In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.

[The Liturgist]

Can I add a few - Perhaps Augustine was thinking of these.

• Must I believe that Jesus had no brothers or sisters even though they are named in Holy Scripture.
• Must I believe that his mother can hear prayers and intercede on my behalf, even though it is contradicted by Holy Scripture
• Must I believe that a man who is voted into his office is infallible in doctrine - but Holy Scripture is not.
• Must I believe man's tradition more than Holy Scripture?

Having read St. Augustine I would say it is staggeringly unlikely. If he said this phrase at all, which does not sound like something he would have said, it would have been in reference to variations in liturgical practice (which is the source of St. Ambrose of Milan’s famous advice to St. Augustine regarding what to do in church in Rome - St. Augustine was from North Africa but was catechized and baptized in Milan, which has always had a different liturgical rite, now known as the Ambrosian Rite, from that of Rome, which is, “When in Rome, do as the Romans,” meaning when in Rome, worship according to their local use.

The liturgy of the fourth century church, we know from surviving fragments such as the Euchologion of St. Sarapion of Thmuis, the Egyptian version of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, the Strasbourg Papyrus, the Divine Liturgy of Antioch as attested in multiple sources, for example, in the Apostolic Constitutions and the third century Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, and which is the source of the DIvine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and the full form of the liturgy in Hippolytus which is still used by the Ethiopian church (the reduced form was thought for a time to have been the ancient liturgy in Rome and was thus rejiggered into Eucharistic Prayer no. 2 by Annibale Bugnini and the Concilium when revising the Roman Catholic liturgy in the 1960s, but this is now known to be historically extremely unlikely.

Indeed the latest liturgical scholarship has focused on the remarkable similarity between the Roman and Alexandrian liturgies, and a relationship with them seems likely given that St. Mark the Evangelist and founder of the Church of Alexandria was a disciple of St. Peter; I also suspect the liturgy of Antioch was originally the Hagiopolitan liturgy of Jerusalem, brought there by Christians fleeing persecution after the martyrdom of St. James the Just, some time after St. Peter had left, but before St. Ignatius became the Patriarch.

At any rate, we know that the Hagiopolitan and Antiochene liturgies were effectively converged - the Divine Liturgy of St. James and the Divine Liturgy of the Apostles are very similar to each other. In the fourth century the services of Holy Week were optimized in Jerusalem by bishops such as St. Cyril of Jerusalem, for the benefit of pilgrims, and then these services influcend how Holy Week was celebrated elsewhere as the Church finally had the freedom to celebrate the Pasch publically.

EDIT: To my chagrin a typographic error left this post without paragraphs which had the effect of rendering it nigh-unreadable; I must thank my friend @Always in His Presence for alerting me to this problem.

 

[The Liturgist]

It is going to depend on what we mean by "essentials".

Catholics like you and me are going to regard some elements as essentials whereas others are not, and vice versa.

My wife is Baptist for example, although we extend our charity to each other (er .. we have to ..), but I know of some Christians who would not be so charitable. She does visits with me involving Saint Vincent de Paul clients for example (which is a Catholic charity), but she very rarely attends mass. If she does it's usually because our timetable means it's more convenient.

I go to her church a bit more frequently but not that often. We don't discuss our denominational differences, and while we hold some things in common, there are important differences. What we would find is that if we did a survey of both our churches, pretty well every regular parishioner would definitely believe in Christ.

We can agree on being charitable to each other, but if we can't even agree on the essentials, then that slogan is wishful thinking.

I will pray for you and your wife if you wish?

 

[Strong in Him]

Some say, "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.", but do they mean it?

Tell me what the essentials are, please. ​

The Gospel.
Mankind sinned. We were separated from God and cannot be reconciled through our own goodness/works.
Jesus - both man and God - came to lay down his life as a sacrifice for sin, Mark 10:45. He came to give eternal life and is the only way to the Father. 3 days after he was crucified he was raised again, ascended to his Father and sent his Spirit to his followers - the Spirit who can live in us, give us gifts, cause us to bear fruit and who is changing us into Jesus' likeness, 2 Corinthians 3:18. Those who receive Jesus and his Spirit are children of God, John 1:12, Romans 8:16-17.
Jesus will return one day.

