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pablope
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With permission from his bishop and the latin bishop…obedience is important.
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Elizium23
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The answer you’re looking for is “no”, that permission would be illicit.
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spedteacherita
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Believe me, this is just the tip of the ice berg, actually! Unfortunately!
But, seriously, the majority of the Protestant churches would be comfortable with stating the Apostles Creed:
At least the important basis for our faith is that Christ was incarnate, died as a sacrifice for our sins, was resurrected 3 days later and is returning to take us Home.
The stuff we disagree on will not affect whether or not we will be in Heaven - it’s between the person and Christ as to how this will end up …
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Contarini
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The RCC and the Orthodox Churches are not fully united.
A Byzantine Catholic priest, on the other hand, could.
I’m really not sure what you are saying at this point. Calvinism is a very broad category, and as I think has been demonstrated there are people who could broadly be described as “Calvinist” who are not in union with each other.
I would put it the other way round–Calvinism is a broad tradition, not a denomination.
At any rate, it isn’t true that “Calvinism is Calvinism.” Some Calvinists say that other Calvinists aren’t really Calvinists, or even Christians.
Edwin
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aidanbradypop
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I know. I was making a point. Maybe a bad one.
Well they would be entitled to their opinion just like you and I. Calvinism is Calvinism just like Catholicism is Catholicism and Arminianism is Arminianism. What changes is simply a group’s tradition. Where it gets tricking is Reformed Anglicans. I would call them Calvinist and not Anglican. Make sense? It is obvious that we view denominations differently.
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LutheranScholar
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This faith I believe and profess…
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LutheranScholar
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Yes, I too have heard of this 30K denominations idea. The thing is, most Protestants belong to the more prominent denominations. I’ve lived in Florida for a few years too and I’ve noticed a few of these street side churches. I’m reasonably sure that these churches are either Independents or part of larger groups: I’ve often driven by this quaint little church on the way to Lifetree Café meetings when I lived in the area:allsoulsjax.org/.
It’s next to a shopping center. There are other churches that seem to fill almost every little nook and cranny in the city. I must admit that they get the Word out!
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Erich
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Calvinism may be Calvinism… but Catholicism is not Eastern Orthodoxy, and no one here ever claimed anything otherwise.
I’m pretty sure Reformed Anglicans and Reformed Baptists don’t share worship/clergy.
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Erich
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So… you think it’s possible to get into Heaven without God’s approval?
This Bible Christian Society newsletter makes some good points. In summary:
Consider 1 Cor 11:18-19: “*In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.”
*So, there were divisions among the Corinthian congregation. And, these divisions were such that they helped to reveal who had God’s approval. Which means, on the flip side, that there were those among the Corinthian congregation who did not have God’s approval.
Believers in an “invisible church of true believers” tend to also be believers in the notion that there are “essential” and “non-essential” doctrines and as long as we agree on the “essentials,” then we can have union with one another and we’re all saved. Problem is, who gets to decide what is an essential and what is a non-essential doctrine? And, since doctrines come from the Word of God, which part of the Word of God does one actually dare to call “non-essential?”
The notion that that we can be in union with those we have doctrinal disagreements with…that there can be true unity among those with doctrinal differences…those with different versions of what is and is not truth… is a false notion. 1 Cor 11:18-19 shows that divisions among Christians - the Corinthians being written to by Paul were all members of the Church… they were all Christians - cannot simply be ignored by using a contrived theological system which divides doctrines into essential vs. non-essential. Differences among Christians are serious matters that lead to some being approved by God and some not being approved by God.
Did the Apostles teach different doctrines to different people? The answer, of course, is “No.” The Apostles all taught the same doctrines…ALL the same doctrines. After all, Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit was to guide them into all truth. If they are guided into all truth, then they cannot help but teach identical doctrines…they cannot help but teach the same truths…to all the different peoples they came across. Again, from 1 Cor 11:18-19, it is obvious that there were those among the Corinthians who believed different doctrines. Who taught them these different doctrines, the Apostles? I don’t think so.
