Misconceptions about Protestants

[chilehed]

I've also looked seriously into Catholism at one time. The papal claims seemed possible to me, but not a slam dunk. However, I was unable to come to accept their views on merit, penance, purgatory and indulgences. (in the sense that they are all related, not every aspect of all of those teachings.) These seemed quite clearly wrong.

A large part of my problems were the result of my not really understanding the teachings.

Ultimatly I do accept there is a hierarchy and authority in the Church, but I think the CC has made some errors in understanding how it is meant to work (which has lead to some other errors.)...

I ended up deciding that this is an untenable position. Because Christ gave teaching authority to the Church, if I disagree with its doctrines then by definition I must be wrong.

One might postulate that the true Church was an invisible remnant, but that contradicts Christ's promise that His Church would remain visible forever. It also necessitates a belief in a Church for which there is no evidence: to say that it's invisible is to admit that there's no evidence for it's existence.

The only Church hierarchy for which there's any evidence going back to the time of the Apostles is the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and in fact it was the Catholic Church that dealt with all of the great heresies of Christianity.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

I've also looked seriously into Catholism at one time. The papal claims seemed possible to me, but not a slam dunk. However, I was unable to come to accept their views on merit, penance, purgatory and indulgences. (in the sense that they are all related, not every aspect of all of those teachings.) These seemed quite clearly wrong. Ultimatly I do accept there is a hierarchy and authority in the Church, but I think the CC has made some errors in understanding how it is meant to work (which has lead to some other errors.)

So I can see the Reformers POV. I really don't think they could in many cases see a better solution - they couldn't affirm what the CC wanted them to, and they were then excommunicated. What to do but figure out a way to exist without the hierarchy?

I looked more at the existing prospects. The Anglican Communion seemed to be disintegrating between women's ordination, homosexuality, abortion, and false ecumenism problems. My parish had split and so I had to really examine the 39 Articles and whether it was really possible to interpret them according to the Fathers and the small-c catholic Church (Newman, Tract 90).

Failing that, it was between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Catholic Church -- which was the true Catholic Church? It took a while but the Catholic Church seemed more reasonable and logical, it made more sense. Then I had to examine the modernist crisis. I knew full-well going from the Anglican Communion into the Catholic Church was going out of the pot and into the fire. If I disagreed on some position taken by the ECUSA (say, women's ordination), that was all well and good because there was no claim of infallibility but there wasn't that same freedom with the Catholic Church. If the Episcopal Church taught something contrary to God's Law (say, the affirmation of same-sex unions), I could still be against it but what if I believed something in the Catholic Church to be in error, I must be the one who was wrong. Finding the proper limits to this infallibility and understanding where I was wrong was necessary.

So thus I had to explore the problems of Vatican II and the New Mass. I rejected sedevacantism because I already was "catholic without the pope" as an Anglo-Catholic and if I was going to embrace Rome's claims, it would seem silly to do that and then to say there is no real pope. So then it was between the SSPX and the FSSP, I currently attend an FSSP parish but I don't mind the SSPX (I just posted a video of a conference talk on my Facebook from Bp. Bernard Fellay, the Superior General of the SSPX). Perhaps that's just because I don't know them that well (some people in my parish are ex-SSPX and they left for various reasons), but if they're right on certain issues, then they're right. I don't think it is wrong to attend Mass at an SSPX parish, if there was no FSSP parish nearby and there was an SSPX one, I would go there.

So yes, it took a while but St. Thomas made the Catholic faith seem to be perfectly reasonable and rational. I didn't trust the Orthodox's lack of trust in reason, nor do I care for when they attack "the West" and the Latin Rite (Western Orthodoxy is still in its infancy and not universally accepted as good). But I still don't mind lurking on Orthodox forums (e.g. Monachos), reading articles or listening to sermons by Orthodox priests. In the video I posted on my Facebook (Bp. Fellay on false ecumenism and Assisi), he referred to the different religions as airplanes and said the Catholic airplane was the only one that actually flies, the Orthodox have a perfectly good airplane with all the parts but no pilot because they don't have the pope, the Protestant airplanes are missing their engines because they don't have all the Sacraments, and the other airplanes are missing even more important parts like the wings or the tail and the Buddhist one is made out of paper .

