yes, well, most sects and even cults seek out poorly catechized people and lure them into their “faith” by pointing out the wrong things they see about the Catholic Church. its pretty convincing to those who are under-educated about the faith they hold. sad that some people go through live believing in something they don’t quite understand. i always say, faith doesn’t have to be blind.
I’ll try.
Probably so. We are a sacramental church, some other Protestants are, many are not. But that has an effect on how we view things, and how we are viewed. I think one will find that the closer a denomination is to the reformation, the more teachings and practices of the Catholic Church remain - liturgy, sacraments, creeds, etc. The way we worship, what we believe, teach, and profess, will seem very different to Baptists, or Nazarenes, etc.
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Hope that helps. As a start, one can read Luther’s Small Catechism, and the Augsburg Confession to see what Lutherans confess.
Remember that this is a Catholic forum, and Catholics view Lutherans as Protestant, so when the generalized “this is what Protestants believe - do - say…” comes up, I’m often quick to point out the problem with general statements, and I don’t want folks left with the notion that “Lutherans don’t Baptize infants”, for example./QUOTE]
Well then I apoligize…when I talk about my experience in the Protestant churches…what I really mean then is Protestant churches minus Lutherans…because I’ve always considered them to be more closely aligned to the Catholic Church…with some key differences.
Thanks
Traditionally, both Protestants and Catholics were at best dubious about each other’s salvation, though Catholics were if anything more emphatic about the damnation of Protestants than vice versa (you could afford to be–for Protestants to say that Catholics couldn’t be saved raised the difficult question: “what about medieval Christians?”). For most folks on both sides that has changed dramatically in the past couple centuries. Official Catholic teaching still requires you to put more qualifications around your belief in Protestants’ salvation than Protestants need to do on their side. Many Protestants think it’s quite simple–Catholics are just another variety of Christian. However, because Protestants do not have a unified hierarchy, there is huge diversity among Protestants on this as on many other issues. Catholics who want to say that all Protestants are going to hell have the Magisterium to reckon with. Protestants who say that Catholics are going to hell typically think many other Protestants aren’t “true Christians” either, so are not going to be interested in what moderate Protestants have to say.
Friend Edwin,Traditionally, both Protestants and Catholics were at best dubious about each other’s salvation, though Catholics were if anything more emphatic about the damnation of Protestants than vice versa (you could afford to be–for Protestants to say that Catholics couldn’t be saved raised the difficult question: “what about medieval Christians?”). For most folks on both sides that has changed dramatically in the past couple centuries. Official Catholic teaching still requires you to put more qualifications around your belief in Protestants’ salvation than Protestants need to do on their side. Many Protestants think it’s quite simple–Catholics are just another variety of Christian. However, because Protestants do not have a unified hierarchy, there is huge diversity among Protestants on this as on many other issues. Catholics who want to say that all Protestants are going to hell have the Magisterium to reckon with. Protestants who say that Catholics are going to hell typically think many other Protestants aren’t “true Christians” either, so are not going to be interested in what moderate Protestants have to say.
Thus, it’s true that you can certainly find significant sectors of the Protestant population, particularly in the southern United States (and of course Northern Ireland and some similar Protestant bastions), who still believe that Catholics have abandoned the essentials of the Faith and cannot be saved as long as they believe all the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Since these folks are not only clustered in particular regions, but very noisy wherever they are found, it is easy for Catholics living within shouting distance of them to think that they are representative of Protestants as a whole.
A further wrinkle to consider: evangelical Protestants tend to think of salvation in very individualistic terms, and to define a “Christian” as someone who is truly “saved”–who has a living faith in Christ, which evangelicals tend to think of as a more or less permanent state (some believe in “eternal security” and some do not, but even those who do not tend to assume that you won’t bob in and out of a state of grace on a regular basis). Evangelical Protestants believe strongly that no set of doctrines and no institutional affiliation can save you, so the more conservative ones often express strong concerns about whether “nominal Christians” are “real Christians” or not. Quite naturally, evangelical Protestants generally disagree quite strongly with many Catholic teachings, especially with regard to salvation, and for both theological and sociological reasons (in other words, Catholicism casts a “wide net” and doesn’t practice church discipline very strictly by conservative Protestant standards) they conclude that there are many “nominal Christians” in the Catholic Church. It’s important to realize that they think there are such people in *every *church. It’s just that a “gathered church” of people who have all made an adult profession of faith and who hold one another accountable is naturally less likely to have people whose faith is nominal or lukewarm, and furthermore that, in the view of most evangelical Protestants, Catholic teaching about salvation tends to be fuzzy at best.
