Who leads the protestants?

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Bluegoat said:
Protestants aren’t a group that you can just lump together. Historically there are a number of groups that broke off from the RC church around that time. There were some before and since as well. The groups during the Reformation have some things in common, but were never one group with the same ideas and intents. It is a somewhat convenient label, but doesn’t say as much as some think. There is a much bigger difference between a Lutheran and a Mormon than a Lutheran and a Catholic.

So to ask who leads them, or why there are so many groups, doesn’t really make sense.

As well, many Protestant people would not let the CC off in these considerations - they would see it as one of the many Christian groups. They might ask, if it was so perfect, why did so many others schism from it? Would it not perhaps be more accurate to say that they “schismed” from each other - that there is no group free from the taint of schism? And so that we are all Christians and so part of the Church, the Body of Christ - but somehow imperfectly, because of our fallen nature and inability to maintain unity? It seems strange to many Protestants for the CC to claim unity when all those groups broke away.

In fact, I have occasionally heard of this being argued by OC members - that the schism of the Catholics inevitably led to the further schisms of the Reformation. It is exactly the same argument some Catholics use about Luther and the many Protestant denominations, pointing out how all the schismatics arose from the first schism, since it was missing something essential to the Faith. (Although, in the case of the Protestant reformation, I would argue that it isn’t actually true, as I said above - there were several groups that broke away.)
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They broke away from the Magesterium. Protestants are a heresy than schism. Protestants reject Catholic Dogmas. Protestants have no common leader or theology. It varies from denomination to denomination.

Schism is a split. The Great East-West Schism happened in 1054 A.D… The split is complicated. To much to detail here. The Orthodox and Catholics both have 7 Sacraments, both believe in the Real Presence in the Holy Communion, and have reverence for the Blessed Mother of God. The Orthodox are more closer to the Eastern Rite.

The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are Apostolic. Meaning that they can trace their start from the 12 Apostles. The Protestants can only trace their roots to the Reformation. History proves it.
 
Malkin71 said:
They broke away from the Magesterium. Protestants are a heresy than schism. Protestants reject Catholic Dogmas. Protestants have no common leader or theology. It varies from denomination to denomination.

Schism is a split. The Great East-West Schism happened in 1054 A.D… The split is complicated. To much to detail here. The Orthodox and Catholics both have 7 Sacraments, both believe in the Real Presence in the Holy Communion, and have reverence for the Blessed Mother of God. The Orthodox are more closer to the Eastern Rite.

The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are Apostolic. Meaning that they can trace their start from the 12 Apostles. The Protestants can only trace their roots to the Reformation. History proves it.
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Wow. You totally managed to miss my point. So much so that I can only think you were actually trying not to understand. Your understanding of the Protestant Reformation seems a little shallow too, and you seem to assume the OC sees the CC the same way the Catholics see it, which isn’t the case.
 
Bluegoat said:
Protestants aren’t a group that you can just lump together. Historically there are a number of groups that broke off from the RC church around that time. There were some before and since as well. The groups during the Reformation have some things in common, but were never one group with the same ideas and intents. It is a somewhat convenient label, but doesn’t say as much as some think. There is a much bigger difference between a Lutheran and a Mormon than a Lutheran and a Catholic.

So to ask who leads them, or why there are so many groups, doesn’t really make sense.
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In many Protestant denominations there is some type of accoutability, whether doctrinal or behavioral. Perhaps the better question should have been centered on authority and accountability.
 
TristanCross said:
Wow. This thread should have title, “Our Hatred For Protestants”. Seriously, this is just degrading. Hey, I know: Let’s talk about priest sex scandels, Charismatic Catholics, how the RCC sold indulgences to poor people to get rich (to rejuvinate St Peter’s Cathedral) while everybody elsr got poor, how Pope’s were having sex and had kids in the Middle Ages, how the RCC blamed the Jews for the bubonic plague, how the RCC was on Hitler’s side in WW2, etc. Oh my, it appears I’ve offended some of you…Not so nice getting a taste of you’re own medicine, is it?
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You really need to think before you post.
 
