Of course there are 1000’s of variations and mutations, but if this is generally the faith tradition you find yourself in, you are Protestant, no matter what you choose to call or not call yourself.
No. I know mainline Protestants who have a lively awareness of their roots. For them, the name seems to make sense. But others don’t give me that impression.
Well your not Catholic are you?
Very good point regarding “this day and age”.For me as a Roman Catholic, “this day and age” means the era since Jesus died and rose for our salvation.
In perspective, the last 500 years is as it was yesterday.
In any case, I’m curious. What term would you use to call all non-Catholic Christians as a group?
I suppose you are right. As long as there is a church on earth that claims it is the way, the truth, and the life, then, if I don’t accept that, I will always be seen as protesting that church’s authority.
Christianity is not defined by Lutheranism, which came 16 centuries too late and is still very much a splintered, minority denomination.
As a former Protestant, I can relate very well to your position. But the Catholic Church doesn’t simply claim to be THE Church. She has the history, Tradition and charism to back it up. I came in kicking and screaming every inch of the way but, thank God, I made it. Hope you do too.
The age of the institution doesn’t impress me. As long as the institution wishes to put itself between me and my salvation I want nothing to do with it. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” The Pope can ex-communicate me all he wants. The Pope has no authority over my soul, Jesus does.
Actually, there is some truth in your comment. The Catholic Church was started by a human - Jesus Christ - who was also fully God. Luthernism, however, though started by a human, cannot claim that Martin was also fully God.
Indeed. It is not merely the age of the Church but her continuity that is important. And not just her continuity but her Charism which is clearly delineated and promised in Scripture.
Whoa! hold the phone! Paradigm shift: the Church, the Body of Christ, is not “between” anybody and God except perhaps in the way the George Washington Bridge is between New Jersey and Manhattan. Is your church “between” you and God, or do you see it as part of how you relate to Him? For Catholics, the Church is the vehicle through which much of Christ’s promise is made flesh today.
How do you figure that the Church is a “human institution?” She has ‘institutional’ aspects but she is, as Scripture clearly attests, the divinely appointed instrument of God’s grace in this world and the next. Go to the home page of Catholic Answers to find a brief explanation of why Catholics believe this to be true.
I apologize if anything I wrote got you “worked up.” Looking at my post, I do not see that anything I said was in any way provocative, but I apologize nonetheless.
If you mean the catholic Chuch then I agree completely. “Catholicism” evolved sometime later.
a) I do not believe Luther was an “authority”, in the sense that what he said was true simply because he said it. If Luther shined a light on exisiting Truths, then he was a good teacher.
For Catholics, “Catholicism” is the only way to get to heaven. There is a “back door” but access to that back door requires sincere ignorance of the fact that “Catholicism” is the only way to get to heaven.
I read this and all of a sudden I felt sorry for Moses again:nope: God appointed him but look at the trouble the people gave him:crying:
You can’t be serious if you say that a discontented Catholic Augustian monk named Martin Luther,
“Father forgive him, he know not of what he speaks…”
