Catholicism vs Protestant-does it even matter?

[Amo_a_Jesus]

D Ronald I know what you mean, I’m not saying that is bad to have all this churches, but I was trying to respond the question and if my opinion if does matter or not, an for me it does, that doesn’t mind they all wrong, for me there is only one Church who got the Full Truth, the others one share some of the truth , but they don’t even agree, i will love to see the seventh day, the non-denominational churches, the Baptist come together as one church you think that will be possible?

And like you pray for all the Christians on the middle east, and I hope one day they finish to persecute us.

 

[dronald]

D Ronald I know what you mean, I’m not saying that is bad to have all this churches, but I was trying to respond the question and if my opinion if does matter or not, an for me it does, that doesn’t mind they all wrong, for me there is only one Church who got the Full Truth, the others one share some of the truth , but they don’t even agree, i will love to see the seventh day, the non-denominational churches, the Baptist come together as one church you think that will be possible?

And like you pray for all the Christians on the middle east, and I hope one day they finish to persecute us.

Yeah, I hear ya.

I don’t look at multiple different Churches and say “look at how different they all are.” Rather, I see the Gospel being spread and rejoice when a Catholic Church goes up. It means the Gospel is being spread. I also rejoice when a Baptist Church goes up.

I love Churches and I love the evidence that more people find Christ.

As for the middle east (and China) I would rather have non-catholic Churches go up than no Churches at all. The first to bring Christianity to China was not Catholic and the middle east is largely Orthodox.

We need these different members of the same body to spread the Gospel to different countries.

 

[M1Garand]

I’ll take a different approach here and say no, it doesn’t matter.

Most doctrinal differences are tiny except for the Eucharist perhaps.

As a Catholic I completely agree with you in the general sense. What matters is evangelizing Christ to the world and all Christians can do this. Doctrinal disputes are only divisive and in my opinion tools of the devil to confuse non-believers.

I will also add this that in my experience and my opinion Protestants and evangelicals do a far better job of this mission than the average Catholic.

I edited this to add one more thought. Pope Francis would agree with your statement as well or at least that is how I interpret his pronouncements.

 

[Peter_J]

ok so i’m a college student from a Hindu background going through RCIA, and i keep hearing things from Protestants saying that Catholics are doing it wrong, and Catholics saying that Protestants are doing it wrong. my question is, does it really matter? like i know somewhere in the Bible, Jesus tells a guy that you’ll get in heaven if you love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. so as long as you’re doing that, does following a different denomination make what you’re doing incorrect?

I would really have to say Yes and No to this. I mean, it’s not like we would regard you as a bad Christian if you decide to join a different Christian church rather than Cathoilcism. But I wouldn’t go from that to saying that the differences don’t matter.

I think the best advice I can give is to try to decide whether it matters before you join.

 

[Hypnotoad]

ok so i’m a college student from a Hindu background going through RCIA, and i keep hearing things from Protestants saying that Catholics are doing it wrong, and Catholics saying that Protestants are doing it wrong. my question is, does it really matter? like i know somewhere in the Bible, Jesus tells a guy that you’ll get in heaven if you love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. so as long as you’re doing that, does following a different denomination make what you’re doing incorrect?

Yes it matters since how can you say you’re loving God with your whole mind, heart, body and soul if your are indifferent towards truth and the pursuit of truth? One of them is right and one of them is wrong. Your love for God and Jesus should spur you to find out or die trying to find out which one has the fullness of the truth.

 

[rinnie]

ok so i’m a college student from a Hindu background going through RCIA, and i keep hearing things from Protestants saying that Catholics are doing it wrong, and Catholics saying that Protestants are doing it wrong. my question is, does it really matter? like i know somewhere in the Bible, Jesus tells a guy that you’ll get in heaven if you love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. so as long as you’re doing that, does following a different denomination make what you’re doing incorrect?

Sometimes. You are correct Jesus does tell the guy you will get into heaven if you do that,’

But the problem is that all Jesus said you had to do to get into heaven?

What about going to mass? Was this a commandment keep holy the Sabbath?

How about confessing your sins?

How about being Baptised?

How about listening to the Church which is the Pilar of all truth?