Bluegoat said:
Wow. You totally managed to miss my point. So much so that I can only think you were actually trying not to understand. Your understanding of the Protestant Reformation seems a little shallow too, and you seem to assume the OC sees the CC the same way the Catholics see it, which isn’t the case.
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Who broke away from the Church? Who started the Protestant Church and the denominations? Not Jesus Christ. A good webstite Who Started your church talks about who was the founder of the different Protestant denominations.

whostartedyourchurch.com/

It is very intresting.
 
Bluegoat said:
In fact, I have occasionally heard of this being argued by OC members - that the schism of the Catholics inevitably led to the further schisms of the Reformation.
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I think I’ve seen this to – the “Catholic egg hatching into the Protestant sects”. The theory goes like this:

Q: How do you tell which of the Catholic and Orthodox split off from the one true Church, and which remained faithful to Christ?

A: The group that split off started following their own desires over God, so they would be doomed to infighting and continuing splits. So which of the Catholics and the Orthodox experienced continued splitting and subdividing after 1054? – The Catholics, splitting again with the Protestant reformation, and subsequently after that.
 
Just_Lurking said:
I think I’ve seen this to – the “Catholic egg hatching into the Protestant sects”. The theory goes like this:

Q: How do you tell which of the Catholic and Orthodox split off from the one true Church, and which remained faithful to Christ?

A: The group that split off started following their own desires over God, so they would be doomed to infighting and continuing splits. So which of the Catholics and the Orthodox experienced continued splitting and subdividing after 1054? – The Catholics, splitting again with the Protestant reformation, and subsequently after that.
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I disagree,

Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are True Churches. The both have Apostolic sucession from the original Apostles.

Protestants broke away and started their own Church. They comitted heresy. They can not trace their church to the original Apostles.

Catholic and Orthodox believe in the Real Presence in Holy Communion and the 7 Sacraments. Protestants do not.

The Previous head of the Congregation of Sacraments in the Vatican, said that the Orthodox are “iregular”. Their Sacraments are valid though.

The spilt between Catholics and The Orthodox is complicated.
 
Malkin71 said:
I disagree,

Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are True Churches. The both have Apostolic sucession from the original Apostles.

Protestants broke away and started their own Church. They comitted heresy. They can not trace their church to the original Apostles.

Catholic and Orthodox believe in the Real Presence in Holy Communion and the 7 Sacraments. Protestants do not.

The Previous head of the Congregation of Sacraments in the Vatican, said that the Orthodox are “iregular”. Their Sacraments are valid though.

The spilt between Catholics and The Orthodox is complicated.
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But you are taking a Catholic position - which is sensible enough since you believe it - but you must see that Protestants and the OC do not see it that way - they would say your interpretation of the history and theology was flawed, though for different reasons.

As far as apostolic succession goes, a number of Protestant groups claim to have it. The CC disagrees and say they and the OC have it. The OC mostly disagrees and says only they have it, Catholics and Protestants do not.

The various Protestant reformers did not come from outer space. Their heritage is identical with that of the CC until the Reformation. One can claim those groups abandoned or lost Apostolic succession at some point, but it is not accurate or logical to say they didn’t come from that same historical line (except for a few rare groups who claim to be decended directly from the early Church and to have existed in parallel with the OC and CC.)

Many Protestants do very much believe in the Real Presence and affirm it as a doctrine. Of those, most reject the idea of transubstantiation as an item of dogma. The OC also rejects it in the same way.

The OC does not generally accept that the CC has valid Sacraments. Some OCs don’t even allow that baptism can happen outside the OC.
 
Just_Lurking said:
I think I’ve seen this to – the “Catholic egg hatching into the Protestant sects”. The theory goes like this:

Q: How do you tell which of the Catholic and Orthodox split off from the one true Church, and which remained faithful to Christ?

A: The group that split off started following their own desires over God, so they would be doomed to infighting and continuing splits. So which of the Catholics and the Orthodox experienced continued splitting and subdividing after 1054? – The Catholics, splitting again with the Protestant reformation, and subsequently after that.
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That’s about it, as I understand it. I don’t know that I agree with the premise, and I don’t think, even if it were true that it would “prove” anything, but it does have a certain appeal as a neat little illustration.
 