Hence, many evangelicals will say things like “Catholics can be Christians,” sometimes in a rather hesitant tone. It’s important to understand that by “Christians” they mean (in Catholic language) “in a state of grace.” There is nothing offensive to Catholics in the claim that many Catholics are not in a state of grace. Obviously Catholics will disagree with the idea that Catholic doctrine regarding salvation is at fault, but many Catholics are quick to agree that Catholic evangelization of the baptized is often at serious fault.
The problem is that when Protestants say “of course Catholics *can *be Christians” they may mean either
Furthermore, in a climate saturated by centuries of hostility between Catholics and Protestants, it’s easy for these two views to slide into each other. I think it would be hard to say which of these two things my family believed as I was growing up. We certainly tended to disagree with our fundamentalist friends when they made sweeping claims about Catholics not being Christians. But we did tend to assume that “true Christians” in the Catholic Church were likely to be rather unorthodox by Catholic standards. That being said, my family believed that institutional churches in general tended to take people away from Jesus, so we didn’t just single out Catholics in this regard
- Catholicism, like every other church, has people within it who are not in a state of grace–probably a higher percentage on the whole than a vibrant evangelical church will have; or
- Catholicism’s doctrines lead to damnation, but there might be people who manage to ignore or downplay the false teaching and who truly believe in Jesus even though they remain within the Catholic Church.
Edwin
I think this is a statemtn that ANY Christian of any denomination can agree with. the end, it won’t matter what church you went to, what sacraments you took, if you believed in the authority of the Pope, or what songs you sang, if the way you worshiped was not done with the intention of selflessness and trusting in God for all things.
JonNC;6611949:
Hi Annabelle Marie-Remember that this is a Catholic forum, and Catholics view Lutherans as Protestant, so when the generalized “this is what Protestants believe - do - say…” comes up, I’m often quick to point out the problem with general statements, and I don’t want folks left with the notion that “Lutherans don’t Baptize infants”, for example./QUOTE]
Well then I apoligize…when I talk about my experience in the Protestant churches…what I really mean then is Protestant churches minus Lutherans…because I’ve always considered them to be more closely aligned to the Catholic Church…with some key differences.
Thanks
Thanks for your setting us Lutherans to the side so to speak. Whenever my Roman friends, I never refer to them as catholic since in my view we all belong to the catholic church, call me a Protestant, I like to tell them, “I am not a Protestant, I’m a Reformer.” After all, no matter who you talk to, everyone, ever the Orthodox, refer to it as the Reformation and not the big Protest.
This sort of reminds me a funny story of how people classify themselves. When I was growing up in a Lutheran grade school, we had a couple of kids from the Roman Church, a couple of Jews, and a smattering of other denominations. Now at some point, like first grade, we all seem to have the epiphany that there were different religions. So the question went around the playground, “What religion are you?” Most of us, including the other “protestants”, answered Christian, the Jewish kids said they were Jewish, but when you asked the Roman kids, “What religion are you?”, they always said Catholic. And we asked again, not really getting what they were saying, they again answered Catholic. We would ask, if they were Christians and they would say no, they were Catholic. We would ask if that meant they were Jewish and they answered again that they were Catholic.
Finally, a few of us on Sunday went up to Pastor and told him what we were hearing and trying to figure out what they were talking about about, because if they weren’t Christians and they weren’t Jews what exactly was this Catholic. That is when Pastor told us that there were lots of religions, but sometimes there were differences between groups in religions. We didn’t quite get it. He then told us, Christianity is like a banana split. In Christianity you have different groups, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, but in the end it’s all a part of Christianity. A banana split has vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream, but in the end it’s just one banana split.
take care of one’s own house, eh?
Mikeoffaith;6612613 said:
this got me curious
Not necessarily. I think the Holy Spirit can lead us to a common understanding of Truth. I think the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification is an example of this (there are others). Its not complete, but its a start. Reconciliation is not going to come as a capitulation by one side to another.
Yes sort of. A wise man said to me, why should I worry about cleaning another man’s house when my own house is a wreck. I think it goes along the lines of the splinter/log deal.
Or, in the case of Lutherans. Don’t be criticizin’ Olga’s hotdish unless your own is complimented by the pastor, jah, you betcha.
Edwin-