J
jonbhorton
Guest
The term Protestant is a very broad brush with apparently some 40k denominational variants existing today. Of those, most make an effort, institutionally, of rejecting the Catholic Church either historically or in practice via sola scriptura doctrine and attacking the legitimacy of the Vatican. It is done in the spirit of Luther in those cases, which are innumerable. Loraine Boettner, discredited as he is, is still felt in Protestant attitudes toward Catholicism. Many anti-Catholic ideas are the root of many things identifiable as “Protestant”. That they are not always known as that to the Protestants, doesn’t mean anything other than they are ignorant of it. But someone knows or can find out. However, if forced or asked to research their historical reason for something, they have to come back to the truth which they retained from the RCC, or have to admit something is just out of place. To circumvent this, they will often employ the “true church” idea, which, in the case of the old timey Baptists, was often based on a book by JM Carroll called “Trail of Blood”. A book which is just historically laughable in its attempt to connect the dots. Ya know, the dots that form the picture of Jesus saying, “Peter, I now make you pastor of the First Baptist Church of Jerusalem.”
The original Protestants had an entirely different view, one with full knowledge of the Church they were leaving. I can definitely see this as truly heretical and a no-no.
Later on, there were Protestants who were descended from the original heretics. They taught their children lies. Sometimes this teaching was malicious, sometimes not. But a Puritan raised in America with no exposure to Catholicism has an excuse of ignorance. Certainly the ability to jump online and read it all for oneself was non-existent.
But now, this age is a different animal. Now people actually research Church doctrine with the intent of discrediting it, just as the original rebels did. They KNOW the teaching, but they reject it. It took me reading actual Church documents on certain matters to realize my error. And here I am. But, the things I had to accept required me to make some very hard decisions on my life and how I live it. Namely, accepting that whatever the diocesan tribunal decides on the validity of my marriage, I will have to accept it or no longer be in communion with the Church at all. Protestants of similar situations, with whom I discussed the issue, have outright said they would never accept some priests or bishop that says they can’t be remarried or have to remain married. Perhaps if they read the doctrines on marriage and divorce, they would understand. Perhaps they would reject. But if they reject, it’s not out of love for Jesus, it’s out of selfishness. In reality, I find that whatever the decision is, my submitting to their authority in my heart was actually freeing- certainly much more so than the months prior I had tried to rectify the answer via the conflicting doctrinal blah of sola scriptura and the decisions of men.
Protestantism makes ME the judge because the Spirit tells me the answer through the Bible. It’s entirely based in emotion and presumption of multiple things that have no foundational authority outside of either certain men or man in general. It’s a model of failure, evident by the number of denominations it has spawned.
Furthermore, we have to separate the Protestant clergy and scholars from the Protestant laity. Especially the Protestant laity who are once again ignorant victims of a purposeful venom- of which certainly not all experience from its source. I really don’t care what some great Protestant thinker said and how that gets him to heaven, I want to know what the Church says. In reality, I don’t even need to label the movement, thus losing it to emotion and modern usage of terms. I’ll just call it what it is: heresy born and ignorance bred. By just calling it what it is, I can then identify exactly what the Church position is, which St. Augustine perfectly lays out. And what the position seems to still be, though it’s buried under a mountain of feel-good semantics.
If we are going to pin this all down on basic belief in Christ as an entity being good enough, the Church has no reason to be in existence anymore as far as ability to declare itself the fullness of truth and a true home for all who fly the banner of Christ.
When one reaches that level of ecumenism, it’s the exact opposite of the point of it. However, is it the doctrine itself in question, or the way it’s worded?
It seems that it is the way modern language is being employed to explain a doctrine is the issue, not the doctrine.
The doctrine always stands, but that doesn’t mean the message is getting through to the people as what it really means.
The original Protestants had an entirely different view, one with full knowledge of the Church they were leaving. I can definitely see this as truly heretical and a no-no.
Later on, there were Protestants who were descended from the original heretics. They taught their children lies. Sometimes this teaching was malicious, sometimes not. But a Puritan raised in America with no exposure to Catholicism has an excuse of ignorance. Certainly the ability to jump online and read it all for oneself was non-existent.
But now, this age is a different animal. Now people actually research Church doctrine with the intent of discrediting it, just as the original rebels did. They KNOW the teaching, but they reject it. It took me reading actual Church documents on certain matters to realize my error. And here I am. But, the things I had to accept required me to make some very hard decisions on my life and how I live it. Namely, accepting that whatever the diocesan tribunal decides on the validity of my marriage, I will have to accept it or no longer be in communion with the Church at all. Protestants of similar situations, with whom I discussed the issue, have outright said they would never accept some priests or bishop that says they can’t be remarried or have to remain married. Perhaps if they read the doctrines on marriage and divorce, they would understand. Perhaps they would reject. But if they reject, it’s not out of love for Jesus, it’s out of selfishness. In reality, I find that whatever the decision is, my submitting to their authority in my heart was actually freeing- certainly much more so than the months prior I had tried to rectify the answer via the conflicting doctrinal blah of sola scriptura and the decisions of men.
Protestantism makes ME the judge because the Spirit tells me the answer through the Bible. It’s entirely based in emotion and presumption of multiple things that have no foundational authority outside of either certain men or man in general. It’s a model of failure, evident by the number of denominations it has spawned.
Furthermore, we have to separate the Protestant clergy and scholars from the Protestant laity. Especially the Protestant laity who are once again ignorant victims of a purposeful venom- of which certainly not all experience from its source. I really don’t care what some great Protestant thinker said and how that gets him to heaven, I want to know what the Church says. In reality, I don’t even need to label the movement, thus losing it to emotion and modern usage of terms. I’ll just call it what it is: heresy born and ignorance bred. By just calling it what it is, I can then identify exactly what the Church position is, which St. Augustine perfectly lays out. And what the position seems to still be, though it’s buried under a mountain of feel-good semantics.
If we are going to pin this all down on basic belief in Christ as an entity being good enough, the Church has no reason to be in existence anymore as far as ability to declare itself the fullness of truth and a true home for all who fly the banner of Christ.
When one reaches that level of ecumenism, it’s the exact opposite of the point of it. However, is it the doctrine itself in question, or the way it’s worded?
It seems that it is the way modern language is being employed to explain a doctrine is the issue, not the doctrine.
The doctrine always stands, but that doesn’t mean the message is getting through to the people as what it really means.
I can respect the idea of a devout Protestant but I still can’t understand it. The idea of Protestantism is a stumbling block for me that I can’t seem to get around no matter how hard I try. I’m over being a Protestant, I’m not like hooked on that or anything by any means, but it’s always interesting to go and examine it.
And it’s very funny that your posting this coincides with my reading yesterday from 