The Difference between Luther's And The Catholic Church's Salvation

[Bishopite]

I have been trying to understand the all aspects of the views of salvation from both sides and I have often come across myths and inaccuracies, I was wondering if anyone can give me some insight of the difference between both sides, their opinion and by using both scripture and the teachings of the early church fathers , teachings of Luther and history. I will plan on re learning this subject. so I need something to start. Debates are permitted!

Luther introduced the idea that we are justified in a strictly forensic or legal declaritive way. In other words, according to Luther, when God declares us justified or righteous, He covers us with the righteousness of Christ, like a blanket [Christ] covering the sinner. This is called imputed righteousness where God declares a sinner righteous without really changing him in his being (no real ontological change) so that the person still sins but is viewed by God through the lens of Jesus’ merits on the cross. In Luthers view, Christ is our lawyer (so to speak) God is the judge and Christ intercedes for us as our intercessor between God and man. Also, Luther believed in a punctiliar only justification, that we are justified at one-time only and not a process but he did teach that grace precedes faith as does Catholicism.

Catholicism teaches that we are justified by faith and baptism which infuses into our being (ontologically) sanctifying grace (which is justifying but not necessarily permanent grace) and which makes a true change upon our soul and person so that when God declares us just He actually makes us just as when He said in Gen 1:3, let there be light and there was light. God can’t say something and it not happen. Justification in Catholicism is like a glass of water, Gods grace is poured into the glass (person) and as the person cooperates with God’s grace through faith, he get more water (grace) so that he grows in grace and justification. Justification and sanctification are interchangable and as a person is being justified he is being sanctified because justification is a process that lasts throughout life and not just a one-time event only. Catholicism’s view of justification isn’t purely declaritive viewing God as judge only but God as primarily as a Father and we His children. A Father over all of His children is a judge, yes, but a judge over others isn’t a Father so God judges us not strictly as a judge but primarily as a Father.

 

[nonsumd]

This is not so as the Reformation in itself has proven. Prior to the Reformation, the RCC adopted church teachings that included indulgences (which are clearly not Biblical), papal infallibility which also cannot be proven by scripture and all of the corruption of the church clergy. Mainline Protestant churches have made it a point to return back to the teachings that Jesus gave to the Early Church that the RCC has abandoned.

First of all, as has, I am sure, been pointed out to you, nowhere in the Bible does it say that the Bible is the only source of correct belief or practice, that support for every correct belief or practice must be spelled out explicity and unequivocally in the Bible. Empowered by the false doctrine of Sola Scriptura and by an incomplete and in some cases an edited version of the Bible, Protestants have invented numerous doctrines (to name but the most dangerous to souls, “once saved always saved”) based on a selective reading of Scripture.

Indulgences (as an extension of the doctrines of purgatory and of the authority of the church) and papal infallibility can be derived from Scripture – though in an absolute sense, no such Scriptural basis is necessary, for Scripture does not teach that it is.

I am not sure what you mean when you say that “mainline Protestant churches have returned to the teachings of the Early Church.”

Did the Early Church teach that all that the Resurrection involved was a change in the way the Apostles thought about Jesus, as the Anglican bishop Spong has taught? Did the Early Church condone abortion and divorce as do many Protestant, especially “mainline,” eccleasial communities? Did the Early Church romanticize political revolution as do many mainline Protestants in imitation of liberal armchair revolutionaries? Have not the mainline Protestant eccelsial communities qualified traditional Christian teaching so much that they’ve opened the door to Unitarianism and atheism?

By the way, are you disowning “non-mainline”/conservative Protestants? Would they not say that they and not the liberal mainline Protestants are the ones returning to the beliefs and practices of the Early Church?

Are you implying that there has been no corruption in Protestant ecclesial communities ever? If there was never any corruption at all, why have Protestant ecclesial communities kept on fragmenting? Have splits resulted only from differences in how to interpret Scripture and never from scandal?

When it comes to your barbs about the clerical sex abuse, as usual, you are stuck in typically Protestant “either/or” way of thinking: Catholics are wounded ***both ***by the scandal itself and by the way an anti-Catholic (and ultimately anti-Christian and anti-religious) media has exaggerated and exploited it. You seem to assume that a Catholic must either be in total denial about the scandal or accept the media’s version hook, line, and sinker and therefore have no choice but go into full rebellion against the Church.

