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Bayhawks83
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Baptists, Methodists, and Pentecostals dont have any sacraments, they arent mentioned in the bible anywhere.
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thinking of converting
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Who cares whether or not there are sacraments? If you feel closer to God, and he leads you in that direction, then why does it matter?Bayhawks83 said:
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Lanakila
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Ok I read through this thread and saw a whole bunch of forum specific rule violations. Not everyone is violating the rules, but quite a few members have violated this rule:
The OP is asking Protestants to defend their faith basically, and the thread turns into a debate (rule violation mind you) between a few Catholic members and a few Protestants. Catholic members are not allowed to debate in this forum. Take the Northern Ireland debates elsewhere please, and let the Protestants defend their faith, if they have a mind to that is.
The OP is asking Protestants to defend their faith basically, and the thread turns into a debate (rule violation mind you) between a few Catholic members and a few Protestants. Catholic members are not allowed to debate in this forum. Take the Northern Ireland debates elsewhere please, and let the Protestants defend their faith, if they have a mind to that is.
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distancerunner,
I read your post with interest, because I have nearly become Catholic on several occasions and continue to consider it (also Orthodoxy). I respect Catholicism and I think there are excellent reasons to become Catholic. But it doesn't seem to me that you have given Protestantism a fair chance. For instance, you ask why it would take 1800 years to discover true Christianity. Well, first of all, while the CRC is of 19th-century origin, basic Reformed Christianity is actually nearly 500 years old. But the bigger point is that Protestants don't claim to have invented a new religion but to have rejected some more recent innovations of the medieval Catholic Church. Now I believe very strongly that they threw the baby out with the bathwater, and in fact rejected a lot of teachings of the early Church and bought into some serious errors on the process. But the basic self-understanding of Protestants is that we are a continuation of the same Church that has always existed, but have rejected certain medieval developments. And because Protestants believe that the Church is always in need of reform, it's perfectly legitimate for you, as a Protestant, to try to move your denomination back towards the ancient faith of the Church. In fact many Protestants are engaged in doing just that.
The other question you have to consider is that even if Protestantism is wrong, there are two credible alternatives--Catholicism and Orthodoxy. You don't seem to have given Orthodoxy a thought. Now if that's because you are a Westerner and you think you should return to obedience to the Patriarch of the West (i.e., the Pope), that's fine. But if you are thinking of issues like the early Church's recognition of Scripture as arguments for the authority of the Catholic Church to interpret Scripture, then you need to ask yourself whether in fact the Orthodox don't have as good a claim or better to be the continuation of the early Catholic Church. For me the existence of these conflicting claims has helped to keep me Anglican. It may not work that way for you, but you need to think about the issue.
As for sola scriptura--did you know that in fact the Reformers never used the phrase? And that Luther claimed that his basic principle of scriptural authority was one he had learned from his _Catholic_ teacher of theology, Trutvetter? When you start to ask what "sola scriptura" means, it becomes very hard to pin down. That's bad news for those Protestants who wave "sola scriptura" as a banner against traditional Christianity, but it's also bad news for those Catholic apologists who want to use the phrase as a simplistic way of pinning Protestants to an untenable position and so crushing them. If you study your own Reformed tradition, it becomes clear that in fact the Reformed value tradition highly and do not try to derive all their theology from Scripture alone.
Finally, about the apocrypha/deuterocanonicals: Actually you have been misinformed. The Jews did not unanimously use these books before AD 70--in fact I don't think there's any clear evidence that _any_ Jews considered them canonical, although it's quite possible that Greek-speaking Jews did (else why would the early Christians have had these books in their Greek manuscripts of the Scriptures?). I would be very surprised if any of the deuterocanonical books showed up in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but I could be wrong. The OT canon was very unsettled among the early Christians, and you find many different lists. By the end of the fourth century most Christians accepted the present Catholic canon, but some scholars (such as Jerome) argued that the deuterocanonical books were not fully inspired and couldn't be used to prove doctrine. Some Catholic scholars continued to argue this right up to the time of the Reformation, although that didn't stop the Church from using the books and including them in the Bible.
Also, it isn't true that Protestants as a whole "cut these books out." Luther was a bit dubious about them but basically took Jerome's position--they shouldn't be cast aside but weren't on the same level with the rest of the OT. That was also his attitude toward James and certain other NT books--and here too he was agreeing with many scholars of his day. Luther did not in fact cut any books out of the NT but put them in an appendix to indicate that their authority was more questionable.
My own denomination, Anglicanism, has never stopped using the Apocrypha, even though on the whole we have taught that they shouldn't be used to prove doctrine.
Sorry if this is confusing. But the story so often isn't as simple as the evangelists on both sides would like you to think.
