This is exactly true. Since Protestants cannot admit/do not believe that Jesus actually gave the keys to the kingdom to Peter and created the Church, they are left with only the Bible & their “personal” relationship to Christ.
I feel sorry for them… In the real of Protestantism, the “Church” refers to an edifice - a brick and mortar structure; in Catholicism, the Church is the Body of Christ.
I guess I am drawn to my brother STEWSTEW’s post like a bee to a flower! So here I am SS
First:
church refering to edifice- brick and mortar being the church for Prostestants. As a child I was taught often & corrected often when I referred to the church as in “we are going to church.” My Sunday School Teachers & mother/grandmother would instantly correct me: “No HP we are going to the CHURCH
Building” Now some Protestants (and Catholics to be fair) will use shorthand like “did you go to church on Sunday”. One of my colleagues, devout Catholic, uses this expression frequently: “I went to Mass”, or “or I saw you friend in Church” interchangably.
Most devout Protestants (
and I see the perjorative word “Prottie” used above, I don’t take offense, but is that really a Christlike way to refer to other Brethren? Perhaps it is meant in good humor, I don’t take offense, but St. Paul did say "not to give offense if possible)
do not think of a church as brick and mortar. I certainly don’t.
I say none of this to be controversial, just to caution all of us (myself mainly) to stop & think before we make general statements(yes in particular there ARE some Protestants who in their ignorance think of the church as brick & mortar just there are RCC who think the same).
With regards to a *Personal Relationship *with Jesus- which Protestant church are you talking about? Not the Presbyterian Church. THey would agree
COMPLETELY with the post quoting the Father about discipline & love being Faith + Action. Episcopalians would also agree with the post quoting that priest as well.
In fact until the early 1900 and the advent of Billy Sunday the idea of “easy conversion” say a prayer and come forward was **not **practiced by most Protestants.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Sunday
In another Thread I write about the Great Awakening in hthe US & George Whitfield & the Mercy Seat and how that led to the now famous Baptist alter call. But the mercy seat for both Methodists and Baptists, at that time, required the penitant to really search his/her heart, and then confess their sins (publicly!!!) and then after a period of time as a acolyte to be accepted into the full membership of the church. Sound Familiar???
.
The History of the First Baptist Church in Charleston is a great example of non easy Christianity as practiced by Protestants:
The Baptists in London in 1648 publicly disagreed with the Puritan- Led Anglican Church on infant Baptism. They were harassed and run out of their jobs and professions and homes. THey sold
ALL of their possesions bought a boat and sailed to the New World landing in Kittering East Bay Mass Colony (now Maine). The Puritan “infant Baptizers” in MAINE then persecuted them for their beliefs so they once again sold their possession bought a new bought sailed to South Carolina.
fbcharleston.org/#!history
I am not suggesting that infant Baptism is incorrect or that these believers (who believed in the Nicene Creed) were correct in all things or even in many things-but the particular Protestant believers certainly were not “easy Christians” and they certainly did NOT believe that bricks & mortar were the Church!!!.
A more current example is the Presbyterian Church (US and PCA) in America (not sure about Scotland): there is no EASY church membership. One has to be confirmed the Church elders, agree with written doctrines, complete a course onchurch doctrine & requirements .
But no question easy believism is on the rise- but where did it come from???
Billy Sunday, then Billy Graham & then a host of Pentecostal and Evangelical Preachers swamped many of the Protestant denominations (mainly Baptist, Assembly of God, Campus Crusade and Intervarsity), with the Roman Road & the Sinner’s Prayer… whammo you have a "once saved always saved Christian,Cheap and Easy Christianity
John Calvin & Martin Luther would probably roll in their graves like a Rottisery Chicken on high speed if they had an inkling about this tendancy towards EZ Christianity, the sinners prayer, walking the aisle etc. Take the time to read Calvin’s Institutes or the writings of the very Calvinistic 18th century Jonathan Edwards & the idea of Protestantism being only “easy Christianity” will go away.
Watching some of the televangelists or attending many of the man centered churches could give impression of all Protestants being ez Chrisitans. Unfortunately many churches preach this terrible doctrine of prayer and you are on easy street. It is a man centered and certainly a dire doctrine.
That is I think one attraction (among many) of the RC church for me. The Church is NOT man centered, but Christ Centered and God Centered. It does not scream "here is what I (the Church) can do for YOU…but instead says (I think) “Here is what God wants you to do for HIM and here is What Our Father wants you to do for your BRETHREN, especially the least of these”
Well once again I have posted a gargantuan reply
…but I will end it with this:
There has been a lot of mis-information thrown about, and name calling , by both sides, both RCC and Protestant in the last 300 years (and I plead guilty to having heard some of these terrible things said & spoken about the RCC church
. I pray that God will grant me the grace to understand & listen & the mercy that He has shown me.
