Marc Perry
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- Sep 9, 2020
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Thank you Marc for this post on the history of the different churches within Protestantism, which I'd hope you would agree, is a very short history compared to the two thousand plus year history of the Catholic Church, that was founded by Jesus Christ.
I also couldn't help but notice you didn't address a couple of questions I asked in my last post. You probably just forgot, so I will re-post them:
1."Would you agree that Jesus did found the church?"
2."And doesn’t the Bible also say the church is the Body of Christ?"
If you don't mind, I also would like to ask you (or any other Protestant/ non-Denominational/ Bible Christian poster) another question. Is there any church within all of Protestantism, whose opinion about matters of doctrine you would accept as being authoritative over and above your own private interpretation?
Have a Blessed Day!
Oh, ok. I thought you were more just curious about the original protestant viewpoint than apologetics.
As I've tried to show, protestants have a different definition of 'church' than you. So it is really hard to argue your points #1 and #2 without a common vocabulary. It's a much different word from denomination to us.
I don't think there are very many protestants who would see any denomination as being 'authoritative' in the sense you seem to be using it in. A lot of people stay in their denominations because that is what they grew up in. The focus in those churches is more about the day to day spirituality, and not about agreeing with the particular philosophy of the founders. Because of this, many standard protestants are willing to 'shop around' the protestants churches where they live, and most choose their church based on the quality of the pastor/community/youth program and things like that. The most a pastor might say in a sermon might be: "Luther said that ... because ...". But this is more to give a reference to someone who is respected because he always gave lengthy defenses of his ideas. Luther's words can't stand on the merit of being from Luther, the focus is on the idea. Not even Lutherans believe everything Luther said. I don't think it would offend anyone, and it wouldn't be outside our theology, for the pastor to continue with a few points that he thought Luther missed or even got wrong.
People from different denominations go to each other's churches all the time. This is especially true for things like Easter, where they want to stay together as a family instead of splitting up into their particular choice of denomination. Or if some one's new in town they might 'shop around' if they don't like the way the individual church is run, even though that was the denomination they were used to. Or if that town just doesn't have that type of church. I've even been to a Catholic church a few times. We don't see Catholic's as non-christian, so we think we can also attend a Catholic mass and still fulfill our sabbath duty.
There are, of course, people who choose for themselves to delve deep into a particular denominations theology. But they are in the vast minority, at least where I'm from. But even for those people, they don't take any founder's 'word for it' on anything and demand good explanations and look at competing arguments, even the competing arguments from the Catholic church.
One note though ... one thing among some of the denominations that they might push their theology on is Baptism. Lutheran's and some others take a type of Catholic stance, and then there are people like the Baptists. But, ultimately, it is up to the parents to choose and we will accept any baptism from any church (including Catholics). And it's not uncommon for parents to go to one church just for a baptism, then return to the other church that they are comfortable in.
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