How about not straying from the teachings of the early Fathers of the Church?

I could go on and on.

You can’t just take one command and run with it. You have to do your best to obey all of them.

How about you cannot have eternal life in you unless you eat and drink the body and blood of Christ?

 

[adf417]

Yes it matters since how can you say you’re loving God with your whole mind, heart, body and soul if your are indifferent towards truth and the pursuit of truth? ** One of them is right and one of them is wrong.** Your love for God and Jesus should spur you to find out or die trying to find out which one has the fullness of the truth.

I think the bolded part above would be better said… Many are right but only one is more right.

Peace!!!

 

[SteveVH]

As a Catholic I completely agree with you in the general sense. What matters is evangelizing Christ to the world and all Christians can do this. Doctrinal disputes are only divisive and in my opinion tools of the devil to confuse non-believers.

I will also add this that in my experience and my opinion Protestants and evangelicals do a far better job of this mission than the average Catholic.

I edited this to add one more thought. Pope Francis would agree with your statement as well or at least that is how I interpret his pronouncements.

Sorry, I don’t think Pope Francis would at all agree with that statement. The fact that he calls for unity and respects all people as children of God does not mean that he holds all faith traditions as equal. We are not called to find a faith tradition with which we are comfortable. We are called to find the Truth and to conform our lives to it, and the fullness of that Truth subsists only within the Catholic Church. Pope Francis knows this very well, trust me.

I find it interesting that things like the sacraments are viewed as secondary issues which we can all somehow get around in the interest of unity. Christ tells us that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we will have no life in us. We hold the Eucharist, not as just one more thing we do as Catholics, but rather the source and summit of our faith. So when one says that there are just a few things that separate us and implies that these differences are small, I would take great exception to that position.

 

[Kal2012]

Yes it does matter. It may not matter most of the time, in your day to day life. However, situations will come up where it will matter.

It didn’t matter to me until I dated a Catholic guy. Then, it because awkward because he’d never go to a Protestant church with me and I struggled to find my place in the Catholic community. He never forced me to become Catholic. Eventually, I did by my own desire.

There are very specific reasons why there are a lot of “Should I marry the person of ‘x’ religion” posts on this forum. Interfaith marriages have challenges that same-faith marriages don’t face.

 

[Michael57]

Yes it matters since how can you say you’re loving God with your whole mind, heart, body and soul if your are indifferent towards truth and the pursuit of truth? One of them is right and one of them is wrong. Your love for God and Jesus should spur you to find out or die trying to find out which one has the fullness of the truth.

Thank you for that post, Hypnotoad. Always good to hear from you.

:hypno:

 

[TK421]

Well, when you have groups with conflicting views on what is right, then either one among them has to be right, and the others wrong on some things, or all of them are wrong. However, it is not possible to rationally believe that all of them are right.

This has been a cause of a lot of conflict within protestantism in the centuries. Certain mainline protestant groups, whose influence has been waning for decades, have taken on a 2nd approach to this. Rather than attempting to reconcile every view, which they have not succeeded at, they have instead chosen to consider certain things to be non-essential to unity; this includes major contemporary social issues such as abortion, divorce, ordination of ministers, etc, so that Christianity is becoming increasingly nebulous and vaguely defined. That alone lets you clearly see that yes, it does matter. Within Christianity, there is debate and disconnect over what is inherently right, and what is inherently wrong. This has mutated to the point that there are a few labeled Christians that refuse to consider Muhammad’s teaching to have any less or greater authority than Jesus’ teaching.

The Catholic denomination believes there has been a solution to this from the very beginning. The apostles have been safeguarded by the Holy Spirit to preserve sound teaching from the beginning to the end. Every person should love God and have a desire to be in perfect harmony with Him, so naturally these conflicts in Christianity are worth very serious consideration. This is something that you’ll want to go to in prayer. Ask God to love you and be kind to you, and to make you wise as you discern who is right. I believe Catholicism’s arguments are irrefutable and adequate in laying to rest any inquisitive mind, but this is something you’ll have to explore for yourself.

 

[Michael57]

I’ll take a different approach here and say no, it doesn’t matter.

Most doctrinal differences are tiny except for the Eucharist perhaps.

