Is Protestantism a "watered down" version of Christianity?

[Nicene]

Subrosa:

Hello and good day to all -

Does anyone here believe that any form of Protestantism contains the complete faith that was taught by the Apostles? The contrasting views of Protestantism seem to conflict with any of the eldest forms of Christian faith. Eastern Orthodox churches as well as the Roman Catholic Church all carry aspects such as: the priesthood, the Bishopric, sacraments, holy liturgies and others. Many Protestant faiths deny these aspects.

Please don’t get me wrong. In no way do I believe that any protestant is somehow less a Christian. My question concerns only the pratice of the faith.

Blessings,
Subrosa

It depends on what protestant denomination you are talking about. Some are closer to catholic and orthodox some are as far away as you could get.

For example there are protestants who teach you must ask Christ for forgiveness every time you sin, just like catholics, yet catholics also go to confession (James, John, Matt, 2 Cor etc.). However there are those protestants who believe in OSAS who don’t believe they need to confess any sins at all, it’s over and done with.

You also have protestants who believe in the true presence just like catholics (though defininituions are different), then you have protestants who treat it only as a symbol (and usually it doesn’t mean much to their denomination in any case). I’ve yet to see one extremist though argue agaisnt another protestant for holding this view, only against catholics.

You have protestants who believe in faith alone, but really it’s the same as the catholic view (when they aren’t talking past each other) i.e. faith plus works (if you love God you will do the works of the father) to those who believe that faith alone means exactly that. I.e. I believe in Jesus and that is enough.

There are protestants who believe in the value of suffering as Paul did, just as catholics do (“I complete the suffering of Christ…for the church”) while others sell the health and wealth doctrine.

There are protestants who believe in infant baptism, those who believe in only age of reason, to those who believe in no baptism at all, just the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Catholics believe in both i.e. baptism and confirmation.

There are protestants who belive in sacred scripture plus tradition (recognizing that it has to be God working through the Holy Spirit for the church, not the individual), to those who believe in absolute scripture alone, (which inherantly excludes the Holy Spirit from the equation) which is a falasy, because they are interpreting it for themselves, molding scripture to fit their belief oter than letting scripture and tradition mold the belief. (We must bend to the will of God, not the other way around).

Some protestants, whole not quite catholic, revere Mary with elegance (Lutheran and Anglican rosary for example) while others call her a harlot, idolatry etc, and actually despise her.

Married priesthood: some have no problem with it because of Jesus’ and Paul’s teachings and even understand (agree:
Some protestant ministers have made a committment without a vow) while others see it as the antichrist i.e. Timothy.

Some have bishops and a priesthood, some have neither (misreading Johns discourse, ignoring Timothy, Titus, Thesallonians, {heck most of the Pauline letters} Peter, James,)

Communion of saints is an interesting one. I recently met a protestant who believed that only the people in heaven were saints, no matter what I showed In the Apostolic letters and the OT. Other protestants who don’t believe anyone is in heaven yet until the second coming, to those who believe as catholics that there are saints in heaven (or Christ’;s sacrifice meant nothing).

And this is only just some of the issues with various denominations (the tip of the iceberg). Some are protestants who are protestants in the true sense of the word (they are protesting something in the church, yet recognizing they are from that same root) while ithers are protestant in a new definition of the word, (wholly excluded from their roots).

Personal opinion: (though not that of the church), is that some are watered down so much as not to be unrecognizable as Christian, no matter how much they protest against that truth. And some are very close to orthodox belief (catholic and orthodox) and are very Christian (sometimes in attitude, better than many catholics).

cont.

 

[Nicene]

Unfortunately as a catholic (or orthodox) it is difficult to distinguish who is who due to the numerous protestant churches out there.

As with catholics in the U.S. protestants here have a very incongruous view of the bible. The kingdom is not a democracy, (yet that is what some have been taught growing up by their societal norms), it is in fact a Kingdom, in Gods sense a theocracy (heirarchy), not a democracy (Gods up for a vote on what we think he should be). One says “Your (Gods) will be done” while the other says “Our will be done” One humility, one pride (heck even setting themselves up as God).

Not all protestants are the same, some watered down, some not (though in schism) and everything in between. Gotta love the democracy (in the theological sense).

All you can do is try to spread the Gospel, some protestants need it, some don’t - faith is a journey.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

 

[Nicene]

Singinbeauty:

It just goes to show you that there are anti-protestants just as much as there are anti-catholics. Such seething hate can be felt from one or two of the posts in this thread. But it’s no skin off my back. When USMC meets me in Heaven I will have a BIG hug waiting!

