when did protestants stop preaching that one could go to hell

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JonNC said:
What Luther said, instead of the strawman. Luther said that justification was operative by grace alone through faith alone. We are justified by grace through faith. But a complete understanding regarding justification by grace through faith also includes the fact that faith cannot be alone. So, a few Luther quotes.
  • “It is one thing that faith justifies without works; it is another thing that faith exists without works.”*
There is no justification without sanctification, no forgiveness without renewal of life, no real faith from which the fruits of new obedience do not grow.

Faith must of course be sincere.* It must be a faith that performs good works through love. If faith lacks love it is not true faith.*** Thus the Apostle bars the way of hypocrites to the kingdom of Christ on all sides. He declares on the one hand, “In Christ Jesus circumcision availeth nothing,” i.e., works avail nothing, but faith alone, and that without any merit whatever, avails before God. On the other hand, the Apostle declares that without fruits faith serves no purpose. To think, “If faith justifies without works, let us work nothing,” is to despise the grace of God. Idle faith is not justifying faith. In this terse manner Paul presents the whole life of a Christian. Inwardly it consists in faith towards God, outwardly in love towards our fellow-men.

Jon
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I would rather just make is shorter and sweeter as well as 100% correct: Faith without works is dead.
 
The thing with protestant pastors is that no two are alike. You’ll have one preaching one thing and another contradicting it.

Ive had pastors tell me that once somebody is saved they won’t go to hell. They do believe you should be holy, but when you’re saved, you’re saved, unless you leave God.

whereas someone like me, thinks, well I would assume that God will judge your good works. Salvation is important, but I don’t think you can just say “I’m saved and go out and do bad stuff”. it doesn’t work like that.

Being saved also comes with a strict and moral lifestyle.
 
PumpkinSeed said:
The thing with** protestant **pastors is that no two are alike. You’ll have one preaching one thing and another contradicting it.

Ive had pastors tell me that once somebody is saved they won’t go to hell. They do believe you should be holy, but when you’re saved, you’re saved, unless you leave God.

whereas someone like me, thinks, well I would assume that God will judge your good works. Salvation is important, but I don’t think you can just say “I’m saved and go out and do bad stuff”. it doesn’t work like that.

Being saved also comes with a strict and moral lifestyle.
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Which protestant pastors? To speak of protestantism as if it were one communion makes things confusing.
Every Lutheran pastor ought to tell you the same thing, if they are confessional lutheran, that is.

Jon
 
JonNC said:
Which protestant pastors? To speak of protestantism as if it were one communion makes things confusing.
Every Lutheran pastor ought to tell you the same thing, if they are confessional lutheran, that is.

Jon
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Sorry, by protestant I meant any (pastor) who is not catholic.
 
JonNC said:
Well, the statement really has no meaning, then. If you want to say “pastors of different communions”, ok.

Jon
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Sure it has meaning. The OP asked a question and I responded that non-catholic churches all have their own ideas and beliefs. No two pastors are alike. They have different opinions.
 
PumpkinSeed said:
Sure it has meaning. The OP asked a question and I responded that non-catholic churches all have their own ideas and beliefs. No two pastors are alike. They have different opinions.
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Every Lutheran pastor I’ve had has taught the Augsburg Confession.

Jon
 
There isn’t one Protestant denomination. They don’t all teach the same doctrines. Some even have different doctrines but belong to the same ‘church’.

Hence the confusion.
 
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MrsFlapjack:
To summarize, the Baptist church believes once you have prayed the sinners prayer, you have an automatic ticket to Heaven and there is no sin you can commit which can send you to hell.
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In any Baptist Church I’ve ever been associated with or am familiar with, if somebody said that, they would be removed from the pulpit.
 
Chuck_Finley said:
In any Baptist Church I’ve ever been associated with or am familiar with, if somebody said that, they would be removed from the pulpit.
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Yes, my good friends are Baptist and I agree with you, they have never believed that once saved always saved.