I would say that the Mass (of which the Eucharist is the high point, IMHO) is the difference, and before I became Catholic, I did not understand this at all.

In my experience, the protestant services center on prayer, hymns, and the abilities of the person presiding over the service. The attention is principally on the man speaking and his words (even when he is speaking God’s words). The better the man (or woman) speaks, the greater the attendance because of the entertainment. The person has become the center of the church service. Again, my opinion only, and opinions like mileage may vary.

When I read how the early Church services were held, I looked around to see what churches were even using the same form. None of the protestant churches that I visited used it or anything comparable, and I visited many.

I visited a Catholic Mass with a friend, and was informed about abstaining from the Eucharist which, as a person with some Lutheran background (Mom’s side of the family, my attendance was rather nominal) was okay by me. It was very different than any protestant service I had ever attended. And many of the lies about Catholics that I had been told as I was growing up immediately evaporated into the ether.

The Mass, the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, was entirely different than what I had experienced prior to that. The Mass was Bible centered, and Christ focused, wrapped in Holy Tradition and in the same form that the Early Church Fathers.

One might think that this nearly over-powering experience, this feeling of having arrived Home, would result in a near instant conversion, and it did…about two decades later (my fault, my fault, my grievous fault!).

I often wonder how different my life might have been like, had I listened to God’s call earlier in my life rather than late.

So, I understand your perspective, and respect your position for I once thought like you, that the Catholic Church was “just another denomination”…and now I know it’s not.

God bless you.

 

[dronald]

I would say that the Mass (of which the Eucharist is the high point, IMHO) is the difference, and before I became Catholic, I did not understand this at all.

In my experience, the protestant services center on prayer, hymns, and the abilities of the person presiding over the service. The attention is principally on the man speaking and his words (even when he is speaking God’s words). The better the man (or woman) speaks, the greater the attendance because of the entertainment. The person has become the center of the church service. Again, my opinion only, and opinions like mileage may vary.

When I read how the early Church services were held, I looked around to see what churches were even using the same form. None of the protestant churches that I visited used it or anything comparable, and I visited many.

I visited a Catholic Mass with a friend, and was informed about abstaining from the Eucharist which, as a person with some Lutheran background (Mom’s side of the family, my attendance was rather nominal) was okay by me. It was very different than any protestant service I had ever attended. And many of the lies about Catholics that I had been told as I was growing up immediately evaporated into the ether.

The Mass, the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, was entirely different than what I had experienced prior to that. The Mass was Bible centered, and Christ focused, wrapped in Holy Tradition and in the same form that the Early Church Fathers.

One might think that this nearly over-powering experience, this feeling of having arrived Home, would result in a near instant conversion, and it did…about two decades later (my fault, my fault, my grievous fault!).

I often wonder how different my life might have been like, had I listened to God’s call earlier in my life rather than late.

So, I understand your perspective, and respect your position for I once thought like you, that the Catholic Church was “just another denomination”…and now I know it’s not.

God bless you.

God bless you as well!

 

[johnnyc176]

Sorry, I don’t think Pope Francis would at all agree with that statement. The fact that he calls for unity and respects all people as children of God does not mean that he holds all faith traditions as equal. We are not called to find a faith tradition with which we are comfortable. We are called to find the Truth and to conform our lives to it, and the fullness of that Truth subsists only within the Catholic Church. Pope Francis knows this very well, trust me.

I find it interesting that things like the sacraments are viewed as secondary issues which we can all somehow get around in the interest of unity. Christ tells us that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we will have no life in us. We hold the Eucharist, not as just one more thing we do as Catholics, but rather the source and summit of our faith. So when one says that there are just a few things that separate us and implies that these differences are small, I would take great exception to that position.

Excellent post. It should be a sticky.

 

[SteveVH]

Excellent post. It should be a sticky.

You are too kind.

 

[CarolNoel]

I would say that the Mass (of which the Eucharist is the high point, IMHO) is the difference, and before I became Catholic, I did not understand this at all.

In my experience, the protestant services center on prayer, hymns, and the abilities of the person presiding over the service. The attention is principally on the man speaking and his words (even when he is speaking God’s words). The better the man (or woman) speaks, the greater the attendance because of the entertainment. The person has become the center of the church service. Again, my opinion only, and opinions like mileage may vary.

