Why don't protestants make the sign of the Cross?

[Valletta]

You're right, and I suppose sometimes I do this gesture when in prayer while standing or in worship, so I suppose but that's not "making the sign of the cross". I guess you could say since this pose is in scripture we probably should do that more, but making the sign of the cross, kissing crucifixes, kneeling or praying to statues, and using prayer counting beads for repetitious prayer are not things Paul said to do (and the last is something Jesus said not to do).

Jesus Lord himself repeated the same prayer to His Father on the garden. Obviously you are misinterpreting what Our Lord said.

 

[Jamdoc]

Jesus Lord himself repeated the same prayer to His Father on the garden. Obviously you are misinterpreting what Our Lord said.

uh, there's a distinct difference between praying, standing up, doing something else, going back, and praying the same prayer again a few times and.. the decades of hail marys, so many repetitions that you need counting beads to keep track.

 

[Cis.jd]

What’s INC?

Iglesia Ni Cristo

 

[Valletta]

uh, there's a distinct difference between praying, standing up, doing something else, going back, and praying the same prayer again a few times and.. the decades of hail marys, so many repetitions that you need counting beads to keep track.

Mark 14: 39 And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. RSVCE

Now you're adding qualifications not found in the Bible. Why did Jesus repeat? Do you believe God the Father did not hear Jesus the first time?

It's not about repetition, it's about VAIN REPETITION. The pagans would say the words of their prayers over and over, changing the noun in hopes they could find the secret name of their "god" in order to gain control and power.

The Rosary is very much praying the Bible. There are 20 different mysteries to contemplate, many straight out of the Bible. Why condemn those who pray the Bible?

 

[FaithT]

Iglesia Ni Cristo

Thanks. I’d never heard of it before. I just Googled it.

 

[Cis.jd]

We all know that "the Trinity" ISN'T solely a Catholic thing. Only those who refuse to become better educated claim they can't see the Trinity, usually because the don't want to apply critical thinking/philosophy and they assume (nay, prefer) everything to be presented in an easy to open package, something no bigger than the size of a typical birthday gift.

Yes, we know the trinity isn't a catholic thing. The point i'm trying to make where this, "catholic made, not in the bible" has lead to. Them being wrong about that is certain but this also the same with the sign of the cross, protestants don't do it because as you saw in some replies here "it's catholic made, not in the bible".

 

[FaithT]

Yes, we know the trinity isn't a catholic thing. The point i'm trying to make where this, "catholic made, not in the bible" has lead to. Them being wrong about that is certain but this also the same with the sign of the cross, protestants don't do it because as you saw in some replies here "it's catholic made, not in the bible".

Well, I just went to Mass tonight and felt so free to make the sign of the cross. When I was Lutheran I think I made it there too and felt self conscious.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Thanks. I’d never heard of it before. I just Googled it.

There's a fairly large Filipino community where I live, and there's an INC church just up the road from me. If you didn't read the sign or know any better, it could almost be mistaken for a more traditional church.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Cis.jd]

I'd say in particular Baptists, scripture is considered the inerrant word of God and "Church traditions" if they are not found in Scripture are not requirements or really encouraged, but if the bible doesn't forbid it it's not sin and so it can be done if you desire,

But the Bible does say in 2 Thess 2:15 - stick to the traditions we have passed down to you whether word of mouth or by letter.

If you read the links I gave from the christian cults such as the INC and the JW's, you and them have a common denominator in rejecting traditions such as the sign of the cross: "catholic made, not in the Bible". You don't realize that your view of tradition has eventually lead to churches becoming unrecognizable to christianity, regardless of thinking they are 100% following the Bibl.

uh, there's a distinct difference between praying, standing up, doing something else, going back, and praying the same prayer again a few times and.. the decades of hail marys, so many repetitions that you need counting beads to keep track.

keyword *vain*. the Jews also have prayers that are repetitions, just read about how they recite the Psalms. Prayer repetitions is how a congregation can pray in unison at the same time, as one people. If Jesus was against praying in repetition (as you imply) he would not teach and instruct his apostles to say the Lord's prayer. Btw, this is another thing that you protestants took away from your churches. Prayer isn't about what comes out of your mouth but what is in the heart. Jesus did say God knows what you'll ask before you even pray, so technically you are going to repeat it to him.