If not because of anti-Catholic bigotry, why has the media not gone on to expose and attack sexual abuse by people other than Catholic priests?

 

[nonsumd]

[Luther’s] religion survived because of 'cuius regio, cuius religio". The Princes came to his support for their own selfish reasons. Otherwise it would have come to a bitter end for him.

Do we not find the roots of modern skepticism and relativism in the idea that “whatever is the religion of the ruler is to be the religion of his subjects”?

Looking at the horrors of modern history, can we say that a proliferation of national churches and other types of denominations that have ultimately given way to godless states has created a better world than the Catholic Church would have had it continued its medieval dominance?

Some argue that the Holocaust would not have happened without Catholicism’s abiding hostility to the Jews, but would the Holocaust (genocide based on “scientific racism”) have happened if the Catholic Church instead of a secular and anti-Catholic state had dominated Germany?

The Catholic Church, as you have accused us of this, promoted truth, virtues and highly moral way of life. All you have to do is to look at the lives of the saints, which have been set before us for edification. You call it ‘idolatry’, but you can’t point to a list of Lutheran saints. Luther was an enormous sinner, yet you make a saint out him, one who sets himself up as a judge of others - please spare us this untruth.

If I may be permitted a very broad generalization, Protestantism generally does not produce saints because it has given up on the biblical idea of sanctification, ignoring Christ’s command that we be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. IMost Catholics (including myself) are far from saintly, but if one believes such Protestant ideas as “the human soul is a heap of dung” (and justification only hides that fact rather than gives the grace to change) or “once saved always saved,” is one not encouraged to moral complacency and spiritual mediocrity?

 

[Nella]

Do we not find the roots of modern skepticism and relativism in the idea that “whatever is the religion of the ruler is to be the religion of his subjects”?

Looking at the horrors of modern history, can we say that a proliferation of national churches and other types of denominations that have ultimately given way to godless states has created a better world than the Catholic Church would have had it continued its medieval dominance?

Some argue that the Holocaust would not have happened without Catholicism’s abiding hostility to the Jews, but would the Holocaust (genocide based on “scientific racism”) have happened if the Catholic Church instead of a secular and anti-Catholic state had dominated Germany?

If I may be permitted a very broad generalization, Protestantism generally does not produce saints because it has given up on the biblical idea of sanctification, ignoring Christ’s command that we be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. IMost Catholics (including myself) are far from saintly, but if one believes such Protestant ideas as “the human soul is a heap of dung” (and justification only hides that fact rather than gives the grace to change) or “once saved always saved,” is one not encouraged to moral complacency and spiritual mediocrity?

This is not true. You like so many others have lumped all Protestants together and completely discounted the fact that Anglicans also believe in the communion of saints and have saints (many of them the same as you) as well. If you choose to argue the saints that the Anglican church has canonized, thats fine but again, its only your opinion in the end.

 

[francesco920]

oh I’m sorry i have such hatred for child sexual abuse. I’m sorry I offended you with that.

I am offended because you calumniate the Holy Catholic Church.

Nella:

It is even funnier how you talk about morality in the wake of the biggest child sex abuse scandal in the history of mankind.

I’m sorry but this statement is an anti-Catholic, indefensible blatant lie. If you knew your facts, you would know that the Protestant churches have the same problem, statistically, as the CC.

“The biggest child sex abuse scandal in the history of mankind”???

Sorry but I don’t see how you can believe that unless you’ve got some serious hatred for the Catholic Church.

But perhaps I am wrong and you are simply misinformed, so I will quote Fr. Morris who sums up the facts quite nicely:

The mainstream media has all but ignored the recent Associated Press report that the three major insurance companies for Protestant Churches in America say they typically receive 260 reports each year of minors being sexually abused by Protestant clergy, staff, or other church-related relationships.

In light of the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church beginning five years ago, religious and victims’ rights organizations have been seeking this type of data for years. It has been hard to come by since Protestant Churches are more de-centralized than the Catholic Church.