Logic, for me, determined that the Catholic Church that we know -- headed by Pope Benedict XVI -- is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church beloved by the saints throughout history.

 

[chilehed]

Looks like that "westminster confession" really screwed with your search for Christ. Too bad that impressed you. Like a fly caught in a web of delusions.

I make over 40 citations of scripture, and you say I'm caught in delusions.

Well lets just all pretend those scriptures relate to the catholic denomination.

The first question is whether or not they establish that Christ instituted a Church government, giving it the authority to determine doctrine. They do that, indeed.

If you think that they must be referring to a Church other than the Catholic Church, I'd be interested in knowing what other Church it is that you think has existed since the time of the Apostles, and what evidence you have to support your position.

I'm not holding my breath.

And again, why would you follow after a denomination instead of simply following Jesus' Holy Spirit and His Word instead of all the above nonsense you did?...

I'm submitting to the Word of God as revealed to me by the Holy Spirit speaking in Sacred Scripture. If you think that's nonsense, then that's not my problem. Christ instituted His Church in this way, and it's not possible to follow the Holy Spirit and the Word by completely ignoring them.

I have no time for snyde remarks and snarky argumentation. You are on my ignore list.

 

[razeontherock]

Question by PTC: isn't Pr a protest against RC?

Far from it. The protest is against the former abuses of the Catholic Church, most of which no longer remain. We no longer have mendicant priests begging in the streets, we don't have indulgences sold, we don't have statues crying blood all over the place, nor sick people being touched with the water used to wash the dead body of a saint in return for money, we don't have priests and nuns living frankly lascivious lives, and children being born into convents, we don't have the suppression of the Bible to lay people; the list is a very long one.

Therefore, most of the protesting worked, and the position of the Roman versus, say, the Anglican Church are very much closer than they were in the mid 16th century. Not quite close enough, clearly, but much more so than when we were setting one another on fire in the name of Christianity.

Very sane post! The bolded part statues crying blood?

 

[razeontherock]

I am sorry to have to say, RR, that in the Reformation Roman Catholics were also tortured and burned, and protestants were not above accusations of heresy.

Very true! Leaving aside the obvious conclusion of who was the aggressor, who took the leadership role in teaching how to be abusive, and who was merely reacting in kind -

my point is to leave all that ickiness in the past, which I've repeatedly expressed as - let's not go there, ok? And we've had the PERFECT example of why I disdain flippant and inappropriate usage of the word 'heresy,' in at least 1 RC defending the idea of killing heretics, which sure makes it look like if the practice were re-instated, she'd be all aboard.

 

[razeontherock]

That is me laughing at the irony of a misconception by protestants in a thread about misconceptions about protestants.

Fixed it for ya

 

[razeontherock]

1. The church is a divine institution: the Bride and Body of Christ. ( Eph. 1:22-23; Song of Songs; Isaiah 62; Jeremiah 2:1-3; Jeremiah 3:1-5, 3:19-20, 5:7)
2. The church is the foundation and pillar of truth. (1 Tim. 3:15)
3. The Church is forever visible, not hidden. (John 1:3-5; Matt. 5:14-15; Luke 8:16,11:33)
4. The Church will proclaim the true gospel continuously, forever. (Isaiah 59:21; Matt. 16:18b; Matt. 28:20b; 1 Pet 1:25)
5. The Church is built on the foundation of the Apostles.( Ephesians 2:17-22; Ephesians 3:4-5)
6. Jesus will always be with the Apostles, and they will never teach erroneous doctrine. (John 14:16-17; 15:26; 16:12-13, 17:17-19.)
7. The Apostles speak with the authority of God. (Matthew 10:20, Luke 10:16)
8. The Apostles will remember everything Jesus taught them. (John 14:16-18, 26, Luke 21:33)
9. The Apostles will be one in the doctrine they teach. (John 17:20-23)
10. The Apostles have to power to forgive sin. (John 20:21-23)
11. God will give the Apostles whatever they ask for in Christ’s name, and the fruit they bear will remain. (John 15:16, 16:23; Romans 1:13)
​

That list is a good one to include in misconceptions about Pr's. The fact that RC thinks Pr's miss this now brings us up to 67 misconceptions

HINT: the comparison you made between "reformed theology" and RC doesn't really speak much to what Pr's believe.