In Christ,
Edwin
I read your post with interest, because I have nearly become Catholic on several occasions and continue to consider it (also Orthodoxy). I respect Catholicism and I think there are excellent reasons to become Catholic. But it doesn't seem to me that you have given Protestantism a fair chance. For instance, you ask why it would take 1800 years to discover true Christianity. Well, first of all, while the CRC is of 19th-century origin, basic Reformed Christianity is actually nearly 500 years old. But the bigger point is that Protestants don't claim to have invented a new religion but to have rejected some more recent innovations of the medieval Catholic Church. Now I believe very strongly that they threw the baby out with the bathwater, and in fact rejected a lot of teachings of the early Church and bought into some serious errors on the process. But the basic self-understanding of Protestants is that we are a continuation of the same Church that has always existed, but have rejected certain medieval developments. And because Protestants believe that the Church is always in need of reform, it's perfectly legitimate for you, as a Protestant, to try to move your denomination back towards the ancient faith of the Church. In fact many Protestants are engaged in doing just that.
The other question you have to consider is that even if Protestantism is wrong, there are two credible alternatives--Catholicism and Orthodoxy. You don't seem to have given Orthodoxy a thought. Now if that's because you are a Westerner and you think you should return to obedience to the Patriarch of the West (i.e., the Pope), that's fine. But if you are thinking of issues like the early Church's recognition of Scripture as arguments for the authority of the Catholic Church to interpret Scripture, then you need to ask yourself whether in fact the Orthodox don't have as good a claim or better to be the continuation of the early Catholic Church. For me the existence of these conflicting claims has helped to keep me Anglican. It may not work that way for you, but you need to think about the issue.
As for sola scriptura--did you know that in fact the Reformers never used the phrase? And that Luther claimed that his basic principle of scriptural authority was one he had learned from his _Catholic_ teacher of theology, Trutvetter? When you start to ask what "sola scriptura" means, it becomes very hard to pin down. That's bad news for those Protestants who wave "sola scriptura" as a banner against traditional Christianity, but it's also bad news for those Catholic apologists who want to use the phrase as a simplistic way of pinning Protestants to an untenable position and so crushing them. If you study your own Reformed tradition, it becomes clear that in fact the Reformed value tradition highly and do not try to derive all their theology from Scripture alone.
Finally, about the apocrypha/deuterocanonicals: Actually you have been misinformed. The Jews did not unanimously use these books before AD 70--in fact I don't think there's any clear evidence that _any_ Jews considered them canonical, although it's quite possible that Greek-speaking Jews did (else why would the early Christians have had these books in their Greek manuscripts of the Scriptures?). I would be very surprised if any of the deuterocanonical books showed up in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but I could be wrong. The OT canon was very unsettled among the early Christians, and you find many different lists. By the end of the fourth century most Christians accepted the present Catholic canon, but some scholars (such as Jerome) argued that the deuterocanonical books were not fully inspired and couldn't be used to prove doctrine. Some Catholic scholars continued to argue this right up to the time of the Reformation, although that didn't stop the Church from using the books and including them in the Bible.
Also, it isn't true that Protestants as a whole "cut these books out." Luther was a bit dubious about them but basically took Jerome's position--they shouldn't be cast aside but weren't on the same level with the rest of the OT. That was also his attitude toward James and certain other NT books--and here too he was agreeing with many scholars of his day. Luther did not in fact cut any books out of the NT but put them in an appendix to indicate that their authority was more questionable.
My own denomination, Anglicanism, has never stopped using the Apocrypha, even though on the whole we have taught that they shouldn't be used to prove doctrine.
Sorry if this is confusing. But the story so often isn't as simple as the evangelists on both sides would like you to think.
In Christ,
Edwin
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Bayhawks,
You are completely wrong about Methodists. Methodists, like other traditional Protestants, have two sacraments--baptism and the Lord's Supper. It's true that Baptists and some other more radical Protestants call these practices "ordinances," so in that sense you are right that Baptists (and maybe Pentecostals, though it's hard to generalize about them) don't have sacraments. I myself would say that Baptists do have sacraments but don't choose to use that word to describe them. But that's perhaps just my high-church ecumenism at work
Baptism and the Lord's Supper certainly are found in Scripture. The word "musterion," which is the Greek equivalent of the Latin "sacramentum," is also found in Scripture. The only traditional sacrament to which the word is applied, as far as I know, is marriage (which Protestants don't generally recognize as a sacrament). But the principle behind the concept of sacrament certainly is in Scripture.