To answer the OP:

I guess I can see how catholics would tend to look at protestantism as ‘watered down’. You believe you have the ‘fullness’ of Truth (though I am still not quite sure what ‘fullness’ actually entails) and anything ‘less’ (as protestantism is looked on by catholics) is ‘watered down’. Ok, go ahead and keep that attitude. But of course you have to know that us blind and half-witted protestants just don’t see it that way. I just don’t understand why catholics and protestants can’t just put down their anger and swords and focus on spreading God’s love. It’s a pipe dream I know… It doesn’t seem like we can ever get along.

I guess, from our point of view, you have to understand that we know that all of protestantism sprang fronm the catholic church. Yet not all protestants are the same.

For example I am sure you don’t consider Mormons or JW’s Christian, yet from our point of view they are just another view of protestantism. Guess where founders of those churches came from.

Protestantism has an invisible umbrella, or so they like to say, but they never question each other just because of the “tag” protestant. When you really dig into them, as a proteatant, they don’t all seem to be what they are cracked up to be at all., depending on where you believe the church should be.

As I said in the previous post (and the hardest thing for anyone to do, catholic and protestant alike) is to say “Your will be done, not mine” (2 points if you can guess which 2 people said that in the NT). People have a problem with authority, whether it be Church or God. If the church doesn’t fit (especially in the U.S.) then I will choose another from what I believe God to be.

From a catholic (and this goes to the root of catholisism) point of view it is always, what does God expect from me (total submission), not me of Him (even is essense). We may not like how God has chosen things to be sometimes, because we don’t understand it, but we don’t get to move on down the road either. We accept or not, live it or not (and there are many catholics who don’t-social catholics) submit to it or not. Anything less is our will, not His.

You will see catholics rail against certain protestant practices because we usually don’t know among the numerous denoms, who we are dealing with, fundy’s, lutherans, anglicans, evangelicas, mormons, JW’s, 7th days, methodists, pentacostals, presbyterians, baptists, non demons etc. and none of them believe the same things, and yet for the same things they call catholics on are the very same things they hold among themselves to differing degrees. I’m sure the Anglican and Lutheran rosary will throw the denoms into a tizzy, not to mention the liturty (on Sunday) and the “Liturgy of the Hours”

So stepping back for a moment in the heat of debate, how is a catholic to deal with all of these differing opinions? Suffice it to say, there are going to be protestants we are very close to and will look the same upon others regarding some of the newer generations of “christians”, (for the purpose of debate I use the term loosely for some faith beliefs) from fundy’s to new agers (liberated christians for example).

Think of it this way, my lutheran and anglican (and one presbyterian, and 2 methodists) friends and I have basically the same opinion as I with regard to some of the post 1800 “christians”.

They barely fit the definition.

Again, so from a catholic point of view, how do you distinguish which protestant, among the many, you are talking to? They all try to lay out some of the basic solas, yet disagree on what they really mean among themselves (Sola Fide for example)

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

 

[SemperJase]

Subrosa:

Does anyone here believe that any form of Protestantism contains the complete faith that was taught by the Apostles?

I was raised in an evangelical/protestant church. I was taught that we believed only what was taught in the bible which is what the apostles believed. By extension, catholics were wrong. Somewhere along the way, the catholic church stopped believing in the Bible.

Only in the last couple of years I realized the illogic of that statement. The God who said he would never let his church fall apparently let his church fall. Now if you ask a protestant when that happened you will find answers that it fell somewhere between 100 A.D. and 1000 A.D. I’ve even heard it claimed that Constantine founded the Catholic Church demonstrating a willful ignorance of church writing pre-dating that time.

The ones who claim the fall of the church closer to 100 A.D. have more in common with Mormonism than they think. Joseph Smith also claimed the church strayed and God did nothing to restore it for well over 1000 years.

The protestants who realize the error of this logic will claim that there was always a “remnant” of Christians that survived until Luther came along and popularized protestantism. Strangely, Luther never acknowledges these people as influences on his thought. They never emerged to claim “Hey, we’ve been teaching sola scriptura since Ignatius.” The protestants who claim there was a remnant consistently failed to tell me exactly who these people were, where they lived, or what records they left behind. It is an article of blind faith that they must have existed.

I’ve concluded that to believe in protestant teaching is to believe that God abandoned humanity for hundreds of years before once again revealing the message of salvation.