Well, if the Apostles didn’t teach different doctrines, then why is it okay for the pastors of today’s thousands upon thousands of Protestant denominations to teach different doctrines one from another? And, if it wasn’t okay for the Corinthians to hold to different beliefs…beliefs that caused division within the Christian congregation…then why is it okay today for Protestants to hold to different beliefs…beliefs that cause division within Christianity?
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aidanbradypop
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They are both Calvinist, yet have differing traditions
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Ignatius
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Yes, there are many small, unaffiliated protestant ecclesial communities which are a denomination unto themselves. Most of them die out or continue for a generation or two when the founder and his children die.
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spedteacherita
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Do you know the dividing issues that the people of Corinth were having problems with? You say “obviously” it was different doctrines but I don’t see that. Maybe someone else can help there.
I will keep your information in mind, Erich as I do some more studying.
I rely on the scripture that tells us that Christ was the only way to enter heaven.
At this point I still stand by what I said before:
Thanks!
Rita
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Erich
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Paul himself, in vv. 20-34, tells us what the dividing issues were. His main message is not to receive Communion in a state of sin, but he clearly also refers to the Eucharist as the actual body and blood of Christ.
For him to say, in v. 20, “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat,” it should be pretty obvious that some in Corinth thought otherwise.
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Erich
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And in John 6, Christ Himself tells us:
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
52 If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world.
53 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
54 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
55 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.
56 For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.
57 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.
58 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me.
59 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever.
60 These things he said, teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum.
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Contarini
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Are you suggesting that Paul is condemning the idea that the Eucharist is “the Lord’s Supper”?
I don’t think that is a plausible reading of the text, at all.
Rather, I think commentators are generally agreed that Paul is condemning the socially divisive and selfish ways in which the Corinthians are celebrating their communal meal, which makes their meal no longer truly “the Lord’s Supper” in terms of its spiritual significance, at least (not necessarily invalid in the later Latin Catholic sense–I can’t see that any NT writer ever bothered his head about that particular question).
Edwin
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Contarini
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You keep saying this. But your usage is idiosyncratic and doesn’t match ecclesiological reality.
Calvinist Anglicans and non-Calvinist Anglicans regularly worship together and share the same ecclesial structures (I mean organizational structures, but obviously it applies to buildings too).
It makes no sense to say that two Anglicans with different theologies are of different “denominations,” while two people who worship separately, celebrate the sacraments differently, and have no organizational connection at all belong to the same “denomination” just because they agree on certain points of soteriology.
In other words, I’d reverse your usage entirely. Calvinism is a “tradition,” not a denomination or a church. It is a theological tradition–often attenuated in modern usage to the “five points” relating to soteriology and predestination, though really it encompasses far more than that.
Edwin
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aidanbradypop
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For me, you have Calvinism and within Calvinism you have different faith traditions.
A Reformed Baptist is a Calvinist first and Baptist second. Look at it like a tomato plant. There is one plant (Calvinism) with many different tomatoes, yet still one plant.
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Contarini
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Actually the word “theos” (God) is not mentioned in the Greek text, which may not be important, but I think the “dynamic equivalence” translation you are citing lends itself to your misreading of the text. A more “formal equivalence” translation would be “so that those who are approved/tested/trustworthy” may be manifest." The word you’re putting weight on is “dokimoi.” You are taking it to mean that the divisions make it clear that one side is right and the other sides are wrong. But Paul’s language about those belonging to Paul, Peter, Apollos, Christ, etc. indicates that in his view all sides are wrong. He never suggests that one particular group is in the right. The “dokimoi” are more likely to be those who show their true faith by working against division and resisting the splitting into factions. It’s highly unlikely that he’s saying that one faction is really “the true Church” and not a faction at all.