Not sure where people get their information from. I suspect it’s because there are so many different ‘Baptist churches’ with different doctrines.

Some Catholics mistakenly believe that all Baptists are Baptists i.e. they all preach and believe the same Doctrines which isn’t true. Or that all Lutherans are Lutherans who preach and believe the same Doctrines which again isn’t true. There are different sects under the banner of Baptist or Lutheran or Anglicanism which don’t all teach the same Doctrine.

Hence the confusion some Catholics have because we have one Teaching Body which formulates doctrine that applies to Catholics worldwide.
 
The Baptist church in which I was a member for over thirty years taught that a person was saved forever upon saying a sinner’s prayer. Nothing could thereafter keep that person from going to Heaven. Oh, yes, we were strongly OSAS.

As others pointed out, there was quite a spectrum of beliefs in Baptist churches in my area. One with which we shared a summer day camp and other activities had a very different view of the necessity of baptism. I am sure there were other disagreements, but that one impressed me when I was a child.

I’ve never heard of a Baptist church that did not teach the reality of Hell. The religious newspaper that was popular in my church and likely still is has an Internet page with a statement of beliefs. One paragraph speaks of Hell, so the doctrine is not at all dead.
 
I grew up Southern Baptist and I recall it being very fire and brimstone in preaching style.
 
loko said:
Yes, my good friends are Baptist and I agree with you, they have never believed that once saved always saved.
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That’s unfortunate. If they don’t believe in the Biblical doctrine of eternal security, then that church is failing to disciple them.
 
Bob_Crowley said:
As a former Protestant, I’m a bit surprised that they are supposed to have stopped preaching that people can go to hell. If anything, my experience is that the Catholic Church soft pedals judgement these days.
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Notice this new change in the wording at mass?

Old: “This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven”

New: “For this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins”

Thats a pretty big change - its certainly not soft pedaling it.
 
Chuck_Finley said:
That’s unfortunate. If they don’t believe in the Biblical doctrine of eternal security, then that church is failing to disciple them.
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But does your Baptist Preacher believe in and teach the same Doctrine as my friends Baptist preacher here in Australia?

Is the doctrine of Eternal Security apply to all Baptist congregations regardless of where they are in the world?

My friends believe that you can lose Salvation if you continue to sin without repentance and/or confession. When I say confession, I mean my friend confesses privately to God and also to the Ladies Bible Group. They consider themselves Baptists.
 
jilly4ski said:
I was going to say, your title is a quite disingenuous. I am sure there are some protestants who don’t teach about hell (Unitarian Universalists). But for every one of those I am sure there is at least 2 who preach that Catholics are all going to hell. 😃
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Code: 
 Universalists, in fact, got their name basically from their belief that God rarely if ever sent anyone to eternal hell. How could a loving, forgiving, merciful Lord do such a thing?

 As for most Protestants thinking that Catholics go to hell, I would suggest that that is a wild exaggeration. As a far as I know none of the mainline Protestant churches teach  that - Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, UCC, etc. Even most evangelicals would believe that there are many saved Catholics who surrender their lives to Christ. Yes, a few narrow fundamentalists might teach that Catholics go to hell, just as here on CAF I find that some traditionalist Catholics believe Protestants as heretics go to hell. In fact, that was a common assumption among many strict Catholics before Vatican II when heretics were transformed into separated brothers and sisters. "Outside the Church there is no salvation" had been a widespread sentiment. Thank God for John XXIII!
 
Chuck_Finley said:
That’s unfortunate. If they don’t believe in the Biblical doctrine of eternal security, then that church is failing to disciple them.
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Some Baptists are Arminian (and therefore reject the doctrine of eternal security) rather than Calvinist.
 
RyanBlack said:
Some Baptists are Arminian (and therefore reject the doctrine of eternal security) rather than Calvinist.
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Some? See that’s what I don’t understand, they all call themselves Baptist but believe in different doctrines. :confused:
 
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