Those items omitted are largely differentiated solely because Pr's recognize that G-d actually leads His children - not just "the magisterium."

Thank you for sharing the findings of your search! Good stuff​

 

[razeontherock]

If you think that they must be referring to a Church other than the Catholic Church, I'd be interested in knowing what other Church it is that you think has existed since the time of the Apostles

EO has at least 4x the validity of the claim as RC, since Rome was merely ONE local congregation. And as the distinction exists today, there was no "Catholic Church" until 1054, so those Scriptures really don't say what you're trying to make them say here.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

Very sane post!

If the Protestant revolt was simply about abuses in the Church, why did they not rejoin the Church following the Catholic Reformation (aka. Counter-Reformation)? Truly, you can't boil down people like Luther and Calvin or even Cranmer into simply wanting to separate into more pious groups.

The Lutheran minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his incredibly famous and moving book "The Cost of Discipleship":

As Christianity spread, and the Church became more secularized, this realization of the costliness of grace gradually faded. The world was Christianized, and grace became its common property. It was to be had at low cost. Yet the Church of Rome did not altogether lose the earlier vision. It is highly significant that the Church was astute enough to find room for the monastic movement, and to prevent it from lapsing into schism. Here on the outer fringe of the Church was a place where the older vision was kept alive. Here men still remembered that grace costs that grace means following Christ. Here they left all they had for Christ's sake, and endeavoured daily to practice his rigorous commands. Thus monasticism became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity and the cheapening of grace. But the Church was wise enough to tolerate this protest, and to prevent it from developing to its logical conclusion. It thus succeeded in relativizing it, even using it in order to justify the secularization of its own life.

Monasticism was represented as an individual achievement which the mass of the laity could not be expected to emulate. By thus limiting the application of the commandments of Jesus to a restricted group of specialists, the Church evolved the fatal conception of the double standard -- a maximum and a minimum standard of Christian obedience. Whenever the Church was accused of being too secularized, it could always point to monasticism as an opportunity of living a higher life within the fold, and thus justify the other possibility of a lower standard of life for others. And so we get the paradoxica result that monasticism, whose mission was to preserve in the Church of Rome the primitive Christian realization of the costliness of grace, afforded conclusive justification for the secularization of the Church. By and large, the fatal error of monasticism lay not so much in its rigorism (though even here there was a good deal of misunderstanding of the precise content of the will of Jesus) as in the extent to which it departed from genuine Christianity by setting up itself as the individual achievement of a select few, and so claiming a special merit of its own.

If that was the true purpose of the Reformation -- to liberate Christianity from the cloister -- then I should become a Protestant and so should everyone. But was it? Is that why the princes were given power to choose the religion of their subjects?

The true reformation happened, as it always must, inside the Church not by those who had split away from it. The Old Israel was continually falling into sin and corruption, sometimes because of bad kings or judges, sometimes because of their intermarriages with pagan peoples and adoption of their gods. God always raised up prophets and brought the people back to Him. In the New Israel, God continues to do the same -- people like St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom; St. Benedict, St. Francis, St. Dominic; St. Catherine of Siena who convinced the pope to come back from Avignon and embrace his leadership; or St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Bruno and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who reformed religious orders which had grown lax and lukewarm. These are thes types of men and women who truly reformed the Church of its corrupt practices and beliefs. They did so from within the Church just like the true prophets of Old Israel did not preach separation from Israel into new groups but a reform and a revival of the one Israel back to God.