 

[Cis.jd]

There's a fairly large Filipino community where I live, and there's an INC church just up the road from me. If you didn't read the sign or know any better, it could almost be mistaken for a more traditional church.

-CryptoLutheran

I've had my experience with them. I have been close to someone who i found out was part of that cult.

This cult claims their founder, Felix Manalo, is the last prophet before the end times and that they are the church prophesied in the Bible, especially in Isaiah. They mandate attendance 2x a week and brainwash members to believe their ministers are divinely chosen to interpret scripture. Members are raised to believe and seek ministers' guidance, so showing them verses isn't going to work.. and these ministers are trained to debate.

Each service starts with songs thanking God for making them members. Then, their ministers criticize all other Christian denominations, urging rejection of Catholic priests and Protestant pastors; to reject the catholic church and its children (protestant churches). They use Matt 7:21–23 to claim both groups are going to hell, labeling the Trinity as a Catholic invention and the sign of the cross as the mark of the beast.

To convert, a person must complete 28 daily lessons, taking notes on Bible verses provided by the minister. Afterward, they sign a contract, make an oath, and are baptized. Each lesson focuses solely on Bible verses. If challenged with early Christian references, they dismiss it, saying, "If it's not in the Bible, it's false. We only follow the Bible. Those are catholic made." Interestingly, Protestant street pastors in NYC respond similarly when faced with early Christian quotes.

I guess my thread is more like an inner rant from this experience because I can't deny that a huge part of me blames Protestantism for this.

 

[FaithT]

There's a fairly large Filipino community where I live, and there's an INC church just up the road from me. If you didn't read the sign or know any better, it could almost be mistaken for a more traditional church.

-CryptoLutheran

We had several Filipino families in my Catholic parish when I was growing up. I thought they were mainly Catholics.

 

[Nagomirov]

Essentially, the crucifix or the bare cross is the sign of Jesus’s resurrection and victory over sin and death.

I don’t disagree with anything you said.

It’s not an idol.

Just a reminder.

The Sign of the Cross reminds us of Christ’s sacrifice for us, and belief in the Holy Trinity.

Nothing idolatrous about it.

It is also a means of grace. Making the sign of the cross over oneself brings sanctification. Demons are afraid of the Cross.

 

[RileyG]

It is also a means of grace. Making the sign of the cross over oneself brings sanctification. Demons are afraid of the Cross.

Amen

 

[Nagomirov]

Probably because they are following all of the instructions Jesus gave on how to pray and on what Jesus and Paul said about the Holy Spirit regarding prayer. Romans 8:26-27 seems to clearly state that the Holy Spirit interceeds for us as we pray to the Father. No one in scripture ever directs prayer to anyone other than the Father.

In Acts 9:14, Ananias tells Jesus that Saul "has authority from the high priests to bind all who call on your name." "Calling" - in the original, this is a participle from the verb "epicaleo", which in the classics had the meaning "to call the gods to help", so it is impossible to understand this passage otherwise than in the sense of the practice of prayer to Jesus that existed among the first Christians. Later, the Apostle Paul addresses his letter to "the church of God, which is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in every place, with them and with us" /1 Corinthians 1:2/.

Acts 7:59:

And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit (King James Bible).

They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” (New American Standard Bible).

And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” (English Standard Version).

 

[bbbbbbb]

You made this claim before:

However, there are some serious issues with this. As noted before, we seem to have more than 600 million Charismatics/Pentecostals. China has about 1.4 billion people. For them to top that, China would need nearly 50% of its population to be Protestant (remember, we're not counting Catholics or Orthodox). And while I would tend to agree with you the number of Christians is underreported, it is utterly absurd that half of the Chinese population is secretly Protestant (which is addition to any Catholics or Orthodox).