• Is it essential or nonessential for me to worship in a building without paintings, stained glass, and statues?
• Is it essential for me to believe that baptism is regenerative or is it essential for me to think it is a symbol of my public commitment to Christ?
• Is it essential for me to deny that the holy eucharist is truly the body and blood of Jesus Christ?
• Must I believe that the bread and wine are merely a memorial of Christ's death?
• Is it essential for me to have sixty-six canonical books in my bible or may I have seventy-three?
• Must I believe that faith alone will save me, apart from any goodness in works, prayer, or anything else including the sacraments?
• Must I believe that once I am given eternal life through faith alone that I can never lose it no matter how horrendous my life may become?
• Must I keep the seventh day as holy?
• May I ignore all ten of the ten commandments?
• Is my bible "the Word of God" mentioned in John chapter one?
• May I go to any church I please and be assured I shall be taught the essentials?

No to all of those, except the last one.
All Christian churches, I would hope, teach the Gospel - i.e. none teach that salvation is through our own good deeds, or that Jesus wasn't really dead and therefore did not really rise again, or that the Spirit is an optional extra.
Can I be assured that they will teach the essentials? I wouldn't like to speak for all churches; they will no doubt teach the Gospel but some might add that church membership/true spirituality is only possible if you accept some additional tenets - which may range from tithing, gender of clergy/role of women or what version of the Bible to use.

 

[Bob Crowley]

I will pray for you and your wife if you wish?

We're fine - we got used to our denominational allegiances ages ago. We were both Protestant when we married, but I became Catholic later.

Thanks anyway.

 

[Always in His Presence]

Having read St. Augustine I would say it is staggeringly unlikely. If he said this phrase at all, which does not sound like something he would have said, it would have been in reference to variations in liturgical practice (which is the source of St. Ambrose of Milan’s famous advice to St. Augustine regarding what to do in church in Rome - St. Augustine was from North Africa but was catechized and baptized in Milan, which has always had a different liturgical rite, now known as the Ambrosian Rite, from that of Rome, which is, “When in Rome, do as the Romans,” meaning when in Rome, worship according to their local use. The liturgy of the fourth century church, we know from surviving fragments such as the Euchologion of St. Sarapion of Thmuis, the Egyptian version of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, the Strasbourg Papyrus, the Divine Liturgy of Antioch as attested in multiple sources, for example, in the Apostolic Constitutions and the third century Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, and which is the source of the DIvine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and the full form of the liturgy in Hippolytus which is still used by the Ethiopian church (the reduced form was thought for a time to have been the ancient liturgy in Rome and was thus rejiggered into Eucharistic Prayer no. 2 by Annibale Bugnini and the Concilium when revising the Roman Catholic liturgy in the 1960s, but this is now known to be historically extremely unlikely. Indeed the latest liturgical scholarship has focused on the remarkable similarity between the Roman and Alexandrian liturgies, and a relationship with them seems likely given that St. Mark the Evangelist and founder of the Church of Alexandria was a disciple of St. Peter; I also suspect the liturgy of Antioch was originally the Hagiopolitan liturgy of Jerusalem, brought there by Christians fleeing persecution after the martyrdom of St. James the Just, some time after St. Peter had left, but before St. Ignatius became the Patriarch. At any rate, we know that the Hagiopolitan and Antiochene liturgies were effectively converged - the Divine Liturgy of St. James and the Divine Liturgy of the Apostles are very similar to each other. In the fourth century the services of Holy Week were optimized in Jerusalem by bishops such as St. Cyril of Jerusalem, for the benefit of pilgrims, and then these services influcend how Holy Week was celebrated elsewhere as the Church finally had the freedom to celebrate the Pasch publically.

If I may please suggest paragraphs would be most helpful.

 

[bling]

It's like a Catholic asking Protestants "what are these 'essential' doctrines" and getting no reply because no Protestant has any idea what they are. It exposes the lie in the adage that's the topic for this thread. It shows that Protestants have a bunch of 'traditions' that really do not manage to clarify anything.

The "essential doctrine" is Love God and secondly others with all your heart, soul, mind and energy, but as far as a written list of rules there are none. God judges the hearts of people, not their nitpicking actions, it is all relative.
What are you doing with what you do know?
We love to have check off lists, but none is provided, it is all relative to the Love being expressed.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

The "essential doctrine" is Love God and secondly others with all your heart, soul, mind and energy, but as far as a written list of rules there are none. God judges the hearts of people, not their nitpicking actions, it is all relative.
What are you doing with what you do know?
We love to have check off lists, but none is provided, it is all relative to the Love being expressed.

That sounds like the first and greatest commandment of the Law.

Matthew 22:36-40 LSB “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (37) And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ (38) “This is the great and foremost commandment. (39) “And the second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ (40) “On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.”​

 

[bling]

That sounds like the first and greatest commandment of the Law.

Matthew 22:36-40 LSB “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (37) And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ (38) “This is the great and foremost commandment. (39) “And the second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ (40) “On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.”​

Man's objective has not changed from Adam.

