God is a prankster playing with your salvation

[jmcrae]

Considering that the Protestants originally left the Church because it was (in their opinion) preaching things that are not true, it makes no sense that they think it’s okay that there are more than a hundred Protestant groups, each preaching contradictory things (meaning that some of them cannot actually be true) and that, as long as one is sincere in one’s error, one is therefore “saved” - just as long as one is not a Catholic.

It seems hypocritical to me, to accuse the Catholic Church of errors and justify not being Catholic on that basis, and then turn around and say that it doesn’t matter whether my Protestant church is teaching errors or not, because I am saved anyway, regardless of what my church is teaching, because I have an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ that transcends my church and its teachings.

Why go to all the effort of rebelling against the Catholic Church and establishing a(nother) Protestant church, if it doesn’t even matter what the church teaches, anyway?

 

[Palladio]

Considering that the Protestants originally left the Church because it was (in their opinion) preaching things that are not true, it makes no sense that they think it’s okay that there are more than a hundred Protestant groups, each preaching contradictory things (meaning that some of them cannot actually be true) and that, as long as one is sincere in one’s error, one is therefore “saved” - just as long as one is not a Catholic.

It seems hypocritical to me, to accuse the Catholic Church of errors and justify not being Catholic on that basis, and then turn around and say that it doesn’t matter whether my Protestant church is teaching errors or not, because I am saved anyway, regardless of what my church is teaching, because I have an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ that transcends my church and its teachings.

Why go to all the effort of rebelling against the Catholic Church and establishing a(nother) Protestant church, if it doesn’t even matter what the church teaches, anyway?

I agree.

 

[Contarini]

Considering that the Protestants originally left the Church because it was (in their opinion) preaching things that are not true, it makes no sense that they think it’s okay that there are more than a hundred Protestant groups, each preaching contradictory things (meaning that some of them cannot actually be true) and that, as long as one is sincere in one’s error, one is therefore “saved” - just as long as one is not a Catholic.

It seems hypocritical to me, to accuse the Catholic Church of errors and justify not being Catholic on that basis, and then turn around and say that it doesn’t matter whether my Protestant church is teaching errors or not, because I am saved anyway, regardless of what my church is teaching, because I have an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ that transcends my church and its teachings.

Why go to all the effort of rebelling against the Catholic Church and establishing a(nother) Protestant church, if it doesn’t even matter what the church teaches, anyway?

Well, in the view of many Protestants, because the Catholic Church doesn’t let people preach the Gospel as they see it. In other words, if the Catholic Church were happy-go-lucky about doctrine, you’d have a case. I’m not saying you should be, only that many evangelicals wouldn’t have a problem with being united to the Catholic Church per se, if they didn’t have to change their beliefs. Witness the Church of England, which is very broad in doctrine–evangelicals by and large are quite happy in it, even though it means sharing a national church with Anglo-Catholics and liberals.

Edwin

 

[jmcrae]

Well, in the view of many Protestants, because the Catholic Church doesn’t let people preach the Gospel as they see it.

Neither do even the most “happy go lucky” Protestant churches - they just centre their core doctrines elsewhere than in the Gospel.

For example, in the church out of which I came, you could preach anything you wanted about Jesus, but if you said anything against the ordination of women, or the freedom of homosexuals to marry, you’d have been tossed out on your head.

The core doctrines were that women are equal with men, and homosexual marriage is equal with heterosexual marriage. To disagree with these would have been heresy, and punishable by disfellowshipping - pretty much everything else was okay, though.

 

[Palladio]

Absolutely. I agree with this from the bottom of my heart.

Edwin

Thanks.

I have come back to the RCC after years of agnosticism: yesterday my children were baptized and my wife admitted into the Church. They also received their first holy communion.

I do not say what I say about numbers except on one condition, incidental to my argument: I am persuaded, out of agnosticism, which I based on my reading of philosophy from the pre-Socratics forward, that what the RCC teaches is true. (I am also bound to to say it, as you know: but I am now bound to it because I was persuaded first.) I do not reject the example or witness of my Protestant friends, some of whom have played an unwitting part in my return to the RCC. Again, God knows who is saved and who is not.

But if God granted me grace in the learning I have had the luxury to enjoy, it was to find that that lead me back to Roma eterna and all that that entails.