Even if we were to eschew categories and talk specifically about organized denominations, that would require there to be more Chinese Christians than the Eastern Orthodox. My previous link put the number of Orthodox at about 291 million, but of course for a proper comparison we would need the number of Eastern Orthodox and to not count the Oriental Orthodox. Looking at several sources, it looks like the number of Eastern Orthodox would be at about 200 million. I haven't seen any estimates of Protestants in China--again, we exclude Catholics and Orthodox--as being that high (and yes, I am sure the numbers are underreported, but I'm not talking about surveys here, but rather estimates which usually go higher). One of the higher estimates seems to be Asia Harvest, which at Anhui - Asia Harvest puts the estimate of non-Catholic Christians at 109 million, which falls well short of the Eastern Orthodox, though it does beat out every organized denomination outside of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

But that is comparing two different things, because the Chinese Church isn't all one big organized group. It isn't really possible to get a good read on how they shake out in terms of ethos (e.g. how many would fit with Anglicanism, Reformed, Lutheranism, Methodism, Baptist, Pentecostalism, etc.), but it's unlikely that they're all so different from the other standard Protestant traditions that they'd all be put into their own category. Most likely they're split among all of the different Protestant traditions, which would mean none of them are likely to get an inordinate push.

Causing further problems is the fact you group them as a Protestant group completely separate from the rest. While it might not be possible to get a good grasp on how the various non-Catholic Chinese Christians shake out in terms of ethos, it is highly doubtful to me that they are so different from the rest of Protestantism you cannot classify at least a significant portion of them among the more common Protestant groups (Lutheran, Reformed, Pentecostal, Baptist, Methodist, Anglican, etc.)

So I don't think it makes much sense to say the Chinese Church is the biggest after Catholics. The higher estimates don't beat the Eastern Orthodox, and the only way to get those high estimates higher than any other Protestant group is to unfairly compare them; it might be enough to beat out organized Protestant groups, but the Chinese Church (in its entirety) isn't organized either! Even if we suppose that every Chinese Protestant belongs to the same ethos and it's so diametrically opposed to every other notable ethos that we can't fold it into them, there's still other ones it doesn't top.

Actually, there are no Protestants at all in China. Not a single Christian in China holds membership in any Protestant denomination in the world. China has two varieties of Catholics (government and unregistered) and two varieties of non-Catholics (registered and unregistered).

I have no idea where you are coming up with 600 million Pentecostals and Charismatics, nor do I really care. As someone astutely observed, after death our denominational labels will either fall off or burn off.

If the leaders of China were sneaky, as was the case with the former USSR, they would register the Three-Self Churches with the World Council of Churches and claim that every citizen of China was a member, as was the case when the USSR joined the WCC, claiming that all citizens of the USSR were members of the Russian Orthodox Church. Because voting in the WCC is according to official membership statistics of each body, the USSR was able to steer the WCC well into a very leftist political ideology, such that, at present, the WCC is generally viewed as utterly impotent and meaningless.

 

[JSRG]

Actually, there are no Protestants at all in China. Not a single Christian in China holds membership in any Protestant denomination in the world. China has two varieties of Catholics (government and unregistered) and two varieties of non-Catholics (registered and unregistered).

That doesn't mean they're not Protestants. Plenty of Protestants are "non-denominational".

Normally Protestant is used to refer to any Christian who is neither Catholic nor Orthodox (it also presumably doesn't count people in the Church of the East but that's a pretty small sect nowadays). So if they're neither of those, then they're counted as Protestant. Perhaps you have some other definition of Protestant in mind (there are alternate definitions, but non-Catholic/Orthodox Christian is the normal one), but if so you should be more clear on what you mean.

I have no idea where you are coming up with 600 million Pentecostals and Charismatics, nor do I really care. As someone astutely observed, after death our denominational labels will either fall off or burn off.

I'm not sure how you have no idea where I came up with it. I explicitly said it back in this post and gave a clear link, and you replied to that post quoting it. I even said, in the post you just replied to, "as noted before" which indicates that it was mentioned in a previous post in this topic.

Your sudden claim that you don't care because denomination labels will fall/burn off after death seems to contradict what you were saying before. If you don't think denominations matter at all (as you say you don't really care about whether the number is correct or not), then it seems your entire claim about the "Chinese Church" ends up being irrelevant.

