Just wondering about Protestantism...

hedrick said:

As far as I’m concerned these are all traditions not essential to Jesus message. They are actually my major objection to the Catholic Church, which otherwise has some real strengths.

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concretecamper said:

?
yep, some of his personal ideas are odd.

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bbbbbbb said:

Out of curiosity, would you say that all denominations believe and teach Jesus' message? If not, which ones do not?

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hedrick said:

It's not black and white. Most Christians teach elements of Jesus' message. However they emphasize different parts, and add elements from their own cultural tradition.

The mainline churches have made the most concerted attempt to avoid these kinds of biases, but I certainly wouldn't claim we're perfect. Catholic scholars and theologians have as well, but Catholic teachings are not based entirely on that, since by definition Tradition has a strong role for Catholics. Conservative Protestants are probably the most strongly committed to tradition today, which is pretty ironic given the views of the Reformers.

I think the items listed in the OP are based primarily on traditional cultural attitudes.

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Basil the Great said:

The prohibition against divorce and remarriage is somewhat misleading. They do allow remarriage if a Church Tribunal grants an annulment.

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This used to be a fairly rare happening, but the number of annulments granted has increased considerably in recent decades.

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As far as the ban on the use of artificial contraception, this might have been fine for 18 or 19 centuries, but with the huge increase in the world's population in recent decades, even with the ban, just think what the world's population would be if all Christians had kept the ban since the mid 1960's. Surely we would now have 1.5 to 2 billion more people on the planet, if this had been the case.

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I would also add that a Church Commission back in the 1960's urged that the ban be lifted. However, Pope Paul chose to go with the Commission's minority report and keep the ban. Meanwhile, Carl made a worthy observation.

Now, if you are looking at the Catholic Church, you could also consider the Eastern Orthodox Church. They have much in common, but still some differences. Now, the ultimate question that you pose is more than a little complex. I will let others get into a more involved discussion of the matter. I will say that Protestants should not so easily dismiss the Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church. The EOC claims to be the Church founded by Jesus. The Catholic Church used to make the same claim and they still do, for all practical purposes. However, they now use the phrase, "The Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church". Do not ask me what the difference is, but there would seem to be a slight difference, but not much I suppose.

I used to think a lot of the Catholic and Orthodox claim that the Eucharistic elements become the body and blood of Christ. However, through the years I began to think less and less of this position and then when I read a few months ago what I had forgotten about my Old Testament, that there is a very strong prohibition therein against the consumption of blood, I now find it virtually impossible to believe that Jesus intended for his followers to drink his blood.

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Each of the major Christian bodies have their good points and bad points, in my view. My biggest problem with the Catholic Church is their history during the Middle Ages, not that Protestant groups were perfect. They had their faults as well. You do raise a very important question, however. The largest fault of Protestantism is that it has splintered into perhaps 100+ significant groups. This does not seem to go along with Jesus' request that we be united.

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Moonlight sonata said:

I’ve long been Protestant. But lately I’ve been questioning things. I note that the Catholic Church has maintained a strict view of traditional marriage, prohibits divorce and remarriage, prohibits use of contraceptives, is staunchly pro-life, rejects freemasonry, sticks to male led churches... many of these things have been watered down within some of the Protestant churches and I question and wonder why..
I would be interested in people’s different perspectives on these things...

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