The Protestants Closest to Catholicism

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Luvtosew said:
ncronline.org/news/catholics-america/what-core-american-catholics-2011

well then read this article from a Catholic website. This is not worth debating about at least for me.
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This woman does not say where she gets her information. Anyone can pull numbers out of the air, and in any event, the information presented centers around American Catholics; hardly “most of the Catholics in the world”, even if the information could be substantiated.

If you find these kinds of things not worth debating, you probably should just avoid bringing them up in the first place.
 
Cat said:
I would say the various Campbellite (Restoration) churches, mainly the Christian church (small c), the Church of Christ (NOT the United Church of Christ), and the Disciples of Christ.

These churches offer Communion at every meeting. They also believe that baptism is a requirement for salvation.

Both of these teachings are very very different than other Protestant churches, and often lead various evangelical Protestant denominations to steer clear of associating with the Campbellite denominations.

Indeed, as I was growing up, I heard various preachers and teachers in my evangelical Baptist church label the Campbellite churches as “borderline cult.” Yes, just because they teach that Communion is the central focus of the worship service, and because they teach that baptism is required for salvation.

In addition, the Campbellite churches still teach that marriage is between a man and a woman, that homosexual practice (sex) is a sin, that women cannot be ordained, and that abortion and euthanasia are sins. Unfortunately, several of the Lutheran denominations, along with the Episcopalians, have descended and teach gay marriage, homosexual sex, reproductive choice (including the right to co-habit without marriage), and ordination of women.

I don’t know much about the Anglicans, as I live in the U.S. and we have no Anglican churches in our city.

One more thing is that the Campbellite churches are part of the Restoration movement, so they attempt to make their churches as similiar to the New Testament church as possible. That means that they do research into early Church documents and read the Early Church fathers; not all Protestant churches do this.

My husband and I attended a Christian church while we were in college. To this day, we credit this church with preparing us to one day become Catholic.

However, Protestants and other church shoppers do need to be careful about the Campbellite fellowships. One problem is that they do not have a central governing board, consistory, council, convention, or whatever you want to call it. These churches are autonomous, which means that each local church is responsible for its own governing. And what that means is that there is no one to oversee and look out for heresy or worse. The Jim Jones church (Guyana massacre) started out as a Christian church.
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Indeed you are correct to differentiate between the UCC and the much more conservative Church of Christ. But from what I have determined through reading about the Disciples of Christ and from corresponding with a few DoC pastors, there are differences between the Disciples of Christ and the Church of Christ today. The Disciples do indeed offer Communion weekly. But they also ordain women and have for a very long time. From my understanding the national general assembly supports civil rights regardless of sexual orientation. And from what I’ve been told by pastors, the national Disciples general assembly today has no enforceable stance on something like gay ordination. The majority of regions do not ordain gay clergy but some do and some leave it to the individual congregations. And the Disciples general assembly strives to walk the fine line of respecting the sacredness of all human life, while at the same time affirming women’s rights to reproductive freedom and freedom of conscience while respecting differences in beliefs. From my understanding it does not advocate attempts to legislate a specific religious opinion regarding abortion upon all Americans. Disciples are quite diverse. I know far less about the more conservative Church of Christ Campbellite branch of Christianity.
 
Luvtosew said:
Unfortunately, several of the Lutheran denominations, along with the Episcopalians, have descended and teach gay marriage, homosexual sex, reproductive choice (including the right to co-habit without marriage), and ordination of women.

One needs to stay away from any Church that teaches these things are ok. Odination of women is not a sin for the member but the rest are, and the members should not be taught these are ok.

I didn’t realize some Lutherans were so slack in their teachings.
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The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod only ordains men and does not ordain homosexuals. It also practices closed Communion.
 
Anglo-Catholics and Lutherans. Lutherans are really good on the Sacraments, Anglo-Catholics on liturgy and devotional practice.
 
manualman said:
The SSPX.

OK, they aren’t protestants! But I still say some of their thinking is.
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Good answer, but I must disagree. Anybody who thinks the pope is not the pope is a Protestant. SSPX are right wing Protestants for sure.
 
Richard_Rider said:
Anglo-Catholics and Lutherans. Lutherans are really good on the Sacraments, Anglo-Catholics on liturgy and devotional practice.
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Lutherans only have 2 sacraments, Baptism and Matrimony. All the rest require valid Holy Orders which they have eschewed.
 
I attended the wedding of a coworker in an Anglican parish about twenty years ago. If I ignored the fact that the church was not decorated with as much statuary as a Catholic church, the liturgy was nearly indistinguishable from the older OF Mass. The marriage contract part preceded the rest of the Holy Communion service. Just an observation based on one event. I haven’t researched any of the denominations mentioned.
 
Lochias said:
This woman does not say where she gets her information. Anyone can pull numbers out of the air, and in any event, the information presented centers around American Catholics; hardly “most of the Catholics in the world”, even if the information could be substantiated.

If you find these kinds of things not worth debating, you probably should just avoid bringing them up in the first place.
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I didn’t bring it up I commented on another posts but you are sure keeping it alive. If you want to believe most Catholics **are not **cafeteria fine I don’t care, your free to believe what you want.
 
Luvtosew said:
I didn’t bring it up I commented on another posts but you are sure keeping it alive. If you want to believe most Catholics **are not **cafeteria fine I don’t care, your free to believe what you want.
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Actually, regardless of polls and disputes on this thread, it is actually quite reasonable to say from observation, that where many of the posters live, the majority of Catholics are indeed cafeteria Catholics, since only a minority attend Mass, and are likely therefore to believe that at least that one Catholic teaching is unimportant.

As for the most similar Protestants, like everyone said, Anglicans and Lutherans probably. But I also think a faithful Catholic has a lot in common with Fundamentalists and Evangelicals in terms of our accurate understanding of true morality, especially with regard to the issues of the day such as abortion and sexual issues, and these Protestants generally only tend to differ insofar as their understanding with regard to contraception may be incomplete.
 
Luvtosew said:
I didn’t bring it up I commented on another posts but you are sure keeping it alive. If you want to believe most Catholics **are not **cafeteria fine I don’t care, your free to believe what you want.
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Smashing.
 
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