Responding to heavy media scrutiny, the Catholic Church has reported that since 1950, 13,000 “credible accusations” have been brought against Catholic clerics (about 228 per year.) The fact that this number includes all credible accusations, not just those that have involved insurance companies, and still is less than the number of cases in Protestant churches reported by just three insurance companies, should be making front page of The New York Times and the network evening news. It’s not.

foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286153,00.html

Conclusion based on facts: Protestant churches have the same problem as the Catholic Church.

continued…

 

[francesco920]

Also, you might want to look at this article:

Sex Abuse by Teachers Said Worse Than Catholic Church

Here are a few bits:

In the end, the Vatican’s credibility, the church itself, and the entire Catholic faith, was damaged to the point where it will take decades to repair; the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a report on the nature and scope of the abuse problems, found almost 11,000 cases of abuse by about 4,000 priests and deacons since 1950.

…

Now, on the heels of the Catholic abuse scandal comes another of historic proportions—one that has the potential to be much greater and far-reaching. According to a draft report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, in compliance with the 2002 “No Child Left Behind” act signed into law by President Bush, between 6 percent and 10 percent of public school children across the country have been sexually abused or harassed by school employees and teachers.

Charol Shakeshaft, the Hofstra University scholar who prepared the report, said the number of abuse cases—which range from unwanted sexual comments to rape—could be much higher.
“So we think the Catholic Church has a problem?” she told industry newspaper Education Week in a March 10 interview.

To support her contention, Shakeshaft compared the priest abuse data with data collected in a national survey for the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation in 2000. Extrapolating data from the latter, she estimated roughly 290,000 students experienced some sort of physical sexual abuse by a school employee from a single decade—1991-2000. That compares with about five decades of cases of abusive priests.

Let’s see,

abuse in Catholic Church (reminder: data shows Protestant churches have had the roughly the same problem): “11,000 cases of abuse by about 4,000 priests and deacons since 1950.”

compared with abuse in public schools: “roughly 290,000 students experienced some sort of physical sexual abuse by a school employee from a single decade—1991-2000.”

My point here is NOT AT ALL to defend the horrendous actions of a small minority of priests. Let me state clearly that sexual abuse is a despicable, evil crime and that those who perpetrate it should be put behind bars for life and that the victims have every right to sue and be assisted, and above all we all have a duty to pray for them.

My point is simply to refute your blatant lie that the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is the biggest one in the history of mankind. That is far from the truth. Is it among the worst in the history of mankind? YES. Is the sex abuse scandal that happened in Protestant churches (which the data shows is roughly the same as that which happened in the CC) among the worst that happened in the history of mankind? YES. Is the sex abuse scandal that happened in public schools among the worst in the history of mankind? YES. Are any of these defensible? NO.

My point is not to defend child abuse, as you have insinuated by your latest comment, but to point out that you are not being fair, to say the least, in singling out the Catholic Church in such a manner.

If your point was to decry the evils of sex abuse, why did you single out the Catholic Church? That is not consistent with one whose intention is to condemn sex abuse. It seems to me, Nella, that your intention was not to condemn sex abuse but to slander the Catholic Church, and to me, that seems like using the suffering of others to further your anti-Catholicism.

 

[Contarini]

Do we not find the roots of modern skepticism and relativism in the idea that “whatever is the religion of the ruler is to be the religion of his subjects”?

Yes, I think we do.

Looking at the horrors of modern history, can we say that a proliferation of national churches and other types of denominations that have ultimately given way to godless states has created a better world than the Catholic Church would have had it continued its medieval dominance?

No, we can’t, although such counterfactual suppositions are hard to discuss meaningfully. The Middle Ages were not going to last for ever (OK, that’s an inherently problematic way of putting it! It’s not as if the Middle Ages were a static period where everything stayed the same, for one thing), but I can imagine lots of better ways for them to end and lots of better things that could have followed them.