Those who preached separation from the Church as a way to have their own idealized communities, which would supposedly be free from all this corruption were false prophets. What was the fruit of their efforts? Were their groups more pure and their members fervent and pious? Or were they just as bad as those from whom they split and there were those who split off of them to build a more pure community and it never ended. What has been the fruit of all this chaos and splitting? Sects come and go, the Catholic Church remains. It is those who have worked to reform the Catholic Church (true reformation, Godly reformation) who have made the real difference.

Bonhoeffer had a vision and a great one at that but he also had an idealized image of Martin Luther and the Reformation. I don't doubt that there were those among the original Protestants who were pious and saw the rebellion as a revival and a true reformation of the Church. But is that the true face of the Reformation -- a desire to return to the love affair with Our Lord and His costly grace or was it something born of materialism, humanism and skepticism? How do we find our modern world changed by Protestantism? What have been its fruits over the past 500 years? That is the real question.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

The bolded part statues crying blood?

Most of the weeping statues (addressing only modern ones) have been declared hoaxes by the Church. It is kind of one of those "miracles" like finding a picture of Jesus on your toast or the Virgin Mary in a tree knot. Other times, it's just straight-up faked by people trying desperately to get attention.

One of the false cases is the from Naju, South Korea. There have been many false "miracles" associated with this woman and her alleged "messages from Mary". Here is her statue which is said to have cried tears of blood (blood also plays a part in some of her other "miracles"). Some people say it is a hoax, others say it is demonic.

HOAX

FALSE "MIRACLE"


One of the true, authenticated miracles which regards a weeping statue is Our Lady of Akita, Japan (the weeping accompanied private revelations):

There have also been alleged cases of weeping icons in Orthodox churches, usually of the Theotokos.

In most cases, the judgment is up to the local bishop as to whether or not to recognize the phenomenon as a probable miracle or not. As for the messages, the bishops does not say they come from Heaven but merely that they are not in conflict with the Catholic faith (indeed, false revelations -- even popular ones -- often contain at least something contrary to the Catholic faith).

Wikipedia -- Weeping Statue

 

[Scottish Knight]

If the Protestant revolt was simply about abuses in the Church, why did they not rejoin the Church following the Catholic Reformation (aka. Counter-Reformation)? Truly, you can't boil down people like Luther and Calvin or even Cranmer into simply wanting to separate into more pious groups.

The Lutheran minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his incredibly famous and moving book "The Cost of Discipleship":



If that was the true purpose of the Reformation -- to liberate Christianity from the cloister -- then I should become a Protestant and so should everyone. But was it? Is that why the princes were given power to choose the religion of their subjects?

The true reformation happened, as it always must, inside the Church not by those who had split away from it. The Old Israel was continually falling into sin and corruption, sometimes because of bad kings or judges, sometimes because of their intermarriages with pagan peoples and adoption of their gods. God always raised up prophets and brought the people back to Him. In the New Israel, God continues to do the same -- people like St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom; St. Benedict, St. Francis, St. Dominic; St. Catherine of Siena who convinced the pope to come back from Avignon and embrace his leadership; or St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Bruno and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who reformed religious orders which had grown lax and lukewarm. These are thes types of men and women who truly reformed the Church of its corrupt practices and beliefs. They did so from within the Church just like the true prophets of Old Israel did not preach separation from Israel into new groups but a reform and a revival of the one Israel back to God.

Those who preached separation from the Church as a way to have their own idealized communities, which would supposedly be free from all this corruption were false prophets. What was the fruit of their efforts? Were their groups more pure and their members fervent and pious? Or were they just as bad as those from whom they split and there were those who split off of them to build a more pure community and it never ended. What has been the fruit of all this chaos and splitting? Sects come and go, the Catholic Church remains. It is those who have worked to reform the Catholic Church (true reformation, Godly reformation) who have made the real difference.

Bonhoeffer had a vision and a great one at that but he also had an idealized image of Martin Luther and the Reformation. I don't doubt that there were those among the original Protestants who were pious and saw the rebellion as a revival and a true reformation of the Church. But is that the true face of the Reformation -- a desire to return to the love affair with Our Lord and His costly grace or was it something born of materialism, humanism and skepticism? How do we find our modern world changed by Protestantism? What have been its fruits over the past 500 years? That is the real question.

