Yes. It all started when Dr. Luther began endorsing his own private interpretations of Scripture as opposed to the Church’s. That gave us “sola fide”. Soon he was cutting books out of the Bible (infamously saying that he wanted to “throw Jimmy (the epistle of St. James) in the stove”) and even adding to it (“by faith alone”). It’s been a long, seemingly endless slippery slope ever since then.
Yes, I agree. When one can never feel forgiven for their sins even after confession it must be heart wrenching.
The theological anarchy applied to the Bible is one of the greatest dangers to the faith as previous popes have stated. “… the principle of false liberty, which is really immoderate license and in sacred studies proves itself to be a most insidious and a fruitful source of the worst evils against the purity of the faith, have not received and do not receive these decisions with the proper obedience”(words of St. Pius X from* Praestantia Scripturae*)Yes. It all started when Dr. Luther began endorsing his own private interpretations of Scripture as opposed to the Church’s. That gave us “sola fide”. Soon he was cutting books out of the Bible (infamously saying that he wanted to “throw Jimmy (the epistle of St. James) in the stove”) and even adding to it (“by faith alone”). It’s been a long, seemingly endless slippery slope ever since then.
Very true. “Sola fide” was the poor man’s response to his lingering fears that his “works” were not helping him with his (perceived) sins. (And we mustn’t forget that Luther was not one man who brought down the system: the social and political climate of those times all aligned to bring about the Reformation. Moreover, it’s possible that Calvin - who codified the teachings of the Reformed tradition and established their first “theocracy” - was the more influential figure in the long run.
I don’t believe that there are over 30,000 Christian denominations.
Your pretty accurate source says that there are about 242 different. Roman Catholic denominations.
LOL…how ridiculous…its like saying “I don’t believe there are 7.4 billion people in the world. Give us a list of their names.”
There is Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Methodist, Calvinism, Evangelicalism and many more theological schools of thought in Protestantism. And there are thousands of denominations in Protestantism that subscribe to one of these theological schools of thought. And then of course there are also subdivisions. There is Anglo-Catholicism, Confessional Lutheranism, Fundamentalism etc.
These are groups that broke away from the Catholic Church and have nothing to do with Catholicism besides having it in their names.
No. You are seriously in error. The 242 denominations are all in union with the Roman Catholic church.
If they are in union with the Pope and the Church of Rome, they are not “denominations”. A denomination, by definition, is autonomous and self-contained (like the United Methodists or Southern Baptists). The Eastern Catholic Churches you list have rich historical and liturgical identities of their own, but they are very much part of the Catholic Church, just as a university can have various Departments but still remain under one head.
Well stated.If they are in union with the Pope and the Church of Rome, they are not “denominations”. A denomination, by definition, is autonomous and self-contained (like the United Methodists or Southern Baptists). The Eastern Catholic Churches you list have rich historical and liturgical identities of their own, but they are very much part of the Catholic Church, just as a university can have various Departments but still remain under one head.
:doh2::doh2::doh2:
That is why there are not 30000 different Christian denominations. The source quoted counts them as 242 different denominations. Similarly with the Protestant Churches. There are not 9000 different Protestant denominations.
What is your definition of a denomination?
On the contrary, there are different denominations who hold similar theology’s. The LCMS the WELS and the ELCA, for example, are all Lutheran Churches. But they are all different denominations who share a similar theology. They are not in full communion with each other in the sense that they are the same denomination.
Yes this an excellent example. There are also many Independent Baptist Churches as well who vary greatly in their beliefs.