Protestant reformers reform what?

HTacianas

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Why should I have to debunk your outrageous claim?

My claim is not outrageous. There are thousands of denominations of protestantism and they are at odds with each other. If they were not at odds with each other they wouldn't be different denominations.
 
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Albion

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That likely because you left out the majority of his quote, which went on to add:


Taken together, he seems to be saying that any differences are minor and not doctrinal in nature - or at least that's my take.
Well, I didn't overlook it. But the point is valid. Most of what separates the thousands of different denominations that Catholics love to point to is not nearly as meaningful as is assumed. Many splits are nothing more than different ethnic groups wanting their own jurisdictions. Some are the result of disagreements over property or the person of the leader. Or else whatever it is is not an essential doctrine. Meanwhile the five (or three) Solas describe nearly every Protestant church body and differentiate all of them from the various Catholic churches.
 
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Albion

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My claim is not outrageous. There are thousands of denominations of protestantism and they are at odds with each other. If they were not at odds with each other they wouldn't be different denominations.
Why have the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox split into a number of rival church bodies, then?. In your opinion, of course.
 
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FenderTL5

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Well, I didn't overlook it. But the point is valid. Most of what separates the thousands of different denominations that Catholics love to point to is not nearly as meaningful as is assumed. Many splits are nothing more than different ethnic groups wanting their own jurisdictions. Some are the result of disagreements over property or the person of the leader. Or else whatever it is is not an essential doctrine. Meanwhile the five (or three) Solas describe nearly every Protestant church body and differentiate all of them from the various Catholic churches.
I would agree if you are speaking within denominational groups; such as why one SBC church splits and another formed. However, the notion that one can move from an Assembly of God to a Disciples of Christ* and not encounter a major shift doctrinally is simply not true.

*or Baptist, or Methodist, or Episcopalian, or Unitarian, or (the list goes on).
 
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Albion

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I honestly don't see what that has to do with this.
Well, duh. The oft-repeated claim that there is something wrong about Protestantism because there are a number of different church bodies that are classified as "Protestant" is bogus since the very same thing can be said of the Catholic and the Orthodox groups of churches and, if truth be told, almost every other family of faith as well, including Mormons, Spiritualists, and on and on!
 
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Albion

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I would agree if you are speaking within denominational groups; such as why one SBC church splits and another formed. However, the notion that one can move from an Assembly of God to a Disciples of Christ* and not encounter a major shift doctrinally is simply not true.

*or Baptist, or Methodist, or Episcopalian, or Unitarian, or (the list goes on).
Yes, it is true...depending upon which churches we are speaking of. So maybe the figures that are always thrown at Protestants are an exaggeration and you recognize that. Good. That's something.

Will you also admit that the same criticism applies to the Orthodox church bodies and the Catholic splits?
 
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HTacianas

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Well, duh. The oft-repeated claim that there is something wrong about Protestantism because there are a number of different church bodies that are classified as "Protestant" is bogus since the very same thing can be said of the Catholic and the Orthodox groups of churches and, if truth be told, almost every other family of faith as well, including Mormons, Spiritualists, and on and on!

Who is it that makes that "oft repeated claim"?
 
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Albion

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Who is it that makes that "oft repeated claim"?
I see it on these forums, almost daily it seems. Here are just a few examples taken from this thread only:
But protestantism eventually snowballed into changes of doctrines among thousands of different competing ideologies, each at odds with and often condemning the others.

This is what I wrote:

But protestantism eventually snowballed into changes of doctrines among thousands of different competing ideologies, each at odds with and often condemning the others.

My claim is not outrageous. There are thousands of denominations of protestantism and they are at odds with each other. If they were not at odds with each other they wouldn't be different denominations.
 
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Saint Steven

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My claim is not outrageous. There are thousands of denominations of protestantism and they are at odds with each other. If they were not at odds with each other they wouldn't be different denominations.
That's interesting. You CHANGED your quote to make it less outrageous.
Don't stop now, you're heading in the right direction.
Better stop for gas though. I don't want you to run out.
 
