What Do Protestants Believe About the Early Church?

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JonNC said:
When people use the name Catholic Church, they are usually referring to those in communion with the Bishop of Rome. Church Catholic is, essentially, the universal Church, of which Catholics, Lutherans, and many others are part of, The One True Church.

Jon
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I hesitate to speak for another Christian communion, but there are some viewpoints that are not frequently shared on CAF. Maybe we aren’t that welcoming to all, as we should be.

In the 1970s I carpooled with a Baptist (GARBC). One time I referred to Baptists as Protestants, and she corrected me, no, we aren’t Protestants. I said didn’t you guys start at the Protestant Reformation?

She said no, Baptists are a continuation of the simple Christianity of the early Church, when all Christians were congregational, focused on Scripture alone, and trust in Christ for salvation. According to her, after awhile some Church leaders emerged who added on other things to Christian doctrine and practice. But the “Baptists”, under other names, simply went on quietly through the centuries with the true doctrine. By the 1500s it became easier for them to publicly identify themselves, so they then were called “Baptists”.

She did not say, but I believe this movement - identifying one’s own communion with the Early Church (however you end-date that Early Church) - didn’t become widespread until the 19th century in England, in many kinds of traditions.

If now cantankerous me were to go back 40 years and heard her explanation, I likely would have foolishly argued “Oh yeah, what about the Canon”, etc, etc. Luckily I was young and open minded, because it was her car and she would have gotten even with various climate control buttons. I used to pick up her Bible on the front seat (of course) and pretend to blow off the dust daily.
I look forward to seeing her again someday, you-know-where.
 
Alex_H said:
Hi all,

I was curious about something I read here on CAF. The main idea was that Jesus said that the gates of the netherworld would not prevail against his church. They went on to ask the question, do protestants believe that the gates of the netherworld prevailed for 1500 years until Martin Luther showed up?

What do you believe happened to all of those Christians who died before Luther (Or Zwingli, Calvin, Wesley, etc) was able to reform Christianity?

I guess I’m just trying to figure out where protestants think it all went wrong and what happened to those who were not alive to see the time of Luther?
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Most Protestants do not embrace the “great apostasy” theory, and see the Roman Catholic Church gradually falling away from the faith until it was so distorted as to be unrecognizable.

They see themselves as the fulfill ment of the promise that the gates of hell will not prevail, because the truth of the real gospel was able to break out of the corruption created by Catholicism.
 
steido01 said:
Code: 
All of the classical protestant churches of the Reformation appealed to the fathers and Scripture in their justification for breaking communion with Rome. Could even say they followed the pattern set by your communion and Rome.
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Indeed. Even to the extent of persecuting and censuring those who did not agree. I notice that some Catholics are quick to blame Protestants for division and intolerance, but fail to respect that these pages were torn right out of the Catholic practice book!
steido01 said:
Now if we’re talking about the run-of-the-mill non-denominational church down the street? Sure, I guess some (many?) don’t understand the Communion of Saints to which the true church is eternally connected. But they’re not really ‘protestant,’ since they aren’t ‘protesting’ anything.
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They are Protestant, because they embrace Protestant doctrines/values. Their communions are defined by which, and how much of the Catholic doctrine is rejected. I agree that they don’t know they are in a state of Protest, but if they were properly educated about the history of their faith, they would happily embrace it. Protestare comes from the Latin to 'stand up for" something, and they are eager to do so.
 
Seekerjn316 said:
That “Protestants do it so Catholics can do it”…doesn’t seem like a very good reason for it to continue…but that’s just my opinion…

🙂
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You’re right, it isn’t … But it does provide important perspective.

But more importantly, trying to get those people (whether Catholic or Protestant) to stop is usually playing right into their hands.
 
Charliesj said:
In all the years I attended Protestant churches the topic of early church history never came up. It was if there was a jump in time from Acts 28 until the present, and anything in between didn’t matter. Every so often there was a passing comment or compliment about Luther or Calvin but that was it. Of course I never bought into the fact that the past doesn’t matter, one of the things that drew me to Catholicism is 2000 years of rich church history
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How many times has the topic of church history came up while you have been attending Roman Catholic Church?
 
guanophore said:
Most Protestants do not embrace the “great apostasy” theory, and see the Roman Catholic Church gradually falling away from the faith until it was so distorted as to be unrecognizable.

