Protestant vs Orthodox - who's closer?

[JonNC]

I’m sorry, but this a pet peeve of mine. This statement is actually not true. There are 240 some odd groups that call themselves “Catholic” but they are NOT Catholic.

Of course it isn’t true, but the methodology that’s used to back this statement also was used for the “33,000 denominations Assertion.
The methodology claims the Catholic Church in a particular country is a separate church.
It has nothing to do with whether Anglo-Catholics or Evangelical Catholics are Catholic or not.

 

[adamhovey1988]

They also worship saints and Mary the Mother of God

Stop right there

 

[Kima]

They also worship saints and Mary the Mother of God.

We (Catholics) don´t worship the saints or Mary. We honor them and ask that they may interceed for us.

 

[mcq72]

Are you saying that the Prophets, of whom John the Baptist is the greatest, did NOT have the Holy Spirit?

No. Don’t think I am the one defining everything in a nice neat box.

Most say OT saints were not born of God, of the Spirit, born again, regenerated. They say this strictly a NT dispensation. Yet, as you point out, there are cases in OT of similar phenomen. There are cases of saints being not just empowered by the Spirit but indwelt. There are cases of OTsaints going to heaven, not Paradise.

Yet, sometimes the exceptions prove the rule. So some in OT may have experienced similar spiritual “blessings” that we do today. The difference maybe in the breadth of the dispensation, or permanence of it. Indeed He will pour out His Spirit over all mankind, Jew and Gentile alike in last days . Jesus also said the least of these would be greater than John.

So you point out Moses or John the Baptist or even Mary. Yet why did Jesus tell the apostles the Spirit was with them but soon would be in them? Why did He tell to wait for " empowering".

So you have to define " having the Holy Spirit" , as to with you and or in you. And why did John doubt after he was in prison, whereas the apostles were only emboldened and “in the Spirit” whilst in prison.

 

[mcq72]

Newly Baptized Christians in Apostolic times merely spoke unknown (to them) foreign languages…

Merely? What about all the other signs and wonders and miracles and prophecies. What about all the martyrdom beared in assurances of glory to come? Were the reeds shaken in the wind at the Coloseum, or while in prison, or while being stoned?

Does Christ still breathe on Christians…?

Yes, we are indwelt when we believe, made temples of the Holy Spirit, a sort of monstrance as on early father put it.

Does Christ Baptize Christians?

He never water baptized.

Do you think the Holy Spirit is the Baptizer of Christians?

Yes I do. At best one can say there are " baptisms" of sorts, all in Christ.

 

[mcq72]

The Jews were already discipled under the Law, you see, and had merely to believe and be Baptized… Not so the Gentiles…

Ok, and Cornelius or the eunich? Catechumen is a later developement. Discipling after conversion/ baptism is the biblical model.

One’s soul needs preparation - We become according to what we do, and non-Christian Gentiles needed to prepare themselves for some time to be Baptized

Again, yes, count the cost. It does not take three years or one to hear the saving gospel. To respond in saving faith maybe . What is there to prepare for in dying in baptism?

Saving faith is a gift, both the drawing, preparing, reception and walking out. It is not like other religions.

 

[Kima]

No that is highly incorrect in this context. In the same way we honor our parents and we may ask them to interceed for us, that does in no way mean that we worship them. You could ask anyone who is Christian to pray for you. That has nothing to do with worship.

 

[George720]

Bit more complex than that, I’ll take a family situation to explain that from my wife’s side. My wife’s grandfather was a super hardcore communist who regarded organized religion as idiocy and he’d let you know that as he was as blunt as a sledge hammer. On the other hand his own mother who lived to a very old age was religious and so apparently was his late father. He’d take his mother to Church and made sure all her grandkids and great-grandkids were baptized and chrismated. Technically Orthodoxy had not influence the Soviet Union, in reality you can’t weed out a religion so deeply imbued in the bones of a people easily and Stalin had to give it a certain amount of tolerance at times, especially during the Great Patriotic War era.
[/quote]

Great commentary! It was the sheer POWER of the old women of Russia that defeated the atheist regime… They were fearless and in your face, and would not shut up… And their bones and the calcium in their bones was Christian Orthodoxy… They went underground under the atheists as the at-home babysitters and were silent, unless you arrested one of them - hence not many ended up in the Gulags - And besides, career minded communist women who failed to get abortions needed someone to babysit their kids… A lot of kids ended up orphans… So these old women raised the children of the elite class, and raised them Orthodox with an Orthodox conscience… The result was … Gorbachov and Perestroika… “Tear down this wall” resonated in the souls of the inheritors of Soviet reins and power…

The babushkas (old women) had reared the children of the atheist elite, and succeeded where the men had failed and died in the Gulags…

geo

 

[George720]

Yes, my bad! I fixed it…

No one ever called me a great historian…

geo

 

[George720]

George720:

Does Christ Baptize Christians?

He never water baptized.

Do you think the Holy Spirit is the Baptizer of Christians?

Yes I do. At best one can say there are " baptisms" of sorts, all in Christ.

