Rag Hanger - I have no doubt that you are relating your experience accurately, but please do not be so quick to discount what the rest of us are saying. I was a Protestant for many, many years. I have a lot of experience in United Methodist, Wesleyan, Nazarene, and Baptist churches. My long-time best friend is a devout Southern Baptist who is working toward a degree in theology (he is in his last year) at a well-known Baptist university.
And I hope you will take my word for it that, out of hundreds of Protestants of many flavors with whom I have discussed Church history and where Holy Scripture came from, only a very small percentage have any serious knowledge of it. Many, of course, have simply never sought the knowledge (and the same can be said of many Catholics as well)…this is a serious problem on both sides of the Tiber.
But I have been very troubled by my close friend’s theological training. He is preparing to be either a youth pastor or military chaplain, and has been taught very little about early church history. His impression – taught to him by his teachers – is that Scripture poofed into existence, is the word of God, and must be obeyed. The truth – that the texts are indeed inspired and must be obeyed, but came to us via Bishops of the Catholic Church, and were compiled by St. Jerome under the authority of the Pope – would not align with the general anti-Catholic attitude of the Baptist denomination, so it is simply not taught. This kind of selective teaching is very frustrating (and I was a victim of it myself, though not as severely in my UMC background).
I have no doubt whatsoever that most Protestants, my good friend included, honestly seek the truth. Unfortunately, many of those who set the curricula for their learning have not been so honest. One who knows Church history would be unable to condemn Marian devotion, intercessory prayer, the Real Presence, the Priesthood, the hierarchy of Bishops, the authority of Church Tradition in addition to Scripture, etc. because all these things have been part of Christianity from the Church’s very earliest days.
Rather than teaching history honestly, very many of our Protestant brethren receive a heavily redacted version of Church history that aligns with their particular denomination’s particular take on the faith. That is why so many of us have ended up here, as Catholics…once I discovered that my UMC understanding of Church history was missing a lot of important pieces, I began studying independently, and the unredacted truth of our faith history led me home – under the guidance of the Holy Spirit – to the Church founded by Christ that holds the whole deposit of the faith.
God bless you.
And, the eighth council (Fourth Council of Constantinople (869-870) was not inspired because the Eastern Church did not agree with it?