Some argue that the Holocaust would not have happened without Catholicism’s abiding hostility to the Jews,

Not just Catholicism–as many on this board have pointed out, Luther was no better in this respect than some of the more anti-Jewish Catholic theologians, and considerably worse than the Papacy. Of course genocide could have happened, and could have been directed against Jews, without Christianity. But since Germany was a largely Christian nation and Nazism, while not intrinsically Christian, arose from a historically Christian culture, Christians (Protestants and Catholics alike) certainly must shoulder a great deal of blame.

but would the Holocaust (genocide based on “scientific racism”) have happened if the Catholic Church instead of a secular and anti-Catholic state had dominated Germany?

I think probably not. However, had Catholicism dominated unchallenged it is possible that it never would have seen the need to re-evaluate some of its less admirable policies and attitudes, so I’m not sure everything would be bright and sunny.

If I may be permitted a very broad generalization, Protestantism generally does not produce saints because it has given up on the biblical idea of sanctification, ignoring Christ’s command that we be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.

This I think is extremely unfair. Just because you haven’t informed yourself about Protestant saints doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

IMost Catholics (including myself) are far from saintly, but if one believes such Protestant ideas as “the human soul is a heap of dung” (and justification only hides that fact rather than gives the grace to change) or “once saved always saved,” is one not encouraged to moral complacency and spiritual mediocrity?

Not necessarily. Calvinism has produced some very saintly figures (by traditional Christian standards) such as David Brainerd and in my opinion also Brainerd’s prospective father-in-law Jonathan Edwards), Robert Murray McCheyne, arguably also Adoniram Judson. The current Baptist version of once saved always saved is disastrous, but there are Baptist saints as well in spite of that.

Furthermore, not all versions of Protestantism hold to these doctrines. The Wesleyan tradition has produced many figures I’d hold up as saintly, starting with John Fletcher, a friend and colleague of Wesley, and his wife Mary Bosanquet.

Of course none of these are officially canonized, so you don’t have to believe me that they were saints. My point is that these were people who spent hours in prayer, lived simply and even ascetically, were respected for their spiritual insight and their abundant charity, and generally dedicated themselves to God. I am not vouching that they are saints, only saying that insofar as one can judge they certainly look like it.

Edwin

 

[nonsumd]

This is not true. You like so many others have lumped all Protestants together and completely discounted the fact that Anglicans also believe in the communion of saints and have saints (many of them the same as you) as well. If you choose to argue the saints that the Anglican church has canonized, thats fine but again, its only your opinion in the end.

Sorry if my post lumped together all Protestants, and I am fully aware of the bewildering diversity of Protestant sects (there is in fact no single “Protestantism” and that there is and can be no such a thing as a single Protestantism seems to be the point of Protestantism in the first place, Our Lord’s prayer that His followers should all be one notwithstanding).

You do not want us to generalize about Protestantism, yet you sem to want us to generalize about Anglicanism in a way that would ignore branches of your church that do not share your theology or moral teachings.

In any case, are there not many Anglicans who abhor being called “Protestants” at all?

It gives me joy to know that there are Anglicans who honor the saints and I would be happy to honor Anglican saints as I honor Orthodox saints. I am worried, however, for those other Anglicans, including bishops, who can hardly be said be believe in God and have exchanged Christian morality for the “morality” of the modern world.

The “Via media” should not mean “all over the place.”

 

[nonsumd]

Hello Edwin, peace!

No, we can’t, although such counterfactual suppositions are hard to discuss meaningfully. The Middle Ages were not going to last for ever (OK, that’s an inherently problematic way of putting it! It’s not as if the Middle Ages were a static period where everything stayed the same, for one thing), but I can imagine lots of better ways for them to end and lots of better things that could have followed them.

I’m not saying that it would have been better for the West to remain stuck in the Middle Ages (though it is Protestant propaganda which makes those centuries appear much darker than they really were), but with the authority of the Catholic Church intact certain phenomena (such as nationalism) which have caused the greatest horrors of the modern times would not have emerged in the same way or at all.

Not just Catholicism–as many on this board have pointed out, Luther was no better in this respect than some of the more anti-Jewish Catholic theologians, and considerably worse than the Papacy. Of course genocide could have happened, and could have been directed against Jews, without Christianity. But since Germany was a largely Christian nation and Nazism, while not intrinsically Christian, arose from a historically Christian culture, Christians (Protestants and Catholics alike) certainly must shoulder a great deal of blame.