 

[ozso]

In Acts 9:14, Ananias tells Jesus that Saul "has authority from the high priests to bind all who call on your name." "Calling" - in the original, this is a participle from the verb "epicaleo", which in the classics had the meaning "to call the gods to help", so it is impossible to understand this passage otherwise than in the sense of the practice of prayer to Jesus that existed among the first Christians. Later, the Apostle Paul addresses his letter to "the church of God, which is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in every place, with them and with us" /1 Corinthians 1:2/.

Acts 7:59:

And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit (King James Bible).

They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” (New American Standard Bible).

And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” (English Standard Version).

That's a good example.

 

[Jamdoc]

But the Bible does say in 2 Thess 2:15 - stick to the traditions we have passed down to you whether word of mouth or by letter.

If you read the links I gave from the christian cults such as the INC and the JW's, you and them have a common denominator in rejecting traditions such as the sign of the cross: "catholic made, not in the Bible". You don't realize that your view of tradition has eventually lead to churches becoming unrecognizable to christianity, regardless of thinking they are 100% following the Bibl.


keyword *vain*. the Jews also have prayers that are repetitions, just read about how they recite the Psalms. Prayer repetitions is how a congregation can pray in unison at the same time, as one people. If Jesus was against praying in repetition (as you imply) he would not teach and instruct his apostles to say the Lord's prayer. Btw, this is another thing that you protestants took away from your churches. Prayer isn't about what comes out of your mouth but what is in the heart. Jesus did say God knows what you'll ask before you even pray, so technically you are going to repeat it to him.

Yes, Jesus was talking to Jews, Jews having vain repetitions in their prayers is exactly what Jesus was criticizing and saying not to do. Jesus was not talking to heathens, He was saying that Jewish people at that time were doing a heathen inspired practice: vainly repetitive prayers.
The Jews were doing this, that means Jewish prayers, to YHWH, were being said to be vain repetitions.

This idea that "well Jesus meant not vain repetitions to heathen gods" that's now what was being addressed, it was practicing Jews who worshiped the true and living God and were currently following their prophecied Messiah, and He was instructing THEM how to pray and said not to use vain repetitions.

So their repetitive prayers were vain.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Well, I just went to Mass tonight and felt so free to make the sign of the cross. When I was Lutheran I think I made it there too and felt self conscious.

Our most recent Pastors have been quite "high church" including genuflecting, bowing, signing the cross according to the rubrics, and on their forehead, mouth and heart prior to reading the Gospel. When we elders serve as Deacons, some of us also follow the rubrics, doing the same. Since I started doing this, other elders have followed, and we have seen a marked increase to about half of our members now doing so at various times. .

More doing so makes everyone more comfortable. The practice is Christ centered and when done publicly points to Jesus Christ.

 

[Cis.jd]

Yes, Jesus was talking to Jews, Jews having vain repetitions in their prayers is exactly what Jesus was criticizing and saying not to do. Jesus was not talking to heathens, He was saying that Jewish people at that time were doing a heathen inspired practice: vainly repetitive prayers.
The Jews were doing this, that means Jewish prayers, to YHWH, were being said to be vain repetitions.

This idea that "well Jesus meant not vain repetitions to heathen gods" that's now what was being addressed, it was practicing Jews who worshiped the true and living God and were currently following their prophecied Messiah, and He was instructing THEM how to pray and said not to use vain repetitions.

So their repetitive prayers were vain.

No. You are putting words in his mouth. He said "vain" repetitions, not repetitions were vain. This indicates that he was specific, not general. If he was general then he wouldn't teach his disciples the Lord's prayer. The Jews were never scolded for reciting the Psalms.

Look at your praise and worship songs during your service, you are repeating words to God over and over again just with background music to it. So you yourselves are committing this.

It's rather normal for christians to pray for something more than once, for example when a loved is ill, their family will pray for days for this person. The words maybe different, it could be paraphrased, but the point of the prayer is still the same making it still repetitive. People reuse the same lines of prays to God, "my God my savior" more than once in their life time, probably more than once a day in their prayers.. by your logic, all that should be wrong.