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HTacianas

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That's interesting. You CHANGED your quote to make it less outrageous.
Don't stop now, you're heading in the right direction.
Better stop for gas though. I don't want you to run out.

I haven't changed anything at all.
 
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Saint Steven

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I haven't changed anything at all.
Let's see.
… But protestantism eventually snowballed into changes of doctrines among thousands of different competing ideologies, each at odds with and often condemning the others.
Compare.
My claim is not outrageous. There are thousands of denominations of protestantism and they are at odds with each other. If they were not at odds with each other they wouldn't be different denominations.
Quite a striking difference. Within striking distance. lol
 
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FenderTL5

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Let's see.

Compare.

Quite a striking difference. Within striking distance. lol
Let me see if I'm getting this straight; you see a profound difference in the two quotes made by our colleague HTacianas above BUT you fail see doctrinal differences between the various denominations in Protestantism.
 
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Yeh, but it is not an uncommon use of the term to indicate that the entirety of the "world" that these people knew during the era we are speaking about was under the governance of one church/denomination, the Church of Rome.

It was not as though any of them could have turned instead to the Greek Orthodox church or the Armenian or Ethiopian church if they had some problem with their own religious leadership.
The problem is that they should have rejected what their own leadership (Rome) had begun to claim much earlier (i.e. at least as early as the 11th century). That didn't happen, and so the reformation eventually did. Had they not gone along in the first place with papal supremacy, the filioque, Anselmnian soteriology, and other ideas which did not agree with Holy Tradition, then western Church leadership doesn't become the universal Church in the minds of her laity, and they continue to have voices which can influence and prevent abuses of power.
 
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Saint Steven

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Let me see if I'm getting this straight; you see a profound difference in the two quotes made by our colleague HTacianas above BUT you fail see doctrinal differences between the various denominations in Protestantism.
Your colleague? I guess that makes him superior to me, right?

It's hard to find a church, whether Protestant or otherwise, that doesn't follow the Christian creeds for their foundational doctrines. Therefore any doctrinal differences are both minor and inconsequential. And your colleague claims thousands of doctrinal differences. And apparently you fail to see that as a problem. I guess a real colleague sticks up for you whether you are right or wrong. Kudos.
 
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SteveIndy

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The Anabaptists were often not peaceful at all. The Anabaptists incited the German Peasant's War and the Münster rebellion. In fact, they were the bloodiest of them all when they actually obtained any real power.

The founders of the Anabaptist movement had nothing at all to do with the Munster rebellion and the Peasant's war. Every sect has had their crazies but the Anabaptist of the Swiss Brethren were peaceful and non-violent and when Grebel tried to talk to the rebellious leaders of the Munster mess he concluded that they were beyond help and wrote them off. Their name was dragged through the mud for nothing that they themselves did. But, on the other hand Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin destroyed live and stole property because they wanted to institute the Kingdom of God by force of arms. Zwingli and Luther both were in complete agreement with the Anabaptist until they realized that their dream of Reformation would not take place without linking arms with the state. So, your caricature of the Anabaptist as violent is totally wrong, on the contrary it was the Protestant Reformers who were violent beyond mercy for anyone who disagreed with them. Violence is a part of Protestantism that they have always tried to hide.
 
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FenderTL5

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It's hard to find a church, whether Protestant or otherwise, that doesn't follow the Christian creeds for their foundational doctrines.
The Southern Baptist Convention (to which I belonged before leaving for Orthodoxy) is the largest protestant denomination, second largest Christian denomination (second only to the RCC) in the United States and they reject the creeds. They have their own Baptist Faith and Message. The Independent Baptist Church I grew up in rejected all forms of the creed. All of the Restoration Movement Churches have as a motto "No Creed but Christ."
Finding a non-creedal protestant church is not difficult.
 
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