I have no doubt that had the Catholic Church retained its medieval level of power that Christians would have continued to persecute Jews, but can we really imagine that a purely Christian society would have produced the Nazi “Final Solution”? The most there would have been would have been forced conversions and expulsions, not a systematic war of extermination. The European civilization that produced the Holocaust was only partly Christian and the elements steeped in “scientific racism” that specifically engineered the Holocaust were post-Christian and anti-Christian (and specifically anti-Catholic).

I think probably not. However, had Catholicism dominated unchallenged it is possible that it never would have seen the need to re-evaluate some of its less admirable policies and attitudes, so I’m not sure everything would be bright and sunny.

Before the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church was filled with individuals and movements striving to reform it. The “Counter Reformation” was as much a continuation of pre-Protestant initiatives for reform as it was a reaction to specifically Protestant challenges. As the Church was already in the process of reforming itself (and can such self-reform ever be said to come to an end this side of the Perousia?), how can we say that it would never have reformed itself but for the spur from the Protestant Revolt?

And are there not some who argue that the type of challenges the Protestants gave to the Church led the Church to reform itself in undesirable ways? Did not the rise of confessionalism lead to narrower spiritualities on all sides (the Catholic Church at least retained a diversity of spiritual orientations in its many religious orders)?

This I think is extremely unfair. Just because you haven’t informed yourself about Protestant saints doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Not necessarily. Calvinism has produced some very saintly figures (by traditional Christian standards) such as David Brainerd… The current Baptist version of once saved always saved is disastrous, but there are Baptist saints as well in spite of that.

Furthermore, not all versions of Protestantism hold to these doctrines. The Wesleyan tradition has produced many figures…

…My point is that these were people who spent hours in prayer, lived simply and even ascetically, were respected for their spiritual insight and their abundant charity, and generally dedicated themselves to God. I am not vouching that they are saints, only saying that insofar as one can judge they certainly look like it.

I do know of and admire the saintly Protestants you mention, and I wrote what I wrote nonetheless.

I just don’t see Protestant theologies (Wesleyanism aside) as promoting the quest for saintliness since they stress that that is a vain endeavor given the depravity of humankind. The saintly people Protestantisms have produced have become so despite at least some of their Protestant ideas rather than thanks to them.

And a saint who is not lifted up for our edification (as mgrfin put it) and imitation and not believed to have the power of intercession for us cannot function as a saint.

I said I was making a very broad generalization – I admitted of exceptions (and saints, canonized or not, are exceptional, though we are all called to become saints).

 

[Contarini]

I’m not saying that it would have been better for the West to remain stuck in the Middle Ages

I wasn’t saying anything about that. I said that obviously things change (and I pointed out that the “Middle Ages” themselves were not static or uniform, contrary to the stereotype), and so the social features we identify as “medieval” would not have lasted for ever–no purely social institutions do. Sorry for not putting it more clearly. “The Middle Ages” is simply a convenient term for a period of history. Of course some romantic/nostalgic Catholics might want to freeze history in, say, 1200, but obviously that’s not possible even if it were desirable.

but with the authority of the Catholic Church intact certain phenomena (such as nationalism) which have caused the greatest horrors of the modern times would not have emerged in the same way or at all.

I think that’s probably true, although the early modern state was well on its way before the Reformation, and as others have pointed out to a great extent made the Reformation possible (of course, the largest and most powerful states stayed Catholic, and in my opinion bolstered their power vis-a-vis the Church and stifled to some extent the Church’s criticism of their tyrannical ways).

I have no doubt that had the Catholic Church retained its medieval level of power that Christians would have continued to persecute Jews, but can we really imagine that a purely Christian society would have produced the Nazi “Final Solution”? The most there would have been would have been forced conversions and expulsions, not a systematic war of extermination.

Yes, I agree.

Before the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church was filled with individuals and movements striving to reform it. The “Counter Reformation” was as much a continuation of pre-Protestant initiatives for reform as it was a reaction to specifically Protestant challenges. As the Church was already in the process of reforming itself (and can such self-reform ever be said to come to an end this side of the Perousia?), how can we say that it would never have reformed itself but for the spur from the Protestant Revolt?

