What Protestant Teachings Have Changed?

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100 years ago “all” Christians believed divorce, birth control, and open communion were wrong. For 1900 years, all Christians interpreted scripture the same way on these 3 issues.

Somehow scripture was re-interpreted within the last 100 years by most Protestants to say these 3 items where OK now.

Some teachings (like Baptism) have changed for some Protestants and not others.

Since the reformation, what other teachings have changed for most Protestants?

God bless.
 
mo3 said:
100 years ago “all” Christians believed divorce, birth control, and open communion were wrong. For 1900 years, all Christians interpreted scripture the same way on these 3 issues.

Somehow scripture was re-interpreted within the last 100 years by most Protestants to say these 3 items where OK now.

Some teachings (like Baptism) have changed for some Protestants and not others.

Since the reformation, what other teachings have changed for most Protestants?

God bless.
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There is a handy little reference book out there. I think the title is “Handbook of Christian Denominations”. I know Catholic Answers carried it in their bookstore some time ago. It’s worth a few bucks and you will get the answers you want regarding the on going divisions in world-wide Protestantism.
 
The “Word of Faith” movement, or the “health and wealth gospel”, I’m sure is pretty new.
 
Well, the 10,000 foot view should tell us a lot.

For the first 1000 years, there was only the Catholic Church.

In 1054 A.D., the Orthodox split off, but retained Apostolic Succession and all 7 Sacraments.

Only in 1517 A.D., did the Reformation start and create Protestantism, which has since splintered into literally 10’s of 1000’s of man-made, doctrinally disagreeing denominations (and counting). Every one of the denominations believes something different because they differentiate their beliefs, one from another. In fact, it’s probably worse than that because every man, woman, and child in Protestantism has the “authority” to believe whatever they want by self-interpreting the Bible. So, you have as many beliefs as you have people…at least theoretically. 🙂
 
Scoobyshme said:
Well, the 10,000 foot view should tell us a lot.

For the first 1000 years, there was only the Catholic Church.

In 1054 A.D., the Orthodox split off, but retained Apostolic Succession and all 7 Sacraments.

Only in 1517 A.D., did the Reformation start and create Protestantism, which has since splintered into literally 10’s of 1000’s of man-made, doctrinally disagreeing denominations (and counting). Every one of the denominations believes something different because they differentiate their beliefs, one from another. In fact, it’s probably worse than that because every man, woman, and child in Protestantism has the “authority” to believe whatever they want by self-interpreting the Bible. So, you have as many beliefs as you have people…at least theoretically. 🙂
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You described exactly the belief system my family followed when I was growing up in a semi-fundamentalist church. People held private interpretation as a right. It was not at all unusual to hear someone say the preacher believed something, but the person speaking did not because of whatever verse he chose to cite.

Garrison Keillor captured the argument in one of his books wherein one character says to another something along the lines of “Perhaps, you should prayerfully consider” followed by the citing of a verse. Churches with which we shared camps, revival meetings, and fellowship had slightly different beliefs. There was no one set of beliefs covering the entire faith. I would bet every member of our church had a slight difference in faith because we were taught that God would always lead us to the correct private interpretation.
 
So many protestant teachings have been changed by various denominations that it would take a large book to list them all. A few bigger things I can think of, off the cuff are:
  • The Trinity. Some Calvinists denied Jesus was co-equal God, and became Unitarians.
  • Womens ministry was emphatically denied by all reformers until a few decades ago. Luther, Knox and Calvin taught that women were to stay at home and be taught by their husbands. Women could not even live in community.
  • The early reformers did not believe in miracles in the present age, (dispensation). This was core belief for protestants, rubbishing Catholics for deceit and superstition. Many, particularly pentecostal denominations, did a huge U-turn on this in the last century.
  • Most Calvinists and Zwinglians decried music and hymn singing as “papist”. Only psalms could be sung, with no accompaniment. That was reversed around 1800.
  • Tongues and being filled with the Spirit were heretical to most protestants until 1900 or so.
  • Many protestant denominations supported racial segregation in Church and elsewhere until a couple of decades ago.
  • Teachings such as Once Saved Always Saved, human lack of Free Will, and Calvinist Predestination have gone in and out of favour with various denominations since the Reformation. Most non-Lutheran protestants firmly held that everyone was predestined irrevocably either to heaven or hell before birth. This included most presbyterians, Calvinists, Baptists, Anglicans and Methodists. However in the 1800s most of these denominations reversed their position on this, and few beyond some fundies will defend the teaching now.
 