With a renewal of faith and reason, I am delighted by the beauty and truth of the forms, rites, rituals–needless to say, as recently as yesterday–architecture, music, painting. I am awed by the power of God’s love and mercy–which I had to relearn in studying, researching, and teaching Renaissance literature–and by the moral splendor and singularity of Christ’s ‘message’ which arrests yet passes understanding, and which I read in a text my church determined. I am impressed by the unchanged doctrine–if sometimes depressingly worded in Vatican II English–and the unchanged example of the priests and nuns I knew as a child, with whom I am now in touch, and of the priests and nuns I now know as an adult, with not all that much time left. They are as selfless as I ever knew them to be, and their distant example was a part of me though I was selfishly unaware of it.

 

[Kitty_Chan]

and atheists would think that even if all the churches agreed it still wouldnt matter bacause there is no god anyway.

And on that topic Which god is right anyway, the jewish god, the catholic god, the fundy god, or buddah hes god, what about allah, krishna, oh the god in me,

hey wait theres too many gods how ever can we pick. So god must not exist, because there is too many. False differences between gods no one can agree.

Im remembering the arguements. These sound familiar.

 

[Palladio]

and atheists would think that even if all the churches agreed it still wouldnt matter bacause there is no god anyway.

And on that topic Which god is right anyway, the jewish god, the catholic god, the fundy god, or buddah hes god, what about allah, krishna, oh the god in me,

hey wait theres too many gods how ever can we pick. So god must not exist, because there is too many. False differences between gods no one can agree.

Im remembering the arguements. These sound familiar.

Oh, I was an atheist once or twice. I can deal with athesist claims lickety split.

 

[Kitty_Chan]

Thats what Im saying coming from that background I see the arguement that I used, being used here, the tactics are the same and my heart is crushed.

Too many churches

Too many gods

same thing

and dont be so inclined to think you can do anything lickety split cause no ONE did anything to you. Only the Holy Spirit can lickety split anyone, I wish you all could stand outside yourselves.

If I wasnt secure in my faith even though found at a lousy good for nothing not even a church, it was a concert (oh horrors) Id buy into the deal Im dealt a crummy hand by my wrongful association with the not so fulls. That God has classifications of His children and Im sitting in the balcony with the less important. I cant even drink from the same fountain of life cause Im unworthy.

 

[Contarini]

Neither do even the most “happy go lucky” Protestant churches - they just centre their core doctrines elsewhere than in the Gospel.

For example, in the church out of which I came, you could preach anything you wanted about Jesus, but if you said anything against the ordination of women, or the freedom of homosexuals to marry, you’d have been tossed out on your head.

The core doctrines were that women are equal with men, and homosexual marriage is equal with heterosexual marriage. To disagree with these would have been heresy, and punishable by disfellowshipping - pretty much everything else was okay, though.

I agree–I have been in those circles as well (I applied for a job at a seminary where this was the basic definition of orthodoxy–it is not surprising that I did not get the job; they wound up with two pretty conservative candidates, including myself, and therefore decided not to hire either of us).

That does not affect what I am saying. (And the Episcopal church I was attending at the time did not disfellowship me even though I made my conservative views on homosexuality clear–admittedly, I do believe in women’s ordination!)

Edwin

 

[Palladio]

Thats what Im saying coming from that background I see the arguement that I used, being used here, the tactics are the same and my heart is crushed.

Too many churches

Too many gods

same thing

and dont be so inclined to think you can do anything lickety split cause no ONE did anything to you. Only the Holy Spirit can lickety split anyone, I wish you all could stand outside yourselves.

If I wasnt secure in my faith even though found at a lousy good for nothing not even a church, it was a concert (oh horrors) Id buy into the deal Im dealt a crummy hand by my wrongful association with the not so fulls. That God has classifications of His children and Im sitting in the balcony with the less important. I cant even drink from the same fountain of life cause Im unworthy.

Not sure I follow you, Kitty.

I am sure, however, in God’s eyes you are worthy.

He will never give up on you.

God bless.

 

[jmcrae]

… the Episcopal church I was attending at the time did not disfellowship me even though I made my conservative views on homosexuality clear–admittedly, I do believe in women’s ordination!

I doubt they ever invited you to preach, though - did they?

 

[Singinbeauty]

While there are doctrinal differences with the RCC and many of the protestant churches one thing we do have in common (to be children of God)… We believe that Christ is the Savior of Man, Son of God, born to a virgin and died for ALL of US.

