Protestants: How do you determine which denomination holds the truth?

[Topper17]

Hi Jon,

Thanks for your response.

And as you know, I have a baseline, and that is word and sacrament. With due respect, there are no communions in the Reformed or Anabaptist traditions that I could even consider. So, the “uncountable number of competing communions” gets boiled down rather quickly.

We agree on the importance of the Word, but I would guess that we disagree on what the term means, and we certainly disagree on what the Word Teaches. As for the Sacraments, you number them at two and we at seven. You say that the number is unimportant and we say that all seven are important. So, in this respect, we don’t exactly have the same ‘baseline’.

See, that’s why I asked what communion you were in, because the considerations on my part already exclude the vast majority. Even some Lutheran synods are now outside my realm of consideration.

I would predict that as time moves on, a smaller and smaller percentage of Lutherans will be members of communions that you would be in the realm of your future consideration. In other words, Lutheranism will continue to move away from the beliefs that you consider to be ‘Lutheran’.

Its not, but if we humans, starting with Adam, had followed God’s plan in the first place…

If, as you agree, it was not in God’s plan to have His people SO divided, then what is it, specifically and exactly that we should be doing to reunite His people.

My point was they started out that way. I generally do not use the term “Roman Catholic” because there are some here that don’t like it, but I don’t think of either as derogatory, either. somewhat inaccurate, but not derogatory.

I am perfectly happy to be known as a Roman Catholic and would not want to be known as anything else. Do you feel the same way about being called a Lutheran?

Every division in the west has its roots in the western Church.

Ok, let’s talk about Western Christendom specifically. Of the roughly 80% of Christianity which is ‘Western’, you have two groups. Roman Catholics comprise about 64% of Western Christianity, whereas Protestantism makes up about 36%. In other words 64% of Western Christendom is united with Rome, and the 36% is fragmented into some tens of thousands of doctrinally conflicting denominations.

One of the Fathers, and I am sure I could find it if I looked, said that one of the marks of heresy is that it begats even more heresy. When we look at the doctrinal confusion that IS Protestantism, how can we not see it for what it really is?

While it is true that Protestantism was born out of the Catholic Church, that entirely misses the point. There are many other ‘groups’ that were born out of the Catholic Church. An alphabetic list of these groups would begin something like this:

Adoptionism, Apollinarism, Arianism, Docetism……….

Of course the list goes on and on and it extends through all 20 Christian centuries. It appears that you would like to make the Catholic Church responsible for all of these groups. But Jon, what about the responsibility that these groups must accept for their own rebellion?

I am not at all sure what your point is here. Could you please explain it to me?

God Bless You Jon, Topper

 

[Micko]

No denomination holds a perfect truth.

All human beings make mistakes. Christians have always debated theology and we have never agreed. The Church has always been in a Spiritual war with evil.

The Only True Christian Orthodoxy is the New Testament Scripture. I study the denominations and seek those who hold to the closest to the truth of the New Testament. It is not easy for even a small local church to hold to the Orthodoxy of the Scripture. Many churches get corrupted and fall away. Harvard was once a Bible College.
Now it is a den of antichrists (my opinion). Once a church adopts heresy into its tradition it is very difficult to remove because the church is often defined by its tradition.

We should always have a healthy debate but always strive to be respectful. Paul wrote about the “False Brethren” who persecuted him (Galatians 2:4). Religious hatred even among Christians has been historically atrocious. Someone who hates or persecutes because of religious differences can not be Christian.

Let’s all start with a Biblical Truth:

Romans 10:9 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

9 because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

James has a quote on “Pure Religion” and what it is: James 1:27
27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

 

[rcwitness]

No denomination holds a perfect truth.

No denomination claims they do, either…

All human beings make mistakes. Christians have always debated theology and we have never agreed. The Church has always been in a Spiritual war with evil.

Yes, even the Apostles made mistakes and debated things, yet they were able to Teach absolute Truth through an authority given to them. On issues brought to them, there was debate, but a final decission was achieved and respected as from the Lord and spoken through the Bishop of the Church. Who most resembles this model today?

The Only True Christian Orthodoxy is the New Testament Scripture.

It took an equal authority to Confirm which writings were to be cononized into this body of Scripture.

I study the denominations and seek those who hold to the closest to the truth of the New Testament.

It is not easy for even a small local church to hold to the Orthodoxy of the Scripture.

More like impossible.

Many churches get corrupted and fall away. Harvard was once a Bible College.
Now it is a den of antichrists (my opinion). Once a church adopts heresy into its tradition it is very difficult to remove because the church is often defined by its tradition.