John 1:33
ουτος εστιν ο βαπτιζων εν πνευματι αγιω

"This is He who (is) baptizing in the Holy Spirit…"

This is a common difference between Apostolic and Protestant Christianity, because we see the Body of Christ (Who is Her Head), the Ekklesia, as the Baptizer of the Faithful INTO Christ, as John, the Greatest of the Prophets foretold of the One he would Baptize… You see Baptism as primarily a Spiritual event, rather than event encompassing the whole of the created person, body and soul… Hence you see the descent of the Power of the Spirit of God at Pentecost as a Baptism IN Christ, while we see Baptism as the Obedience of Christ’s Body to Her Head which ENTERS the one being Baptized INTO Christ, body and soul… eg An ontological event of the whole person, and not merely a privatized spiritual event, which John had three months before he was even born…

For us, Baptism is Christ Baptizing us into Himself…

Indeed, ONLY Christ has the Authority to do so…

And that Spirit never left John…

Soooooo…

What is the difference between John the Baptist and, say, Ananias the Baptizer of Paul of Tarsus? Such that Paul is greater than John as Christ said?

geo

 

[Arimor]

There is no such thing as the “Roman” Catholic Church, it’s simply “The Catholic Church”.

The only people who refer to it as “Roman”, are the Anglo countries, who coined the term as a slur towards the Church. Everywhere else in the world, it’s just “Catholic”.

 

[mcq72]

The only people who refer to it as “Roman”, are the Anglo countries, who coined the term as a slur towards the Church. Everywhere else in the world, it’s just “Catholic”.

I think “Protestant” also originally began to be used by Catholics as a slur.

There are a few Catholic churches in my area that in big bold letters have the word “Roman” in front of Catholic on their outdoor signage. I don’t think anyone takes it as a slur, just like the word “Protestant”, anymore.

 

[BohemianBrother]

The only people who refer to it as “Roman”, are the Anglo countries, who coined the term as a slur towards the Church. Everywhere else in the world, it’s just “Catholic”.

Here in Continental Europe, Catholics are also sometimes called Roman Catholics (the church is even officially legally registered as the “Roman Catholic Church” in my country).

 

[JonNC]

There is no such thing as the “Roman” Catholic Church, it’s simply “The Catholic Church”.

Which is why it is in quotes in my post. I do not, as a rule, refer to the Catholic Church in communion with the Bishop of Rome as the Roman Catholic Church because there are some who do not like the name (though there are Catholics who do not mind the name).

The only people who refer to it as “Roman”, are the Anglo countries, who coined the term as a slur towards the Church. Everywhere else in the world, it’s just “Catholic”.

This is true that, just as the name Lutheran was a slur for Evangelical Catholics.

 

[mcq72]

and not merely a privatized spiritual event

I have never seen a private water baptism. I did not baptize myself, in any fashion.

I think I have heard more taught, admonished, about our reality of being members of the Body of Christ as a Protestant than as a Catholic

Not sure we have an ontoligical difference but rather an epistimological one (the how and when).

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

I think “Protestant” also originally began to be used by Catholics as a slur.

My understanding is that “to protest” originally meant “to affirm”. Hence those who have affirmed certain things have called themselves Protestants- no slur.

There is no such thing as the “Roman” Catholic Church, it’s simply “The Catholic Church”.

Roman or Latin Church is part of Catholic Church. We also have Eastern Catholic Churches who are all in communion with Pope Francis who is also head of Latin Church- as well as Church Militant (Catholic Church on Earth).

Fun fact- “Christian” was once used as a slur against followers of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is very Christian to embrace slur as an honor to be worthy of being slurred for our Faith in our Lord.

 

[JonNC]

My understanding is that “to protest” originally meant “to affirm”. Hence those who have affirmed certain things have called themselves Protestants- no slur.

If they affirmed something, it was opposition to attempts by civil authorities to limit religious free exercise. The Second Diet at Speyer in 1529.

Fun fact- “Christian” was once used as a slur against followers of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is very Christian to embrace slur as an honor to be worthy of being slurred for our Faith in our Lord.

“Lutheran “ is an excellent example.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Orthodoxy has ZERO influence in Communist Russia. The Communists were atheists, not Russian Orthodox.

If the Communists didn’t think that Orthodoxy had no influence on the people, they wouldn’t have recruited so many Orthodox priests, bishops & the Patriarch of Moscow to become KGB agents. You could go to confession and have the KGB arrest you because of what you said in confession.

 

[mcq72]

My understanding is that “to protest” originally meant “to affirm”. Hence those who have affirmed certain things have called themselves Protestants- no slur.

JonNC answered this precisely to your linguistic understanding. I would have to reexamine your other understandings for accuracy (no slur, and a self given name).

 

[hope]

Roman or Latin is a rite in the Church but not the name of the Church. I am a Catholic of the Roman Rite. I am not a Roman Catholic. There are parishes that use the name Roman in order to give information but it is no where used officially by the Church. It is like the Mormons. It is not the name of the Church but in the past they used it because others found it so identifiable. They are now trying to end that identification.