You have to remember, it wasn’t God that made these different churches. It was MAN. BUT we all possess one VERY important view. That through our own lives we are nothing but pathetic losers destined for Hell. But through CHRIST we have been given the chance to be with Him in Heaven.

Unless you believe that unless you are part of the RCC you are going to Hell (of which is not a view even with the RCC). Then, I can’t help you.

 

[Palladio]

Edwin,

“admittedly, I do believe in women’s ordination!”

The cradle Catholic in me cries out, who cares?

More respectfully, I ask: grant as many beliefs as believers, and what does that avail?

According to whose will are we supposed to believe and act? Can we really come to that will unaided?

Our beginning, being, and end is in God: what do we know He wants, outside of …

Where has our personal belief gotten Christendom?

How fast I hear the lottery wheel spin, with so many numbers to land on.

God bless.

 

[Palladio]

While there are doctrinal differences with the RCC and many of the protestant churches one thing we do have in common (to be children of God)… We believe that Christ is the Savior of Man, Son of God, born to a virgin and died for ALL of US.

You have to remember, it wasn’t God that made these different churches. It was MAN. BUT we all possess one VERY important view. That through our own lives we are nothing but pathetic losers destined for Hell. But through CHRIST we have been given the chance to be with Him in Heaven.

Unless you believe that unless you are part of the RCC you are going to Hell (of which is not a view even with the RCC). Then, I can’t help you.

Not sure I follow.

God bless.

 

[jmcrae]

You have to remember, it wasn’t God that made these different churches. It was MAN.

Man created all the different the Protestant churches, for sure, but it was God (Jesus Christ) who founded the Catholic Church, and established the Apostles and their successors to be its leaders.

So, why belong to a man-made church, when there is a God-made Church right there in your home town, waiting for you to come in from the cold?

 

[jmcrae]

I cant even drink from the same fountain of life cause Im unworthy.

You are only one good Confession away from the Fountain of Life, my dear. If you want it badly enough, you will get there.

 

[Newbie2]

Let’s remember that you can’t group all Protestant theology into one group, as you can with Roman Catholicism.
QUOTE]

I think I see what you’re saying, NW, but we have to keep in mind that there are differing theologies within RCism. Yes, the major league stuff, we’re together, but we’ve got conservative RCs, liberal RC, and everything inbetween.

But a good point when put up agains the **thousands **of protestant theologies.

 

[Singinbeauty]

Man created all the different the Protestant churches, for sure, but it was God (Jesus Christ) who founded the Catholic Church, and established the Apostles and their successors to be its leaders.

So, why belong to a man-made church, when there is a God-made Church right there in your home town, waiting for you to come in from the cold?

Christ started HIS church. The Church of His followers. He never named the church and I never read the word ‘catholic’ in ANY of the writings from Peter or Paul or anyone. The apostles creed specifies ‘catholic’ but in the meaning of universal. We christians span all across the world. I think that is a good indication of universal.

Religion is man made. And it can get BAD. Both catholics and protestants have made sure to prove that. But God is bigger than all of us and even if we are all one denomination we are all ONE Faith. The Faith in Christ our Lord.

 

[Palladio]

NotWorthy;2629868:

Let’s remember that you can’t group all Protestant theology into one group, as you can with Roman Catholicism.
QUOTE]

I think I see what you’re saying, NW, but we have to keep in mind that there are differing theologies within RCism. Yes, the major league stuff, we’re together, but we’ve got conservative RCs, liberal RC, and everything inbetween.

But a good point when put up agains the **thousands **

of protestant theologies.

No, there are merely Catholics, especially rambunctious American Catholics, who respond to one or another ‘label:’ this means nothing to Roman Catholicism as such. The question is whether Catholics are faithful or unfaithful to the RCC.

 

[Palladio]

Christ started HIS church. The Church of His followers. He never named the church and I never read the word ‘catholic’ in ANY of the writings from Peter or Paul or anyone. The apostles creed specifies ‘catholic’ but in the meaning of universal. We christians span all across the world. I think that is a good indication of universal.

Religion is man made. And it can get BAD. Both catholics and protestants have made sure to prove that. But God is bigger than all of us and even if we are all one denomination we are all ONE Faith. The Faith in Christ our Lord.

We are not one faith: Christianity is not a faith: it is a place holder.

Protestants have stretched the word beyond belief, as they have the words faith and belief.

As for the rest, you need to read more church history to get some facts:

Edwin knows a lot about it.