Bluegoat said:
That’s about it, as I understand it. I don’t know that I agree with the premise, and I don’t think, even if it were true that it would “prove” anything, but it does have a certain appeal as a neat little illustration.
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The problem is that all religions have schisms, so it really doesn’t make sense for one group to point their fingers at all the others. Muslims have Sunnis and Shiites, Mormons have polygamists and non-polygamists, Eastern Orthodox have Oriental Orthodox and Catholics splits, Catholics have Protestants and Old Catholics and the SSPX, and so on.

The only group this argument really seems to benefit is the atheists, which is one of the reasons I think working toward Christian unity is so important.

Edited to add: I guess the Moonies have never had a schism, so that makes them the one true religion. Sun Myung Moon is indeed the prophet! 🤷
 
Just_Lurking said:
The problem is that all religions have schisms, so it really doesn’t make sense for one group to point their fingers at all the others. Muslims have Sunnis and Shiites, Mormons have polygamists and non-polygamists, Eastern Orthodox have Oriental Orthodox and Catholics splits, Catholics have Protestants and Old Catholics and the SSPX, and so on.

The only group this argument really seems to benefit is the atheists, which is one of the reasons I think working toward Christian unity is so important.

Edited to add: I guess the Moonies have never had a schism, so that makes them the one true religion. Sun Myung Moon is indeed the prophet! 🤷
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Yes, I agree - I don’t think if you look very deeply it is even really a historically viable argument. But it is essentially what has been argued, for Catholicism, in this thread. If it works for Catholicism, it works even better for Orthodoxy.

But I tend to think that a split is almost always the result of deficiencies on both sides, rather than a case of one group breaking away. I would certainly say that about the Eastern and Western schism, and also about the Protestant schisms. In both cases there was both passive and active failures on both sides, and especially failures of charity. To my mind, if that is the case, both have fundamentally failed to live up to the duties of the True Church, and that informs my understanding of what the True Church is. I find it difficult then to give that title to any one group while excluding all others - though I think some have more of the pieces than others do.
 
Bluegoat said:
But I tend to think that a split is almost always the result of deficiencies on both sides, rather than a case of one group breaking away. I would certainly say that about the Eastern and Western schism, and also about the Protestant schisms. In both cases there was both passive and active failures on both sides, and especially failures of charity. To my mind, if that is the case, both have fundamentally failed to live up to the duties of the True Church, and that informs my understanding of what the True Church is. I find it difficult then to give that title to any one group while excluding all others - though I think some have more of the pieces than others do.
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Jaroslav Pelikan wrote that the Protestant Reformation was a “necessary tragedy”, but many Catholics have a hard time seeing why it was necessary and many Protestants have a hard time seeing why it was a tragedy.
 
The general, seldom-articulated feeling among Evangelicals tends to go as follows: by dint of reading the Bible, the Holy Spirit’s guidance, mutual study, and prayerful discussion, the people of Christ are guided towards the truth. The nebulous question of who leads them would then be “God, through His scriptures, inspiration, and through mutual discussion, study, and persuasion of brethren.guided by same.”

Now, probing that answer reveals some apparent logical holes and possibly circular assumptions. Still, I’m just telling you what the answer is likely to be. And yes, it still results in a multiplicity of churches & denominations with conflicting views. However, a great many of the disagreements between those sects is over doctrinal issues or practices that they themselves don’t consider particularly weighty. Except at the fringes, their questionable-looking notions of leadership & authority have resulted in a bunch of churches that are distinctly Nicene, and broadly agreed on what they take to be central.

In short, our “leadership” isn’t totally rigorous and coherent, but it’s probably more so than it has any right to be.
 
TristanCross said:
Wow. This thread should have title, “Our Hatred For Protestants”. Seriously, this is just degrading. Hey, I know: Let’s talk about priest sex scandels, Charismatic Catholics, how the RCC sold indulgences to poor people to get rich (to rejuvinate St Peter’s Cathedral) while everybody elsr got poor, how Pope’s were having sex and had kids in the Middle Ages, how the RCC blamed the Jews for the bubonic plague, how the RCC was on Hitler’s side in WW2, etc. Oh my, it appears I’ve offended some of you…Not so nice getting a taste of you’re own medicine, is it?
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It’s important to remember that shortly after the reformation, some of the protestants got involved in some of the same behaviors. The Catholic Church did more damage simply because they were much bigger and far more organized.
😉
 
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