They see themselves as the fulfill ment of the promise that the gates of hell will not prevail, because the truth of the real gospel was able to break out of the corruption created by Catholicism.
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They are still left with the conundrum of Jesus building His Church on Peter. 🤷 They can try and explain that away all they want, till the cows come home and the roosters start crowing, but the fact is, early Church Fathers frequently, again and again, identify the “rock” of Matthew 16 as Peter, and not Christ, nor Peter’s confession of faith. This is also true of many Bible commentaries written by Protestants.
 
Micosil said:
They are still left with the conundrum of Jesus building His Church on Peter. 🤷 They can try and explain that away all they want, till the cows come home and the roosters start crowing, but the fact is, early Church Fathers frequently, again and again, identify the “rock” of Matthew 16 as Peter, and not Christ, nor Peter’s confession of faith. This is also true of many Bible commentaries written by Protestants.
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We don’t have to explain that away at all. Many early church fathers such as Cyprian understood that the church being built on Peter was the foundation of all bishops, not one singular bishop of Rome. We simply agree with the early church in this regard.

Also, the rock being Peters confession or Peter himself was widely debated by the Early Church with many falling on both sides of that issue, so I don’t see a problem with it either way.
 
Alex_H said:
Hi all,

I was curious about something I read here on CAF. The main idea was that Jesus said that the gates of the netherworld would not prevail against his church. They went on to ask the question, do protestants believe that the gates of the netherworld prevailed for 1500 years until Martin Luther showed up?

What do you believe happened to all of those Christians who died before Luther (Or Zwingli, Calvin, Wesley, etc) was able to reform Christianity?

I guess I’m just trying to figure out where protestants think it all went wrong and what happened to those who were not alive to see the time of Luther?
Click to expand...
We accept the EC, we simply recognize that they were all over the map in many issues just like the church is today. We don’t need to pretend that there was any such thing as a “unanimous consent” because that would be playing fast and loose with history and dishonest.
 
Micosil said:
They are still left with the conundrum of Jesus building His Church on Peter. 🤷 They can try and explain that away all they want, till the cows come home and the roosters start crowing, but the fact is, early Church Fathers frequently, again and again, identify the “rock” of Matthew 16 as Peter, and not Christ, nor Peter’s confession of faith. This is also true of many Bible commentaries written by Protestants.
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No more of a conundrum than the Orthodox have…which is to say, none.
 
Alex_H said:
Hi all,

I was curious about something I read here on CAF. The main idea was that Jesus said that the gates of the netherworld would not prevail against his church. They went on to ask the question, do protestants believe that the gates of the netherworld prevailed for 1500 years until Martin Luther showed up?

What do you believe happened to all of those Christians who died before Luther (Or Zwingli, Calvin, Wesley, etc) was able to reform Christianity?

I guess I’m just trying to figure out where protestants think it all went wrong and what happened to those who were not alive to see the time of Luther?
Click to expand...
Guess it depends on which Protestant.
 
Peter_J said:
You’re right, it isn’t … But it does provide important perspective.

But more importantly, trying to get those people (whether Catholic or Protestant) to stop is usually playing right into their hands.
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Question, those that willfully misrepresent another viewpoint…aka “lying”, is confession required? Is such a lie " venial" or “mortal” or do they get a “pass” since its apologetics and the person putting fort the lie as Truth is trying to convert the one the lie is presented to?
 
SalusaSecondus said:
We accept the EC, we simply recognize that they were all over the map in many issues just like the church is today. We don’t need to pretend that there was any such thing as a “unanimous consent” because that would be playing fast and loose with history and dishonest.
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So the Arians were just as accurate in their understanding, weren’t declared anathema, and were welcome as just another Christian group…
 
Jon_S said:
So the Arians were just as accurate in their understanding, weren’t declared anathema, and were welcome as just another Christian group…
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No they were incorrect in their understanding.
 
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