MarcoPolo said:
Pre-trib rapture is pretty novel.
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Yes. Until the 1800s protestants were Amillenial - in that they believed the events of Revelation had largely already happened, and that the thousand year reign of Christ on Earth was the age of the Church. This lay behind their depiction of the Pope as Antichrist - an accusation that could not stand up if they believed that the events of the Millenium were yet to begin. The whole idea of a pre-tribulation rapture was sourced to the 1840s
 
John Calvin was very much against the personal interpretation of Scipture. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion (Book 4), laity were not permitted to interpret Scripture and that only the church (his church) was permitted to do so. In his Calvini Opera (letter to Sadoleto), he stated that Ecclesiastical pastors were to be heard just like Christ himself. He also believed that unity of doctrine was also of the utmost importance (so long as everyone agreed with him). There is one story where a gentleman (Jerome Bolsek) disagreed and confronted Calvin on a particular teaching and Calvin had him thrown in jail.

Calvin also believed in the Lord’s Presence in the Eucharist (although probably more like consubstantiation rather than transubstantiation) and that it was necessary for salvation.

Both Luther and Calvin also believed that salvation began at baptism. The “personal conversion without the need of baptism” only began in the 18th century.

The teaching of the rapture was begun by Darby.

The Protestant faith that was initially taught was a much different faith from what we see today. What began as an acorn has turned into a forest of all sorts of different trees, weeds, and sometimes crabgrass. The doctrinal development (if we can call it such) is disjointed, inconsistent, and sometimes just plain contradictory when compared with it’s beginnings. The churches’ “DNA” has been tampered with and it is missing some chromosomes (aka Sacraments).

Whereas the Catholic faith has undergone centuries of doctrinal development, but what was initially conceived as an acorn is now a huge tree and it has held to the initial deposit of faith. The same core doctrines are still there, only now we have the privilege of better understanding them. The Church “DNA” is intact.

Having said all that, I mean no disrespect toward our Protestant family - I love and appreciate my Pentecostal heritage. I only encourage them to look at history. Cardinal Newman initially set out to disprove the Catholic faith and ended up converting to the Catholicism - it is he who once said that “to be be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant”.

God Bless,
CSJ
 
Axion said:
  • Many protestant denominations supported racial segregation in Church and elsewhere until a couple of decades ago.
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This is something I hadn’t thought of. Was it institutionalized or was it individuals?

God bless.
 
mo3 said:
This is something I hadn’t thought of. Was it institutionalized or was it individuals?

God bless.
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Churches like the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, and various Baptist and other Protestant Churches in the USA were institutionally segregated. Black people and white were not allowed to worship together, and this was laid down by the Church. As usual some or other Old Testament verse was used to justify this.

I remember comedian Dave Allen doing a short sketch about it at the time:

PASTOR: What are you doing in this Church?

BLACK WOMAN: I’m scrubbing the floor.

PASTOR: That’s all right then, but if I catch you praying, you’re in big trouble!
 
Axion said:
Churches like the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, and various Baptist and other Protestant Churches in the USA were institutionally segregated. Black people and white were not allowed to worship together, and this was laid down by the Church. As usual some or other Old Testament verse was used to justify this.

I remember comedian Dave Allen doing a short sketch about it at the time:

PASTOR: What are you doing in this Church?

BLACK WOMAN: I’m scrubbing the floor.

PASTOR: That’s all right then, but if I catch you praying, you’re in big trouble!
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And there is the greatest argument against individual interpretation that one can believe that segregation or slavery was ok.

But even in the old testament if a person owned a slave the were to release them on the year of jubilee because god took them out of slavery (them the Jews out of Egypt) but on both sides there were perponets against slavery.
 
At one time, Every Christian believe Sunday is the Sabath day, until a group of people created the Seventh-Day Adventist. Now, there is at least one Christian group that believe the Sabath day is on a Saturday.
 
vwtaylorii said:
At one time, Every Christian believe Sunday is the Sabath day, until a group of people created the Seventh-Day Adventist. Now, there is at least one Christian group that believe the Sabath day is on a Saturday.
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I understand what you are trying to say. However, Saturday is still the Sabbath. Sunday is now the Christian day of worship but the Seventh-Day Adventist believe Saturday is the Christian day of worship. The Sabbath is still considered by the Jews as their day of worship.

God bless.
 
mo3 said:
This is something I hadn’t thought of. Was it institutionalized or was it individuals?

God bless.
Click to expand...
The American Baptist Convention split over slavery/segregation, resulting in the Southern Baptists (segregationist) and the Northern Baptists (anti-segregationist) Conventions.
 
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