Is the church infallible in Protestant theology?

bbbbbbb said:

The nature of Post-Modern thought is, theoretically, to mine history for relevant information, whether it is in the field of philosophy, architecture, art, or theology, in order to develop a highly refined and, hopefully, superior end product. Modernism, by contrast, rejected historic formulations, and attempted to develop things from new foundations (i.e. reinvent the wheel, as it were). Post-Modernism today incorporates not only pre-Modern theories and philosophies, but relevant aspects of Modernism

By contrast, Traditionalism, which has always existed, rejects contemporary things and clings to those things which have a tried and proven history. The difficulty with Traditionalism is that it follows contemporary trends over time such that what was rejected a century earlier is embraced by Traditionalists a century later as they reject the things of contemporary society.

Finally, there is Conservatism where nothing is permitted to change after a specific point in time. For the Amish that point was reaching in the nineteenth century. For the EOC it was probably sometime in the fifth century.

The RCC is not Conservative, but contains within it Traditinalists such as yourself as well as some Modernists and some Post-Modernists.

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BillMcEnaney said:

I'm a little confused about Post-Modernism because the Post-Modernists I'm familiar with don't seem to want to do what you describe. Were you thinking about people like Michael Foucalt, Jaques Derrida, Jaques Lacan, Jürgen Habermas, and Richard Rorty? To me, they seem to on the intellectual far left.

I'm a Traditionalist Catholic because I want to believe what the Catholic Church has always taught and practice the Faith the way Latin Rite Catholics always did before Vatican II. Some people reject that council. But I resist the novelties, hoping a future pope will repeal them. It seems to me that Vatican II is and always has been disastrous, especially because of its religiously indifferent ecumenism that Pope Pius XI condemned in 1928.

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hedrick said:

Of those groups, however, the PCUSA has done the best job of formulating official doctrine. Many churches still have traditional confessional documents even though their actual theology doesn't quite agree. However recent confessional documents from the PCUSA represent current mainline views.

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The Liturgist said:

Forgive me, but if that’s true, why is the PCUSA still losing members at a faster rate than non-mainline churches, some of which also make use of cutting edge textual criticism as well as higher criticism?

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The Liturgist said:

Well, that’s a bit like asking why one would join a religion and then not trust that same religion to be able to accurately and consistently interpret its own dogma according to the procedures established in the canonical scriptures of that religion by which it is to be lead. In other words, the question, while seeming superficially legitimate, actually becomes paradoxical.

I would argue that in theory, the only reason why we might have such a question at all is because the hierarchy of the church even in the West, has always been decentralized largely around metropolitical-episcopal centers of influence, for example, in the English world, Canterbury, and thus lacks the kind of unified, integrated leadership that is a fixture of religions like Scientology or Nizari Islam, which have unified command structures lead by David Miscavige and His Highness the Aga Khan IV respectively, and this diversification of power, which one expects was by deliberate design to prevent abuse and limit distortions (which we commonly see in religions with more centralized control), and which has been remarkably effective in doing this considering that an Anglican and an Armemian Orthodox, from opposite ends of the Christian world, of interrupted Eucharistic communion, are equally at home on this site and share certain core doctrines about the Trinity, Salvation and so on, can create the misguided impression that the Church is something of an intellectual abstraction rather than a unified reality.

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JacksBratt said:

In this day and age, like the scriptures state, people will love to have their ears tickled and avoid sound doctrine.

This is not only in the church.. It is with all information that is given to the public..

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bbbbbbb said:

From my limited perspective, unlike the UMC which is staging the largest membership loss ever at this moment in the form of the newly-created International Methodist Church, the PCUSA has been sporadically hemorrhaging members fairly sporadically beginning with the Fundamenatalist/Modernist divide in the 1920's. The net result has been a succession of small Presbyterian denominations which, over time, have become increasingly less conservation. The most recent iteration, the ECO, is much more liberal that the Bible Presbyterians, the OPC, or the PCA. Although the actual net result has been many former Presbyterians who have either given up on religion or migrated to other denominations, there are also many active Presbyterians of all theological stripes.

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FredVB said:

There is no church that is my religion. My Christian faith is shared by others, and among each other we are church.

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The Liturgist said:

I’ve heard some disturbing reports that suggest the PCUSA, which had been very good about accommodating more conservative congregations, to persuade them not to leave for ECO, is now going to take away the ability for clergy to refuse on moral principles to officiate at the obscene “weddings” of sexual deviants. Have you heard anything along those lines?

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The Liturgist said:

So is there a church or is there not a church? You seem to be contradicting yourself.

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Fidelibus said:

I was just recently reading an article from Catholic apologist John Martignoni, founder of the Bible Christian Society that sparked my interest. In his article he was talking about Protestantism, Church, and Authority. In his article, he pointed out that since no man is infallible, according to Protestant theology, the best possible scenario one can have in a disagreement as to what is or is not authentic Christian teaching between two God-fearing, Jesus-accepting, Bible-reading, Holy Spirit-praying men, is one man’s fallible opinion of what the Bible says vs. the other man’s fallible opinion of what the Bible says. Would non-Catholics agree this to be true?

If you answered yes, what about the church? What authority does the church have within Protestantism? If no individual within Protestantism is infallible and, therefore, no individual within Protestantism has the authority to bind any other individual to their fallible teachings..... what about the church? Is the church infallible in Protestant theology? Does the church have the authority to bind individuals to its teachings?


Since I started this thread in reference to Mr. Martignoni's article, I may refer to said article through out this discussion if you decide to participate. Thank You, and have a Blessed day

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Fidelibus said:

Also, the Catholic Church is not a denomination, but that's another story for another thread.

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MarkRohfrietsch said:

For the sake of this discussion such as this, it makes sense to treat it as such, I think.

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concretecamper said:

Sorry of like saying, for the sake of this discussion, Jesus is nothing more than just another teacher.

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