Protestant America has forgotten where it came from

[Light of the East]

Hi LotE

You responded to masmpg:


You do know that doesn't have any application to the point being made, right?

If I say to a young man, "Your mother's a harlot!", and he responds to me, "So, I saw your mom out with a sailor last night", the second response doesn't address or have any bearing on whether or not the first young man's mother is a harlot.

Masmpg has made an accusation that the inquisitions were a part of the history of the Catholic organizations and that the result was a lot of dead believers at the hands of that organization. For you to respond with, "So, do you think the people you follow are more pure?" doesn't address the claim. It generally confirms the claim. The way such a statement is usually understood is: That claim is correct, but you don't follow pure people either.

So, I just want to clear up, is it your intention to agree with masmpg's claim regarding the inquisitions and the Catholic organization, but you don't think the faith that he follows is any more pure?

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

Okay...let me clear that up. when I talk about being "more pure" I should have said "without bias." That's what I meant, but I rushed my response. He was saying that the Catholic response is all lies and I was saying "so is the response of the bigots to whom you are listening."

Trying to get virulently anti-Catholic Protestants to admit anything good about the Catholic faith is like trying to get Hitler to say anything good about Jews other than "The only good Jew is a dead Jew." Or like trying to get some KKK member to say anything good about black people.

Capeish?

 

[Light of the East]

False. The Roman Imperial persecutions of Christians, the Islamic genocides of Christians, which killed all of the Christians in North Africa except Egypt and Ethiopia, the later Islamic genocide of the Church of the East, which killed all Christians in China, Tibet, Mongolia and Central Asia in the 13th century, the Turkish subjugation of the Byzantine Empire, the 1915 Turkish genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, Syriac Orthodox and Pontic Greeks (which destroyed the historic Christian community in places like Ephesus, Nicea, Caesarea, and Antioch), the persecution of Christians by the Soviet Union and the other communist states, and now the persecution of the few remaining Christians in the middle East with anview to complete extermination by the Islamic state, and also rhe Jewish Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide, were all far, far worse. So was the Slave Trade; millions of Africans were killed or sold as property, deprived of all their rights.

The Inquisition was wrong, but it pales in comparison to those attrocities. Only 3,000 people, at most, were killed in the Spanish Inquisition, and what is more, the Inquisition only affected areas under Roman Catholic control.

And Protestants conducted an Inquisition of their own. John Calvin burned Serverus at the stake. Roman Catholic priests caught in England, Scotland and Wales were also executed in that manner, or worse, by drawing and quartering. The Protestant states conducted a counter-inquisition, targeting Jesuits and anyone suspected of being Catholic. In Massachussets Bay Colony, furthermore, innocent women were burned at the stake for false accusations of witchcraft.

There was also much Protestant on Protestant violence. Martin Luthernpersonally supported the execution of Anabaptists.

In India, the Protestants of the Church of England stole all the money of the Indian Orthodox Church, which had been deposited in good faith by the bishops with the British East India Company, and used it to fund a rival Reformed church.

In Egypt, Protestants tried to subvert the Coptic church, but were stopped by Pope St. Cyril IV of Alexandria (not a Roman Catholic Pope).

Some Protestant denominations have a perfect or near perfect record of non-violence. The Quakers, for example. But on the whole, Protestantism has been just as violent as Catholicism.

Thank you for an excellent response to Chief Spreadingbull

 

[Light of the East]

You mean like the Puritans who didn't tolerate anyone who were more than willing to persecute dissident thinkers?

-CryptoLutheran

Yeah......like celebrate that pagan Papist holiday Christmas and wind up in the stocks!!! Nice people, those Puritans.

 

[MDC]

I like the use of the word "Protestant" as though that word has ever referred to anything resembling a cohesive group of people.

And the use of "Protestant America" as though America were a Protestant nation when many of the founders and framers of the Constitution weren't Protestant in any sense--many were Episcopalians, Deists, Catholics, or Unitarians. There were some Presbyterians and Congregationalists, but that's about the extent of "Protestant" depending on whether one wants to include Episcopalians (well, Anglicans really) under the Protestant umbrella.

America has never been Protestant.
And Protestants have always been a diverse group--there is no such thing as "Protestantism" for example. There are instead a great many different "Protestantisms"--various groups which came out of the Reformation directly, indirectly, or otherwise by a series of ongoing schismatic breaks in various groups.

-CryptoLutheran

America in general, was never Christian in the true sense. No doubt the founding fathers were such as you described, and masons as well. Although there were many believers here, for the most part, America was made up of apostate sects and founded upon murder theft and rape of the native people. On top of that, enslaving Africans. The reformation during the dark ages cleared some light in the truth of the gospel and broke away from the tyranny of Popery and its false teachings. But most denominational sects which derive from the reformation, has clearly moved from those truths in our day. I will say this, biblical soteriology is only represented by what is called "Calvinism" today. Specifically in the doctrines of grace, which TULIP describes. Salvation is the Sovereign decree of God, conditioned in the substitutionary work of Christ, and regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. And never based upon anything which man does or wills. And basically outside of this, is apostate.. And that includes most of these denominational sects and cults, including Popery and its monstrosities and blasphemous teachings today