When I read how the early Church services were held, I looked around to see what churches were even using the same form. None of the protestant churches that I visited used it or anything comparable, and I visited many.

I visited a Catholic Mass with a friend, and was informed about abstaining from the Eucharist which, as a person with some Lutheran background (Mom’s side of the family, my attendance was rather nominal) was okay by me. It was very different than any protestant service I had ever attended. And many of the lies about Catholics that I had been told as I was growing up immediately evaporated into the ether.

The Mass, the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, was entirely different than what I had experienced prior to that. The Mass was Bible centered, and Christ focused, wrapped in Holy Tradition and in the same form that the Early Church Fathers.

One might think that this nearly over-powering experience, this feeling of having arrived Home, would result in a near instant conversion, and it did…about two decades later (my fault, my fault, my grievous fault!).

I often wonder how different my life might have been like, had I listened to God’s call earlier in my life rather than late.

So, I understand your perspective, and respect your position for I once thought like you, that the Catholic Church was “just another denomination”…and now I know it’s not.

God bless you.

Aloha Michael. Beautiful post.

 

[spina1953]

I do think it matters. However, I think we must remember that God calls us all to be with Him. AS Christains, either Catholic or Prostestant or even non- christains we are seeking the truth and hopefully one finds it in the Catholic Church.

 

[Darryl1958]

ok so i’m a college student from a Hindu background going through RCIA, and i keep hearing things from Protestants saying that Catholics are doing it wrong, and Catholics saying that Protestants are doing it wrong. my question is, does it really matter? like i know somewhere in the Bible, Jesus tells a guy that you’ll get in heaven if you love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. so as long as you’re doing that, does following a different denomination make what you’re doing incorrect?

The history of Christianity is better described as the history of Christianities
As disparate as the teachings of Christianities are now, this was exponentially more the case at the very beginning of the movement.

One of the reasons that there are four gospels is that there were different forms of Christianity that the gospels that created these gospels in the first place. Not suprisingly then, there are discrepancies.

The reasons that there are four gospels instead of one compiled from the four, as had been proposed, was that the decision of early advocates of unity to embrace the differences. by doing so, such a decision affirmed that there would be conflicts within even orthodox Christianity.
With enough political clout, conflict could be managed. When political power wanes, discrepancies that have been there from the beginning tend toward disunity.

We are all the people of Israel. We are defined as the people who struggle against men and God himself, and prevail. The conflict that exists now does matter, but it is also the essence of who we are as a people. We are perpetually called to conflict. Our failure does not lie in fighting for the truth, but it only comes about when we are no longer passionate about the fight.

 

[M1Garand]

Sorry, I don’t think Pope Francis would at all agree with that statement. The fact that he calls for unity and respects all people as children of God does not mean that he holds all faith traditions as equal. We are not called to find a faith tradition with which we are comfortable. We are called to find the Truth and to conform our lives to it, and the fullness of that Truth subsists only within the Catholic Church. Pope Francis knows this very well, trust me.

I find it interesting that things like the sacraments are viewed as secondary issues which we can all somehow get around in the interest of unity. Christ tells us that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we will have no life in us. We hold the Eucharist, not as just one more thing we do as Catholics, but rather the source and summit of our faith. So when one says that there are just a few things that separate us and implies that these differences are small, I would take great exception to that position.

You read way too much into my statement. Pope Francis would agree with the supreme importance to evangelize the Gospel–that is what I was referring to. I was agreeing with DRONALD"s post that the most important thing is spreading the faith in Christ. We Christians, all members of the mystical body of Christ as that is referred to in Lumen Gentium, are called to feed Christ’s sheep. We like to argue with our Christian brothers about which food is best and in the meantime the sheep are starving and wondering the wilderness lost to the wolves.

 

[XD1993]

thanks for the replies everyone. i understand that the Catholic Church follows a lot of the things more properly etc, but what i was trying to say was that Protestants also have the same strong faith and do many good works (though they don’t believe works benefit) so won’t we all end up in the same place? like one person who’s a devout Catholic and another who’s a devout Baptist, will one be more favored by God?