And are there not some who argue that the type of challenges the Protestants gave to the Church led the Church to reform itself in undesirable ways?

Yes, people like John Bossy (though I’m not sure he’d say that it was the fault of the Protestants so much as that both Catholic and Protestant Reformations were part of a larger cultural shift). I largely agree with him–at least, I don’t assume that the Counter-Reformation was in all respects an improvement, and some of its worst features (such as the nervousness about certain kinds of preaching and writing even if they didn’t contradict formal Catholic doctrine) are the ones directly and obviously due to the Protestant Reformation (by way of reaction). Also, both Protestants and Catholics became more focused on order and discipline and authority after the Reformation, and I think by and large this had a bad effect on society.

I’m rather suspicious of the whole idea of reform. It often seems to cause more harm than good, and definitely does so when it involves schism. I am no apologist for the Reformation in general, though as a specialist on the subject I’m quick to jump on people whom I believe to be misrepresenting some aspect of it.

 

[Contarini]

I just don’t see Protestant theologies (Wesleyanism aside) as promoting the quest for saintliness since they stress that that is a vain endeavor given the depravity of humankind. The saintly people Protestantisms have produced have become so despite at least some of their Protestant ideas rather than thanks to them.

I think this is almost always a bad way to reason about theological or religious traditions you disagree with. It may be true, of course, but it’s really unverifiable, and you simply aren’t in a position to make a claim like this. Most ideas can have multiple practical effects, some of them diametrically opposed to each other. It is practically always a mistake to deduce some undesirable consequence from a view you disagree with and then dismiss counter-examples as the exceptions that prove the rule. (As you may know, that phrase–which admittedly you didn’t use–actually means “exceptions that test the rule.”) I would even go so far as to suggest that people never do things in spite of their ideas, because ideas don’t work in isolation or in a predictable, mechanical way.

Calvinism can push people toward holiness in several ways. On a fairly cynical level, you have the rather neurotic concern of many Calvinists to “make their election [subjectively] sure” by living in a way that demonstrates (to themselves and others) that God has chosen them. On a more elevated note, the Calvinist emphasis on God’s glory as the purpose of everything can result in a very ardent and even ascetic piety. This is in fact how it often works, and any theory that says it shouldn’t work this way needs to be adjusted. Of course it can work other ways as well–the Victorian stereotype of the comfortable shopkeeper who rubs his greasy palms and proclaims himself elect because he mouths all the right religious slogans does appear to have been based in some truth.

And a saint who is not lifted up for our edification (as mgrfin put it) and imitation and not believed to have the power of intercession for us cannot function as a saint.

Well, obviously at that point your making a tautological statement. Protestantism can’t produce saints worth praying to because Protestants don’t believe in praying to saints. I don’t see the point of this kind of argument. The original claim was meaningful only if it was actually a claim about the moral and spiritual quality of the best Protestants as compared to the best Catholics.

And Protestants do lift up their “saints” for edification. My family has dedicated the past fifty years (roughly) to doing just that (they publish devotional books consisting very largely of hagiography or else of devotional readings from the writings of holy men and women).

Edwin

 

[nonsumd]

I think that’s probably true, although the early modern state was well on its way before the Reformation, and as others have pointed out to a great extent made the Reformation possible (of course, the largest and most powerful states stayed Catholic, and in my opinion bolstered their power vis-a-vis the Church and stifled to some extent the Church’s criticism of their tyrannical ways).

I agree that the early modern state was on its way before the Reformation broke out. Indeed, it was in the most advanced early modern states where the state (e.g. the Venetian oligarchs and the Spanish monarchs) had wrested from Rome the most power over the local Catholic Church that Protestantism stood the least chance. On the other hand, it was where early modern states were weak, i.e. faced local Catholic Church authorities as rivals for power (in the Holy Roman Empire and in England), that Protestantism took hold. France seems to be have been a bit behind on the early modern road than Spain, hence its wars of religion.

