K
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Jubilarian
Guest
Plenty of confusion. When you as a Lutheran use the word “church”, are you only referring to Lutheran churches? Protestants don’t use the word church as only being connected to their particular denomination, but to Protestantism as a whole.
Since that is the case, you do not have consistency of doctrines. It’s quite simple. To deny this is to hide from Protestantism in general.
Do you have a source(s) for the bolded?
There are various usages for the word “church”, but when Lutherans (I don’t know about other protestants) use the term “The Church”, we are specific: “The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.” By that definition, Catholics, Orthodox, wherever the word is preached and sacraments administered, there is the Church.
Jon
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LutheranScholar
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That right there.
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Jubilarian
Guest
“rightly taught?” According to who? Protestants differ on what is rightly taught. Stick with the question I presented to you, don’t throw Orthodox into the equation.
What if the word is preached differently in another denomination? That would be a different church according to your wording.
Since Orthodox are part of the Church, they are part of the equation. That said, my post was directly related to a statement you made. The question is, do you have a source?
As for rightly taught, your communion believes that it does, and while we might disagree on some of the specifics, Lutherans believe that when a Catholic receives the Eucharist at a Catholic mass, they are receiving His true body and blood. Therefore, a person will find The Church there.
Both of our communions would claim that the other teaches truth mixed with error. that isn’t the point of my response to your post. You said:
This is an incorrect statement, in my view.
Jon
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Jubilarian
Guest
Have you ever listened to a Protestant radio statio? Numerous deniminations are represented there. Catholics are often represented as outside of the “church”. Secondly, can you provide me with one source that refers to Orthodox as Protestant? You ask for a source from me as if you don’t have common knowledge that the word “church” as used by Protestants somehow includes the Catholic Church. I am not going to source the obvious.
And again, you go back to Lutheranism to answer my question when you know I was addressing Protestantism as a whole. You are Protestant, right? There can be no “error” in the word of God. There must be consistency and one truth, not many opposing truths.
You were wise to write, “in my view”. I can only suggest that you look more deeply into what is meant by “the church” in Protestantism.
Simply because you heard something on the radio? That’s your source?
If you are going to use the term protestant, then you must, again, understand that you are not speaking of a church, or a monolithic singular communion, denomination, or tradition.
If you intend to speak of protestantism as a whole, then you must expect specific communions to speak for themselves. What other communions / denominations /traditions say is their point of view.
You are exactly right, in my view, which I think accurately reflects the Lutheran view.
Jon
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Jubilarian
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I did not say that Protestant radio is my source, I simply referenced it. In addition, I didn’t just “here something” on the radio. My point was that Protestant radio is huge, and it’s hard to believe that all the denominations that preach on it don’t have an understanding of the word church. Moreover, do you think Jesus intended his words to have multiple meanings?
Are you prepared to tell me right now that when a Lutheran uses the word church, they are only referring to the Lutheran church? C’mon my friend, that is terribly inaccurate. If you want to embrace that concept, then you must acknowledge that another Protestant denomination is identifying a different church. But then how could scripture say that ,“the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth? " Scripture says " church”, not churches.
No. The Church can be found as I said. The Church is not merely Protestant communions. In fact, because of the sacraments, I would contend that the CC is a better source of the Church than many Protestant communions that deny them.
Jon
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Jubilarian
Guest
You addressed nothing. I’m sorry to say that you appear to either in denial or unwilling to hear my words. Church, not churches.
J
Jubilarian
Guest
Is there one church or many churches?
From the Creed:
“I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic church.”
From the Augsburg Confession: “Also they teach that one holy Church is to continue forever.”
The Church is the congregation of believers where the word is preached and the sacrament administered. One Church. Through baptism, you and I are members
Jon
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Jubilarian
Guest
Yes, from the creed. But your prior statement conflicts with the creed. You said the Lutheran church speaks for its own church when they use the word church. Other denominations must speak for their own church as well according to you. When the “word is preached”, and that word is different from another church, no longer is there one church. You are mistaken. Different word, different church.
What I said was that we have a definition for the term.
The Church is not contingent to human error. There is but one Church, errors on the part of humans notwithstanding.
Jon
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Jubilarian
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And the term is inaccurate. Why would you now state that Protestant churches, which preach a different word from denomination to denomination are one church? Earlier you said as long as they preach the same word, it’s all one church. As you know, all Protestant churches do not preach the same word. Protestantism, even based on your words is not one church as I originally said.
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Koineman
Guest
Huh? I don’t know why you’re even mentioning this. This is a side issue at best.
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Jubilarian
Guest
Why keep saying that Protestants are “one church” when that is not true? And how can they be one church when denominations preach a different word from church to church? Far from being a side issue. Truth is important always. It must be mentioned.
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CJsmommy
Guest
As a lapsed Pentecostal, I’ve begun to research Catholicism from both sides. I was intrigued by the rosary and got annoyed by the Protestant view of it being idol worship with all the Hail Marys. I just looked at that and was like “do you guys even research what you’re attacking?” That was the kicker and a few days later I got a rosary that goes with me everywhere. 
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badnewsbarrett
Guest
I have a very serious question, and I truly mean no disrespect. Way back when you were just starting up with the tradition of putting ashes on your forehead, did it ever occur to you that it might be good to know some solid reasons for doing a thing before you actually do it?
I’ve dabbled in a variety of different Protestant denominations myself, and if I am asked to do something that seems the least bit odd or different to me I will ask for a detailed explanation. This has led to a number of very nice conversations that took off from there into all sorts of interesting avenues. I can’t promise that I was 100% satisfied with every explanation I ever got, but I was always glad that I had the conversations and that we were able to connect over those types of topics.
I’m really, really not suggesting that you should demand answers about everything and be a disturbance or a contrarian. But I am suggesting that on general principle, it’s a good idea to find an uplifting, edifying, and informative way of finding out the perfectly good reasons for why you do certain things, while at the same time getting close to people who know a lot of really good information. And I’m also suggesting that it’s kind of silly to just do the thing, whatever it is, for any number of years or decades before you finally get around to doing what you probably should have done in the first place.
Think of it as a bit of a trade-off. Someone comes up to you (really friendly of course) and says, “You’ve never done this before, it’s new to your experience, go ahead and start doing this at certain times and in certain settings.” And then you would say, “That’s really interesting and I’m super excited about it. Of course I’m willing to cooperate in all of this, but first- or soon, perhaps- could you go ahead and explain the origins of this practice and the really good reasons for doing it?” And then you get your explanation. Information is given in exchange for participation, roughly speaking.
I think that makes a lot more sense than just giving your cooperation and participation in exchange for absolutely nothing. When you do that, you wind up walking through a deli and suddenly realize that you’re empty handed. Oh wait a minute, I should have figured out why I was doing this at some point- and it would have made the most sense to do that right when I was about to start doing it.
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