Many churches? A college? When you seperate the local parishes and there adherance to Apostolic Teaching from the Universal Church and its Deposit of Faith, you will begin to see the meaning of fullness of Truth within Her.

We should always have a healthy debate but always strive to be respectful. Paul wrote about the “False Brethren” who persecuted him (Galatians 2:4). Religious hatred even among Christians has been historically atrocious. Someone who hates or persecutes because of religious differences can not be Christian.

Let’s all start with a Biblical Truth:

Romans 10:9 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

9 because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

James has a quote on “Pure Religion” and what it is: James 1:27
27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

… and lets look at ALL of Scripture as One Word of Jesus in literary form, and look and His Eucharist as Hidden Manna.

 

[Eric_Hilbert]

Over that magic 1000 mark guys

 

[Jon_S_1]

No denomination holds a perfect truth.

All human beings make mistakes. Christians have always debated theology and we have never agreed. The Church has always been in a Spiritual war with evil.

The Only True Christian Orthodoxy is the New Testament Scripture. I study the denominations and seek those who hold to the closest to the truth of the New Testament. It is not easy for even a small local church to hold to the Orthodoxy of the Scripture. Many churches get corrupted and fall away. Harvard was once a Bible College.
Now it is a den of antichrists (my opinion). Once a church adopts heresy into its tradition it is very difficult to remove because the church is often defined by its tradition.

We should always have a healthy debate but always strive to be respectful. Paul wrote about the “False Brethren” who persecuted him (Galatians 2:4). Religious hatred even among Christians has been historically atrocious. Someone who hates or persecutes because of religious differences can not be Christian.

Let’s all start with a Biblical Truth:

Romans 10:9 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

9 because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

James has a quote on “Pure Religion” and what it is: James 1:27
27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

I think you are very honest and that is appreciated. When you say, “you study the scriptures and go to the church that most resembles orthodoxy” it is you that bears the truth in such a scenario.

This is a very personal concept for me. You see my marriage was destroyed because of a lack of Christian Authority in the Protestant world. My wife and I attended an evangelical free church. We grew up, met, and were married there, dedicated our kids there, led Adult fellowship groups and weekday programs. Our parents were elders and deacons in this large church of over 5,0000.

We had some marital conflict like everyone does and found a “Christian” marriage encounter weekend to go to. We went and my wife bought into every word this person said. We come to find out that it is nothing but a cult group full of heresy. They taught things like;

“Ignore scripture passages that don’t have 2-3 supporting verses elsewhere”
“If there is problems in marriage it is 100% the mans fault”
“If your husband treats you wrong, repay him the same way”
" Paul did not know what he was talking about regarding marriage"
They “redefined the Greek” to fit their program and made claims that they were the first to discover the real meaning of things.
“If your husband does not agree with us, divorce him”

And many many more. They were convincing in their arguments. My wife was hooked. In all our discussions it always came down to interpretation of the Bible. She said everyone else’s interpretation was wrong. Our old church and pastors were just another interpretation among many and she thought they were wrong and this cult was right.

The physical and psychological abuse that followed led to divorce.

Amidst this, I looked for who had the right interpretation of Christianity. I figured if I found the oldest writings from the time closest to the NT times that what they said on matters would bear a bit more weight.

I found those writings, and saw that they talked about Eucharist and baptism and a number of other things in a very Catholic way. I also read how they talked about bishops and authority in the church.

The more I read the more I saw that Christ did not leave us orphans. He left us with the church and the Holy Spirit to guide us in truth. That church still exist today in the Catholic Church. It was the Catholic Church from which the New Testament sprang up and the Catholic Church which holds witness to the context of the scripture.

If there had been just one unified Christian Church, it would have been far clearer that my wife was choosing to depart Christianity for heresy. Instead, there are so many groups and opinions and denominations that it seemed perfectly normal to embrace something so heretical. The field was ripe to harvest souls through an abundance of teaching errors.

As you observe. There are so many break offs that it is impossible in the Protestant communion to trace back the truth. Today Protestantism is splits of splits of splits.

All roads though do lead back to Catholicism. A firm rock of truth.

John 14 says,

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” (John 14:16-21

If this is true, and Jesus gave us God the Holy Spirit to guide the church in all truth, then I see no reason why such power would ever leave the church , why the truth and thus the spirit would leave us orphans to the whims of the latest pastors and elder boards personal opinions.

 

[Tomyris]

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