Yes, people like John Bossy (though I’m not sure he’d say that it was the fault of the Protestants so much as that both Catholic and Protestant Reformations were part of a larger cultural shift). I largely agree with him–at least, I don’t assume that the Counter-Reformation was in all respects an improvement, and some of its worst features (such as the nervousness about certain kinds of preaching and writing even if they didn’t contradict formal Catholic doctrine) are the ones directly and obviously due to the Protestant Reformation (by way of reaction). Also, both Protestants and Catholics became more focused on order and discipline and authority after the Reformation, and I think by and large this had a bad effect on society.

Yes, this common emphasis on Christianity upholding social order was very compatible with the interests of early modern states (even the Confucian elite of Ming and Qing China were attracted to this aspect of the Catholicism the Jesuits were bringing them). Too much of this sort of emphasis and too much collusion with the state can be a distraction from the apolitical radicalism of the Gospels.

I’m rather suspicious of the whole idea of reform. It often seems to cause more harm than good, and definitely does so when it involves schism. I am no apologist for the Reformation in general, though as a specialist on the subject I’m quick to jump on people whom I believe to be misrepresenting some aspect of it.

As a specialist in other subjects, I understand the impulse to correct misrepresentations of my subject.

The irony of the late medieval Church (that of the Lateran council) is that in seeking to deepen the Christianization of Latin Christendom the Church created power structures that were prone to corruption and whose corruption was bound to provoke resentment in a laity the Church itself had taught to be more sensitive to scandal.

 

[nonsumd]

I think this is almost always a bad way to reason about theological or religious traditions you disagree with. It may be true, of course, but it’s really unverifiable, and you simply aren’t in a position to make a claim like this. Most ideas can have multiple practical effects, some of them diametrically opposed to each other… the Victorian stereotype of the comfortable shopkeeper who rubs his greasy palms and proclaims himself elect because he mouths all the right religious slogans does appear to have been based in some truth.

Many points well taken, thanks!

Well, obviously at that point your making a tautological statement. Protestantism can’t produce saints worth praying to because Protestants don’t believe in praying to saints. I don’t see the point of this kind of argument. The original claim was meaningful only if it was actually a claim about the moral and spiritual quality of the best Protestants as compared to the best Catholics.

I don’t think it is possible to make an argument that the most virtuous Catholics are more virtuous than the most virtuous Protestants – who other than God could know?

And Protestants do lift up their “saints” for edification. My family has dedicated the past fifty years (roughly) to doing just that (they publish devotional books consisting very largely of hagiography or else of devotional readings from the writings of holy men and women).

I confess my animus in making my generalizations came from defensiveness at Protestant accusations that Catholics are “idolatrous” when venerating the saints. I found it hard to imagine that, if Protestants looked to Protestant counterparts of Catholic saints, Protestants could still misunderstand Catholic veneration of the saints as idolatry.

Protestants do put such an emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus and Jesus alone that a Catholic would see hardly any room for a relationship with anyone else (while Catholics see devotion to the saints, especially the Blessed Mother, as a way to get closer to Jesus, rather than to put him more at a remove).

This may yet be another case of Catholics and Protestants using different language to refer to what is essentially the same thing. God bless you and your family in your work of sharing the example of holy men and women!

 

[Nella]

Sorry if my post lumped together all Protestants, and I am fully aware of the bewildering diversity of Protestant sects (there is in fact no single “Protestantism” and that there is and can be no such a thing as a single Protestantism seems to be the point of Protestantism in the first place, Our Lord’s prayer that His followers should all be one notwithstanding).

You do not want us to generalize about Protestantism, yet you sem to want us to generalize about Anglicanism in a way that would ignore branches of your church that do not share your theology or moral teachings.

In any case, are there not many Anglicans who abhor being called “Protestants” at all?

It gives me joy to know that there are Anglicans who honor the saints and I would be happy to honor Anglican saints as I honor Orthodox saints. I am worried, however, for those other Anglicans, including bishops, who can hardly be said be believe in God and have exchanged Christian morality for the “morality” of the modern world.

The “Via media” should not mean “all over the place.”

Your point is well taken but let me remind you that bishops you are talking about are of the Episcopal church and only represent one branch of the many branches in the Anglican communion. The other primates most positively the ones in Africa do not subscribe to things such as this in the least. TEC is in serious danger of being separated from the Anglican Communion for what is being shown to be non-compliance with church teachings that are contrary to its (TEC) practices