The essential/non-essential distinction is obviously correct. Everyone makes it, in one way or the other, and Catholic polemic against it is self-defeating. It doesn’t depend on the problematic notion of “an invisible church of true believers.” One of my problems with Catholic ecclesiology is that, at least as promulgated on this forum, it seems to involve exactly such a notion (people whom you guys judge to be unorthodox are regularly declared not to be “true Catholics,” and Protestants are sometimes spoken of as members of the “soul” but not the “body” of the Church, which is obviously an invisible-Church theology). Rather, the major alternative to Catholic ecclesiology (leaving aside Orthodox ecclesiology) is a robustly visible view of the Church. All who are baptized and have not openly renounced the faith are part of the Church, with all their warts. To say that a person is a Christian believer but not part of the Church is, in this view, to speak nonsense.
The Catholic Church has done that by saying that those who were baptized in the name of the Trinity and hold to the ancient Creeds are brothers and sisters in Christ.
The Catholic Church, currently, wants to have it both ways: Protestants are brothers and sisters but are not worthy of full inclusion in the Church. I’m not at all sure that this works. (Admittedly my own personal situation, in which becoming Catholic would mean not receiving communion with my family, makes this particularly acute for me.)
It’s not the Word that is nonessential, but interpretations thereof. The fundamental Protestant criticism of Catholicism is that Catholicism blurs the line between the two. I think that the issue actually gets obscured when phrased in “Scripture vs. tradition” terms.
Only because you are smuggling in a circular definition of “doctrine.” That is to say, you are using “doctrine” to mean “teachings that must be held by all Christians as a condition of unity.”
It is clearly true that Christians can be in union with those with whom we have theological differences. What is the difference between theology and doctrine? (I believe there is a difference, but I can see different ways in which the difference could be formulated, which would affect how we address the question you have raised.)
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Contarini
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That reverses Paul’s point–Paul is criticizing the Corinthians for being divided from each other over things that shouldn’t divide them. He is not saying, “all those other groups are heretics and you, one true group, are right in being divided from them.” So yes, Paul is clearly endorsing an essential/inessential distinction. He is clearly saying that the things dividing the “Paul,” “Peter,” “Apollos,” and “Christ” factions do not need to divide them. Nowhere does he single out one of these factions as the correct one.
Again, this begs the question. You need to define “doctrine” first, so that we can see whether your statement is or is not simply a tautology, and if it isn’t, what exactly it means.
Clearly there were theological differences among the Apostles, and differences of practical approach to important questions as well.
You’re assuming, as Catholic apologists routinely assume, that this “guiding” was a short-term affair which resulted in everyone having the fullness of the truth. This blatantly contradicts the reality of doctrinal development and Catholic teaching on that subject, as well as the historical evidence for confusion and disagreement within the Church from the beginning.
I would reverse this:
If it wasn’t OK for one of the Corinthian factions to say that it was true and the others were false, why is it OK for one Christian church to say this today?
Edwin
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Contarini
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Of course a Reformed Baptist is a subdivision of the broader Calvinist tradition.
But if we are talking about “churches,” as the OP implies, then your usage is misleading: Calvinism is in no sense a church.
Furthermore, it isn’t necessarily true that Reformed Baptists are Calvinists first and Baptists second. Many are. But some might see their Baptist identity as more important or equally important. Reformed Baptists who belong to separate Reformed Baptist denominations (yes, there are many Baptist denominations) would be more likely to fit your definition. But there are many Southern Baptists, for instance, who are theologically Reformed but worship and associate with Southern Baptists who do not share their Reformed convictions.
And this is far more true of Anglicanism. There no doubt are Anglicans who are Reformed first and Anglican second. But there are many others who are not. And again, most Reformed Anglicans worship and associate with non-Reformed Anglicans in one way or another.
Anglicans and Baptists are, admittedly, the two opposite ends of the Reformed tradition, and both groups include many (such as myself in the case of Anglicanism) who aren’t Calvinists. Which is why they are good test cases. Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Dutch Reformed are much more straightforwardly subdivisions of the Calvinist tradition.
Edwin
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