In Christ,
Edwin
You are completely wrong about Methodists. Methodists, like other traditional Protestants, have two sacraments--baptism and the Lord's Supper. It's true that Baptists and some other more radical Protestants call these practices "ordinances," so in that sense you are right that Baptists (and maybe Pentecostals, though it's hard to generalize about them) don't have sacraments. I myself would say that Baptists do have sacraments but don't choose to use that word to describe them. But that's perhaps just my high-church ecumenism at work
Baptism and the Lord's Supper certainly are found in Scripture. The word "musterion," which is the Greek equivalent of the Latin "sacramentum," is also found in Scripture. The only traditional sacrament to which the word is applied, as far as I know, is marriage (which Protestants don't generally recognize as a sacrament). But the principle behind the concept of sacrament certainly is in Scripture.
In Christ,
Edwin
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BAChristian
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I completely agree.
Actually I have, but I just included it in the 'Catholic' rhelm.
This saddens me as it gives me all the more reason for me to leave. My church would sew it on a flag and fly it outside the church if they could.
While I've never seen the scrolls myself, from what I've read, the deuterocanonical books were in the dead sea scrolls.
Yes, this I did know thank you for the correction. Regardless though, they were removed from the bulk of the cannon.
Thank you for your response, you bring about many things to ponder.
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As someone who made this very journey last year, I hope I can help out. What drew me? In a word, mystycism. The understanding that it is possible to not just know God on an intelectual level, but to stand in His presence. Go speak to a priest at your local parish and ask to be enrolled in the RCIA program. this was started up for the catacumen, but as it goes through the faith from start to finish, it should not only answer your questions, it should also provide you with a unique opportunity to reexamine your faith as an adult. Yes acording to the rules one may join at any time, the process of RCIA allows one to prepare for this step while building a community around you.
In Christ
Vincent
In Christ
Vincent
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Bayhawks83
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i meant to say the word sacrament isnt found in the bible.Contarini said:
(correct me if im wrong)
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I believe that some were in fact found among the scrolls. I do not have my St. Joseph's Edition handy to verify the memory, but I'll do a little hunting and see if I am correct.
God Bless,
Neal
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Benedicta00
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Bayhawks83 said:
Neither are a lot of words found in the bible, trinity for one, so your point is???
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1 Maccabees and Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), at least, were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. I recall hearing of others, as well, but that is all I was able to find during a quick glance.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/scrolls/
God Bless,
Neal
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/scrolls/
God Bless,
Neal
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I would like to encourage you to become Pentecostal. We teach straight out of the Bible. The Pentecostal Church dates back to the book of Acts in the Bible. The Pentecostal Church is extremely sound in Bible Doctrine.
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Rising_Suns
'Christ's desolate heart is in need of comfort'
distancerunner,
bless you for your decision to convert to Catholicism. I have read most of this thread, and I believe your line of thought it right on target. When seeking the one true church that Jesus intended to set up, you are forced to look at history as part of your investigation. This ultimately narrows down your search to the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, both of which are extremely similar. I had found that the more I researched on the Catholic faith, the more everything began to make sense. ...Not to mention that we have the Catholic church to thank for putting together the bible that, we all by the way, see as the infalliable word of God.
bless you for your decision to convert to Catholicism. I have read most of this thread, and I believe your line of thought it right on target. When seeking the one true church that Jesus intended to set up, you are forced to look at history as part of your investigation. This ultimately narrows down your search to the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, both of which are extremely similar. I had found that the more I researched on the Catholic faith, the more everything began to make sense. ...Not to mention that we have the Catholic church to thank for putting together the bible that, we all by the way, see as the infalliable word of God.
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Bayhawks,
"Sacrament" is a Latin word. It is found in the Latin translation of the New Testament, as a translation of the Greek "musterion." English translations render "musterion" as "mystery" when translating the NT, but when dealing with Latin theological texts the Latin "sacramentum" is translated "sacrament." We could simply refer to the sacraments as the 'mysteries" as the Orthodox do. Would that answer your objections?
And thanks to all for correcting me on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Edwin
"Sacrament" is a Latin word. It is found in the Latin translation of the New Testament, as a translation of the Greek "musterion." English translations render "musterion" as "mystery" when translating the NT, but when dealing with Latin theological texts the Latin "sacramentum" is translated "sacrament." We could simply refer to the sacraments as the 'mysteries" as the Orthodox do. Would that answer your objections?
And thanks to all for correcting me on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Edwin
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geocajun
Priest of the holy smackrament
Ken, simply because her brother wrote a slanderous public letter about her which is published on the Internet, does not mean it is reasonable to conclude that she did not know then, and/or does not know now, her brothers arguments against Catholicism.Ken said:
You are making a bold assumption that a decorated protestant apoligists sister could resist reading his writings.
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Benedicta00
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geocajun said:
She states in her conversion story that she indeed went to his writings to reinforce herself in the reformed beliefs when she first started questioning them.
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