You're right, the protestant movement was not just about abusive practices but removing false beliefs and the restoration of the gospel. The original protestants never split fom the papal church - they were forces out and excommunicated. It was the pope that forced the split, not us! All these false teachings can still be found in the modern catholic church so there can be no hope of reunion until the papal church returns to the purity of biblical christianity

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

EO has at least 4x the validity of the claim as RC, since Rome was merely ONE local congregation. And as the distinction exists today, there was no "Catholic Church" until 1054, so those Scriptures really don't say what you're trying to make them say here.

Then why aren't you Orthodox?

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

You're right, the protestant movement was not just about abusive practices but removing false beliefs and the restoration of the gospel.
...
All these false teachings can still be found in the modern catholic church so there can be no hope of reunion until the papal church returns to the purity of biblical christianity

My point exactly. It was not just about the Church being too wealthy or having too much temporal power, too much nepotism and simony, etc. but much more fundamental issues. It is disingenuous to say it was just about abuses in the Church.

So then the real question is: how do we know what teachings are true and what teachings are false? Who has the real 'Biblical Christianity'?

 

[Rick Otto]

quote=chilehed;This idea that the Holy Spirit will internally guide each individual believer into a true understanding of divine revelation is an invention of the Reformation, and it's nothing less than a claim that every individual believer is his own Pope.

Only a Pope could or would interpret scripture that way. Who would be foolish enough to believe it?

 

[Rick Otto]

I ended up deciding that this is an untenable position. Because Christ gave teaching authority to the Church, if I disagree with its doctrines then by definition I must be wrong.

The very foundation of fanatacism.

One might postulate that the true Church was an invisible remnant, but that contradicts Christ's promise that His Church would remain visible forever.

I don't think He said that.

It also necessitates a belief in a Church for which there is no evidence: to say that it's invisible is to admit that there's no evidence for it's existence.

Not in the least. To say that is to admit you've stopped thinking.

The only Church hierarchy for which there's any evidence going back to the time of the Apostles is the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and in fact it was the Catholic Church that dealt with all of the great heresies of Christianity.

Well then, you're indoctrination is strong enough to resist reality.

 

[Rick Otto]

quote=chilehed;I make over 40 citations of scripture, and you say I'm caught in delusions.

I'd say well over 40 delusions.

The first question is whether or not they establish that Christ instituted a Church government, giving it the authority to determine doctrine. They do that, indeed.

In vain imaginations, not in deed.

 

[Rick Otto]

Catholic history means nothing, unless someone wants to count the beloved saints that they murdered down through time. Yes I own the Book of Martyrs set and read them often. But that wasn't my point.

Protestants or catholics... No man made denomination on this planet has proper beliefs or doctrines. Catholics have a couple ideas that are sort of close, each of the other denominations hit and miss on truths too.
But none are "the church".
Only individuals who have received the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ are His Body. The rest are tares. How many of either of those in any denomination, who knows but God.
Only THESE people are the church;

(Heb 12:22) but ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels.

This is my church

QFT.

The invisible catholic church isn't Roman.
We are a nation of kings & popes... uh, I mean, priests!

 

[tadoflamb]

QFT.

The invisible catholic church isn't Roman.
We are a nation of kings & popes... uh, I mean, priests!

That's what I keep hearing...........

 

[Catherineanne]

You're right, the protestant movement was not just about abusive practices but removing false beliefs and the restoration of the gospel. The original protestants never split fom the papal church - they were forces out and excommunicated. It was the pope that forced the split, not us! All these false teachings can still be found in the modern catholic church so there can be no hope of reunion until the papal church returns to the purity of biblical christianity

I think you have the wrong thread. This one is about misconceptions about protestantism.

 

[Catherineanne]

Very sane post! The bolded part statues crying blood?

Apparently, they are still at it.

Lord, have mercy!!

Visions of Jesus Christ.com - Weeping statues and Icons

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