 

[The Liturgist]

If I may please suggest paragraphs would be most helpful.

Woah, I agree - I don’t know what happened there, but my original paragraphs got obliterated somehow. Thank you for bringing that to my attention brother. I have fixed the post.

If you see that happen again, please let me know; I sometimes compose posts using a text editor and occasionally formatting problems can occur when pasting into the browser if I have it set to the wrong mode (since its an editor heavily used for programming called vim(8) which can run as both a graphical program and in the command line.

 

[The Liturgist]

All Christian churches, I would hope, teach the Gospel - i.e. none teach that salvation is through our own good deeds, or that Jesus wasn't really dead and therefore did not really rise again, or that the Spirit is an optional extra.

Alas there have been instances even in some major Protestant denominations of clergy in some parishes departing from Christianity as defined by the CF.com statement of faith.

In some cases the departure is so sweeping its difficult to tell what the parish has to do with the denomination is is ostensibly a part of - see the case of herchurch, also known as Ebenezer Lutheran Church, which I think my Lutheran friends on CF.com would argue is neither Lutheran in any meaningful way or a Church as properly defined, given that it is dedicated to mother goddess worship and uses idols.

There are also Unitarian Christians even after the general de-Christianization of the Unitarian Universalist Association (which also left Universalists who are allowed to post on CF.com in the Controversial Theology forum without an officially Universalist Christian denomination, which is a real tragedy). The Unitarians in Transylvania and Hungary are two examples, but there are a few congregations in the UUA which are nominally Christian and are still organized around nominally Christian worship, for example, King’s Chapel in Boston, which is interesting as it was once an Anglican church, and it still uses its own in-house modified version of the Book of Common Prayer, which was edited to avoid offending the sensibilities of Unitarians, while conversely not alienating the remaining Trinitarian minority.

Also there are neo-Gnostic groups which probably lean Docetic and thus would deny the Incarnation that way rather than in the manner of Arians.

 

[RileyG]

In some cases the departure is so sweeping its difficult to tell what the parish has to do with the denomination is is ostensibly a part of - see the case of herchurch, also known as Ebenezer Lutheran Church, which I think my Lutheran friends on CF.com would argue is neither Lutheran in any meaningful way or a Church as properly defined, given that it is dedicated to mother goddess worship and uses idols.

Ah, yes! HerChurch. The Pastor Stacy was ordained in the ELCA. I know she does invalid baptisms and her Church has a "goddess rosary" along with employees who are "practicing witches."

Really.....odd.

 

[The Liturgist]

Ah, yes! HerChurch. The Pastor Stacy was ordained in the ELCA. I know she does invalid baptisms and her Church has a "goddess rosary" along with employees who are "practicing witches."

Really.....odd.

As far as I am aware they are still part of the Cascade Pacific synod of the ELCA.

 

[RileyG]

As far as I am aware they are still part of the Cascade Pacific synod of the ELCA.

That’s….very interesting.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

This slogan is quite superficial.

For individual Christians: The Nicene Creed is a sufficient norm for fellowship.
For Christian Denominations: Confessional documents should be the sufficient norm for pulpit and altar fellowship.

 

[RileyG]

This slogan is quite superficial.

For individual Christians: The Nicene Creed is a sufficient norm for fellowship.
For Christian Denominations: Confessional documents should be the sufficient norm for pulpit and altar fellowship.

I agree.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Ah, yes! HerChurch. The Pastor Stacy was ordained in the ELCA. I know she does invalid baptisms and her Church has a "goddess rosary" along with employees who are "practicing witches."

I was baptized in on the premises of HerChurch in San Francisco, but then it was known as Ebenezer Lutheran Church.

 

[RileyG]

I was baptized in on the premises of HerChurch in San Francisco, but then it was known as Ebenezer Lutheran Church.

Was this recent? Was it Trinitarian? As an infant?

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Was this recent? Was it Trinitarian? As an infant?

As an infant and before the explosive rebellion of San Francisco in the 1970's.

 

[RileyG]

As an infant and before the explosive rebellion of San Francisco in the 1970's.

You were raised Lutheran?

Are you Presbyterian now?

[I don't know your age, obviously]

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

You were raised Lutheran?

Are you Presbyterian now?

[I don't know your age, obviously]

Attended Lutheran church until third grade....then Dad a recent convert just could take the liberalism within the LCA and we then attended a Reformed Baptist Church till college age. Then got a chance to go to LBI Seattle for two years and took it. It was then I came back to Lutheranism. Best thing LBI taught me....there ain't a quarter note of Calvinism in Confessional Lutheranism....as Calvin's Institutes were published in 1560.