and there but I don’t think just one man can speak for a religion of 1 billion people.
2.)Confessing your sins to a priest. The only person I confess my sins with is God.
3.)Females and the priest hood. I would like to see women priests.
Trevor Stamm:

Rebellion against the Church, like Lutheranism and the rest of the Reformation, is rebellion against the Holy Spirit and thus is a rebellion against the LORD.

What am I reading here? I haven’t rebelled against the Lord. I’m a Christian regardless. Yes Martin Luther and the Reformation rebelled against the Catholic Church but they had to. You have to rebel against a corrupt system. (the Catholic Church was very corrupt at the time)

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

In reading your #'s 1, 2, and 3 I have to tell you that those beliefs are totally out of sync with Catholicism, I mean way out of bounds. You sound like you belong in an ELCA Lutheran parish church far more than Catholic. Your beliefs are too liberal for LCMS, the brand of Lutheranism I prefer most.

I know it’s bizarre, but I view that Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism are not incompatible with each other. I was raised by a Lutheran mother and an Irish Catholic father.(who has recently converted to Lutheranism) I agree with most of the Roman Catholic Church (pro-life, evolution, Liberation theology, etc.) but then I disagree with a few things:

1.) The Pope He sometimes gives out knowledge and wisdom here and there but I don’t think just one man can speak for a religion of 1 billion people.
2.)Confessing your sins to a priest. The only person I confess my sins with is God.
3.)Females and the priest hood. I would like to see women priests.

What am I reading here? I haven’t rebelled against the Lord. I’m a Christian regardless. Yes Martin Luther and the Reformation rebelled against the Catholic Church but they had to. You have to rebel against a corrupt system. (the Catholic Church was very corrupt at the time)

 

[Angel_Hazard]

Are protestants able to go to Heaven? Can they be saved?

Yes, just as much as anyone else. My Daddy was a protestant when he passed away I felt it in my heart that he went to heaven. Some say this can’t be, but for me I know he did. He did his best to live by what he believed. Unlike many others he lived his faith, helped others and loved God. In the end that is what counts.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Great post, Angel. Blessings be upon your father’s soul.

Yes, just as much as anyone else. My Daddy was a protestant when he passed away I felt it in my heart that he went to heaven. Some say this can’t be, but for me I know he did. He did his best to live by what he believed. Unlike many others he lived his faith, helped others and loved God. In the end that is what counts.

 

[dzheremi]

Jared: You should know that the Roman Catholic Church has condemned liberation theology as a perversion of the Christian faith for political ends, which is in no way acceptable. No less a figure than Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope) issued condemnations of liberation theology on at least two different occasions during the 1980s (one is available here), when this political idea was at its strongest throughout Latin America. I don’t recall the exact circumstances at the moment, but I remember being told in RCIA that when Pope John Paul II came to Nicaragua (?) in the early 1980s during the Sandinista uprising, he scolded the bishops who had become political tools of various factions in the civil war of that country, telling them “regularize yourselves within the Church”, meaning that they could either serve the guerrilla cause or God. NOT both.

I may disagree with the Catholic Church on some issues, but on this one I can give a heartfelt “Amen!”

 

[meltzerboy]

Well of course not. I mean, if we were looking for a church whose members were all perfect, we’d be lost. No such church.

As for the choosing hell (which God forbid for any of us). . .well, Scripture bears out (I believe in Ezekiel) that if a righteous man (so far) decides to sin mortally, he shall die. . .and if a sinner turns from his sin and chooses righteousness, he shall live.

In fact God goes on to chastize those who complain that it isn’t FAIR for God to allow a person who once sinned to ‘live’ if that sinner chooses to repent and do good at the end, and that it isn’t ‘fair’ that somebody who ‘did a bunch of good deeds’ earlier in life but chose, at the end, to deny those good things and choose evil, would be punished for the evil and not rewarded for the good. But God says that His way is righteous, and I believe Him.

One good deed doesn’t ‘earn’ points for heaven, so many points guaranteeing entrance. Good deeds do not ‘balance out’ bad ones. It is one’s state of mind at death (and we should all be praying daily to St. Joseph, patron saint of a happy death, for his intercession) which counts. Now all things being equal, if you’ve been a good person doing good for love of God (and not just because you get ego-boo from being thought ‘such a good person’) you are more LIKELY to be inclined to be thinking about and loving God and to make the choice for heaven at death. . . but you aren’t '100% guaranteed that you won’t ‘fall’ and choose hell. Likewise, even the most hellacious sinner might be touched by the prayer of the person he is about to kill, and at the very last minute of life repent his evil deeds and choose heaven instead of hell.

It’s all in the way you look at things. If you concentrate on God’s mercy, you’ll think, “How wonderful is His grace. . .even the most hardened sinner has the opportunity to repent and to choose heaven!” Because really that is the most wonderful gift God has given us. . .grace for salvation IF WE SO CHOOSE.

Then, according to your thinking, a person such as Hitler might have had a deathbed conversion toward Jesus and been saved, while a man like Gandhi (apart from the fact he was Hindu), or let’s say Mother Theresa, might have slipped up at the end of their life and gone to Hell as a result?

 

[Angel_Hazard]

Great post, Angel. Blessings be upon your father’s soul.

Thank you HUGS:hug3:

 

[JaredM]

In reading your #'s 1, 2, and 3 I have to tell you that those beliefs are totally out of sync with Catholicism, I mean way out of bounds. You sound like you belong in an ELCA Lutheran parish church far more than Catholic. Your beliefs are too liberal for LCMS, the brand of Lutheranism I prefer most.

Actually I am a member of the ELCA.

 

[moondweller]

Sorry, I don’t go by your interpretation of Scripture nor will I take the thread off topic by debating OSAS with you. That topic has been discussed to death on CAF, but if you can’t get enough of it, you should do a search to find threads in which you can wallow all you’d like.

Off topic? The question is “Are Protestants able to go to Heaven?” So I would think one must ask, “How does one get to heaven in the first place?”

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Then you are indeed in the right spot IMO…

Actually I am a member of the ELCA.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Forgive my ignorance, moondweller, but what is “bac?”

Off topic? The question is “Are Protestants able to go to Heaven?” So I would think one must ask, “How does one get to heaven in the first place?”

 

[Laodicean]

…847 **This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: **…

A question, “Who then is ‘this affirmation’ aimed at?” Specifics, quote Canon.

A second question, "What of the persons, being protestants [etc.], who absolutely, knowingly, persistantly, reject the roman catholic church in all its ‘supreme magisterium’, can they be saved? If so, specifics, official quotations only. If they cannot, why not? Specifics, official quotations only.

 

[moondweller]

Forgive my ignorance, moondweller, but what is “bac?”

“Born again Christian” through personal faith in Jesus Christ.

 

[William_Pitts]

A question, “Who then is ‘this affirmation’ aimed at?” Specifics, quote Canon.

A second question, "What of the persons, being protestants [etc.], who absolutely, knowingly, persistantly, reject the roman catholic church in all its ‘supreme magisterium’, can they be saved? If so, specifics, official quotations only. If they cannot, why not? Specifics, official quotations only.

You quoted someone who was quoting the section from the catechism 847

Here is the complete section:

“Outside the Church there is no salvation”
846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?[335] Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.[336]​

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.[337]​

848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”[338]

 

[Eric_Hilbert]

Thread has reached it’s end.
Thanks to all